Daniela Scur

Road Woes II

Daniela — Fri, 28 Jan 2011 17:30:29 +0000

Last year, I wrote about the strained Brazilian infrastructure. Last week, Veja (an influential Brazilian magazine) ran a piece on the state of our infrastructure, and pointed it as one of the looming disasters the new president, Mrs. Dilma Rouseff, will have to tackle. A few interesting statistics from Veja to complement my argument from [...]

Stats 101 should be mandatory for politicians and government employees

Daniela — Sun, 29 Aug 2010 19:17:30 +0000

Recently the Canadian government has announced that it plans to change how the Census data is collected. If implemented, it would mean the Census would no longer be mandatory, and households would receive a shorter version of the questionnaire. For anyone who has ever worked with data, this is absolutely outrageous and severely misguided. Industry [...]

The highways of business

Daniela — Sun, 29 Aug 2010 19:16:36 +0000

Weaving between cars in one of downtown Cairo’s busy roads, the driver slammed on the brakes as a motorbike zoomed by and missed our car by a hair. The very smart businessman whom the car belonged to said, annoyed, “This is ridiculous… but it’s how things work here. You should watch how people drive, and [...]

“Feel it, it is…” gone.

Daniela — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 10:40:24 +0000

The media slogan for the World Cup was “Feel it, it is here.” And feel it we did. It was an incredible vibe, and a fantastic display of unpredictable soccer, sheer human energy and fraternizing among nations (regardless of on-the-field battles). Unfortunately, it never lasts forever. There is always a giant void left by epic [...]

South Africa’s infrastructure wins the “Huh. Whaddya know.” award

Daniela — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 14:28:09 +0000

Moving away from the politics, I have noticed several interesting aspects of infrastructure development in South Africa, which, might I advance, is much more developed than people may assume. Highways – Overall positive. The highway system in South Africa is very well developed. Joburg is actually surrounded by major highways that can rather easily take [...]

Johannesburg – a city of contrasts

Daniela — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 13:48:44 +0000

Johannesburg is heavy with history, and the path dependency of its divisive history is obvious in the stark differences across neighbourhoods. For those unfamiliar with apartheid, a few decades ago the party then in power, the National Party, made it law that races should not mix. Over several decades of their rule, cities across South [...]

Road woes

Daniela — Mon, 17 May 2010 22:11:47 +0000

A country’s infrastructure is akin to a living body’s veins/arteries and vital organs. While Brazil has several vital organs, it is sorely lacking in its venous system. How much more can we grow having great sea ports and state-of-the-art airports if transportation between major ports of entry/travel is sub-standard? We have a well-developed air transit [...]

FIFA’s plan B

Daniela — Fri, 07 May 2010 15:07:28 +0000

Brazilians are accustomed to not having things work out the way they planned, so most people here tend to have plan Bs for everything. Now, it seems even FIFA (soccer’s highest authority) is hopping on the bandwagon. Last week, FIFA announced that they are studying an alternative host to the 2014 World Cup: London. And [...]

Just do it

Daniela — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 17:58:03 +0000

Yesterday, the Brazilian Minister of Health spoke at the launch of a program against high blood pressure ailments. While talking about the dangers of high blood pressure and the statistics that show Brazilians who have the disease are up 3 percentage points, he also suggested ways to avoid it: “Dance, have sex, watch your weight, [...]

A picture of public service

Daniela — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 21:28:53 +0000

I just want to leave a quick note about this story I saw on TV a couple of months ago. A popular late-night TV show in Brazil, CQC (Custe o Que Custar) did a very good story on the “sidetracking” of donations to public schools. They donated a plasma screen TV and asked that it [...]