Miguel Fernández y Fernández, engineer

Suelly Svartman Printzak (she added Printzak when she married in 1967), was born in Rio de Janeiro in 1936, daughter of Ukrainian Jews, who came to Brazil fleeing the “pogroms” of the period at the end of the Russian Empire and the beginning of the communist republics, both periods and groups with antisemitic connotations. She has one son, 4 granddaughters and a sister, Miriam (Carioca, 1944), a French teacher. In 1959, at 23 years of age, newly graduated in “letters” from th

>>> Jan/Mar 2018, Bio Magazine It was 1970, the world divided between the “West” (led by the USA) and the “East” (led by Russia), and the so-called “space race” was a way of measuring strength without “resorting to ignorance”. Between 1958 and 1967, Russia had placed in Earth orbit the first artificial satellite (Sputnik), the first living being (the dog Laika) and the first human being (the pilot Gagarin), and was evidently taking the lead. However, it was surpassed by the

In the first semester of 1989, in Jornal do Brasil, the brilliant Millôr Fernandes had been addressing the subject of “Seat Belts”, in such a way that, besides defending the non-mandatory use of the belt, he seemed to advance toward defending non-use itself, which in my view made the position not very sustainable. But then a gentleman named Robert appears, resident in Rio de Janeiro, in a letter published in JB on Jun 2, 1989, identifying himself as president of a multinatio

Within ethically defensible and sound principles, tax theory created a redistributive tax known as the "Income Tax" (IR). In Brazil, as with so many other things, it gradually became distorted and ended up serving merely as a revenue-raising instrument. Older news reports pointed out that the largest individual income taxpayer in Brazil was Senor Abravanel (Sílvio Santos), who, by himself, as an individual taxpayer, paid (1998 figures) more than any of the automobile manufac

I once heard the late João Saldanha trying to explain why sports announcers said so much nonsense: “go there and speak for 90 straight minutes without stopping, otherwise the listener thinks the radio went off the air and changes stations, you’ll end up saying nonsense, you will…” I remembered this after hearing (and reading) so much in the “media” that Flamengo’s training center did not have a certain “permit” (as good rivals rival each other in everything, it seems that t

>>> Oct/Dec 2018, ABES Bio Magazine I heard this story many times and from several sources, which led me to seek out the protagonist, engineer Paulo Ferreira, a distinguished professional in our field, whom I had the honor of being a colleague of at COMASP-SABESP in the 1970s, which helped in this summary: In the 1960s, the HazenSawier consortium prepared a Water Master Plan for greater São Paulo (GSP), which included, in the southern pole of the metropolis, the Capivari

Recently (Jan2020), newspapers reported a statement by Minister Paulo Guedes about creating a "Sin Tax." According to the news reports, the minister referred to cigarettes, alcoholic beverages, sugar (!), and similar products. He did not mention art, books, sex, or naughty pleasures, but I became concerned. Will condoms now be taxed as a sin or as a luxury item? He must have coordinated that with Damares, who, by advocating abstinence, turns condoms into both a sin and a l

>>> Jan/Mar 2018, Bio Magazine In 1990, there was a Luso-Brazilian Symposium on Sanitary Engineering (Silubesa) in Braga. Several colleagues from Brazil went and, upon arriving there, we discovered that there was a valid attempt to expand the event into, let us say, a Lusophone Symposium on Sanitary Engineering (Silues?), because a banner at the entrance welcomed colleagues from Brazil but also “colleagues” from Angola, Mozambique, Cape Verde, Guinea, São Tomé, East Timo

Doing something that cannot be undone is a decision that lasts a lifetime. It is difficult to recognize that. It requires balance and common sense at all times. Difficult to maintain balance and common sense all the time. You feel like doing it, so you do it. Once it's done, then what? How does it end up? Having a child is not a decision that can be undone. It requires awareness. Primitive minds? Unfortunate moments? They only realize the mistake afterward. Sometimes not eve

In the little magazine “Seleções do Reader’s Digest”, American pocket literature very much in vogue in Brazil in the 1950s-1970s (translated and sold at “newspaper stands”), one of the fixed sections was always “my unforgettable type”, where readers sent texts alluding to the theme and some editor or copy desk at the publishing house gave it a good finish. I read Seleções a lot and, every now and then, I identify people worthy of being perpetuated on paper, for being folklori

It was July 1989, and I spent a weekend in La Paz because of work. Someone had recommended visiting the ruins of Tihuanacu (the Portuguese spelling of the Aymara word, from the Quechuan language family). It is an archaeological site about 60 km west of La Paz and approximately 20 km from Lake Titicaca, at an altitude of about 3,850 meters. On Friday, I arranged the excursion at the hotel's front desk. On Saturday morning, a friendly gentleman with that unmistakable Inca appe

In the lyrics of the song “The drunkard and the tightrope walker”, with brilliant irony and timing, João Bosco and Aldir Blanc poked at the atmosphere of the time by recalling: the evening fell like a viaduct, the viaducts are falling, the viaducts are falling! I remembered this when, recently, a viaduct fell in Genoa, Italy, and I set out to write an article about engineering works, increasingly made at the lowest cost, increasingly with less maintenance, as if they had to

Dear fellow citizen, do not just complain, grumble, or remain outraged—take part in politics! Join a political party! If we do not do so, those who do will rule over us. Over us, our children, our grandchildren, and our descendants. All that will remain for us is to complain in the corners. If we intend to continue living in this country, in this land, if we do not imagine ourselves moving to Portugal, Miami, or anywhere else, as our Venezuelan neighbors were forced to do,

Collor de Mello had been president since the beginning of 1990. It was “National Water Day” (Mar 22, 1991). A group of professionals from all over Brazil arranged to go to Brasília because there would be a session of the Chamber of Deputies dedicated to the sanitation sector (potable water, sanitary sewage, stormwater drainage, garbage collection and final disposal, and vector control). Some newly sworn-in deputies, from all over Brazil, were from the sector. I remember

The years were 1984 and 1985. SANEAGO had contracted the complete design of the water intake, storage and macro-distribution system for potable water in Goiânia, with a horizon for a population on the order of 2,750,000 inhabitants. Big thing. SANEAGO asked that the design of the reservoirs be standardized and modularized to be adopted throughout the state. They were to be made of reinforced concrete (prestressed or not). Since there would be many large reservoirs throughout

It was 1988. Flights between Ecuador and Brazil (and vice versa) were operated by VARIG, which landed in Guayaquil, a coastal port city (at sea level), on alternate days that is, every other day. I believe the aircraft continued on to Mexico, making stops along the way, before returning. Whenever this was the case, VARIG included accommodation at a good hotel, the OroVerde, as part of the ticket. A group of six Brazilians, all connected in one way or another with EMSA (a Bra

When he finally made it to university, he chose to study engineering, to be as close as possible to what he considered a "blue-collar worker" with a higher education. A worker. There was a certain political aspect to this choice, because his schoolmates came from a higher socioeconomic background than his own, and he perceived a kind of proselytism in the "sermons" they delivered in favor of the proletariat, of the so-called "underprivileged." The more his classmates claime

I did not have the courage to do this “report” for “A Forja” without first going to the little church beside the school to attend mass and commend my soul to God and then ask Prof. Oswaldo for a “ride” in his Chevrolet 64 (1864), attached photo. Once the objectives were explained, Oswaldo himself helped reconstruct the history of the jalopy: of North American origin. It is not known for certain how it arrived in Brazil, but it must have been around 1910. It had a shape diffe

Since the first time I heard the neologism “AI” as an abbreviation for “Artificial Intelligence”, it did not sit well with me. Initially, it seemed to me a translation error, then the term, probably of North American origin, began to be adopted worldwide. Since “artificial intelligence” is something that does not exist and, God willing, will not exist, it remained in the air what one meant by that. It seems that the correct thing would be to say “Intelligent Automatism - IA”

The teacher Assuf, as most people referred to him, was a man of distinguished bearing, always dressed in impeccable suits, including the waistcoat (hence a three-piece suit), beautiful silk ties, and driving a car that was unique in the city, perhaps even in the country: an exceptionally elegant metallic gray English Bentley, with the steering wheel on the right-hand side. He was an example that a lawyer could succeed through the practice of his profession. Ill-intentioned go