It has been a long time without a post. Excuses? Well, a lot: As most of you may know already, I'm writing up my thesis which is not at all an easy thing and consumes all my time. I (well, we I must say) have been traveling overseas and within Europe, and have a lot of things in the agenda. I hope I can update all of this in the blog...
And for all readers and people missing my posts, thanks a lot for comments received verbally as well as via emails, I don't promise anything but little by little I'll come back to it :)
Showing posts with label blog. Show all posts
Showing posts with label blog. Show all posts
Sunday, July 19, 2009
Thursday, January 24, 2008
Terug in NL
El título quiere decir 'de vuelta en NL'... con una mezcla extraña de sentimientos, estoy de vuelta, para continuar con mis obligaciones. Por supuesto, les debo muchas explicaciones sobre mi viaje a Salta. Lo que puedo anticipar son varios posts que quiero compremeterme ahora a desarrollarlos: naturalmente hablaré del desafío de verano bicicleteando a Cafayate (por cierto, todo un suceso), el turismo burocrático, el huso horario de verano (del que tengo un post en retrospectiva), los malos vecinos y algunos posts relacionados a escapaditas cerca de Salta.
Como es obvio luego de 7 semanas de vacaciones, tengo muchas cosas para hacer. Así que a medida que me voy poniendo al día con ellas, acomodo mis fotos(1) y me re-adapto a NL, lo voy a ir haciendo. También prometo ponerme al tanto y meterme de nuevo con los blogs de amigos y la actividad cibernética en general :) Y más importantemente, ¡dar mi examen de holandés en menos de una semana!
(1) Como no puede ser de otra forma, las leyes de Murphy se aplicaron a la perfección: justo antes de grabar un CD con mis fotos ordenadas, la computadora no arrancó. El resultado: todas mis imágenes dispersas en tarjetas de memoria, pendrives y otros CDs.
The title means 'back in NL'... With a mixture of feelings, I'm back, to continue with my duties. Of course, I owe you lots of explanations about my trip to Salta. What I can anticipate are various posts I want to commit to now. I'll naturally talk about the summer challenge biking to Cafayate (all a success, btw), the bureaucratic tourism, the daylight time zone (for which I have a post in retrospective), bad neighbours and some related to my getaways around Salta.
It is obvious that after almost a 7-week holiday, I have lots of things pending to do here. So, in the meantime that I accomplish them, sort my photos up(1) and get adapted back to NL, I'll be doing so. I also promise to get updated and reinvolved in some friends' blogs and all the cybernetic activity :) An most importantly, give my Dutch exam in less than a week!
(1) As cannot be otherwise, Murphy laws applied in my case: just before burning a CD with all my pictures sorted up, the computer didn't boot at all. The result: all pictures disperse in memory cards, memory sticks and other CDs.
Como es obvio luego de 7 semanas de vacaciones, tengo muchas cosas para hacer. Así que a medida que me voy poniendo al día con ellas, acomodo mis fotos(1) y me re-adapto a NL, lo voy a ir haciendo. También prometo ponerme al tanto y meterme de nuevo con los blogs de amigos y la actividad cibernética en general :) Y más importantemente, ¡dar mi examen de holandés en menos de una semana!
(1) Como no puede ser de otra forma, las leyes de Murphy se aplicaron a la perfección: justo antes de grabar un CD con mis fotos ordenadas, la computadora no arrancó. El resultado: todas mis imágenes dispersas en tarjetas de memoria, pendrives y otros CDs.
The title means 'back in NL'... With a mixture of feelings, I'm back, to continue with my duties. Of course, I owe you lots of explanations about my trip to Salta. What I can anticipate are various posts I want to commit to now. I'll naturally talk about the summer challenge biking to Cafayate (all a success, btw), the bureaucratic tourism, the daylight time zone (for which I have a post in retrospective), bad neighbours and some related to my getaways around Salta.
It is obvious that after almost a 7-week holiday, I have lots of things pending to do here. So, in the meantime that I accomplish them, sort my photos up(1) and get adapted back to NL, I'll be doing so. I also promise to get updated and reinvolved in some friends' blogs and all the cybernetic activity :) An most importantly, give my Dutch exam in less than a week!
(1) As cannot be otherwise, Murphy laws applied in my case: just before burning a CD with all my pictures sorted up, the computer didn't boot at all. The result: all pictures disperse in memory cards, memory sticks and other CDs.
Monday, October 15, 2007
Blog Action Day: Resource deployment
This will be my contribution to the Blog Action Day. In this opportunity I will express my opinion and what is going on with some environmental issues in my country, of course from the point of view as a foreign resident. The subject is about the deployment of natural resources in Argentina. There are two well defined opinions in my country. Namely, the ones that want to preserve all natural resources, leaving them untouched (from now on, preservationists); and, on the other one side, as you imagine, those who are in favor of their deployment (from now on, producers).
Both thoughts have some good points. The preservationists want to protect all natural diversity, including flora, fauna and native people, and the ultimate goal is to look for the natural equilibrium of the environment. The producers say they can improve the economical situation of people in general by generating many jobs, and producing a chain effect in the general economical and financial scheme.
And the bad points: with the preservationists' point of view it should not be possible to do nothing else than a subsistence life pace, just receiving what we can get barely from the earth. The producers though, go to the other extreme, where the money is above everything.
In my country, now everything what is done in environmental matters is more merely is in the extreme case of the producers: just get as many money as possible. Money that is distributed among a few capitalists, generally foreign capitals. There is a very small fraction that comes back to the 'town' in form of taxes that in general is in the hands of corrupted politicians that use this resources to their own interests, when this taxes should be destined to diminish the impact of the deployment of the natural resources. Even if this revenue were re-invested as the to do so, the amount is ridiculously small.
One example are the mines in the province of San Juan. There some foreign companies are deploying thousands of hectares. The taxes that the government perceives are used to finance the so-called environmental police, which main task is to control that the companies are working according to the standards. This companies are literally tearing down all mountains, extracting some minerals which are preprocessed at the mine site, and taking out of the country all the precursors for the metals. This preprocessing means taking millions of thousands of clean water and pouring it back into some contention lakes. This lakes leak all this very heavy metals into the subterranean water curses. Meaning this, poisoning all inhabitants down river, and producing a devastating desertification process over there. And the most funny thing: the precursors for metal are exported, and the pure metals, after the corresponding process are imported to the country, to a cost ten times greater than the precursors. All this at the benefice of at most 40 work positions...
In my province, Salta, is very common see how the native forest are destroyed and converted into cultivable surfaces without any minimal environmental impact prevision. Such a lack of previsions is producing plenty of floods every summer, as the rain doesn't have any contention as it used to have. And all this, to cultivate soy, which is completely exported, receiving as taxes some important revenues which as I said are used as a political mechanism that feeds the corruption in the hole country.
In the middle, there are some activist groups, as Greenpeace, which try to call the attention to the population about these issues, using very controversial means to stop all this, and without any apparent results so far.
But in any case, I think that we must find a point in the middle of this two antagonistically different directions. There should be real deployment of such resources, from the beginning to the end of the production of the end-consumer chain, as in any other serious country. This way, there will be more profit for everybody in general. There will be enough money to reduce the (possible) negative effects to the environment. There will be much more work: in the production chain, in general the last part of it is the one that does so. And there will be more economical movement in general, which in the end is the things that makes a country to be prosper and with a growing economy. This is done, I think in every 'first-world' country. Unfortunately, these are the countries that don't care doing nasty things in 'third-world' countries. And even more disappointing, is the fact that in the latter countries all the nasties are possible because there is a very institutionalized corruption which takes advantage of it at the cost of the future of the common people.
Maybe, too many words, maybe without any sense, but this is at least what I think to the respect.
Both thoughts have some good points. The preservationists want to protect all natural diversity, including flora, fauna and native people, and the ultimate goal is to look for the natural equilibrium of the environment. The producers say they can improve the economical situation of people in general by generating many jobs, and producing a chain effect in the general economical and financial scheme.
And the bad points: with the preservationists' point of view it should not be possible to do nothing else than a subsistence life pace, just receiving what we can get barely from the earth. The producers though, go to the other extreme, where the money is above everything.
In my country, now everything what is done in environmental matters is more merely is in the extreme case of the producers: just get as many money as possible. Money that is distributed among a few capitalists, generally foreign capitals. There is a very small fraction that comes back to the 'town' in form of taxes that in general is in the hands of corrupted politicians that use this resources to their own interests, when this taxes should be destined to diminish the impact of the deployment of the natural resources. Even if this revenue were re-invested as the to do so, the amount is ridiculously small.
One example are the mines in the province of San Juan. There some foreign companies are deploying thousands of hectares. The taxes that the government perceives are used to finance the so-called environmental police, which main task is to control that the companies are working according to the standards. This companies are literally tearing down all mountains, extracting some minerals which are preprocessed at the mine site, and taking out of the country all the precursors for the metals. This preprocessing means taking millions of thousands of clean water and pouring it back into some contention lakes. This lakes leak all this very heavy metals into the subterranean water curses. Meaning this, poisoning all inhabitants down river, and producing a devastating desertification process over there. And the most funny thing: the precursors for metal are exported, and the pure metals, after the corresponding process are imported to the country, to a cost ten times greater than the precursors. All this at the benefice of at most 40 work positions...
In my province, Salta, is very common see how the native forest are destroyed and converted into cultivable surfaces without any minimal environmental impact prevision. Such a lack of previsions is producing plenty of floods every summer, as the rain doesn't have any contention as it used to have. And all this, to cultivate soy, which is completely exported, receiving as taxes some important revenues which as I said are used as a political mechanism that feeds the corruption in the hole country.
In the middle, there are some activist groups, as Greenpeace, which try to call the attention to the population about these issues, using very controversial means to stop all this, and without any apparent results so far.
But in any case, I think that we must find a point in the middle of this two antagonistically different directions. There should be real deployment of such resources, from the beginning to the end of the production of the end-consumer chain, as in any other serious country. This way, there will be more profit for everybody in general. There will be enough money to reduce the (possible) negative effects to the environment. There will be much more work: in the production chain, in general the last part of it is the one that does so. And there will be more economical movement in general, which in the end is the things that makes a country to be prosper and with a growing economy. This is done, I think in every 'first-world' country. Unfortunately, these are the countries that don't care doing nasty things in 'third-world' countries. And even more disappointing, is the fact that in the latter countries all the nasties are possible because there is a very institutionalized corruption which takes advantage of it at the cost of the future of the common people.
Maybe, too many words, maybe without any sense, but this is at least what I think to the respect.
Saturday, February 10, 2007
Sobre este blog...
Últimamente recibí algunos email en donde mucha gente no me quiere escribir porque piensa que si me quiere contactar, lo tiene que hacer por medio del blog. Obviamente eso no es así. Este blog lo utilizo para publicar algunos comentarios y cosas por las que paso diariamente, dejando entre ellas, algunas opiniones personales. La idea es que primero que nada todo aquel que quiera saber en qué ando, y debatir sobre las opiniones que dejo, nada más. Otro objetivo, aunque no sea muy útil para los lectores es ayudarme a escribir inglés, y practicarlo. De hecho, mucho de los posts son primero escritos en inglés y luego traducidos. Eso explica lo superficial que son mis opiniones.
Pero todo lo concerniente a cuestiones personales, privadas o que no quiera compartir, no van a encontrarse en este blog. Todo eso se lo contaré a la gente que corresponda, y por mail o telefónicamente. Esto también explica por qué este blog no refleja la vida completa de un estudiante de doctorado. Principalmente publico todas las cuestiones relacionadas con fiestas y actividades sociales o de dispersión, más que actividades de mi doctorado en sí (también para evitar ventilar cosas que pueden considerarse 'delicadas' para algunos). Todo esto se aplica a ustedes. No me van a venir a contar que se pelearon con la novia, o que le pegaron a su mascota en un post que habla de una fiesta de carnaval por ejemplo.
Que quede claro, en ningún momento dije (o por lo menos no quise dar a entender) que todo el contacto debe hacerse por este medio, ni mucho menos que no iba a responder mails. Cabe aclarar a este punto que respondo todo email, y quedo a espera que el receptor haga lo propio, inclusive para decirme por ejemplo, que mi respuesta fue muy vaga, o lo que sea. Aunque nunca falta los descolgados que luego de no responder por unos meses te reprochan que no les escribís, y ni hablar de aquellos que nunca más responden.
Pero de igual manera, qué poca cantidad de comentarios... aunque de igual manera, me gusta dejar registrado todo, como forma de descarga personal también. A propósito, los dejo, me voy a preparar mi disfraz para ir a una fiesta de carnaval :D
Pero todo lo concerniente a cuestiones personales, privadas o que no quiera compartir, no van a encontrarse en este blog. Todo eso se lo contaré a la gente que corresponda, y por mail o telefónicamente. Esto también explica por qué este blog no refleja la vida completa de un estudiante de doctorado. Principalmente publico todas las cuestiones relacionadas con fiestas y actividades sociales o de dispersión, más que actividades de mi doctorado en sí (también para evitar ventilar cosas que pueden considerarse 'delicadas' para algunos). Todo esto se aplica a ustedes. No me van a venir a contar que se pelearon con la novia, o que le pegaron a su mascota en un post que habla de una fiesta de carnaval por ejemplo.
Que quede claro, en ningún momento dije (o por lo menos no quise dar a entender) que todo el contacto debe hacerse por este medio, ni mucho menos que no iba a responder mails. Cabe aclarar a este punto que respondo todo email, y quedo a espera que el receptor haga lo propio, inclusive para decirme por ejemplo, que mi respuesta fue muy vaga, o lo que sea. Aunque nunca falta los descolgados que luego de no responder por unos meses te reprochan que no les escribís, y ni hablar de aquellos que nunca más responden.
Pero de igual manera, qué poca cantidad de comentarios... aunque de igual manera, me gusta dejar registrado todo, como forma de descarga personal también. A propósito, los dejo, me voy a preparar mi disfraz para ir a una fiesta de carnaval :D
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