Cool report of Frederikshavn

The North Jutland city of Frederikshavn is defined first and foremost by the sea. The excellent natural harbor and giant ferries dominate the town. It is a gateway to Norway and Sweden and the heavy ferry traffic from those countries has led to a large concentration of shops and amenities to be expected more in a town twice its size. The international atmosphere, busy shopping streets, and lively nightlife characterize the area. Evidence of habitation dates back to the Stone Age, and the city itself dates to the mid-1500s, but the town is mostly modern in appearance. Known as the “City of Plaice,” the city has given its name to “Frederikshavner,” the large fried plaice found on menus all over the country. Krudttårnet, a gun tower museum (c.1686), has walls six feet thick and houses collections of weapons. Nearby Bangsbomuseet is an old estate and manor house with displays of navigation instruments, town history, World War II relics, exhibits of the Danish Resistance, and Ellingåskib, the reconstructed remains of a 12th century Viking ship dug up nearby. In the same area you will find a botanical garden and deer park. Residents and visitors to Frederikshavn enjoy a number of open-air concerts during the year.

Ok, I think it’s some type of commercial, but here is the link.

Regional Studies Association 2008 Conference.

I’m going now to Prague, Czech Republic, for the Conference. I’m quite nervous for my presentation. I will upload, later. I’m afraid I will be working on it till the last minute.
My conference paper, wanted to go on a direction I could not take due to my questions. It will be soon online too.
It’s quite exciting to go to a conference where I’m going to talk for the first time, it’s not my first presentation in public, but is the first one in a Conference.

Joel Kotkin vs. Richard Florida. II

This post is like a continuation of Kotkin comes to Denmark to kick R. Florida

So my colleague H.P. pointed me out that Florida quotes Kotkin in “The Rise of the Creative Class” to support his argument. I totally overlooked at it! In fact, Florida quotes him a couple of times, and it looks they’re perfectly in tune.
Googling a little bit about their relationship, I found that Florida last summer gave his opinion about the “Kotkin-Florida debate” as he says, quoting Bill Fulton to support that Kotkin came after him without any reason and that Kotkin’s arguments are getting old. I don’t know what to say about that. I mean these guys don’t really like each other.  

The thing is that they are working in different spheres, they both bring their contributions, but sometimes is just hard (at least for me) to put them together. I also feel that Kotkin has his feet more on the ground, but he just focus on criticizing instead of giving ideas. For example, Kotkin and Florida meet in Pittsburg last February. They agree in immigration, entrepreneurship, and both disagree in building huge projects (like the stadium), but it’s they’re always putting disagreeing at the end.

Gotta love these guys.  

hard bloggin’ scientist

I subscribe to this Manifesto. Even if you do not mention it in your blog, I hope you also do.

First post

Before starting my phd I considered starting a blog so I could share some of the ideas that I would find during these next 3 years. It would help to track my work and as a sketch of my final project. However I did not know how suitable it would be for me to openly write about my project. Is not that it’s a secret one or something, in fact some issues in my project involve the issues of networking, systems, innovation, all reasons which I believe it would be good to have a blog. I found some very good blogs of other phd students and I really enjoyed them. They are an example for me and I hope that I’m also able to share some of the same energy many phd fellows have.

Besides being a log of my work, my intentions for this blog is to regularly posts things that I find interesting and that I know that someone at sometime would find also interesting.

My phd just started, and I have 3 years in front of me. I will read, and learn many things, and I will try to share some of this things with you.