Stop and Say Hello @ ruiaf.org

Did you guys know this concept that it's coming up now? It's still a bit underground but there is one in Barcelona, other in New York and I don't know if it exists in more places. The idea is that you go to this bar and poets read you their poetry in private. It's really like a brothel but with poetry instead of sex. It's a very cool idea. The things I find out in the Ryanair magazine - and it doesn't have a wikipedia page! Here's a link to the article.

It's fun. Although some (most?) people don't really follow the rules of using symbols of the season or similar references and they just write a few words about whatever they want and call it Haiku. If I were Japanese I would be mad at this. As I'm not, I just enjoy reading these snips.

Today in my trip back to Italy I had plenty of free time so I finished the Logicomix book. A kind gift from my cousin Hugo :) For the ones who don't know yet, Logicomix is a comics book about the history - or better, the characters, of logics. The text is witty and the art is amazing. You can trust me on this one because I'm not a fan of comics, quite the opposite. Also interesting is that a (very) famous theoretical computer scientist, Christos Papadimitriou is one of the authors and appears as a narrator in the book.

Just wow - Logicians were (are??) completely crazy. Comes with the job I guess. Russell, Whitehead, Wittgenstein, Fredge, Gödel, North, all just crazzzzzy. Mentally ill, open marriages, dementia and more really crazy stuff. Reading the book is like seeing a documentary about the work of some genial revolutionary and eccentric artists but with rock star scientists instead.

Risking talking too early since there is still one (long) night left, there is something that is annoying me.

Some countries are using 2005/06 or current levels as baseline instead of 1990. Namely the US, Canada and Australia - among others. It's what happens when marketing is in charge. It looks good to say that the US is going to reduce the emissions by 17%. The truth is that they are reducing 1.3% from 1990 when compared with most developed countries that are in the range 20%-30%. There's no excuse for this other than trying to look good on the picture.

Other countries that are using energy efficiency as reference (emission of carbon dioxide per unit of GDP). Namely India and China. It makes sense, don't get me wrong. It's a valid comparison. Probably even more when we are talking about developing countries that well... are developing. They have every right to use their fair share of resources. I still remember when China was being blamed for the high oil prices while in China there is 1 car for every 50 families and in Europe there are >1 cars per family.

I'm not one of those people that have really high hopes for this summit, or that believes that this is going to solve any of our problems. This is something that has to come from the bottom. Not from the top. It can help but it's not going to solve anything. The question is that at least these guys must be able to agree on the unit to use. Use all three. Use 10 different ones. What they can't do is to have some countries using apples while some others are using oranges. It's not transparent at all and it seems that they are just trying to fool us. I think that the only good example in all this is Brazil that is assuming their numbers, although they don't look so good or impressive, they are fair for a developing country.

A solução passa por aqui.

I make his words mine. I'm losing all my patience with conspiracy theories. I can't put up with these any longer. Climate change, 9/11, evolution, peak oil, cancer is a fungus - fucking idiots.