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Arquivo para February, 2015

38% of the world are connected

27 Feb

StateConectivityThe data are from a study entitled “State of connectivity 2014: Report on the global internet,” which analyzes the current state of the network connection, the profile of the connected and which are not.
According to the survey, in early 2015 was outnumbered the 3 billion people online, and this means 38% of the world population, if we discount old people and children who still do not connect directly, it can be said more half of humanity is connected in some way.
This number was calculated by people who somehow connected to the internet from computers or mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets, as GeekWire site.
This difference increases when the comparison is made between developed and developing countries, where the first has a total of 32% of people who have not connected to the Internet is 32%.; while in the second this number reaches 78%.
The text cites Brazil as an indicator of maturity. The average of the connecting members 416 is megabytes (MB) per month.
The study can be accessed by a Facebook page called Newsroom, which shows the evolution of the data and do other analyzes.

 

Numbers and more Jet Wash

26 Feb

LavaJatoBrazilian operation´s Lava Jato(Wash Jet$), which uncovered a true hydra of corruption at Petrobrás starts coming to politicians and from there you can begin to address barriers, but what has been done, that money was recovered?
As news of the Federal Public Ministry, is not only the judge Sergio Moro begins to suffer political attacks, disclose on their official website that the Lava Operation Jet already found a misuse of R $ 2.1 billion from Petrobrás.
When all are 232 companies and 150 people under investigation, 12 agreements were signed whistleblower award and 18 criminal charges against 86 people, some linked to political, but no politician can be quoted by name because of special privileges.
According to Paulo Roberto Costa, 60% of the fee was for political and 20% were divided between him and the scheme operator, the rest was to cover any operating costs: travel, accommodation and other expenses, all very “professional”.
There would be a list of politicians who would be delivered to the public this week, who are they, the political influence and government arms strive to hide this data.
Meanwhile, more branches are made this week by the country, wait!

 

Social Network Analysis for privacy

25 Feb

EncriptadaThe University of Pennsylvania, led by Dr.Sofya Raskhodnikova, associate professor of Computer Science and Engineering whose research uses the Social Network Analysis Methodology to verify the privacy on social networking media, using the information that is available in public databases.
These databases can be easily correlated data across the deleted data and recovered in user identification information operations, what is called “differential privacy.”
Differential privacy is here that restricts the type of analysis that can performed for which the presence or absence of a person is negligible, it is necessary to increase the accuracy of the analysis, avoiding the identification of individual records and thus the differential privacy is one that differentiates these two databases and provide data that should always be hidden.
The Raskhodnikova researcher states that “an approach to achieve differential privacy is the addition of a small amount of noise to the actual statistics before publishing them,” but the problem is to determine how much noise and how to run it so that the accuracy of Results are maintained.
For this design idea of ​​the differential privacy could be especially important for the protection of data placed on a graph that identifies this data without revealing them.
Thus, the researchers say, it is possible to discover data statistics without releasing their contents, and these are differentially private methods.

The degree distribution of a social network specifies how many friends each member has, but some information is then inherently sensitive to be released with differential privacy, then protection measures can be adopted.

 

Everyday scenes in 4D

24 Feb

Professor of Computer Science Noah Snavely, from Cornell University and his student Kevin Matzen have added a fourth dimension5Pointz of time to your system called Scene Chronology, and have collected millions of images from photo sharing sites on the Internet and views from popular sites taken from several different angles created from 3-D models combined, and the Cornell News site.
The models that have been developed to Times Square, the shopping district Akhibahara in Tokyo and 5Pointz a graffiti exhibition area in Queens, then a viewer can navigate within a virtual 3-D space while using a slider to move forward and backward in time and viewing reality in various positions.

The software works with flat surfaces in the image: signs, walls, façades or panels theater and then treats as “patches” which are stitched together to create the overall scene, the 3D effect, so it is made from a flat stage and need not be shot in 3D original, facilitating the shooting and the size of the files.

The 3-D model is then created from the global scene at a particular moment in time, the computer joins the slices that are taken from each solid in the right time and reconstructs the image for each time more simple and functional way.

The researchers who presented the model at the fair in Zurich Computer Vision, said: “when we reflect on the time of image collections, each observation has something to say,” they received the award for Best Book in the area last year.

They figure that may also change the way we think about photography, they said, and some day all photo you thought about doing, may have been made by someone.

 

Won the critics in Oscar 2015

23 Feb

LegoOscar“Birdman or (The unexpected result of ignorance)” and “Boyhood: From infancy to youth” was one of the highest rated for the top prize, best picture and took over three awards. The signs were divided into “Birdman” who won the awards for unions and “Boyhood” took the Bafta. They ran out “imitation game” and “American Sniper” movies that had better send tickets, but not so much critical acclaim.
Birdman took best picture and best director, for Mexican Alejandro González Iñárritu,
The other winner was “The Grand Hotel Budapest”, which took four statuettes too, but in technical categories: best costume, best hair and makeup, best production design and best soundtrack.

Already “Boyhood: From infancy to youth” ended up being the big loser of the 87 Oscar. As in six categories, was left with only the category of best supporting actress.
The documentary “The salt of the earth” directed by renowned German director Win Wnders and the Brazilian Juliano Salgado, on the Brazilian photographer Sebastiao Salgado Juliana’s father, was nominated for Oscar in 2015, but the winner was Citizen Four “about the leak of secrets USA by Edward Snowden.
Snubbed in the best animation, the director Phil Lord decided to “build a” Lego figurine Oscar (photo), the film ran for only statuette for best original song and don’t take.

 

Get brazilian great rates on the internet

20 Feb

TarifaçoAfter energy, gasoline and alcohol, now the brazilian pocket begins to weigh on the internet if before the speeds were reduced, now operators began cutting from the minimum rate, the goal is to buy more expensive plans and the big taxes in pre-plans paid already begun.
Now all operators will block the navigation after the data packet engaged, instead of reducing the connection speed as they always have and as they still do in postpaid plans.
The internet access which is already one of the most expensive in the world, they get even more expensive in Brazil, and by no means improved signal quality, just pay more and make operators and government collect more taxes.
TIM already said on its website that the new rule became effective from January 15 to prepaid customers in Rio Grande do Sul and Pernambuco states and municipalities of the greater São Paulo and interior are covered by DDD 19 (tele number in cities), but others are beginning to appear with cut services.
All customers of Hi are already under this new “service”, which the Anatel (Brazilian FCC) has no problem, and claims that the operators are “free to adopt models of charges” and it is pure collusion.
We had already announced in our blog that the most expensive service in the world would be surcharged, and the greedy operators continue to gain in the country who do not earn anywhere on the planet, and with exorbitant prices.

 

Greek tragedy, the choir and networks

19 Feb

CoroThe tragedy in the sense of classical antiquity has a different meaning than we use on a daily basis, meaning something serious with many deaths and pains which diverts an event to the downside, but for tragikós Greeks was when he did something great, according to Aristotle was “an imitative representation of a serious action, concrete, in a magnitude, represented, and not narrated by actors in elegant language, using a different style for each party, and that through compassion and horror causes releasing trigger such emotions. “
For the Greeks of the particular tragedy of goals, and the work of art should always cause Katarsis, greek catharsis, that is the purgation of the emotions of the audience, and the Marxist playwright Bertolt Brecht created the idea of ​​the distance, which is not cause catharsis but the reflection preventing elements of “emotions” and other theoretical Theatre Rosenfeld says about it: “The teaching order requires the elimination of the illusion, the magical impact of bourgeois theater” (Rosenfeld), that is nothing but eliminate subjectivity.
Criticism of networks is always this, that cause illusion and virtuality would be something far from the real universe in this way would cause “real illusions.”
Illusionists of all kinds of magical politics, propaganda techniques used to try to cause illusion, and although this has something theater and can be virtual, the illusion does not consist in the fact that the used medium, radio, TV and the cinema and various forms of art were used for this, the essence of illusion is deceiving to “shut up” the crowd, so much tragedy as any other genre of art and “communication” can be misleading.
The essential, who drew attention to this, curiously was Nietzsche, is that the choir is not excluded, blamed Euripides by this exclusion, it is written in “The Birth of Tragedy or Hellenism and pessimism.”
Networks are a possible way to choir outside the manipulation of the masses and the media

 

Rise from the ashes: is it possible?

18 Feb

FenixYes, indeed this is the only possibility, because we are dust and when finished life, to dust we return, this is a fact and not just a word of the Bible and this awareness can make the most serene and happy earthly life, consciousness that it is fleeting.

In Greek Mythology the bird phenix (Greek: φοῖνιξ phoinix) is a long-lived bird that is cyclically regenerated or reborn.
Did this is only a rite, a symbology, apparently in human history and the Bible either.
The book of Esther, the Bible says that Mardoque her first cousin who was a pious Jew dressed bag and covered with ashes when he learned of a decree of the king Assuer I of Persia (485-464 BC year) condemned death all Jews of that empire (Esther is 4.1).
Have Job of the book, which was written between the years 7:05 BC, says he repented and covered with ashes (Job 42.6) and also the prophet Daniel, about 550 B.C., predicted the conquest of the kingdom Babylon for Jerusalem, says “I turned to God to direct him a prayer of supplication, fasting and imposing me sackcloth and ashes” (Daniel 4, 1-27).
And in the fifth century BC, shortly after preaching the Jonas project, which managed to change the habits of the people of Nineveh fasted and dressed with bags, it is said that even the King. (Jonas 3: 1-10) .
We live dark times, and if we want to change the reality around us, we must first change our heart and soul, to have courage and consistency to change the world.
The symbol of the ashes so is joy, hope that reality can change.

 

Birdman and Greek tragedy

16 Feb

I have been watching the movies, and the big screen does not lose its charms, I saw somethingBirdmanTragedy different than what was seen in interactive small screen, in part classical tragedy and partly something new, if tragedy is the ending of something sad, Birdman impressive.

I saw in the dialogue in which the daughter Lesley (Naomi Watts) with his father Riggan Thomson (Michael Keaton), references to new media, questioning the father who does not know the influence of videos, blogs and facebook in public opinion, had realized is course, but the tone seemed more dramatic and a reinterpretation of their meanings.

The meaning is deeper if we understand the concern about the critical Tabitha Dickinson (Lindsay Duncan) who writes in the New York Times and the unexpected success of a Riggan’s video on Youtube.

But in the end the tragedy also features a new, should normally end with a sad ending, and is and is not, as the film manages this? surprise that is in the air.

After all this, the fact Birdman also be a reference to major superheroes like Batman productions (which itself did Michael Keaton), Superman and other extra-mans, the film shows a tragedy of very human issues: greed , vanities, contests, anger, betrayal, etc.

After all, the link between the Fenix symbol (in Greek mythology, a bird that rises from the ashes dead), a reading of “Ash Wednesday” is possible in a non-theological version, so “you can change your life” (the book),  would say Peter Sloterdijck.

 

Carnival, history and networks

13 Feb

CarnavalCarnival is not brazilian invention, comes from antiquity, both in Mesopotamia, as in Greece and in Rome had these parties, curiously it ends at the beginning of Ash Wednesday when Catholics and Lutherans begin their Lent.
The word carnival comes from the Latin carnis levale, remove the meat to the letter, but would be the carnal parties before the meaning of entering a period of fasting and carnal pleasures.
This date connection with the traditional Christian churches dating from the eighth century, when Lent was established as a religious period to perform the process of asceticism through which people fix their life routes.
It was the Portuguese who brought to Brazil a party called “Shrovetide” a mess event as water wars, flour, lemons and often exceeded the limits, so that was eventually banned in the 1840s.
So it was a lounge party in many years until in 1920 Chiquinha Gonzaga made the first famous “marching” the
Abre Alas and the party returned to become popular, and “networks” of revelers were forming cords, blocks and later with a larger samba schools.
With the introduction of the samba schools, there are a return to different formal structure of the networks, the first was called “Deixa Falar” (Lets Talk) which years later changed its name to Estacio de Sá, but the blocks and strands remain and the Block Rooster dawn tries to stay in the Guinness as the largest carnival group in the world.