from geopy import geocoders
g = geocoders.Google('your-google-maps-api-here')

import csv
writer = csv.writer(open("out.csv", "wb"))
writer.writerow(("endereco","cidade","estado","pais","latitude","longitude"))
reader = csv.reader(open("endereco.csv"))
for row in reader:
    now = row[0]+","+row[1]+","+row[2]+","+row[3]
    try: place, (lat, lng) = g.geocode(now)
    except: place, (lat, lng) = "NA", ("NA", "NA")
    writer.writerow((row[0],row[1],row[2],row[3],lat, lng))

Maybe more people reside in the lower third of income than in 68-72, taking in for inflation and stagnant wages.

— Posted by rpo choice li

He asks:

To take just one example, why do people use the ungrammatical Fuck you? And why does no one have a clear sense of what, exactly, Fuck you means?

and argues that

The most likely explanation is that these grammatically baffling curses originated in more intelligible religious curses during the transition from religious to sexual and scatological swearing in English-speaking countries

Is that so? What about in cursing in non-English-speaking countries? I know for a fact, having used the expression inumerous times, that there is nothing ungrammatical about “vá se fuder” (go fuck yourself) or “foda-se” (fuck yourself). I am willing to believe the religious to scatological swearing hypothesis, but the thesis would get much better support if studied comparatively.

The comparative study of swearing… now this is probably an open fucking field of study! Too bad I am not a linguist…

I liked his solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict:

I would suggest that all tourist revenue be [divided by] a fixed formula based on the current population of the region, which is roughly 40 percent Palestinian, 60 percent Israeli. The money would go automatically to each side. Now, when there is violence, tourists don’t come. So the tourist revenue is automatically responsive to the level of violence on either side for both sides. You have an accounting firm that both sides agree to, you let the U.N. do it, whatever. It’s completely self-enforcing, it requires no cooperation except the initial agreement by the Israelis that they are going to turn this part of the revenue over, on a fixed formula based on population, to some international agency, and that’s that.”

Ps. While there, check out their data visualization section.

Busy week indeed On my way back South I had the "privilege" of experiencing some of the so called "chaos" that has been plaguing air travel in Brazil for at least a year. Ostensibly the latter increase in the difficulties originated from the crash mentioned above. The plane couldn’t stop and some wonder if the recently reopened runway is at fault. The investigations are going to take a while, but we  know beforehand that the runway alone cannot possibly be the single cause, given the dozens of take-offs and landings throughout the day up to minutes or seconds before the crash! The blame has to be at least partly with the plane and/or pilot.

Anyway, I had a connection flight in Guarulhos (the other major airport in São Paulo) and the next flight was delayed. After pointing the passengers to wait in the wrong gate, twice!, we finally boarded with a 6 hour delay. The cause for the delay was never explained to us on the ground. What was picturesque and somewhat disturbing was what served as apologies from the pilot once we took off. He didn’t blame the weather, or the fact that the other airport was closed, or just "I don’t know". You see, for him the problem was higher up and his company had nothing to do with it. The "chief", that is the President of Brazil was the culprit!!! He even accused the government of being corrupt.

I am all for freedom of expression, but in this case I found myself very unnerved. First, the company obviously didn’t do a good job even considering the conditions. For example, our baggage didn’t come with us in the plane. In fact, I only received it today, four days later. This can’t possibly be Lula’s fault. In addition, a company whose owner is all over the news because of  extremely shady negotiations with a senator and ex-governor of the federal district involving a 3 million reais check cannot possibly  point out corruption from others with a straight face. Finally, how is one supposed to respond to the pilot? His position of authority on air makes it very hard and even unwise to attempt any answer.

Thanks for the very pleasing (for me) week, I didn’t get stressed  over the whole thing. (nor did all but a couple of the passengers) I am back, it is cold, and I already miss Salvador… 

The newly designed CCEB was designed using a regression of household income on a  set of items and trimming them down using qualitative. For example, computers are excluded given the accelerated increase in computer ownership taking place. We don’t want items  that are subject to large changes in a short period of time, since consumption power itself does not in general move very fast.

My first qualm with it is (you guessed) methodological in nature. You see, the regression they estimated as a basis of the index has the log of household income on the set of items with no interactions whatsoever! This can’t possibly be the "best" regression they could find! And I am pretty sure it wasn’t. The underlying objective is to have a way for interviewers on the field to categorize the "class" of the respondent as a filter (for quotas), and they probably think interviewers in Brazil know how to add but not how to multiply. ABEP criticizes the Mexico index for using a classification tree  (which neatly allows interactions) for being too prone to error by interviewers. I would like to see the study showing this.

So, how does the CCEB look like? Based on the regression they created a point system.  Thus, if you have one color TV you get one point and if you have four you get four points. In addition, you get extra points for the education of the head of the household.

Now excuse me for I have to go  to the store buy some cheap radios…

What we do not mean by "random" is that all genes are equally likely to mutate (some are more mutable than others) or that all mutations are equally likely (some types of DNA change are more common than others). It is more accurate, then, to call mutations "indifferent" rather than "random": the chance of a mutation happening is indifferent to whether it would be helpful or harmful.

Indifferent?!? Come on! Wouldn’t it be better to use an actual statistical term for a, uh, statistical concept? Yes, like independent. [tex]P(A|B)=P(A)[/tex]. My dictionary informs me that indifferent can mean three things: a) "having no particular interest"; b) "neither good or bad". (Both would seem more fitting to an ID proponent, don’t you think?) or c) (in archaic biology neutral in respect of some specified physical property.) Our ability to create unnecessary new terms never ceases to amaze me.

Not really. It is Stata waiting for me to press a key! WTF!! It’s been like so for as many versions as I remember.

So we thought that creating graphs to display regression tables was essential to our task. Thais to turn, this:

into a nice graph.

We are currently revising the paper for (re)submission, and are still undecided on how to display such graphs. Here are some of the several revisions, from one of the first (back in November)

This one from later in the same month

And the two I am currently looking, taking out the boxes aroud the plots. This one is minimalist:

And the next one has the x-axis repeated in each plot:

My coauthor thinks the boxes are necessary, I cite Tufte over and over and say they aren’t. I think we will have to arrange an intercontinental boxing match to settle the issue.