New Android Market

Para os meus pais

Não devemos agradecer àqueles que amamos apenas quando o calendário bate à porta em determinado dia ou quando as prendas fluem para as nossas mãos; não nos devemos vergar à vulgaridade materialista e inócua das relações, afirmando amor, paz, amizade e tudo mais em toneladas quando aquilo que nos articula é completamente difuso e contrário. 

Devemos (sim, estou a exigir) ser autênticos e respeitosos na vida que construímos; devemos respeitar quem nos soprou a vida e exigir-lhes a educação que deram ou que deveriam ter dado; exigir-lhes serem melhores se não o tiverem feito connosco, assim como nos exigimos a sempre mais. Mas deveremos mais. Temos que assinalar o privilégio de quem nos criou, quem nos apoia incondicionalmente, nos ama sem limites mesmo quando a sua humanidade tropeça nas idiossincrasias pessoais. Os pais são da nossa carne, as suas vidas únicas não diferem muito dos nossos mundos interiores. Os problemas surgem, as soluções tardam, a vida prossegue. 

Hoje, sem datas de parabéns, sem respostas a prendas, mas por tudo, reconheço humildemente o amor dos meus pais. Porque ainda estão vivos, porque os amo, porque estão sempre presentes mesmo quando não estou perto. Porque são um exemplo, cada um à sua maneira. 

Únicos, especiais e eternos.     

The Global Competitiveness Report 2010-2011

I'm almost certain that I've posted about this report previously but these two articles made me consider it again. 


I don't really understand this argument e esta notícia. Sorry about the mix of languages.  


Just scratching the surface...If you dive into this report you'll find that Portugal ranks 117 on Labor Market Efficiency (p. 21). Need I say more? 


Greece nº 83;


Portugal nº 46; 


Ireland nº 29;  


Canada nº 10; 


Finland nº 7; and 


USA nº 4.


Full report here.

Printing photovoltaic cells on paper or fabric

I hope MIT can bring this to market.

Why Italy is not the next Greece

Interesting article about Greece, Ireland, Portugal, Spain, Germany and Italy.

Key Early Skills for Later Math Learning Discovered

This study reinforces the idea that math knowledge is incremental, and without a good foundation, a student won't do well because the math gets more complex..


The researchers also found that first graders who understood the number line and how to place numbers on the line and who knew some basic facts showed faster growth in math skills than their counterparts over the next five years. However, the researchers found that these early math skills had no impact on future reading ability.


Here.

You

Are

S

P

E

C

I

A

L

!

Sozinha

Pedes a minha voz para falar,
os meus abraços para abraçar,
a minha vida para viver. Exiges.
Peço-te a solidão de quem ama,
um caminho para percorrer. Aguardas.
Pedes a minha saudade engolida,
O meu olhar para capturar, um silêncio
para implodir.
Pedes-me a tua vida num olhar tépido,
Uma renovação barulhenta, um agudo
sem agravo. Uma sinfonia previsível,
para explodir.
Pedes-me cachos de vida numa palavra,
Uma exigência sem norma, dolorosa inclinação.

Concha do nada

..que se passa aqui jaz,
sozinha. Nada daquilo que se exprime,
resiste. Tudo o que floresce,
permanece. Sozinha no pátio,
ilumina-te. Doce como um caramelo,
infinito. Nos sonhos aquilo que vês,
remoto. A morte das pétalas,
desaparece. Aconchegada aqui,
esconde-te. Olhar caído, lágrima
pesada. Num abraço liberta-te,
vida. Num rasgo,
esgar de amor.  

The unimaginative relation of an I and a Me

We are eminently set up to relate. Naturally equipped with the relational tools to engage with different people and different selves in our inner audience. Automagically predisposed to build bridges of mutual agreed meaning. But something is utterly overwhelming in how we relate with ourselves: I is vague and Me is deeply unimaginative. This leads to violent spin in our axis of diversified personal positions. Our different Me's battle with our different views of an I that lives in complete solitude.

When you think of yourself you realize that not only you think of yourself but also about all the mixture of different views and meanings of I's and Me's. This eventually creates a spectrum of unintelligible movements towards personal meaning. I is not an I when the Me's are chosen to replace an I. This means that the views of oneself, either by our distinctive personal perspective or by other's perceptions of oneself, are glued in our consideration of personal intelligibility. Full of different and concurrently perspectives of being, one tend to fall in pieces, having no ability to clean what belongs to the I and what doesn't. This is particularly acute with people that have a tremendous difficulty reading the entire scope of their feelings. The complete confusion of space, time and self leads to an undisputed battle ring. One decision comes out as a superlative form of adaptation to chaos, leaving all the polyphony with a lowered volume and significance.

We struggle to make sense of our lives; we battle to make our decisions meaningful; we strive to persist. But we don't fully understand what the I includes and what relations it has. We don't fully understand the origins or justifications of your personal movements of meaning construction because we are constantly redefining our coordinates.

Circuito da Boavista 2011 - some vídeos

Check some videos that I made last weekend at the 2011 Circuito da Boavista. Honestly, the videos suck but those engines roar! :)

PS: I just realized that the videos have "hiccups". Sorry for that. There were just as bad as possible and now they have an abrupt influx of air in their lungs. lol At least you have the strident engines sound. :P

Moody's mood backed by 2 major assumptions

1. The growing risk that Portugal will require a second round of official financing before it can return to the private market, and the increasing possibility that private sector creditor participation will be required as a pre-condition.

2. Heightened concerns that Portugal will not be able to fully achieve the deficit reduction and debt stabilisation targets set out in its loan agreement with the European Union (EU) and International Monetary Fund (IMF) due to the formidable challenges the country is facing in reducing spending, increasing tax compliance, achieving economic growth and supporting the banking system.

Read it here.

Segue o teu destino

Segue o teu destino,
Rega as tuas plantas,
Ama as tuas rosas.
O resto é a sombra
De árvores alheias.

A realidade
Sempre é mais ou menos
Do que nós queremos.
Só nós somos sempre
Iguais a nós-próprios.

Suave é viver só.
Grande e nobre é sempre
Viver simplesmente.
Deixa a dor nas aras
Como ex-voto aos deuses.

Vê de longe a vida.
Nunca a interrogues.
Ela nada pode
Dizer-te. A resposta
Está além dos deuses.

Mas serenamente
Imita o Olimpo
No teu coração.
Os deuses são deuses
Porque não se pensam.

Ricardo Reis

Dyslexia Linked to Difficulties in Perceiving Rhythmic Patterns in Music

Here.

Windows Phone 7 and Android 2.3: a quick note

Microsoft has done a tremendously good job with WP7. The UI is very pleasant and fluid, something rather contrasting with Google's Android 2.3 UI. Microsoft has done it right. Google set the right features but neglected the design details and the aesthetics of the whole platform.

This is really striking when you compare, for example, the WP7 Twitter app and the Android's version. Note the detail of the fonts and the beautiful transitions. They created an amazing experience.

Two random pictures of both OS's:

Windows Phone 7

Android 2.3

But Google isn't sleeping over its success. A new design or aesthetics paradigm is showing up in their work. Take the example of the new look of Google Maps:

This is good! This very good! I think it's part of the new and whole transformation of Google's positioning as a company. You can take the example of the new Google Plus. It's not just a shift in design; it's probably a core change in the way they will approach their product development.

Nokia N9 - features, gallery, specs and availability

Explore the Nokia N9 and check its features, specs and availability on your country.

and...


SWIPE!

Nokia N9 UI demo - cool stuff

Windows Phone Mango overview

Entrevista de Passos Coelho ao Financial Times

Portugal is warned of two ‘terrible years’

By Peter Wise and Jonathan Ford in Lisbon
Published: June 15 2011 18:17 | Last updated: June 15 2011 18:17

Pedro Passos Coelho has no plans to leave his modest fifth-floor flat in an unfashionable dormitory suburb of Lisbon for the plush official residence he is entitled to use after he is sworn in next week as Portugal’s new prime minister.

Noted for his thrift, the 46-year-old leader of the centre-right Social Democrats (PSD) is temperamentally well prepared for the formidable task of implementing the tough €78bn rescue programme the country has agreed with the European Union and International Monetary Fund.

Portugal faces two “terrible years” of deep recession and record unemployment, he acknowledged in an interview with the Financial Times, before the country can return to growth and regain the confidence of international investors.

This will involve “a very rigorous programme of austerity and structural reforms” covering everything from slashing public deficits and extensive privatisations to shake-ups of justice and education.

“There is no alternative,” he says, the adjustment programme “cannot fail”. Failure, he says, would prevent Portugal from returning to the financial markets in 2013 and leave it in a similar predicament to Greece, which has had to ask for a second bail-out. The Portuguese economy would be trapped in a recessionary spiral after a projected 2 per cent contraction both this year and next.

After winning a decisive election victory on June 5, Mr Passos Coelho will take office at the head of a majority government coalition between the PSD and the smaller conservative Popular party (CDS-PP). He has inherited a daunting programme, agreed with the EU and the IMF, that requires his government to cut the budget deficit from 9 per cent of gross domestic product last year to 3 per cent in 2013 and to implement structural reforms that no previous government has attempted.

Not content with this challenge, he aims to go beyond the requirements of the rescue agreement, promising, for example, to accelerate and expand the privatisation programme. The state-owned broadcasting media is to be sold off, leaving only one non-commercial public service channel. He will also privatise up to 49 per cent of water utilities.

Privatisation is not just a question of raising revenue, Mr Passos Coelho says. Portugal needs foreign investment to support growth, which will have to be led by the export sector. The government will throw open the doors to non-Portuguese investors.

“We will be absolutely transparent and rigorous,” he says. “There will be no hidden agenda.”

He would also like to meet deficit-reduction targets ahead of schedule, although he fears the previous Socialist government may have left some “surprises” on the books.

Economists do not doubt Mr Passos Coelho’s commitment to spending cuts, but worry austerity will choke off growth. While structural reforms in areas such as education, labour legislation and justice should ultimately bear fruit, this will take time to ripen. Mr Passos Coelho has less than three years to turn the economy round.

Mr Passos Coelho is staking his hopes for growth on a sharp “fiscal devaluation” — a sharp cut in company contributions to employees’ social security payments — which should cut labour costs and make exporters more competitive. But he says it is too early to determine the scale of the cut, which will have to be revenue-neutral because of the country’s deficit.

There is no doubt that Mr Passos Coelho believes in what he is doing. He sees the rescue programme as a unique opportunity to implement essential reforms that previous governments have avoided for the past 30 years. He is convinced that he is the right man to do the job. The “serious difference” between his party and the Socialists of José Sócrates, the outgoing prime minister, he says, is that the PSD “believes in the changes we have to make”.

Mr Sócrates, on the other hand, was forced into a rescue package with the EU, IMF and European Central Bank “because there was no other way to get the money”.

Mr Sócrates has accused Mr Passos Coelho of using the EU-IMF agreement as a pretext for “the most radical rightwing programme ever proposed in Portugal”.

But Mr Passos Coelho says 80 per cent of voters backed the three parties who signed up to rescue agreement — the PSD, the CDS-PP and the Socialists. This, he says, is an important difference between Portugal and Greece, where larger sections of society are strongly opposed to the bail-out package.

One of his first initiatives will be a new agency to monitor public accounts. This will be “completely independent of the government and parliament” and include at least two foreign experts. His finance minister will also be an independent with no party affiliations.

JOURNEY TO THE TOP
Born in 1964; son of a doctor. Childhood spent in former Portuguese colony of Angola.
Politics: Joined the Social Democrats aged 16. Has served as an MP and mayor. Became party leader in March 2010.
Education: Degree in economics.
Business experience: consultant, chief executive.
Family: Married to a physiotherapist from Guinea-Bissau, they have a four-year-old daughter. Has two daughters by his first wife.

Financial Times

Google Docs improvements

- A much better Android app with native editing - great! This is great news given that it doesn't make any sense that you can't currently fully edit google docs on your Honeycomb browser. At last!
- Offline support - as expected!
- Cloud Print - also expected!
- A better version of the Cloud Connect plug-in - not important to me. Next.
- Preview of .txt files.

Via BusinessInsider