Beiträge vom Mai, 2011

Long-term effects of radiation on wildlife around Chernobyl

Mittwoch, 4. Mai 2011 19:28

A fascinating article which I found through the Valuscience Blog of my friends at Magic in Stanford is titled „Is Chernobyl a Wild Kingdom or a Radioactive Den of Decay?“. The authors, Timothy Mousseau, a US-based evolutionary biologist, and Anders Møller, a Danish biologist, basically debunk the myth that already after a relatively (for standards of nuclear waste and pollution) short period of time, the „Chernobyl Exclusion Zone“ has become almost a national park’s worth of happy wildlife. The article is very long and narrative in tone, though, so here are some remarkable findings of my skimming.

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Thema: English | Kommentare (2) | Autor:

Tanzania 2 — Erster Tag in Kagondo Sekondari

Mittwoch, 4. Mai 2011 17:34

Hatte heute schon meinen ersten Tag als Physiklehrer in Form 1 und 3 (entsprechend Klasse 8 und 11) der Sekundarschule in Kagondo nahe Bukoba, wo auch Justus mit Familie wohnt. Und bin so bewegt, dass ich gleich was dazu schreiben muss.

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Thema: Weltreise 2011 | Kommentare (3) | Autor:

Tanzania 1 — A weekend of celebrations

Mittwoch, 4. Mai 2011 17:25

I was so happy to see the familiar face of the Action 5-friend Justus in the crowd in Bukoba and put an end to the aggressive offers from several taxi drivers. From then on I was in a constant flow of events attending a bunch of official occasions with him, who has recently taken a political office next to his work and his activities for Action 5, and reminds me of my good friend Johannes not only in that he seems to be able to do with very little sleep.

The first was the anniversary of a Catholic hospital in Kagondo, appropriately with a lot of church Honorables who held long speeches, and good choir music (with percussion).

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Thema: English, Weltreise 2011 | Kommentare deaktiviert | Autor:

Hunger and Choice in the Developing World

Mittwoch, 4. Mai 2011 16:58

After recently meeting a bunch of people who have to go without meals frequently, I was naturally very interested to read an article on reasons and solutions for world hunger, by two researchers from the „Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab, or J-PAL“ at the MIT, which is an excerpt from a recent book they wrote.

After some more illustrative than enlightening back an forth on the „hunger-based poverty trap“ (poor people cannot eat enough to be strong enough to earn enough to eat enough) and examples of how poor people make choices that cause malnutrition themselves (spending money on tasty but little nutritious food or on non-food luxuries, mostly entertainment and drugs) they get to the point, and a quite interesting one. Here are some of the central ideas.

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Thema: English, Weltreise 2011 | Kommentare deaktiviert | Autor:

Kenya 1 — Just passing through

Mittwoch, 4. Mai 2011 16:14

In catching up with blogging (I was both very busy and very offline for the last weeks) I continue in English with mostly some commented pictures. Please bear with me, the next more content-intensive post is coming up (even though it will be again in German I’m afraid). My 10 days or so in Kenya were very good, even though I arrived with a cold that kept me in the house for some days, and caught my second diarrhea in this year just a few days after recovering from the cold.

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Thema: English, Weltreise 2011 | Kommentare deaktiviert | Autor:

Indien 6 — Travel Haste and Joy

Mittwoch, 4. Mai 2011 14:54

This (for now) last India blog will also be an English-and-mostly-pictures one. Even though I feel in many ways I sped through the country and spent most of my time in different means of transportation, I’m happy I divided my time between „India“ and Auroville as I did, mostly staying and working in the latter. I also feel that it was good to take the traveling „slow“ (that is, slow means of transportation) even though I traveled fast in terms of moving on frequently. Sharing the time in transit with the Indians is I think an experience that tells a lot about the country and the culture. And I get the impression that Indians themselves do that a lot — they spend a lot of time in cheap public transport.

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Thema: English, Weltreise 2011 | Kommentare (3) | Autor:

Indien 5 — Auroville Farewell

Dienstag, 3. Mai 2011 20:21

This will be a post of mostly pictures, and as you see another one in English to not discourage anybody. Again, no promises for the future :) There would be much more to say about Auroville, but I don’t have much time right now, and am in many ways already so far away that I think my next writing on Auroville and India will be concerned with differences between my Indian and East African experiences. So for now just have a look…

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Thema: English, Weltreise 2011 | Kommentare (2) | Autor:

Economists disagree on who pays if you tax „the rich“

Dienstag, 3. Mai 2011 18:06

Greg Mankiw points to an interesting disagreement among high-profile blogging economists about whether it is possible to tax rich people who don’t consume very much (or who consume the same before and after the tax), or more precisely who actually pays if you do.

As I had previously tweeted, I was quite surprised by Joseph Stiglitz‘ remark that in his opinion there are some convictions that all serious economists should share: „resources are limited, incentives matter“. The context was that he didn’t agree with what many other distinguished economists held should be supported by everybody in the profession. Now, the problem with this greatest common denominator of his is that it is barely more than what I remember from a textbook as the definition of the discipline as being concerned with scarcity.

Is the situation of economics really so dire that after decades of science dealing with numbers from complete (non-inferential, every psychologist’s dream) real-world datasets, basic public policy issues are still in the realm of ideology? It seems so. Now, before (as usual …) arguing for a constructivist turn, let me put some of the central irreconcilable statements side by side:

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Thema: English | Kommentare (6) | Autor:

small thoughts 2011-05-01 (my week in twitter)

Sonntag, 1. Mai 2011 7:59

  • Barbara Ehrenreich: the psychological cruelty of Positive Thinking & links to the financial meltdown and Iraq http://j.mp/hJCQ7L #RSAnimate #
  • Slavoj Zizek makes a powerful case against charity and its integration into contemporary „Cultural Capitalism“ http://j.mp/g4YN6X #RSAnimate #
  • #RSAnimate of David Harvey’s marxist take on the financial crisis. http://j.mp/hLlvMT At least as thought-provoking as solution-lacking… #
  • Kenyan authorities monitor social media for „hate speech“ while praising the revolutions in Arab countries. Good or bad? #
  • #travelinsight 37: East African landscapes give me a strange feeling of — home. Is that still in our genes? #
  • #travelinsight 36: Ya mama yabamba! #
  • #travelinsight 35: Who builds the buses for Kenya? Amazing technology, it’s a miracle they don’t fall apart on the first day on these roads. #

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