Got a tip on where to get good foodstuffs in our barrio:
The block of the old Mercado Norte, bordered by Rodriguez Peña, Vicente Lopez, Montevideo and Las Heras (mainly the first 2 of these streets) has the finest selection of small shops in the area that sell meats, vegetables, fiambres and cheeses, bread, fish, etc., etc. (It also has a large Norte grocery store.)
In one particularly poignant moment in the film, Maude asks young Harold what kind of flower best describes him. He absently points at a hedge of little white flowers and says "one of those, I guess." Maude asks him why, and Harold says it is because they are all the same. "Oh," Maude says, "but they're not. Some are big. Some small. Some grow to the right. Others to the left. All kinds of observable differences. You know Harold, much of life's problems derive from people who are this (holding up a unique little white flower), but allow themselves to be treated like that."Now I think its time for some CSPAN.
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I'm growing more and more excited about our impending move to Buenos Aires, Argentina. I just can't wait to explore the city and I can't imagine anything going wrong. Everything is going to be just perfect. Yeah, Right.
Confirmation Bias.
In psychology and cognitive science, confirmation bias is a tendency to search for or interpret new information in a way that confirms one's preconceptions and avoid information and interpretations which contradict prior beliefs. It is a type of cognitive bias and represents an error of inductive inference, or as a form of selection bias toward confirmation of the hypothesis under study or disconfirmation of an alternative hypothesis.
And let me give you a tip, okay? Forget about Europe, it's going to become a petting zoo. It's like Disneyland with real stones instead of paper Mache stones. I mean, Europe is on the slippery slope. I wouldn't touch Europe with a ten-foot pole. If this war with Islam gets out of control, Europe is going to be an epicenter. It's going to be a disaster. I'll tell you where you ought to look. Argentina is the place to be. It's the cheapest country in the world. It has low population, incredibly beautiful, the climate is great. One hundred years ago, it was in competition with the US for being the best place in the world and the richest place. But it went downhill radically, radically.
But let me tell you something. It's turning around I think. And what's going to happen is driven by the fact that everything in Argentina costs between 10% to 30% of what it costs in North America. That's correct. It's that cheap. It's free. It's free. It's free for us as North Americans. But the Europeans really think it's free with that strong Euro. So you're getting a massive immigration from rich Europeans that can see the handwriting on the wall and like it down there. And I really like it down there. It's just a great society, great society, great place to hang out, prices are right. I mean this can solve most of your investment problems right there, just by transplanting yourself, if you've got some capital. Furthermore, Argentina is going to be insolated from WWIII to a good extent.
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Ricardo López Murphy -- Argentina's Ron Paul?
Be sure to watch the entire clip...
On the topic of sex, business and even Al Gore's wife, Frank was such an honest and original voice.
``Terrorism can't be tolerated, neither by those who support, finance or protect it, be it people or countries,'' Kirchner said.
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But thanks to investigative reporting by the Argentine daily La Nación, we now know that there was good reason for Guido Alejandro Antonini Wilson to think he could just walk off that plane with a bag of money. As it turns out, the Argentine government of President Nestór Kirchner has a policy of allowing Venezuelans tied to the government in Caracas to come and go freely at Buenos Aires' Aeroparque airport, with no scrutiny of their baggage whatsoever.
BUENOS AIRES, Sept 22 (Reuters) - Argentine President Nestor Kirchner said on Saturday that the government would do everything it could to bring down interest rates, after interbank lending rates shot up in the last two months .
"Interest rates must come down. They will come down. We are going to take all the necessary measures," Kirchner said in comments to Mitre Radio.
"Banks must understand that the country has to work for everyone. There are some people in the financial sector who still don't seem to understand that," he said.
Interbank rates, or call money, shot up in August to higher than 20 percent when the global credit crunch ignited a flight in Argentina to safe-haven dollars.
But rates came back down lower than 8 percent this past week after a series of measures by the Central Bank, including buying back its own notes, auctioning and selling repurchase agreements, and temporarily relaxing the minimum average deposit rule for banks.
The foreign ministry over the weekend criticized Mohsen Baharvand, whose official rank is business attache, for his statements about Kirchner, saying they were "unacceptable" and unbecoming the envoy of a foreign country.I would bet that Argentina and the rest of South America will not end up on Ahmadinejad's side. Anyone disagree?
Baharvand caused a stir when he told the Clarin newspaper that if Kirchner during his speech accuses Iran of involvement in two bombings in Argentina in the early 1990s, "many countries will interpret this [as a sign] that Argentina supports the war [against Iran]."
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Americans, for instance, who go abroad in various governmental and business capacities, are usually members of the middle class and carry the values and aspirations of this class, some of which are an accent on the practical or utilitarian - work as a means to personal success, and suspicion of personal authority.
Accustomed to working in large hierarchical institutions like business corporations, governmental agencies, or scientific foundations which have a life of their own and persist in time, Americans tend to become impersonal. Individuals no matter how able are replaceable parts in these large institutions.
BUENOS AIRES (AFP) — Iran has warned Argentina against joining the enemy camp if Argentine President Nestor Kirchner criticizes Tehran at the UN General Assembly, the Iranian ambassador said in an interview Friday.
Kirchner is expected to mention Argentina's probe into alleged Iranian involvement in a deadly attack on a Jewish association in 1994, a leading representative of the Argentine Jewish community told AFP.
Authorities have yet to convict anyone for the bombing of the Argentine Jewish Mutual Association that left 85 dead and 300 injured.
But if Kirchner accuses Iran of wrongdoing, "numerous countries will understand that Argentina is in favor of war," the Islamic republic's ambassador to Buenos Aires Moshen Baharvand told the daily Clarin.
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The straightest of shooters, Iran expert and Pajamas blogger Michael Ledeen discusses with moderator Austin Bay the mullahocracy of Iran.
One thing I didn't know: Every purchase in Iran has a 5 to 6 percent "Supreme Leader tax" into the pocket of Ayatollah Sayed Ali Khamenei.
Ledeen knows of no other such "tax" among the world's nations.
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One of the aspects of Buenos Aires that excites me is its book culture. I have no idea how long it will take me to learn to read in spanish but I look forward to it. I was telling Julia the other day that there's a nice bookstore near the place we are trying to buy. Here's some info:
El Ateneo Bookstore - Buenos Aires - Argentina 1860 Ave. Santa Fe
I hope they have wifi.
Here are some folks taking a very different approach to the book trade.
Head counters at Argentina's National Statistics Institute have released their quarterly report on Internet usage in the country, which shows a steady growth in broadband adoption.
The public statistics body began researching the Internet usage trends back in 2002 and started publishing quarterly reports in 2004. Five years ago, the total number of internet connections was near one and a half million, at 1,468,073. In 2007, that number nearly doubled to a total of 2.7 million users.
Source:theinquirer.net
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I'm thankful their are people like Rob watching al jazeera.
Scary what things one must consider when moving to Argentina. We're not in Kansas anymore...
At the same time, Jacobs makes it clear that development can only happen in one way: import replacement. A city develops by having entrepreneurs and inventors take apart imported goods and learn how they work and how to produce parts for them until they can produce them more cheaply than they can be imported. The example she keeps referring to is Tokyo's bicycle industry, which replaced American imports withNow this bit about division of labor seems to be in the air lately. Over on the Kanbandev yahoo group we are talking about division of labor, the craft development model, and lean as it applies to software development. Then, during lunch, I was listening to the econtalk
local production. Once a city replaces an import, it can use the extra money it gets to import other, typically more expensive goods, triggering further import replacement. This process is coupled to the full cycle of division of labor, in which division of labor involves adding new work, which in turn triggers more division of labor, and so on.
Ricardian model doesn't apply to everywhere (neither does
Heckscher-Ohlin). Economies of scale idea is implicit in Adam Smith. James Buchanan, earlier podcast (Mike Munger, Division of Labor): Two reasons for specialization: we're different, and extent of the market. Leamer: It's not really economies of scale, but rather keeping the human capital operating for long periods of time during the day.Building a pin requires two tasks, building the shaft and building the head. When done by one person, most of the person's capital sits idle, as opposed to at a factory, which minimizes the capital costs. Market
creates specialized activities, legal system is now highly specialized, deployed for long hours during the day. Multitasking helps a little, but the brain is physically constrained by being in separate people.
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People often complain about how difficult it is to get things done in Argentina. Well, Santa Cruz, CA is far from a efficient environment to do business in. Today we found out that a recent largish money transfer was miss handled by our local bank. Seems it was missing information and improperly formated. I knew I shouldn't have allowed the 22 year old new-hire to process my order. Oh, well. Not his fault.
It's 2 AM in the morning and I can't sleep. Time to study some spanish...
My tongue is in a rut and subsequently I can't trill my "R"s to save my life. It's as if I have some sort of proprioceptive disorder or something. I just can't get my tongue to trill those bloody "R"s. Time to look for help....
The technical term for this feat of the mouth is called a alveolar trill and the trick is to develop toungue strenght:
How to roll your "R"s?At least I'm not alone.
It is the strength in your tongue and your ability to shape your inner mouth that make the trill possible.
The sound is made because of the Bernoulli's principle, an aspect of physics which defines the movement of fluids and gas over different shapes, and one of the principles of flight. In other words, the shape of your tongue will partially resemble an airplane wing, with the exhaled air passing over the top of the stiff, shaped lower tongue and vibrating the tip against the ridge like the flaps on an airplane wing.
Libertarians come in many flavors, of course, but they share certain enthusiasms beyond free-market economics. They are often great consumers of science fiction, with an avid interest in space travel. And they have an almost unlimited enthusiasm for biotechnology, especially for advances that might allow us to manipulate our natures and extend our lives. Taken together, these elements constitute what might be called the libertarian dream--the dream of shaping your own meaning, liberated from family, from the past, from tradition, from biology, and perhaps even from the earth itself.
This just in:
Buenos Aires, Sept 15 (Prensa Latina) A Dutch citizen was arrested at Ezeiza international airport, in this capital, carrying more than 26,000 pills of ecstasy, Argentine authorities said on Friday.
The 58-year-old man, whose identity was not disclosed, came from Amsterdam, Holland, and arrived in Buenos Aires on Thursday night via Madrid on an Iberia flight.
Sources from the Customs Police were surprised because the man had succeeded to get around security measures at two modern and well-equipped European airports.
They added that due to their low content of amphetamines, it is hard to detect the pills, but the Argentine officers showed great skill in their work.
This was the largest shipment of ecstasy seized in Argentina over the past ten years, they said, and the third drug capture over the past three days, so experts think drug addiction is increasing in the country.
Still having the most fun? Hope she lands on her feet.
So, that's the trip. It was a very nice ten day getaway. The only downside was returning to work on Thursday and being informed that I no longer had a job.Here's another local design and development firm. I wonder if there's a more accurate named for these types of businesses?
Via crummy, I took the career quiz. In bold are the careers I've considered many of which I've already held.
I no longer go in for those self help business books you see a lot of these days but I really did enjoy reading Seth Godin's the dip. It's a short book about quitting. This was a fun and fast read.
Next up, some Warren Elis.
As you may know, Julia and I are in the process of moving to Buenos Aires, Argentina. This move entails a wholesale liquidation of our possessions, the purchase of property in a foreign country, and the possible loss of employment. Yowza!
Needless to say, things have been a little stressful in casa evans. Being a clever soul, Julia's in the processes of formulating some rules that should help us maintain our sanity while we seemingly put everything at risk.
This post is going to be a hodge podge of pictures, quotes and thoughts. Don't expect much.
The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces (Hat Tip teczno )
The strongest similarities are found among the world's largest cities. People in them tend to behave more like their counterparts in other world cities than like fellow nationals in smaller cities. Big-city people walk faster, for one thing, and they self-congestSurely the Shared Context cause of this phenomena and it explains why Julia describes her short stay in Buenos Aires as San Francisco in Spanish.
We have, in sum, a man who is so completely involved in his work that he cannot distinguish between work and the rest of his life - and happy that he cannot. ... No dreams of Gothic castles or liveried footmen seize his imagination. His house will never be a monument, an end in itself. It is purely functional, a place to salve the wounds and store up energy for what's ahead. And that, he knows full well, is battle.
I know this guy -- Organization Man. I've even been compelled to become this guy, but I can't. I'm not fit for that box but somehow... wish I was.
Pages 196-198, on strategies for personality tests:
When in doubt about the most beneficial answer to any question, repeat to yourself: I loved my father and my mother, but my father a little bit more. I like things pretty much the way they are. I never worry much about anything. I don't care for books or music much. I love my wife and children. I don't let them get in the way of company work.
Pages 208-209, on pure vs. applied research:Nassim Nicholas Taleb has been making the same point while on his book tour for The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable. He talks about how many medical breakthroughs were the result of accident while at the same time we poor scads of money into research that fails to deliver results.
The failure to recognize the value of purposelessness is the starting point of industry's problem. To the managers and engineers who set the dominant tone in industry, purposelessness is anathema, and all their impulses incline them to highly planned, systematized development in which the problem is clearly defined. ... In pure research, however, half the trick is finding out that there is a problem - that there is something to explain. The culture dish remained sterile when it shouldn't have.
New Domestic Flights in Argentina Coming Soon...
Those travelling Argentina's skies will soon have more choices. AirPampas is a new airline started by the former leader of Aerolineas Argentinas, Antonio Mata. AirPampas is expected to take a part of Aerolineas' 85% share of the domestic air travel market in Argentina. I expect it will be good to have a little more competition in this area.
I suppose I should figure out how to plug flickr into this blog but for now, here are a few pics that Julia took last week. 
Geek culture seems to be alive and kicking in Argentina if Happy Hacking is any indication. 
transmorgrify - definition from Ninjawords (a really fast dictionary):
transmogrify
(v) : to alter the form of something completely
Julia left for BA this morning and it looks like she's taken some tremors with her.
Summary:
Magnitude mb 4.6
Region JUJUY, ARGENTINA
Date time 2007-09-02 at 00:14:33.3 UTC
Location 23.82 S ; 67.11 W
Depth 100 km
Distances 188 km W Jujuy (pop 305,891 ; local time 21:14 2007-09-01)
232 km W San pedro (pop 58,430 ; local time 21:14 2007-09-01)
So, I bought a Mac and I can't get anything done. It's a beautiful machine and OS X is just great but moving around the window manager is a mini paradigm shift. Find a good blogging tool took awhile too but I found one and I'm using it to write this. I'm now using ecto for blogging.
BTW, I'm writing this while watching a panel discussion on new media sponsored by the Aspen Institute. Michael Eisner just made some very anti Web2.0 statements. Not surprising I suppose given his background.
Okay, on with testing out the features of ecto.
This is a test block-quote.And here are some bullet points:
