melaniecolburn

wow - Cherry Top with Chocolate Peninsula Desk Wall Unit $3,400

2009-09-24T00:48:00.001-07:00

http://www.computerdeskexperts.com/Cherry-Top-with-Chocolate-
Peninsula-Desk-Wall-Unit-EX04382.aspx

Congress Orders Investigation Into Pentagon Propaganda Aimed at Citizens

2008-05-28T17:45:00.000-07:00

It is finally time for the American people to know the truth.

ouch.

2008-03-17T15:46:00.001-07:00

From Reuters, via Jeremy: "A U.S. two dollar bill is taped to the revolving door leading to the Bear Stearns global headquarters in New York March 17, 2008. JPMorgan Chase & Co said on Sunday it would buy stricken rival Bear Stearns for just $2 a share in an all-stock deal that values the U.S. investment bank at the centre of the credit crisis at about $236 million."

On a Lady, Presidential Candidate

2008-02-27T15:16:00.000-08:00

Well, Maureen Dowd's well written article ("¿Quién Es Less Macho?" NYT, 2/24/08) first struck me as a prototypical product of political journalism forcing out a strong thesis at the cost of misrepresenting reality. Then, on second thought, I realized that the author is getting at part of what I was trying to say without all the researched details: that Hillary has had to play a different sort of game-- dancing backwards in heels, if you will.

Now to me, this is a bit like trial by fire to me, which has made her stronger, more flexible, more resilient, forced her to pay more attention and give more care to the changing demands of others.

Aside from this though, Dowd aims to point out that Hillary has honed herself as "one of the boys" at the expense of the vital feminine elements she could have--and her male opponent does--bring to the campaign, and presumably could bring to the White House. This is where I think Dowd is stretching---to bring a stunning eloquent thesis, replete with turns of surprise and ironic tragedy to the printed page at the cost of misrepresenting the situation and damaging the candidates (maybe both).

OK, in a way Dowd is right to the extent that, and here is the hard part to swallow, her message and the willingness of many others-- journalists, voters and otherwise-- to portray Hillary as somehow a traitor to her sex and a callous, overreaching Machiavelli who has designed herself in the cast of her desired image is both impossibly sexist and at once an intentionally selective abuse of a common criticism of politicians.

Hillary, as a female candidate, is forced purely by her sex, the fact of being a woman, to safeguard her position as a strong leader. This political necessity of the campaign is a strategy, not the essence of a candidate. In other words, if we were to transpose any other candidate into her shoes, they would--regardless of their political thoughts and personality--come to the same conclusion and play the same strategy.

That is commonly acknowledged. But what is not is that it is a testament to our society --- that we are, in a more imperceptible and less obvious way, not ready as a country to elect a woman to the Presidency. Our society is still stuck in putting undue pressures on a candidate who happens to be female, pressure sufficiently strong as to be an overarching force on the candidacy and play a dominant role shaping the foundations of that campaign.

Now, the question becomes, how has Hillary reacted to this? Has she, as Dowd asserts in her column, bowed entirely to this sexist wont --- a social discrimination on the societal scale that she is at once required to in some way to respond to internally and yet outwardly feign ignorance?

And so does Hillary successfully "out-macho" her opponents, to quote Dowd? That is a determination for us each individually to calculate. But, I would suggest to you that although on an electoral level the perception of that trait may play its part, this does not mean it needs to influence either your evaluation of this candidate as an individual or impact your vote.

Perhaps it is worthwhile to stop here and point out why she must feign ignorance. To publicly acknowledge this tide of subtle yet formidable sexism would inflame the following negative effects: first, if Hillary were to admit that the country is still fundamentally sexist, she would inadvertently suggest to the Democratic Party that her sex makes her unelectable and therefore, she could potentially prematurely forfeit herself from inclusion in the race. Second, were Hillary to discuss the sexism she faces openly it would cause both the press to jump on the hot story of a Presidential candidate and a well-known public figure putting forth accusations against the very electorate from whom she wishes to garner votes and, simultaneously, draw attention away from the substance of her campaign. She wishes to run for President, for change, not against something, a societal problem or otherwise.

Third, in bringing focus to the inherent sexism to which her campaign must react--or rather, simply illuminating the elephant in the room--Hillary would be sending forth the message that she is a feminist of the type that 'criticizes' rather than 'solves problems'. The prior is a negative stereotype that has emerged by illogically bifurcating it from the latter in our cultural consciousness. From her beginnings as a political activist, through her marriage to the Governor of Arkansas, to her role in the Clinton Administration, Hillary became labeled as a ring leader of that first group of feminists--the type good old fashioned folks "just didn't like and they didn't know why". She was and is, of course, not in any way limited to this negative stereotype of a confrontational feminist--no more than any feminist is, no more than the stereotype holds integrity itself. However, if the history of politics has proven anything, it is that appearances can be everything. And so yes, insofar as discrimination is a reality and reputation is power, then Hillary Clinton begins at a deficit, even if in character, accomplishments, experience, and political and moral education, she is a diamond in the rough.

A diamond in the rough is not a cliche I use lightly. Based on whom she is and what she has done, I believe she is a diamond. But in what rough? That skin as rough as any needed to get a human being--a brother, a mother, an individual--through the scorching Presidential political race and into the White House, except hers needs to a be a bit thicker to prove she is not a girl, but a man who happens to be female.

Someday, to be a woman will be enough, but that day has not yet come. Sadly. Will it come before November? Well, in an imperceptibly small way, I hope this will help. If nothing else, it is a salve for me to write down these thoughts, which have been itching within me these past few weeks.

2008-02-16T03:00:00.001-08:00

Snow Packed

2008-01-10T14:42:00.000-08:00

I'm planning a snowboarding trip with a group of friends--including more than a few first-time boarders. So I'm rounding up tips from reflections on my first snowboarding trips as a novice boarder. This is the first in a three-part series of posts: with the first on gear, the second running through boarding the mountain, and the last a few niceties what I wish I'd known before my first time boarding.

For a beginning boarder, good gear is especially valuable: it can make the difference in keeping your spirits up, the difference between falling the fifth time while you're wet and cold, and falling and getting right back up for another (better) run. When you're learning, you want as few negative distractions as possible: bring the right gear and give yourself the advantage in learning.

When you're learning (and fooling around and floundering while trying to learn) you're going to want to be comfortable, padded and stay as dry as possible. You are going to land on your ass, you are going eat some snow--

GEAR TO BRING

Essential

SNOWBOARD (rent/borrow)
BOARDING BOOTS & BINDINGS (rent/borrow)
BOARDING PANTS (rent/borrow)
WATERPROOF GLOVES (ideally, snowboarding gloves)
BEANIE (stylish as you all are, I'm sure you already have three)
SCARF (you may want to just zip your jacket, but I find the collar gets in my way--remember you'll be boarding sideways--and I want to unzip to cool off.)
KNEE-HIGH, THICK SOCKS

I <3 mine.
Ideally, snowboarding socks. (If you buy one piece of gear for the trip--I recommend this.)

GOGGLES (Get/borrow real snow goggles if you can. You want maximum visibility--especially since as a beginner you won't know what to expect going down the mountain. Sunglasses work, but they'll probably come flying off.)
WARM/WATERPROOF JACKET

This means a snow jacket, OR
My first few times out, I just took a large Northface rain jacket and wore multiple long-sleeved layers underneath. If you go this route and you want to keep toasty, like me, try to include a combination of these layers (yes, all of them):

a silken/underwear
a thermal layer
a breathable poly-blend layer (like a running shirt)
1-2 long-sleeve cotton shirts
and (if you're really cold) a sweatshirt.

Note: Do not bring a down jacket unless it's waterproof. Down is not an effective insulator when it's wet.

Nice

IBUPROPHIN (trust me)
SNACK (stick a power bar in your jacket so you don't have to stop in the middle of your run to pay obscene rates for the same thing at the lodge)
WALKIE-TALIKE (we like to play spy on the mountain ; ) They're also good for staying in touch--where cell phone coverage is bleak. If you have one, bring it.)

Post mountain

MOUNTAIN/SNOW BOOTS or the closest thing you have to it. My leather hiking boots work fine.
JACKET/SWEATSHIRT (your boarding jacket will be cold)
EXTRA SOCKS (just in case yours get wet)

In sum

> > DRESS IN LAYERS. so you can control your temperature. you'll get hot when you move. you'll get cold when you fall.
> > COVER YOUR EXTREMITIES. Head, hands, and fingers are the most vulnerable to the cold. Most heat loss will come from your head.
> > PLAY DRESS UP. Do try on all your gear on at least once before you pack. I've seen underwear, socks and gloves forgotten this way--or alternately, miraculously remembered at the final hour.
> > WATERPROOF & BREATHABLE MATERIAL.
> > THINK: MOBILITY & MINIMAL BULK.

Rentals

BOREAL has a Beginner's Package: http://www.rideboreal.com/winter/lessons/beginner_packages
BOREAL/ http://www.rideboreal.com/winter/rentals/gear_rentals
SFO/ http://www.sfosnow.com/ @ Haight
REI/ http://www.rei.com/stores/rentals.html

Hope you find this helpful. If you have more suggestions or questions, add them to the comments.

Merry, Merry Quite Contrary

2007-12-26T01:31:00.000-08:00

A little holiday humor and wishful thinking from Current TV.

Beleaguered by the Intelligentsia

2007-11-27T09:41:00.000-08:00

A new work of intellectual history by puts forth that the brains have been behind our downfall all along. EconLog looks it over Bill Greene's Common Genius:

While a major theme of this book is that a historical progress has bubbled up from the bottom -- from the actions of the common men and women of history--a secondary theme is that most of history’s evils have come from the top--the intelligentsia, the organized groups, the soft-science experts who arise in mature societies and lead their nation’s decline.

Greene's over-arching intellectual theory is that intellectuals with over-arching theories are a the chief threat to civilization. In William Easterly's terms, ordinary people are Searchers, who try to improve things by trial and error. Intellectuals are Planners, whose grandiose attempts at top-down organization are doomed to failure, sometimes with a totalitarian mode of implementation in the process.

Wherefore art thou...?

2007-11-20T02:13:00.000-08:00

House Aristos points to a Ronald Bailey article in Reason, “Our Intangible Riches”--interviewing "World Bank economist Kirk Hamilton about his team’s investigation into wealth and capital. The team’s results are published in Where is the Wealth of Nations?, available from the World Bank site. In short, the wealth of nations lies primarily in intangible capital; the education of the populace and the quality of social institutions."

Is it so tasty now?

2007-11-19T23:23:00.000-08:00

Why Does a Salad Cost More Than a Big Mac?

(Fo)odometer!

2007-11-19T22:26:00.000-08:00

the dud kernel that won't pop

2007-11-19T21:05:00.000-08:00

What if the gov’t gave Apple $300 for each iPod they manufactured. They would make one billion iPods a month. What would happen next? They would sell them to other companies for $20 each, who would dissassemble them and make new consumer electronics out of the scavenged iPod parts. You would have telephones with scroll wheels and pink medicine cabinets made from Nano shells. The Sharper Image would sell The iPod Wall. This is a grid of 1,200 iPod screens coordinated to look like one massive iPod and costs a hundred dollars.

Replace iPods with corn kernels and you have the model for our federal food program.

— Jakob Lodwick on the U.S. farm subsidies (read the whole thing) via Macro via OwenJ23
There should be a word for the dud kernels that won't pop. Someone should neologize that.

of love and life

2007-11-14T14:36:00.000-08:00

On love and expectations.

So actually, I have to admit that I didn't intend to post that link...that was a fortuitous accident. But then DAL posted a comment--and I get the feeling there might be others who'd like it there. And yes, happily, it does apply to me too.

Running

2007-09-26T11:50:00.000-07:00

A marketing firm selected me to write a running blog for the next few days. If you're interested in reading my corny love-prangs about hammering the pavement whilst dodging sprinkler attacks and throngs of tourists, you may do so here: http://flamingo419melanie-colburn.blogspot.com/.

The marketing company, Greenberg Studios, also asked me to do an interview with their client...while running...on video. Decidedly prime-time material.

For the Entrepreneur in All of Us ;)

2007-09-19T17:07:00.000-07:00

Fred's Top 10 Signs You're Made to be an Entrepreneur

10. You are unemployable. You can’t hold a job. You don’t want to hold a job. And you react to getting a job the same way a cat reacts when you try to give it a bath.

9. You are anti-authoritarian. You can’t fathom the thought of being anything less than Boss, President, Chairman, Don, and/or Emperor.

8. You have the uncanny ability to get other people to do all the work.

7. You are always looking for and/or seeing economic opportunity everywhere and in everything. While at a concert, you occupy yourself by estimating the evening’s take and its gross margins instead of listening to the music.

6. You spend more time and energy looking for easier, faster, cheaper, more effective ways of accomplishing something than if you just did the task outright.

5. You would enthusiastically trade a life-time pass to Disneyland for one ride in the Vomit Comet. In other words, you would give up a secure, even-keeled, bland existence for a life that whipsaws uncontrollably between exhilaration and terror.
4. You don’t see lack of money, lack of knowledge, and lack of experience as barriers to entry. You are also not deterred by the existence of formidable competition.

...the last three aren't as good.
via. http://lazyway.blogs.com

Fed up with Bush & Co.

2007-09-19T15:01:00.000-07:00

“I’m just very disappointed,” he said glumly, as he sat in his living room. “Smaller government, lower spending, lower taxes, less regulation — they had the resources to do it, they had the knowledge to do it, they had the political majorities to do it. And they didn’t.”

Grandfather Greenspan is fed-up with the Bush League (NYT article).

And what does Greenspan, who recently put out a memoir entitled The Age of Turbulence, have to say in response to accussations that the Fed contributed to factors precipitating the housing bubble and hence its eventual burst?

“There has been a bit of historical revisionism going on,” Mr. Greenspan grumbled. The real force behind soaring real estate prices, he said, was a global one: a drop in worldwide inflation and interest rates, in part because of the end of the Cold War and the rise of China as a manufacturing colossus.

I think the Fed knew exactly what he was doing: making the best the best play he could in the short-run in an otherwise no-win situation. He was facing (it's true) much larger forces in the global capital markets, still waiting to have their effect in the future. But in addition, he was well aware (and warning) that a high national deficit, low savings/investment rates, and high consumer debt rate was a 'recipe for disaster' (if i may borrow that phrase). If you were sitting there watching both Americans and the government throw the long-term to the wind, then looking out the window at foreign markets and seeing multi-decade set-up for a dollar-drop waiting to peak... wouldn't you just go ahead and allow one more (inevitable) sweet bubble to rise before the reality hit?

Genetically-Coded Moral Game Theory

2007-09-18T21:13:00.000-07:00

"But for animals that live in groups, selfishness must be strictly curbed or there will be no advantage to social living."

So, there's this fascinating article in the NYT, "Is 'Do Unto Others' Written Into Our Genes?" about research on the genetic basis of our moral instincts and rules--- It's great. Go read it.--- But that's not really what I want to talk about. I just want to note my tangential "primitive gut reaction" to one of the first sentences of the article (above).

Mind wandering... Society and social relationships are just iterated games in the game theory model; right? So negotiating the terms of the relationship or social structure is like deciding the rules and the duration of the game. And, in light of the article, it seems we might have an instinctual drive to determine and shape those rules in order to prohibit or deter certain selfish behaviors.

It seems forming a relationship structure is essentially cementing of the game structure and length (singular, iterated? frequency?). There's a (conscious or unconscious) impetus to get that in place, because it effects the partner's (conscious or unconscious) strategy in the game. How should I approach this situation if we share an established relationship or not? Should I tip the waiter when I'm out of town? Should I compromise because this my friend or is that person not part of one of my significant relationships?

The tip the waiter example is a classic of game theory textbooks, I think. It's interesting to think about this in terms of negotiating the relationship itself, though, and specifically in terms of it being biologically hard-wired over millions (thousands, according to the article) of years.

As with Netflicks, someone has probably thought about all this and done of a ton of research already. But I'm not on top of my academic reading in psychology, sociology, anthropology, cognitive science, biology, gender studies, stop me when I've lost you...

Which brings me to a final concluding note that is actually related to the article in question. Centuries or millennia from now, people are going to look back on all our social and pseudo-science disciplines of study (which I totally respect, by the way--mostly anyway) and think:

'Wow, so their brains were like 90% instinct and they were just growing rational parts, and they spent incredible amounts time, energy and resources towards figuring themselves out and trying to cope with their befuddled half-animal, half-modern brains. What a fascinating pack of hairless monkeys we come from!"

You know what we need?

2007-09-18T20:47:00.000-07:00

A Last.fm for movies.

OK, fine, I just realized IMDb has a recommendation system based on user reviews. But that's not it. I'm talking about a similar system that tracks users viewing choices and then creates most-likely to like lists based on data. It would suggest not just movies you haven't seen from people who's movie tastes most closely match your own, but also suggest buddies that are statistically close to you in taste, so you can go ahead and browse their stash directly.

If you're not already familiar with Last.fm, you can check it all out at... Last.fm. The crux of it comes from a little app you download that 'listens in' to your iTunes choices. And, you can friend me too, for that matter.

OK, now someone go do that. 50-50, right?

**Oh wait, Netflicks already does this. (Thanks, Peter) And no I didn't know--- wow, but I like!

Notes on Self-publishing

2007-09-18T10:17:00.000-07:00

Mobile design expert, Cameron Moll recounts his experience self-publishing his new book and offers comparisons with the traditional publishing process of his first book. A useful read for anyone who's considered self-publishing: an outline of work process, motivations, costs and benefits.

...I just realized that I recently picked-up a copy of Moll's co-authored book, CSS Mastery. And now I have his blog, Authentic Boredom; how convenient.

Fair Use Fueling the Economy

2007-09-15T14:33:00.000-07:00

From an interesting new Fair Use study by the Computer and Communications Industry Association:

The study -- which I encourage you to check out -- concludes that the "fair use economy" in 2006 accounted for $4.6 trillion in revenues (roughly one-sixth of total U.S. gross domestic product), employed more than 17 million people, and supported a payroll of $1.2 trillion (approximately one out of every eight workers in the US). It also generated $194 billion in exports and significant productivity growth. Using a methodology similar to a previous World Intellectual Property Organization guide, the results of the study demonstrate that fair use is an important economic driver in the digital age.

Copyright law involves a delicate balance, and here in the U.S. fair use is an important part of that equation. This study suggests that it's also an important part of the U.S. economy.

Quoted from the Google Blog, via Searchblog. The comments include some worthwhile notes on the implication of this data and "fair" comments about Google's awkward championing of this study.

As if you didn't know already...

2007-09-09T21:40:00.000-07:00

"Bush didn't give a fuck about the intelligence. He had his mind made up," the other officer said.

A Salon exclusive by Sidney Blumenthal delivers the testimony of two more CIA officers, corroborating Tenent's report that Bush was aware of and buried intelligence that Iraq possessed no WMDs nor a program to build them.

The Bush Administration: Like America's Concerned Ex-boyfriend

2007-09-05T15:17:00.000-07:00

"I know she has nothing to hide--but only because I've been monitoring her. The Bush Administration is like America's concerned ex-boyfriend--who's not psycho or insane--they just want to make sure you're OK! ...and not hooking up with any terrorists, like you promised."

Strung Along by Puppets

2007-08-23T22:46:00.000-07:00

Over at Hyphen, I wrote down a few thoughts about Avenue Q, which I watched last night at the Orpheum Theatre in San Francisco. But let's face it, I wasn't doing much thinking after walking out the theatre doors. Mimicking the Bad Idea Bears was all my friends and I could do--with their open-armed gesticulations and brightly-sinister voices. I've been humming "It Sucks to Be Me" and "The Internet is for Porn" for a day now, with vocal back-up.

More than anything, it was a fantastic show. I was impressed by the sophistication of the humor, the wit of its currency and the timeless of its irony. Those puppets (with human hands up their asses) sometimes shocked me into good sense. It's so irreverent and honest for the sake of humor that it's been more effective in describing human relationships, social striving, and personal desires than most modern accounts I've come across-- fiction or nonfiction.

I hate to be over-exuberant especially since I know that catchy "da-da da-da-daAH!" sequence from "It Sucks to Be Me" is still rolling around my head-- but if you take some Brothers Karamazov, pull out the religion, throw in some puppets, excise the turgid criminality and add a little musical number-- I think you have something approaching the way Avenue Q has captured our modern human drama.

OK. Now go use the internet for what monsters intended....

Rock-solid

2007-08-23T12:11:00.000-07:00

My good friend, Lisamaria Martinez, just took home the silver medal for judo at the Para-Pan-American Games in Rio de Janerio. As the Union Bay Argus reports: "Although she hasn't officially qualified, it seems certain she will represent the United States at the Para-Olympics next year in Beijing."

The Argus also points out that LM has "chiseled calves and rock-solid quads". What they fail, though, to report is the real highlight of the event: the swarms of Brazilian men admiring her insanely buff arms.

Nicely done, LM-- all around! ;)

Invite: Relevant Parties Excluded

2007-08-21T22:39:00.000-07:00

A conference on blogging that won't let in prototypical bloggers? Doesn't sound like the best idea, now does it?

Information Week discusses the "Blogging Convention Open Only To Traditional Press" (aka blogworld).

"Press credentials are open only to accredited members of the professional media and will require submission of articles and verification that you intend to write for a publication on the conference."

Wikipedia entry for "Publication": To publish is to make publicly known, and in reference to text and images, it can mean distributing paper copies to the public, or putting the content on a website.

[Update] A reader's comment made me realize I need to clarify this post:

The point of interest here is the Expo's muddled self-referential exclusion, not a protest of the exclusion per se. The Expo wants to clarify what blogging is and help bloggers establish themselves as new media. Yet, in the same stroke, the conference is unable to properly sort out bloggers from journalists effectively without getting caught in the tangle of the very definitions it's attempting to sort out. That is the point. I skipped underlining that because I thought it was self-evident.

Sharp, young eyes

2007-08-21T12:52:00.000-07:00

Demand for a viewspaper--- no kidding.

There's a new survey by the reliably non-partisan Pew Research Center for the People and the Press: Roughly a quarter of Americans now use the Internet as their primary news source. Pew's study finds that the Web crowd is younger and better-educated than most Americans and far more dissatisfied with their country's news media. It's fair to assume that a substantial number of them are among the British papers' U.S. readers, people who want a "viewspaper." -- The Merc, via socialmedia.biz.

I've been thinking around customizing media for this newer generation, actually; so if anyone wants to kick around ideas about creating some media, let me know. It's nice to see this Pew study. I didn't really have any data to go on before, just some creative and unverified poking in the dark. Interested in a project?

What does $456 billion buy?

2007-08-21T11:59:00.000-07:00

The estimated total cost for the Iraq War may reach $456 billion in September, according to the National Priorities Project. The amount got The Boston Globe wondering: What would $456 billion buy?

"14.5 million years through Harvard (44 million at UMass).
"Medicare benefits for one year.
"Eliminate starvation and malnutrition globally by 2015, while $30 billion would provide a year of primary education for every child on earth."

[unraveled]

Just a quote...

2007-08-21T00:21:00.000-07:00

"While certainly not dead, strategic planning has long since fallen from its pedestal. But even now, few people fully understand the reason: strategic planning is not strategic thinking. Indeed, strategic planning often spoils strategic thinking, causing managers to confuse real vision with the manipulation of numbers. And this confusion lies at the heart of of the issue: the most successful strategies are visions, not plans."

-- Henry Mintzberg, "The Fall and Rise of Strategic Planning" in MBA in a Box, edited by Joel Kurtzman.

The Onion Reports: Karl Rove Resigns!

2007-08-17T11:53:00.000-07:00

I've been so waiting for this gag. :)

the onion.

Scrybe beta user!

2007-08-14T23:33:00.000-07:00

After Scrybe's pre-beta announcement stood at my Digg #1 spot for 298 days--whilst major news and tech releases came and went-- Scrybe is finally in actual beta! And guess who's a beta user. :)

Don't have a clue what I'm talking about? Scrybe is a web-based calendar and scheduling service that translates into the 3-D world in which we live. Its features look not just intuitive-- but built around convention to work as you would want it to work. Also, it includes some functionality like Google Notebook and it prints into a nice origami stork! (well, something very close to that. maybe, an origami pigeon. it's been awhile since I watched the video)

Who is it for? People like me who write shit down, on paper-- people who scribble, takes notes, and need to fidget with folds. It's also for people who may have internet-access on their phones/PDAs but prefer not to bleed out of their nose per minute they need to access what time they need to be where (for the fifth time, in an hour!).

Anyway, I love giving comments and suggestions (read: ripping apart and helping to better rebuild) products as a beta user. So, here goes. :)

Google News to Allow Comments

2007-08-14T23:09:00.000-07:00

Wow. This is a big one. Google News plans to allow readers to post comments in reaction to news items. The trial begins in the U.S., allowing only persons directly mentioned in the article to submit comments.

Still, what a step! Many online news sites do not yet allow for comments, sensitive as many traditional media organizations are about public feedback and the anarchy of the masses. This allows for the creation of communities (a sticky, valuable substance online that holds some websites and, yes, some business models together). Even with regard to online news services that provide comment submission, Google's aggregation of news feeds (with the coming enhanced comments features) may have sufficient total benefits that outweigh those individual benefits of directly visiting the sites, like context, familiarity and running across poorly indexed items, like multimedia content.

Interesting goings on... Here are more thoughts by Phillip Lenssen.

Who's editing Wikipedia?

2007-08-14T17:13:00.000-07:00

Want to know what articles in Wikipedia the CIA has edited? How about the DNC or RNC?

This very nice graduate student at Cal Tech, named Virgil Griffith, made a "little app" that will tell you just that (with some precision). The WikiScanner correlates the anonymized IP addresses from Wiki's change logs with various IP identifying databases (mostly public), like ARIN.

Very cool uses of this? Many. One highlight: identifying the culprit behind the mass deletion of critical parts of the Diebold company's description in Wikipedia, just following some e-voting machine ruckus around November 2005. Said, named culprit? Someone within the corporate headquarters of Diebold. Shocker, I know.

Nicely done, Virgil!

2007, Record Extreme Weather

2007-08-08T00:55:00.000-07:00

"Around the globe, 2007 is on track to be a year of extreme weather" Story Highlights (via CNN):

U.N. agency: Global surface temperatures have broken records this year
World Meteorological Organization says climate change probably manmade
Unusual flooding has hurt Asia, Europe, Africa in 2007
The Midwest in the U.S. is suffering from record heat now

This piece of news really upsets me, for someone not easily upset. Why are you reading my blog? Stop reading my blog and go read something useful.

My blog is in Technorati's Top 5K!! I love Spammers!

2007-08-07T19:01:00.000-07:00

I know what you're thinking: Melanie had too much coffee again. But it's true. This very blog you're reading is ranked by Technorati.com -- the authoritative, go-to source for blog search and metrics --- as Rank 3,171. That's not even the bottom cusp of the Top 5K list.

And how did this fortuitous ranking come about, given that this blog does not exactly achieve A-list traffic? I think there's a spammer out there who loves me.

Dude. Someone sign me up for AdSense!

A United Nation of GDPs

2007-08-07T00:06:00.000-07:00

This is so radical (and yes, it's also tubular)! This map displays the wealth of US states by their respective foreign-nation GDP equivalents.

Thanks to Derek for the find! --who also notes that "this isn't normalized to population, so it's kind of silly; this is only in raw terms)." Fair enough. It's still radical.

And proof that Californians really do have reason to think they're French.
And apparently I should also give a bloggerific high-five to Tony because "he'll cry if he doesn't get credit".

A Walk in the Park

2007-08-01T11:09:00.000-07:00

I love where I live. And this map by Walk Score is basically a visual explanation of why this place is so good to call home. Everything is in walking distance. Nice little app too, no?

Bound to be Mobile

2007-07-27T15:31:00.000-07:00

It was bound to happen. But I don't have to read the final product to decide how I feel about it.

The first "novel"--let's call it a novelette, shall we?-- has been published via mobile phone. Not extraordinary so much as about time.

The Italian Roberto Bernocco publishes Compagni di viaggio via Lulu.com, after working from his Nokia 6630 phone (with T9 typing) for 17 months on his daily bus commute. Here is a lop-sided translation of the description of his science fiction work (aided by the broken crutch of Google language):

Adrenaline. Cold sweat. When the body produces them, it ignites the senses to the maximum intensity: it opens wide the eyes on every imperceptible shadow, stretches the ears to pick up the smallest noise. It is mysterious. You feel the noises. You feel that you move, but do not know where you are going. Where they are carrying to you. The only end: to produce fear.

And what do I think of this moblog cum novel? (Please, do not say movel!!!) Quality is up to the writer. But art can come from anywhere. I like his innovative idea of writing paragraph by paragraph. If done well, the format could be not just "novel" but also help with creating suspense and mystery for his piece. In a piece with an unreliable main character, the forward-only momentum could be useful in establishing the evolution of the character's perspective in a realistic way.

Here now for the two-cents moment. Still, I often wonder if our fast-paced and highly-integrated civilization allows for the cultivation of the kind of brash genius of a magnum-opus that requires high investment of time-- such as a classical symphony or a fundamental theoretic treatise. Academia was intended to be that store-house of high-minded slow arts; but, as my academic friends assure me, it is overrun with politics and the burning need (if not desire) to publish, publish, publish. I think we're turning down the chances (the circumstantial possibility) for another Adam Smith or Locke. Would they have survived under such excruciating deadlines-- (except perhaps if they were independently wealthy, which would have been another matter all together) --or is it more likely their attention would be drawn away from larger, systemic studies? There's too much ahistorical tinkering required to make the argument. But I do think the broader theoretic work has declined (in part because of the increase in the amount of knowledge and its segmentation into disciplines). And I don't think the need for larger interdisciplinary work has decreased, if anything it has increased, while the ability (or proper environment and support) for that kind of intellectual undertaking has been not just become more rare but directly undermined in favor of diverting talent into a more directly monetarily compensated production. OK, rant over.

All this to say, perhaps this is the trend rather than the exception. Tumblr blogs, mobile novels, and electronica. (yay, the future.) Can we can have both: sectionalize to have our bytes and pieces, but retain our

Novels are uneconomically optimal productions. And you don't need Tolstoy to tell you that.

(via Silicon Valley Insider)

grounding our fears in flight

2007-07-27T13:52:00.000-07:00

My socialist friend is in flight right now. I'd like to think it's not going to be an impediment to her travel that she believes George Bush is an idiot, we should have free health care, and Michael Moore is a journalist. But this news puts all that into question.

Travellers facing increased security in transcontinental flight (Washington Post):

Under the agreement, airlines flying from Europe to the United States are required to provide data related to these matters to U.S. authorities if it exists in their reservation systems. The deal allows Washington to retain and use it only "where the life of a data subject or of others could be imperiled or seriously impaired," such as in a counterterrorism investigation.
According to the deal, the information that can be used in such exceptional circumstances includes "racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs, trade union membership" and data about an individual's health, traveling partners and sexual orientation.

We shouldn't have been joking that carrying one open cloth bag from Trader Joe's (sans toothpaste tube) would rouse suspicions with the terrorist security watch. these are not funnies.

music visualization floats my boat

2007-07-05T23:58:00.000-07:00

Musicovery: what's good, what's bad-- because it's so fun reviewing free products.

Music visualization floats my boat, but Musicovery is way more than that. It's a music finder with very select tunes-- yes, those cherry-picked from Amazon, iTunes and Ebay stores-- but also fit into a net of relationships.

Starting-off in the mood categorizer, you select a ratio around variables of energy and tempo. I fumbled a bit, trying to track its criteria for songs, as I selected and deselected genres and watched the chain of colorful pinwheels bounce-out. The bridges between songs are relatively justified--skipping lakes perhaps, but not oceans.

To test my understanding of the system, I tried to stumble upon my favorite artists. I think I got very close but (helas!) the experiment was to no avail and misleading. The music library is sufficiently bare not to cover my favorites, which are somewhat fringe in comparison to the billboard charts at large. But it works well for pop, rap and more popular music genres.

Hey, I was happy they had Daft Punk. So much of it, in fact, that--to their credit-- it was frequently associated with itself. Now, I know Daft Punk is unique, but they do have contemporaries... a grouping that does not include Will Smith's "Men in Black" (or should not).

One of the better features is its dance playlist creation tool. If you're throwing a rug-cutter, you can trust this two axis spectrum of dance-ability and tempo to pull you a list. That's handy. Heck, it's also comforting to know there's some (supposed) arbitrary measure of dance-ability for a song.

Also good: the association between songs of different genres are made visual by placement, linking, and color. Not only is it clear, but the dynamic display is fun. Okay, so the splatter-paint track frames are a little hideous by my standards; still, I can see that they look festive.

What I'd like to see:

#1 (of course) More Music
Obviously, more songs in there to choose from. More data is always more interesting, and useful.

#2 Oops button
When you select any particular song on the association map, the whole map reconfigures around that song-- meaning that you've lost the family of similar tracks for the previous song. It'd be nice to be able to "go back" to your previous song. It would make the discovery process more satisfying because you could build your knowledge and refine your choices faster.

#3 Indie
As I said above, Musicovery does a great job with pop culture music but more representation of smaller but prominent genres is worthwhile. I noticed as missing: indie and folk. There's also a huge range in "electro" music; they need to differentiate between trance, house, experimental, and others. "World" is also just a tad obtuse.

#4 Lose the Skittles Colors
I want to taste the rainbow, not see it pulsing in front of me.

#5 Widget
Make a downloadable player.

#6 Make friends
This would be way cooler if it already worked with all the social music data I've already compiled on other platforms. I wish I could play this game using imported data from my Last.fm profile, or see them hook-up with Pandora. If not with my Last.fm songs, then at least with my mac iTunes library.

#8 Combine
I like the music selection tools and I like the dynamic music map display. But, the way it's presented now, they look like two unassociated pieces: a calculator and a coloring book. um, OK? Create a frame around the whole apparatus. Or, better, change it up entirely so it's integrated.

#9 Tell Us More
Similarly, I'd like to know how they determine the association between the songs--man-made, computer-determined, combo? Who is this Musicovery group, do they have funding?

#10 Please Discriminate Against Lefties, With the Rest of Us
Also, remember people are mostly right-handed. As with scroll bars, the selection controls should be relocated to the right-side. Better yet, allow the user to move the controls.

BLUuR (keep my face private!)

2007-07-05T23:21:00.000-07:00

Some smart designers with a penchant for fighting government quasi-crime have invented a little green patch that will distort the recording of your image.

The Identity Protection System (IDPS) is by designer Miquel Mora. Mora, via We Make Money Not Art:

"With the IDPS project I wanted to sparkle debate about all the issues related to identity privacy," explains Miquel. "Make people think about how our society has become a complete surveillance machine. Our identities have already been stored as data in many servers ready to be tracked. And our self image is our last resort. So we really need tools to protect our privacy. We need tools that can allow us to hide or reveal our visual image. We must have the control over it."

In addition to their practical use when fleeing unjust seizure by misguided centralized government (which awaits us in the futuristic future and "6.5 out of-10" sci-fi blockbusters), these handy-dandy green stickers are perfect for messing with your camera-happy friends who stalked you all night with their digicam. Boy, will you waste their digital memory space when they that get that roll developed! Green stickers are also generally good for placing on bus stops, binders, and Mrs. Lamont's back.

Perspective: when wrong is right

2007-07-05T22:35:00.000-07:00

Deleted Images is a site that collects trash-bound photographs--- lovely errors, 'the junkyard of art'.

How Amelie-esque.

The Facebook intelligentsia (er, see "study")

2007-06-27T15:41:00.000-07:00

Now this is interesting... although, not all that surprising, if you think about The Facebook's original exclusivity about school association. From the BBC article:

A six-month research project has revealed a sharp division along class lines among the American teenagers flocking to the social network sites.
The research suggests those using Facebook come from wealthier homes and are more likely to attend college.

By contrast, MySpace users tend to get a job after finishing high school rather than continue their education.

The conclusions are based on interviews with many teenage users of the social networking sites by PhD student Danah Boyd from the School of Information Sciences at UC Berkeley .

via SmartMobs. Also, see previous post about the MySpace-Facebook dichotomy.

Making the Center of the World Go Round

2007-06-22T01:15:00.000-07:00

A fascinating infosthetic charticle at New York Magazine profiles the financial life and times of various industries and professions in the apple of the financial world's eyes. The Profit Calculator-- 'the wild risks, unexpected niches, and day-in-day-out grind behind making a dollar in New York...for everyone from a drug dealer to Goldman Sachs."

A Yellow-Cab Driver
A Drug Dealer
A Private Investigator
A Diner
A Soup Kitchen
A Yoga Studio
A Sex Shop
A Discount Store
A Pizza Place
A Copy Shop
A Four-Star Restaurant
A Private School
A Department Store
A Drug Company
A Financial Firm
A Midtown Building
A Baseball Team
A Museum
A Clothing Store
A Publishing Company
A City Government

I've been waiting to blog about it. But now it's 1 am and I've had 4 hours sleep in the past 48 hours. That's my economy. Calculate that.

Good Copy Bad Copy

2007-06-21T22:12:00.000-07:00

Good Copy Bad Copy is a documentary worth checking out-- "a documentary about the current state of copyright and culture." (Denmark, 2007).
Lawrence Lessig says,

[For us, over 40,] the idea of actually doing something with it is alien to us. But our kids look at media as just inputs to their own creativity. The United States PEW did a study that 57% of teenagers had created and shared content on the internet. That's not people peer-to-peer file-sharing (that's about 99%) [he laughs]. But this is people actually creating material and making it available. For us, the couch potato generation, it's bizarre. But for them, it's the natural way to understand and to create.

Now, you can call them criminals, call them pirates-- use all the tools of law and technology to block that creativity-- or we can begin to encourage them by making a wide-range of materials available, that gave them a much better understanding of their past and a much better opportunity to say something about the future.

Am impressed, not just with Lessig's well-known eloquence on the side of free information culture, but with how grounded he remains. Listen to him, jesus. His mild-mannered presentation makes such a perfect conduit for the revolutionary, counter-culture, redactive-copyright ideas he shares. (be grateful selfish home-grown downloader. so much better than having a michael moore for free culture, you know?)

"Who really owns what? And what is the purpose of copyright?" Well put, by the suited man with the piano prop (followed by the image of a dancing girl shaking her 'milkshakes'? very balanced production). "Get off your ass and jam." Well put.

[Watch out, the player reloads with new chapters, you can't preview the whole length and it's longer than you think.]

"There's no one who disagrees that reading and writing are key tools and skills that we must have if we're going to engage in our economy and in our society and in our social relationships. What we're now beginning to understand is that writing and reading and learning and literacy are being added to by new forms of literacy that are equally important. Visual literacy, a literacy in moving images, and a literacy in audio as well, are increasing in importance.

We're expecting people to operate in a world that's dominated by images and moving images, and we're expecting them to have a critical analysis and attitude to the organizations that provide those moving images, and have a critical perspective of the news and information they get from those organizations. They can't have that critical attitude unless they have the skills to analyze-- to take the media apart and to put it back together. And the best way of doing that is to do it in a hands-on way. So, the idea of media-literacy in moving image means the ability to have a hands-on engagement-- to be able to reconstruct words, movies, soundtracks, pictures-- in such a way that they can tell a different story or tell it in a slightly different way. " -- Paul Gerhardt, project lead of the BBC's Creative Archives Project.

We Who Make the Web

2007-06-21T21:31:00.001-07:00

Who are we? Wait, who the hell are you? stop spamming me.

Business Week has a better response, complete with "a study". But, in all good measure, insightful: What People Are Doing -- broken down by age and activity. (Hmm, I'm in Generation Y, so that's what it's called.)

The two most interesting to me are the Creators and the Joiners, people who create web content and join social networks, respectively. There the age difference is most pronounced. See that drop between ages 26 and 27? That happened in 2003, the year the Facebook really picked-up and overtook Friendster. At that time Facebook was still an exclusive select-university social network. One was either in-school and cared, or graduated and out of the loop. The split-second time difference was almost tangible. Those who graduated a month before remained on the fast-declining Friendster. Some would eventually migrate to MySpace (where they would land, befuddled by html, and be forced to google phrases like "pimp myspace") and some would get on with the real world, losing interest. Meanwhile, the new Facebook users quickly acclimated, joining MySpace as an aside, and then getting dragged into a whole new wave of web-tooey goodness. This is my perspective from the ground. But golly, it seems to play out in the larger picture too.

The majority, of course, are on MySpace (may it someday rest in peace) not Facebook. And, well, that speaks to another difference (not age) all together. One between the sighted and the blind, I think. In closing: every month counts. People get it or they don't by the drop of a month, a hundred few connections. Are my closest friends doing it, yes or no? No wonder hope springs eternal for these social networking start-ups.

Reporting from a no mans land, online. Fin.

KISS's labor lost

2007-06-16T19:51:00.000-07:00

Alex ("astroboy") sent me this feed of his Google Reader Shared Items. A sincere copycat (hey, I was going to do it anyway), I've created my own and added the feed to this site... as well as updated the site overall, in myriad other ways-- as those ever loyal readers will note (loving mothers, guilt-ridden friends, inmates of San Francisco Zoo, lifeless search bots?).

I've changed the whole template to Blogger's new version. Actually, I think Blogger beta is better... for those who want more control of their site. The new, official Blogger release is a land-mine of stop-signs and roadblocks. i.e. "You must stop here and see your site explode. No, afraid there's no U-turns or detouring, you really must make a full-stop and at the designated traffic markings and witness the implosion of your CSS: a melt-down of your fonts, a sheering away of your meticulously crafted customizations, all your little widgets and whatsits *vaporized*. I understand that this may not be what you had intended with an 'upgrade', but fear not, we've saved a complete copy of your entirely unimproved former site, right here, and you can revert to the beta backgrade at will!" How reassuring.

Unfortunately, that's exactly what I intended to do. I've updated this version with most of the old essential features in a spiffy new 3-column format. But it just isn't satisfying. And--as if more paths up the wrong mountain were a consulation prize-- the site can now also be accessed from melaniecolburn.com (my new domain, in case you didn't catch that). Once I have the beta-blogger shining like the top of the, er, Googleplex, I will republish that. Hold your breath long enough and you might even see an entirely melanie-made website hand-rolled with fancy new AJAXMLCSSQL!!! Oh, wow...

(fyi- KISS=keep it simple stupid. And for the AJAXMLCSSQL reference, see the video (hilarious) embedded in the picture above.

)

why do we take pictures?

2007-06-15T20:06:00.000-07:00

a question posed by Russell Davies that makes a whole lot of readers become philosophical, myself included. My reply was:

to mark time.

and prove we exist, by evidence of our unique perception (in that one place, at that one time, from that one choice, that was ours).

I just recently picked-up my camera again with interest, after spending a year groping around in the tiny display of my cell phone camera, after happening on something too elegant in its visual eloquence to be just passed by. There is such a human need to record. As if the details, from our perspective, mattered so much or at all. And, of course, it's not just the photography--- but the words and the sculpture, and blogs and twitter.

There is something about photography, though, that feels utterly unique. Some have argued photography isn't an art at all--- merely a recording, rather than an act of creation. It's the photographer's disassociation with the subject, juxtaposed with their involvement--proven by their need to record--that is striking. Is it that one needs to create a connection with the subject of interest, to which they have not directly contributed (usually) or is this a demonstration of egoism, our need for self-manifestation that transforms an individual perspective into a universal example, for others to experience through us? Do we need to make ourselves the conduit for others in order to validate ourselves or are we attempting to bridge the gap between our hapless perception and the external object which has leapt out and grabbed our interest? Are we turning the 'found' into the 'made'? Or making our self-perception into a suddenly canonized page of history?

I walk about seeing beautiful, interesting, humorous and/or disturbing things and can't help but feel an obligation---rather than just a desire--to record them for memory, and not just my own. Obligation is just the word: an impulse to share what strikes the mind's eye. Yes, for my own mental hoarding, but also because the ephemera has more value to offer the world than time has offered it allowance to provide. It deserves more. And 'we' (humanity) deserve more of it (though we haven't the ability to know about it, until the photographer captures a slice of it). Were all random images and scattered, flashing moments that might make us smile or remember our own humanity brought together into a collection to share (hello, flickr), it would be like an index of happiness, sadness, digital cognitive chips of our emotions. A short-hand for both our human genius and our human need to record, to have, to share.

Anyway, my moblog is no reflection of these thoughts. Clearly, I've had one too many mimosas (or too few). I recommend visiting my Flickr page to swiftly wipe-out any suspicion in your mind I might be a former film or photography student revisiting the old days. These are just my unschooled ramblings. But, since we're on the topic, here is one of my favorite photography sites: JPG Magazine, and one of my favorite photographers: Sebastiao Salgado.

square milk : circle can

2007-06-15T00:18:00.000-07:00

For those who might dither in the dairy aisle of the grocery store, one hand idly gripping the fridge door, the other tenuously considering the rigid corners of a waxed-cardboard carton of bovine goodness. 'Why is this nutrition delivery device angular,' you might ask, then--turning your attention to the towering pyramid of Pepsi One six-packs to your right, 'while these aluminum soda-pop receptacles are forged into cylinders?'

Ho! here are the long awaited answers... elementary geometry, my dear Watson!

I think I remember this example from an econ book in college.

art: 99 Cent, Andreas Gursky, 1999

the times they are a'changin

2007-06-13T00:01:00.000-07:00

Dear avid consumers of this digital self-publication,

I miss writing here. And, by the looks of my logs, the search spiders miss me too. So, I'm just going to have to take it up again-- if only for the bots, and the children. Don't forget the children.

However--as with seasons, wind, start-up strategies, and the state of romantic love-- things are going to change. Still, here, at least I can exercise god-like control (and isn't that what the appeal of blogging is all about?).

So, what comes next..?

Tangential philosophical and literary interlude: "A goal without a plan is just a wish," once said author Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. Others have countered with a commonsensical, "the best laid schemes o’ mice and men aft gang awry,” but I find that rather depressing, though true. Still, plans help, so long as we're willing to grow along with the changing facts. But, enough with 18th-century Scottish poets and whimsical French writers, this blog is about political-economy for Smith's-sake! Or, is it? Short answer: not anymore.

“When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?" to quote John Maynard Keynes.

And the fact, here, is that my interests and compulsions to write are just far to diverse to limit this blog to political-economics. Besides, covering that subject matter deserves too Smith-damn time, which I am not able to give. I've just taken up a Blog Editor position at Hyphen magazine and my posts will start popping-up elsewhere too. In addition, I'll be developing a new website, which--for the sake of indulging some childlike wonderment--will hence be referred to by the codename Bright-Eyed-Ninja (or, BEN). I might sometimes post about goings-on on BEN's development.

Moreover, this site will become a catch-all for rants of my choosing. Topics will become less serious, more vainglorious, and generally more amusing (at least to me).

Alas, this will probably mean this site will no longer appear as a Google result for ChevronTexaco employees with search terms like "best female economist used to be a man" (I kid you not). That honor will just have to go to someone else. So, before the fame subsides, here are a few of the most eyebrow-raising topics for which Google.com once provided this site as a go-to source.

search term // rank // approx. date of search ranking

Macroeconomic Indicators of 2007 // 1 // 4/06
why is it important to trade // 4 // 4/06
The only way for a woman, as for a man, to find herself, to know herself as a person, is by creative work of her own. There is no other way. // 4 // 2/06
superheroes of the renaissance // 1 // 5/06
how to hack facebook // 5 // 5/06
infosthetic // 3 //5/06
"homeland security ineffective" // 4 // 12/06
che bello // 3 // 7/06
duopoly // 2 // 5/06

Not so bad for a little site. With a little traction, it also picked up a Feedster-of-the-Day nod, a 'Blogs of Note' Blogger award, and some notable incoming links. Hopefully, the site will keep growing and they'll be more of that to come. Hope? Let's plan on it, or at least move towards it.

Ciao,
Melanie

Academic ether-gazing

2007-04-29T15:57:00.000-07:00

An old favorite I just discovered, "Life Among the Econ" by Axel Leijonhufvud. This is a touch-and-cheek anthropological account of the the Econ (homoeconomicus or economic man).

Jibes and thrusts reach far past the facade of lexicographic labyrinth and into the tortuous heart of the discipline. The vacuum-induced apnea that produces results true in laboratory but exceptionally susceptible to the viruses of the human condition. Anyway, it's an elaborate poke to tickle those with any interest in the field.

field notes: discovery via Greag Manikiw's random post, which I wouldn't have found had Derek
not reminded me of this great blog. Thanks D.

Top Economics Prize to Athley, First Woman

2007-04-25T10:07:00.000-07:00

Professor Susan Athey, of Harvard University, has become the first woman awarded the highest prize to recognize the most promising economist under 40. The American Economic Association named Professor Athey, the first female honoree in the 60 year course of the John Bates Clark medal, for the breadth and depth of her incisive research in diverse fields.

From the WJS article:

Prof. Athey has been a rising star in economics since her doctoral dissertation -- on a new way to analyze how people respond to rising uncertainty -- created a stir on the academic job market in 1995, leading the nation's top economics departments to court her. She ultimately chose the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Mass., but later moved to Stanford and then last year returned to Cambridge to join Harvard. She is one of a number of female economists who have risen to prominence in recent years. They include MIT's Esther Duflo, who focuses on field experiments and development economics; Amy Finkelstein, also of MIT, who does health economics; and University of Chicago financial economist Monica Piazzesi.

"You can point to multiple fields of economics where one of the very top stars is a woman," Prof. Athey said. "That's been a really exciting change in the last five to 10 years."

Prof. Athey said she first took an interest in economics in the early 1990s when she was a junior at Duke University, making money on the side selling personal computers to the government at procurement auctions. Robert Marshall, a microeconomics specialist for whom she worked as a research assistant, suggested she help him look into a flaw she saw in the auctions: The low cost of disputing the results appeared to be encouraging losers to protest an inordinate number of outcomes, which often enabled them to get payments from the winners through legal settlements. The economists' research concluded that winners could be using the settlements to pay off losers for cooperating on bids -- a point Professor Marshall, now at Pennsylvania State University, argued in congressional testimony. Ultimately, the government scrapped the mechanism.

Prof. Athey's experience with Prof. Marshall showed her "the power of economic theory to change the world," she said. "By the time I finished working with him I was completely sold."

Prof. Athey went on to do widely respected work in the area of auctions -- a subfield of microeconomics that took center stage in the mid-1990s as former Soviet republics sold off state property and the U.S. government launched auctions for radio spectrum. She has extensively studied the ways in which bidders can collude to manipulate the results, and used that knowledge to help governments figure out how best to auction the rights to public resources. One piece of advice she offered: Use sealed bids, which her research has demonstrated will encourage more-competitive behavior among bidders.

Earlier this decade, she helped the Canadian government design timber auctions that as of 2006 had allowed it to reap some $1.1 billion of annual revenue from timber sales. The auctions also helped the Canadians defuse a big trade dispute with the U.S., which had accused Ottawa of effectively subsidizing timber exports.

Among her fellow economists, though, Prof. Athey is possibly more appreciated for her work to deepen and make more elegant the theories and methods economists use to model and measure the real world. While doing her Ph.D. dissertation at Stanford, for example, she developed a technique that allows economists to better understand how uncertainty -- about, say, oil prices or exchange rates -- affects the behavior of investors, businesses and the entire economy. The breakthrough, coming as it did from a 24-year-old student, took many in the profession by surprise.

YouChoose

2007-04-12T10:17:00.000-07:00

YouTube launches a new section where users can engage '08 presidential candidates in digital question and debate.

Ever wanted to speak with the future President of the United States? Using the power of YouTube, you can! Announcing the newest phase of our You Choose ’08 platform, the Spotlight. Starting today, every Presidential candidate will have one week in the Spotlight on our News & Politics page, where they'll be available to engage YouTube users in a video dialogue.

Mashables:

YouChoose will display videos with those vying for the Presidential seat ‘08, with the likes of Mitt Romney and Barack Obama asking the YouTube community a question. Members of YouTube will then have the opportunity to post a video response for the candidate, and check back later to see if their video was chosen by the candidate to continue the discussion.

This is going to be fun, people. Stay tuned -- as they say.

The BEST 51 Magazines Ever?

2007-02-23T22:43:00.000-08:00

I don't know what's most horrendous about GOOD Magazine's Best 51 Magazines Ever of all-history list:

a) that Playboy made the top ten (#4).
b) that Lucky Magazine's "shopping porn" made the list (#44).
c) that Lucky was only after Playboy.
d) or, that Vogue was after Lucky, coming in at #45.

I mean really, where are are those traditional, sophisticated American sensibilities enunciated on this list? It should clearly be Vogue, Lucky, Playboy as the top three. It's obvious really. Someone send a letter to the editor to correct this typo.

No, the real horror is that MOTHER JONES is not on this list. How did that happen. Ramparts, its 1960s predecessor from the summer of love, did make the list (#18--above Sports Illustrated, #28, ooo!). But my god, what were their criteria?

(Sidenote to sassy, budding bloggers: This is why all the "Top 10 Tips on How to Blog" blog posts recommend writing "list posts". Why, again, for clarity? Because: they are always wrong and very easily disputed, hence attracting a swelter facile counter-posts in which lazy peer bloggers bludgeon your TOP TEN into a mere top ten-ish. Meanwhile, the more defunct of sense will simply link with superlative side-ways faces. Either way, you can't lose because every link is a democratic vote, right Google? :)

So, here's my TOP TEN Magazines of all time (yeah, I am too lazy and un-COSMOPOLITAN-like to ramp this up to 51, not that you would bear with me through that anyway):

1. The Atlantic Monthly
2. Life
3. Vogue
4. The New Yorker
5. New York Times Magazine
6. Whole Earth Magazine
7. Rolling Stone
8. Ramparts/Mother Jones
9. Wired
10. MAD/The Economist

Close Runner-up: Highlights. (Set-back as a runner-up because they failed to publish that poem I forgot to submit when I was 9 because the LOVE stamp made a better sticker on the wall.)

The criteria? Ah, I'd tell you, but I can't reveal the priceless scientifically-perfected algorithm which can rank any group into a perfectly rational order. Sorry, patent pending. (*No, these aren't all my favorite magazines! Lucky would be on the list.) Now, go ahead and hate on this. I double-link dare you.

Privacy, Convenience v. Any Sense

2007-02-23T21:21:00.000-08:00

The smallest RDF chip of this minute is a mere spot of water to the naked eye. "They are thin enough to be embedded in a sheet of paper, Hitachi spokesman Masayuki Takeuchi" said of the latest Radio Frequency Identification.

And now, for today's segment of "When smart people say stupid things":

However, some have raised concerns that the technology poses a threat to privacy, and that it could be used in covert monitoring schemes.

And the fact that they are becoming ever more invisible could fuel this apprehension.

However, said Mr Takeuchi: "We are not imagining such uses."

Really, seriously? Hitachi can't even conceive of such an eventuality? Well, once the technology is there such monitoring will of course happen, despite how unimaginable it may appear to its brilliant, but disingenuous creators. And technology with dangerous applications really isn't so bad. Just look how well that atom bomb research went. Well, so, that was a political decision--- oh wait, so would the application of intelligence surveillance.

Really, in a time when the President will defend unconstitutional domestic spying and folksingers with peacenik lyrics are placed on no-fly lists, it must be obvious that this is inevitable. The real question, as always when a powerful technology (like a wheel) graces our Neanderthal species is: how can we protect ourselves from our own invention while still moving forward (bike, but not get run-over)?

It's worth it, whatever it is. --that's humanity's general default reaction to well-packaged, efficiency-creating technology, isn't it? While the privacy advocates will debate in under-monetized political rags, well-funded start-ups will christen new offices and mint new business cards to populate society with these babies. After all, for an upright citizen, there's nothing to fear, right? That must be the logic when citizen-consumers purchase gadgets like the FlyClear.

Get through airport security faster and with less hassle. Enjoy a more consistent and stress-free airport experience. Allow our concierge to help you with your carry-on luggage. Join the thousands of members who Fly Clear®.

Hmm, interesting. I wonder how difficult those would be to hack into. Not that I'm knowledgable enough (much less sufficiently motivated enough) to do such a thing, but ahh, there are so many who are--even if just for the fun of the challenge. (Right, Kevin; how can you resist in your reform when technology is always advancing new tempting projects, I wonder?)

I'm friends with a lot of (anti-government) privacy advocates who would rather go naked in the woods than preserve a social security card from a tea-light (okay, not a lot, but you understand my meaning--- libertarians). For all their radical animal-skinned anarchic flirtations, they really do have the right idea. But in terms of technological development, one just can't say no. (No one will listen, and there is no 'one' to listen to.) To say 'no' after all, would be a consumer decision. But that has nothing to do with military technology, which can't help but metastasize on its hyperbolic federal funding.

So, let's review: effectively invisible RDFs emerge. The populace embraces them, one year short of the industrial military complex. It is abused, but undiscovered for months or years or decades (don't hold your breath). Meanwhile, intellectual protestations print, unabated by their own ineffectuality. Should consumers be terrorized by their own toys gone awry, perhaps some protective solutions will develop only reactively (and therefore belated). In short, the future is bright. Put on your glasses, they may help in shielding your neighborhood stalker from tracking the RDF that Wal-Mart left in your underwear band, anyway.

Should my midnight musings not perturb you, this story (with accompanying images) of skin-deep airport security x-rays at least will. No, it has nothing to do with RDF, but it is unsettling isn't it? (Just wait till those go mobile.) No, that didn't frighten you? Well then, would you mind spinning around? thanks.

push-button published

2007-02-20T22:26:00.000-08:00

This infosthetic video commentary on the world made web 2.0 is awesome. It reminds me of the Royksopp video. Via Searchblog.

Created by Michael Wesch (Assistant Professor of Cultural Anthropology, Kansas State University), it is an excellent introduction to the web 2.0 world for those unfamiliar; and an ingenious demonstration wrapped in eye-candy for those who appreciate the flavor. (jeez, I wish my professors in college had been hip / technically savvy enough to communicate like that.)

"For me, the ultimate promise of digital technology is that it might enable us to truly see one another once again and all the ways we are interconnected."
-- Prof. Wesch, in his Searchblog interview.

a tendency to choose

2007-02-02T00:24:00.000-08:00

A humorous anecdote that nicely illustrates our choice-universal wired world. Shared by Tad, the CEO of Reed Business Information; retold by Manage to Change from some big fancy conference.

Tad’s son Harrison is seven.

He’s already in to social networking (on Webkinz) and spends a great deal of time online.

He rarely watches TV.

One day, Harrison told Tad the TV was broken. Tad investigated and told Harrison there was nothing wrong with the TV.

To which Harrison replied, “But Dad, where are all my choices?”

Where is the push-button-self-creation?

Off Topic:

2007-02-01T22:12:00.000-08:00

Wow. Did you know:

Physicists have determined that there are thirty-two different ways in which atoms and molecules in a crystal can be symmetrically arranged in a pattern and these are all represented in the Moorish mosaics [of the Alcazar and Alhambra palaces in Spain, built seven centuries earlier]!

The inspiration for the mosaics was born from constraint:

Islamic artists were (and are) generally forbidden by the Koran to depict images of the human body and recognizable life forms in their work. As a result, they channeled their passion for form into representing patterns that can be found in the natural world.

The lesson, put forth by Roger von Oech at Creative Think, is that Deadlines force creativity. Limitations and restraints are the stimulus that force bits of genius out of us. Something to think about, as this producer of creative has:

"The ultimate inspiration is the deadline."

of significance to me

2007-01-08T19:46:00.000-08:00

There are public recognitions that other people can understand and then there are those mental memorabilia primarily personal in significance, but oh what a better honor. The joy of the latter are difficult to share with others, but let me just try.

Bradford DeLong just linked to my last post. I think Brad DeLong is like Adam Smith's modern reincarnation. If that's not fair enough a comparison, allow me to explain that the only reason I don't link to all of his posts is because I don't feel I have anything to add to them and they are already more pervasively publicized than my reflection of them would be.

DUDE. I made it to his "Worth Reading/Worth Surfing" list-- He De.licio.us Linked me! (Which means he may revisit this site. In which case, there may be some awkwardness in reading this blushing post. Well, someone has to say it.)

P.S. Thanks to reader Alex Thomas for pointing this out to me! :)

RE: Images
I will have to add large red circles to direct the viewers eyes to the tiny, little links to my site later.

Macroeconomic Indicators

2007-01-07T15:31:00.000-08:00

EconEdLink has a great list of current major macroeconomic indexes. Here's a snap shot for today (right):

EconEdLink is a self-described 'premier source of classroom tested, Internet-based economic lesson materials for K-12 teachers and their students'. For example, Today in History tells us that today --January 7, 1782-- "The nation's first private, commercial bank, called the Bank of North America, opened in Philadelphia."

Can you imagine Kindergartners learning how the money supply works or how unemployment effects cycle through the economy? It paints a humorous picture alongside those finger-paintings. But economics is quite easy to grasp if presented as an ecosystem, in the same way the water system is taught to middle-school science students, for example. I've never understood why economics isn't taught more regularly in elementary through high school, when as soon as you graduate the real world expects you to understand some things about handling money and perhaps entering the job market. Isn't understanding that thing that makes the world go round considered an unspoken right of passage for young adults? Why withhold the information? Is it really better for kids to mimic the behavior of their parents and elders, to merge into the herd of thought by whatever haphazard scurrying time and environment allow? From the results, it seems too easy to enter the world without ever glimpsing a trace outline of the larger economic picture in which one lives.

I think some would argue that teaching economics to kids is crass-- sort of like capitalist inculcation. The subordination of young minds to the invisible hand? Feh. They are expected to live in that world, so regardless of normative judgments, knowing how that world system operates will help them live in it, even if they seek to change it. Perhaps some would argue that kids aren't academically prepared yet. Actually, a solid conceptual understanding of economics can be gained without doing any math. Further, most social studies and history classes would make much more sense with some preexisting familiarity of economics. It wasn't simply that the North was more moral, but rather they also had competing economic interests with the South. It was not only that Hitler had a created a new symbol and infused the country with nationalistic propaganda; it was also that he had overseen a triumphant economic renewal after the great war. Or maybe there are those who think kids minds, their brains, just aren't developed enough? To rule out that concern, it should be sufficient to take a moment to think back to what you remember understanding from grownup conversations that was meant to be beyond your comprehension. Better yet, take a look at today's lesson plans, each tailored for the audience's age. It's reasonable.

Wouldn't it be useful to understand what those major economic indicators---those numbers that rule the financial and political world we live in-- meant?

for IMBYs

2007-01-04T22:06:00.000-08:00

I tend to shrug-off local politics as petty and small. But on the local level the costs are so much lower for civic participation. It's only a problem of information: the MSM and 'the political press' are naturally much more focused on national politics. There are fewer rewards to media outlets for covering local politics.

Now the Personal Democracy Forum has gathered a handy list of sites to help you locate those dedicated soldiers in your neighborhood, burning the night oil to bring you Hyper-Local News.

How-To: Seven Ways to Find Local Political Blogs

The most impressive of these to me is Placeblogger.com-- a new search site built by a vet team of media thinkers ('Lisa Williams (of H2Otown), with advisory help from Jay Rosen and Dan Gillmor').

And, in the spirit of local living and blogging. I've developed my own local blog, called The Browse. It's more art & culture than politics, but have a gander if you fancy.

Platform

2007-01-03T01:23:00.000-08:00

The national press and political pundits, always hot for a presidential election, have already begun printing off covers splashed with the faces of candidates for 2008. It will be a decisive election for U.S. history, so choose carefully.

While personality and culture wars have surfaced in recent electoral mud-fights, sufficient long-term problems have waited long enough on the back-burner. This season, whether or not Americans pay attention, the election will both shape an administration and define a "political mandate" to oversee some tricky footwork. It's a vote to determine what hand will mold important strategic choices at a critical time. In other words, it's an election for Issues, not personalities; Platform, not partisanship.

So, instead of debating the candidates, here's a platform, off the top of my head. Tell me what you think; talk about it; improve it. It's just one citizen's thoughts--- what are yours?

Platform

Lower military spending and appropriate these funds to balance Social Security or cut the Federal Deficit.
Free the public education system by providing school choice with some standardization. OR, launch a national program giving union teachers an option for better compensation for participating in a merit-based program.
Develop green energy and transportation technologies, by appropriating funding from the military and steering federal subsidies away from non-green energy and technology sources.
Work internationally not unilaterally in foreign affairs.
Encourage state and local government actions to steer legislative innovation. Focus federal government action on steering state and local actions with incentives and penalties, rather than direct manipulation. Allow the federal government to refocus on international and national issues that pass state boundaries--like education, energy, transportation, security, and environmental concerns.
Reinforce the role of economic analysis in government.
A campaign for civic community. Make the legislative process and government accountability more accessible to public individuals.
Make election day a national holiday! (you know you want that!)

So what do you think? Really, I'd LOVE to know what other people think should be our top priorities. I'm all ears to find out what you think.

FBI Confirms Abuse at Guantanamo

2007-01-03T00:53:00.000-08:00

An internal FBI report confirms the abuse of prisoners at Guantanamo. (Full Report) CNN has a full summary:

The FBI on Tuesday released documents showing at least 26 of the agency's employees witnessed aggressive mistreatment and harsh interrogation techniques of prisoners by other government agencies or outside contractors at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
The FBI surveyed all 493 FBI personnel who had been assigned to the military prison facility in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and determined no FBI agent or support personnel had participated in any of the controversial practices. (Note: the report concluded the FBI was not involved in the abuse.)

Unlike Abu Ghraib, the Guantanamo Bay detention center falls under US jurisdiction, and US actions there are more explicitly subject to domestic laws and international human rights accords banning torture. The main point of contention from here out, as it has been in the past year, will become the definition of 'torture' as opposed to abuse short of torture.

A few notes for context:

- American citizens can be extradited to Guantanamo without formal charges.
- Habeas corpus (considered both a human right and a founding principle of modern law) has been suspended at times for 'detainees' at Guantanamo.
- Several of these abuses are similar to those witnessed at Abu Ghraib. But at the Guantanamo operation, the chain of command links more directly and explicitly to its top.
- Torture has proven to be an ineffective manipulation tool in extracting intelligence. That is a conclusion drawn multiple times from independent sources, including leading military and security think tanks.

Remind Me

2006-12-23T16:47:00.000-08:00

OK, one more before I sign out to the no-wifi zone of home-sweet-home.

Those with an appreciation for political economy will especially enjoy this, me thinks. But the appeal goes beyond that--- A music video by Royksopp, "Remind Me".

Notable!

2006-12-23T16:39:00.000-08:00

Hey, Google's Blogger team chose this site for the Blogs of Note list on December 19!

Thanks Blogger! Nice upgrade, by the way. And I'll be using it all a bunch more in the New Year.

Have a good one, all!

Pirates & Emperors

2006-11-30T00:13:00.000-08:00

A most excellent 60s-style educational video as political trope. Here the tripped-out, balloon-high cartoon nirvana melds well with far-flung but close-hitting ridicule of the pinstriped emperor.
Don't be fooled like I was till half through: this is topical, not a vintage conceit.

A Loud Call for Silence

2006-11-16T20:46:00.000-08:00

Subtitled "The Democratic Reconquest, Milton Friedman RIP, and Silence".

If you wait long enough to blog, everything becomes old news. But if you wait even longer, fresher news comes. And if you hold-off another day or so, you might actually have something useful to say about all of it. In that case, perhaps I should wait one more day, but anyway --

So the Democrats have finally retaken Congress. How long did that take? In the face of what is in strong competition to be the worst presidency in American history -- the democrats have finally taken House and Senate in a majority, finally placed their first lady of the minority whip in the seat as the (historic) first lady Speaker of the House.

Now don't get me wrong. It's good news, but painfully late and lacking in sliding mud.

Also, while the Republicans in the Senate have been heinous of late, the worse still is their executive head. Will the democratic Congress seek to curb the President? Probably. But he's already a lame duck and his approval ratings are so low it's a misnomer.

It's been a long, sad, scary and ultimately destructive ride for the American people and democracy.
It will be hard (very hard) to rectify even any one piece of damage, least of all the Constitution-thing. And it's not clear they're up to the task.

Perhaps they're less recently riddled by the fast and brutal volley of ignominious scandal. And it's true whatever moral failings their individuals may have are not underlined in contrast by a composite hypocrisy and irony, as with republicans. It's harder though to fail publicly and morally on greenhouse gas issues than family values issues. -- to be fair. [But boy, when the vice versa does come-- that will be the day.)

The democrats lack creative ideas, lack effective and plausible solutions, lack empowered leadership, lack even a certain discipline in 'message' delivery to cover all this up (as Lakoff has described).
They're still a better alternative to the republicans-- but by what measure it's hard to say. it's been long enough in their latency that it's difficult to tell how their ideas have developed, if clearly, and with what shared coherence. It's difficult to know yet how tightly they will grip the wheel after just getting their license reinstated. It's difficult to know how moderate they will act, as they struggle to create a differentiated and unique voice as a party. Will they focus on shoving liberal policy down the throat of the legislative body, instead of contemplating the careful, humble work of repairing a worn nation, torn founding document, and dispirited electorate?

Enough creative (creationist) theories have scourged the nation. What we need is more of less. More intelligence, less public flailing for superbly-simple-minded "Action". Americans need more thoughtful leadership, and less posturing for photo-ops.

There's no promise yet that people we voted out were replaced with the people we want to vote in. There's no proof yet that in an attempt to "show leadership" the democrats won't dig a new hold beside the old one.
I suppose there's never any guarantee , and that's why it's called an 'experiment'. But after 200 years, even trees learn something, even the landscape changes. Even mountains move. And, as I learned yesterday, even blind mice can regain their sight.
No. I take it back, there are 'supposed to be' some guarantees: like freedom of speech, the privacy of citizens, and at least the checks-and-balances to audit a rotten system.

Right and Left. Left and Right.
The only thing they both have right for sure is that the other surely doesn't have all the answers.

Yet, citizens live and die. Vote and abstain. Are borne down by the bad luck of bureaucracy and are saved by the justice of the courts. Here we are, born here, bred here, immigrated here or are guilty of taking the freedom innate to us but not freely given.

In international political legal theory, so long as there exists freedom of movement (some immigration and emigration deterrences not withstanding), an individual is viewed as a subject to his or her social contract by implicit choice. I may be born here, in other words, but by not resigning my nationality I am implicitly approving of my country and condoning my government to some extent.
A friend (a dear friend) of mine has a great heart-shaped tattoo on his muscular bicep (he's posed as a professional model) that reads, over a background of the American flag, 'Love it or Leave it.'
If only it were that simple, some moan. But it is even simpler than that, and by my friend's meaning too: If you love it, then improve it. And if you don't love it, then change it; Or you don't deserve it and it doesn't deserve to be tarnished by you.
It's sad, but mostly native Americans take it for granted. We love liberty, yes, but a deep love understands its origins, its enemies, its weaknesses, even its faults. (Democracy and liberty are not accidents---they were dearly won, bought.)

What we have instead are romantics. And instead of reviving our flailing democracy --- a democracy living on a history of participatory citizens and the failure of a more successful and rapacious parasite to emerge --- the two parties take turns at swiping at it from opposing ends. (As if beating from front and back would set a body upright, rather than bruise it all around.)
Some have deadlier aim than others. But still, cutting less deep to the core in harm is hardly helping.

So where is this happy note going? Silence, hopefully. (And no, smart ass, not from me!) I would really like our politicians, -- as the phrase 'public servant' has become so anachronistic with tarnish---, to be silent for a little while. Please. Let them go on a retreat, (might I suggest a religiously-neutral monastery or a mountain retreat?) and sit together in nonpartisan cross-legged discomfort, striped of $500 fine wool suits, bare of cell phone and blackberry, and commune together a little while. The most useful politician today is the one who will take a moment of silent, peaceful protest of the status quo instead of boiling over with hot foam trying to roll-off pork barrel legislation.

Silence.

Today a voice of reason went silent. It was not always the most 'reasonable' voice-- zealous as it was in its cause. But then, it's hard enough to get some truth heard in this ruckus, it almost forces one to scream. Though many disagreed with him in whole or part (myself included), this voice was a voice of reason quite apart from the mad tea party. Not that it's easy to tell at this decibel. And that is why we are forced to rely n distinguished awards---he has a Nobel--- and intellectual impact--- until recently he was a living legend.
Now, unfortunately, he's silent. And will forever be vulnerable to misrepresentations-- both by his admirers and his critics. Milton Friedman, RIP, despite our deviations from clinical theory.

Silence.

And maybe a few citizens will be so shocked and befuddled by the sudden absence of cacophony --- the crisp silence of authority--- that they will start to talk.

Silence. Let the people speak.

Reader's Digest

2006-11-04T20:59:00.000-08:00

It's getting to be that time of year--you know, black friday, evening creeps up faster, stores desperately adding garlands with red bows above the thanksgiving display. And, yup, i'm starting to get a bit uppity about the things i receive without just deserve. Another way of thinking about this, and probably the more stylish way that a proper blog post, seo optimized, would have begun, is that this is a recommended reading list--- and some of it is even relevant to this blog! let's start there, then devolve.

World Changing: A User's Guide for the 21st Century.

A user's guide for the 21st century? Well, I plan to use that century, i better have this guide. and that's the best reason i can think of to beg loved ones for this book/recommend it. But I also have this additional reason, which follows.

This quote exemplifies one way in which political economics is emerging in the public mind. Local production is slowly taking hold (right beside the slow eating phenomenon that's sweeping the nation, but still). Take it or leave it, by your own system of logical justice--- but when you do, (hopefully) you'll take into consideration both the potential costs of production and transport, as well as a valuation of the convenience of access to foreign and out-of-season products. Maybe you'll also think of the human actors, the job created for those harvesting for foreign consumers willing to pay a higher price. Or, the local family farmers who can't compete with the allure of bananas in January at Safeway. That, kids, is political economics (so don't ask me again).

Oh yeah, here's that quote I've been referencing, from the new book by World Changing, called 'World Changing' (hmm):

In the middle of Denver, in the middle of December, you can walk into most any supermarket and buy a ripe mango. This has been true long enough that almost nobody stops to think of the remarkable distance that mango traveled or of the tree it fell from, which is probably enjoying a balmy tropical day on the other side of the planet. Proponents of eating local food balk at the ubiquitous midwinter mango. Why? Because they think about the baggage that mango flew in with.

McSweeney's.

Which one? Yes. But in paricular, the All-Comics-Super-Special-Especially Issue. Would you really want anyone to miss something especially super-special? What kind of human are you?

Beautiful People With Beautiful Feelings.

I don't think I should need to explain why I want this book. It's fairly self-evident. But then, if you need explanation, you just don't get it.

(just literary dandruff of) The Great Ideas

2006-10-28T14:24:00.000-07:00

"I've been critial of blogging, which I call literary dandruff."

Today I'm at The Atlantic's Ideas Tour for its 150th anniversary. Patrick Dillion said that just a bit ago. It's now the quote of the day--although there are many others, which I will update here, along with a look back at the day, later this afternoon.

The Only Thing Wrong With Firefox 2.0 Release

2006-10-24T17:31:00.000-07:00

Entertain a small argument for anachronism, if you will. Everyone who cares knew days ago that Firefox 2.0 is out and ready for the public. And of course, we have nothing but praise for the Giant-tumbling, opensourced, continually innovative--new version.

I have one small exception. I want 1.5.0.7 back.

Now, I know you want to throw your outdated Toshiba laptop at me, the one with the blacked-out screen. But hear me out.

Firefox Extensions are the best part. And guess what, the release is so new, that for awhile, the extension developers won't have time to update for 2.0. My favorite more-essential-than-my-left-hand extensions are null, void---marked by little "not compatible with Firefox 2.0---- Uninstall" tags.

Please, we've grown dependent. Forgive us. We downloaded version 2.0 in pure curiosity, for the small thrill of a truly "2.0" look of the streamlined icons, and other new surprises. There's no going back! There is no deinstallation, and even if you did downloadable copies of 1.5.0.7 are gone---effaced in celebration of 2.0. Where can I get a download? Even the cached download page of 1.5.0.7 redirects to Download 2.0.

I wrote to Mozilla for a small request: please, don't take Firefox 1.5.0.7 away until the developers have a change to update the extensions--which you tout and encouraged us to become so dependent upon.

Please write to Mozilla too and ask them--or the other download sites--- to reinstate a download page for the good-old Firefox 1.5.0.7 (may she RIP).

It's a sexy subject.

2006-10-23T22:07:00.000-07:00

What?

A contrarian argument for the sexiness of economics: here. If only terminal bachelor Adam Smith could have leveraged that.

Sexy, decontextualized numbers

2006-10-18T23:25:00.000-07:00

Today I found a subscription notice for Harper's in the mailbox, alongside a fresh copy of the magazine. I love tossing those babies out without even reading the sender's logo. But it's Harper's and I might renew, so I open it up.

Brilliant as their writers are, their marketers are just as good: they pull you in with a cut-and-dry: 'At the end of this letter we're going to ask you to renew with a gift subscription. But first, do you remember: How many x in the US. love y? The number of times Religious Americans Z'd X? The total # of G last December who say they Q? As you *know* (emphasis mine), just a reminder of how much you learn from a Harper's monthly Index.

The Index. Everyone, but everyone, loves the Harper's Index. (shh, if you don't it means you're diputs!)

It's so concise and satisfying, all the factual goodness you need on one pre-researched-and-wrapped 8x11 glossy. It will stick in your brain, and days later, it will make excellent fodder for polite conversation or you'll find it effortless to bend into subtly-irrelated support for a thesis you arrived at on the fly in disucssionwith that twirp who insists on sitting beside you, when the rest of the bus is fully open, and chatting it up. The bastard, serves him right. (He won't be on my Harper's gift subscription list this December, that's for damn sure!)

The percentage of Americans who say Congress is 'out of touch'-- a smilar figure to the last time the electorate passed the Senate to the minority party: 74
The amount Congressmen have paid their spouses with tax-payer money since January first of last year, according to the findings of a citizen journalism team of volunteers: $637,424
The minimum length of time in seconds that is "very good" to last in this game, before being ejected: 40
The length of time in seconds, over which U.S. Air Force pilots have been known to play this game: 60
The number of individuals charged with killing two teenagers, after staking them via MySpace: 5
The percentage of nonbelieving students that state-funded religious schools will be forced to accept, as part of a British law currently being passed: 1/4
The number of recycled PCs that a Maker Faire project used to build a supercomputer: 31
The sum total processing power it produced, in GHz: 22.7
The amount of power it consumed, at peak performance, from its vegetable-powered generator, in A: 30

At length, stand-alone, decontextualized, sexy numbers.

Sexy, particularly when someone else (statistics post-docs leashed to the basement floors of ivory towers, bearing out a vain hope of perchance meeting this month's installment of higher education tuition.) does all the work.
Blast, those adjustable-rate loans! Drat-- why didn't I take the MBA, like mummy said?

Quote of the Day

2006-10-17T16:05:00.000-07:00

So, that previous post was *pretty good, but this is the double-header quote of the day, taken from a SF Chron Headline:

"Doomsday Cave Demoted to Hole-In the Ground"

"It was the place that made us feel good during the Cold War."
--Lt. Gen. William Odom, former National Security Agency director

(did i mention i'm feverish?)

"Optimal impulse control is extremely hard."

2006-10-17T15:37:00.000-07:00

This quote amuses me. It is ascribed to a post about self-imposed and externally-imposed behavior restraints.

All these are strategies to control the behavior of the parties involved. We all know that short term pleasures do tend to displace long term benefits. These schemes are necessary because we dont trust our neighbors, our children and most interestingly ourselves! Optimal impulse control is extremely hard.

We all make personal rules that mimic the systems above because we dont trust our future selves. This lack of trust is based on experience; in what makes for a variation of catch 22, if we had kept to our personal rules in the past we wouldnt need them.

Know thyself.
-delphi oracle temple

Google Reader RSS Feeds in GMail

2006-10-16T20:58:00.000-07:00

(for geekoids who care) A googler "has created a greasemonkey script to incorporate your Google Reader feeds into your Gmail." If that wasn't clear, know this: THIS IS COOL.

How-To
To use the greasemonkey script, perform the following steps as outlined by Mihai:

Install Greasemonkey from http://greasemonkey.mozdev.org/
Restart Firefox.
Click on the script link above [link]
Click on the "Install" button that's displayed in the upper-right corner of the page.
Visit/reload Gmail

Greenhouse Gases Are Expensive

2006-10-16T11:49:00.000-07:00

What's more costly implementing energy reduction, reuse, and recycling solutions, or the cost of environmental decline? If this study is true, there's a strong argument for greening up an act--that even those focused primarily on economic growth will find efficient.

According to a Tufts study at the Global Development and Environment Institute,

[I]f nothing is done to restrain greenhouse gas emissions, annual economic damages could reach US$20 trillion by 2100 (expressed in U.S. dollars at 2002 prices), or 6 to 8 percent of global economic output at that time (Kemfert 2005).

The same study found that immediate adoption of active climate protection policies could limit the temperature increase to 2° and eliminate more than half of the damagesIf, however, climate protection efforts do not begin until 2025, the same model estimates that it will be impossible to limit warming to 2° by 2100 and climate protection in general will be more expensive, the later it starts.

[Emphasis added by Think Progress.]

How important is trade?

2006-10-15T00:27:00.000-07:00

A quote from the NYT:

While North Korea knows it would not last a day in a full-scale war with the United States, it skillfully exploits an American soft point when it stirs fears about its potential to sow havoc among Americas Northeast Asian allies and crucial trading partners Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and China. Such fears also help to make the Chinese and Russians skittish about provoking the North Koreans too much in the nuclear bargaining.

Nuclear war -- or trade? Bombs and hundreds dead -- or imports? [Emphasis in quote mine.]

Wow, we really have come a long since the Cold War. And not in all ways for the better.

Fear sucks, true. But short-sightedness (read: stupidity) sucks more when you're dealing with an aging dictator with a weapon (thought) reserved for "the big boys" and just about only enemies outside his borders. (If only team america was right, and a little love was all he needed.) Invading the country is uncouth, of course--- even Bush has (found it convenient to appear as though he) learned that. But empty threats should be left to parent-child exchanges, and catholic school indoctrination. Mr. Kim Jong-il needs AGAHB. (I'll leave you to unravel that one.)

Meanwhile, doesn't he look like a gangster in this picture? Hmm, "Jong-IL"--- I see a bright alternative career for him as a as the kILr gangstah supreme---he even has a hard-fisted posse in matching (back-up singer-like) get-ups. The music video is so on.

P.S. If anyone knows a good vector editor (online or downloadable) besides Inkscape (+ X11), please let me know. I'd like to crop his arms into a rapper pose.

The $3 Life-Saving Straw

2006-10-14T23:45:00.000-07:00

Forget AIDS vaccines (it's figurative, people!)-- If these filters designed as cheap and handy straws reach their intended targets, many more millions (a billion actually) of lives will be saved, people's health repaired, and lives improved. Water contamination negatively impacts the health of increasingly large populations in developing countries, and fresh water shortages will effect even developed countries in the coming decades.

The LifeStraw is a recent invention, offered for $3, that makes water drinkable and safe for humans by removing bacteria and parasites. The creator, Alexandre Doyen explained to the BBC: "It uses mesh filtration down to six microns, halogenated resin for disinfection, and granular reacted carbon, which improves the taste of the water and finishes off the disinfection process."

link: scroll down for the LifeStaw, along the way you'll see some other cool inventions recognized at Wired magazine's new technology convention, NextFest. more

[I'll have to pull up the stats from the UN Development to substantiate this with those classy numbers everyone loves to gloss over but know are there, so you know (or, rather, think) I'm not bluffing.]

Morals in the Market, Part I

2006-10-14T14:54:00.000-07:00

Here's a comparison of two markets, one where morals are emerging in the system (to the surprise and consternation of some) and one where they have failed to emerge. Interestingly, they are both markets where government has a heavy regulatory influence---and both made the cover of the Times yesterday.

In China, a proposed labor law aims to end abuse associated with sweatshops by giving labor unions real power (as opposed to an ironic gesture by the people's republic). The source of this sudden bureaucratic concern is growing unrest over income disparity. Human rights advocates have encouraged these changes for nearly two decades, since China's simultaneous population explosion and increased openness to cost-cutting, regulation-eluding foreign companies took root in the 1980s (part of the larger wave of, what is termed, globalization).

While at first glance nominally good (abuse is bad, after all, right?---see previous post), the overall effects well-enforced labor protections would have on the Chinese workers is controversial. For many years, so-called the foreign capitalists (multinational corporations, MNCs) would plunk factories and new jobs down amidst the buzz of China's urbanized industrial revolution, offering a mechanism (an opportunity) for productive wealth while taking advantage of the existant wealth of raw materials at a bargain (a flood of low-cost workers).

Economically, the question comes down to whether the nation and its people derive greater economic gain or pain. Human rights advocates are not necessarily absolutists in opposition to sweatshops (thought many are). HR interests, increasingly, take into account the economic benefit of having a job (as opposed to no job at all) along side a traditional concern with worker's rights and conditions.

All that is from a western perspective, but culture still remains an important question.

In the context of Chinese history, aside from a well-journaled tradition of community efforts, more importantly a law empowering labor unions actually carries a tinge of revitalizing communist institutions --as opposed to developing capitalist markets, which has been so hard to cultivate. Or so say the foreign companies, now fighting to defend their special interests in a hybrid market that now unevenly handles freedom---yes for corporations with deep-pocket ties to the PRC establishment, and 'no' to millions lost at sea in the labor market.

In fact, though this law may not go through, this is a long awaited positive sign for both free-markets and human rights.

When the PRC began to "globalize" in the late 80s and early 90s, capitalists ('greedy thugs') and human rights ('hippies') were almost immediately at logger-heads. It was "obvious" (!) to many, that a choice had to be made: people or money. A more difficult but reality-based question emerged in the late 1990s, as more evidence of the effects became available, and that is:
Will the economic stimulus of the MNCs that abuse labors (by western standards) be sufficient to produce a riptide of macroeconomic growth that can leverage social well-being, political development, and (ultimately) create a new sensibility about human rights?
Now, looking back, the survivalist decisions of many million Chinese workers---to submit to sub-standard working conditions in exchange for some income (however unfair to western eyes)--may finally be paying-off.

In a trend similar to the English industrial revolution, we see "civilized standards" emerge after mere survival, virtue follows wealth (to a degree). And, if the law is successfully adopted and enforced, while it's true some foreign companies will choose (as they have already threatened) "not to open more factories" (gasp*), ever many more will find China's labor market irresistible.

It's a comparable effect of the way companies flock to the SF Bay Area, and other urban areas. Here, although taxes and regulation are higher than anywhere, the concentration of educated workers and the way those taxes and regulations indirectly feedback to increase the productivity of said workers is so great, company after company finds a way to settle here. In China, companies that abhor the idea of limiting working hours to daylight hours will stir (actually, they're funding an expensive campaign to block the law), but the draw of that incessant pool of workers hasn't evaporated.

Then the question becomes whether of not the supply is uniquely valuable enough. (Hello, India). But a comparison of India and China's relative attractiveness to foreign companies is beyond the scope of this post (!). And in the short term, it doesn't matter. The proposed law is not rehabilitation of communist protections (those are already in place, and worse, in both counties). Instead, it is just a humble request that China's most valuable commodity be sustained as one. Don't make me make 'the goose that laid the golden egg' comparisons (though better economists seem to love them). Instead, just think of the economic havoc (i.e. waste) and derailment of progressive growth a wave of labor protests would ignite.

The Chinese government certainly has. And that is the beauty of economic growth's positive effect on worker's rights.

If the political climate is ripe for it, now is the time to capitalize (on the many millions of labor hours logged) that forged this chance to create labor protections. If nothing else, it's true that opportunity for cultural, political and institutional change (improvement) is rare than the relatively flexible market. As China's sweatshop workers have demonstrated by practice, oportunity for improvement has its costs and trade-offs. Now it's time to apply that logic to the other head of the dragon, just as fierce. To not do so would be to waste an opportunity just as great as globalization brought for a rise in overall wealth. If profit continues to accrue only to foreign owners and the government, it will be not only a loss for the laborers, it may unravel the entire dearly-earned system which brought this opportunity to fruition.

Part II, of Morals in the Market, will discuss labor prices in Iraq.

abused

2006-10-12T22:05:00.000-07:00

What do you say to something like this? It's like a social science experiment proposed in the shiveringly clinical Nietzschean academia of the 1970s, before the ethical dilemma and, more importantly, legal restraint, stepped-in.

A young boy of nine has spent the last three years (get ready for a list): locked in his bedroom, monitored constantly by his father on video cameras directed at his bed, not allowed to use the bathroom but once a day, not allowed to be with his mother except once a day, and then only for an hour, forbidden to go outside, kept away from all non-relatives... there is more, but isn't this enough?

Enough for what?

Enough to make you cringe longer than you spend commuting and think hard about how man, the mind, and society function, and dysfunction? Like with falling airplanes, it's the singular examples---in distressingly relief--that cause us to tremble, all the while riding in domesticated deathmobiles. True, thousands more kids suffer worse fates elsewhere---not even abused by parental dementia or force, but just, by being born in unfortunate circumstances. Still, it doesn't really detract from the horror of one kid's pain, close-up. Not at all.

link

A Negligent Dictator -- but aren't they all?

2006-10-04T02:14:00.000-07:00

I've been a negligent demi despot of this little site. And, despite the fact I have 10 readers, if you count my mom 2x5 times, the people have begun to complain.

The power to annoy, now that's real power--- and I didn't even have to wear an uncomfortably cut militaristic suit. Eat that Ceausescu.

Comrades, fear not, a utopia of posts is just around the corner...

Playing Patria

2006-08-23T00:58:00.000-07:00

For the dictator in all of us, there is the game of NationStates.

NationStates is a free nation simulation game. Build a nation and run it according to your own warped political ideals. Create a Utopian paradise for society's less fortunate or a totalitarian corporate police state. Care for your people or deliberately oppress them. Join the United Nations or remain a rogue state. It's really up to you.

How much would you pay to see history's greatest and most infamous leaders and thinkers battle it out on an ahistorical, achronistic, digital gameboard? Utopia? Marx and Napoleon, have at it!

Homo Economicus felled by contextual advertising

2006-08-11T10:06:00.000-07:00

Emotion rules our decision-making, and even may dominate it, say researchers from the University College of London. In a behaviroal test using game theory and set-up in a gambling senario, test subjects repeatedly alterted their decisions on the same choice when presented with positive/negative context clues. The researchers looked at consistency of decision here, which is something economists assume a rational actor would retain when the decision doesn't change.

Of course, everyone has known for years/millenia that humans are irrational to a degree. In fact, the London scientists say, emotional memories may be the short-hand for the brain's learning. Persons (not in the study) whose emotional brain regions are nonactive are often unable to make decisions.

The brain images revealed the amygdala, a neural region that processes strong negative emotions such as fear, fired up vigorously in response to each two-second (on average) gambling decision. Where people resisted the framing effect, a brain region connected to positive emotions such as empathy, and another that activates whenever people face choices, lit up as well, seeming to duke it out over the decision.

"We found everyone showed emotional biases, more or less; no one was totally free of them," De Martino says. Even among the four participants who were aware they were inconsistent in decision-making, "they said, 'I know, I just couldn't help myself,' " he says.

The study comes amid a burst of research into neuroeconomics, which studies the brain's role in buying and selling decisions. Economists have embraced the idea in recent years that irrational psychology, rather than cool calculation, plays a role in such decisions. The brain study goes further and suggests that emotions rule decisions almost completely.

"The study is a very nice application of recent knowledge we've acquired about healthy cognition and emotion," says neuroscientist Antonio Damasio of the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, who was not part of the study.

"As a neuroethicist, I'd urge caution about over-interpreting this elegant study," says Judy Illes of the Center for Biomedical Ethics at Stanford University. In real life, decision-making is "an extremely complex behavior with both rational and irrational components," she says, and it is hard to capture completely in a lab setting.

Still, Illes calls the study intriguing and predicts it will lead to more work in the neuroeconomics arena.

link

chronicling democricide

2006-08-11T01:06:00.000-07:00

In a momentous expansion of the governments authority to regulate public disclosure of national security information, a federal court has ruled that even private citizens who do not hold security clearances can be prosecuted for unauthorized receipt and disclosure of classified information. Under this interpretation, for example, the reporters who leaked the classified report on prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib could apparently be prosecuted under the Espionage Act.

Only just one more appendage lost. It's only a finger, not the whole hand! why complain, make a fuss, when you can still continue laboring. A pinky, not even a pointer finger! No fuss, back to work people!

link

Dissing Diamonds

2006-08-10T15:18:00.000-07:00

Women (58% of them) are as interested in and satisfied with HDTVs as diamonds. -- I heard that piece of news on diggnation, as a recent digg news item. It turns out that 'news' was published in 2002 by Wired, so it's possible the initial interest in HDTVs has since dissipated. After all, TVs burn out and, sing-along with de Beers now-- "diamonds are forever."

But perhaps HDTV (though perhaps less portable as a party accessory) is the better gift. A list of (equally dated) reasons not to buy/accept a diamond: Here.

NB: For the record I'll take both.
(Thanks James)

Musings on Monopoly

2006-08-08T22:48:00.000-07:00

From a blogger who recently published a Nature article entitled “Is Our Universe Natural?” and likes examining the molecular properties of coffee, some deep econ thoughts on the Monoploy game on his cell phone:

We think of Monopoly as the quintessential embodiment of laissez-faire capitalism: a competition within the unfettered free market, starting from a level playing field and allowing nature to take its course. Which is all true. But what the game really illustrates are the shortcomings of capitalism, as effectively as one could imagine; if I didn’t know better, I would think that Karl Marx himself had designed the game. Consider:

The game perfectly demonstrates the instability of the free market (which it should, if someone is going to “win”). That is, the rich get richer, as they can leverage their wealth to increase their earnings. Makes for a better board game than a society.
Talent does not win in the end. Sure, there is some judgment involved in when to make certain trades with other players, but the biggest single factor in winning or losing is a literal roll of the dice! How bleakly fatalistic can you get?
The playing field is initially level, but only in a completely artificial way. It’s perfectly clear that, if the game worked like the real world in which some people were born into wealth and others were not, the aforementioned benefits of being rich would absolutely dominate. Not much room for social mobility. A devastatingly effective argument for preserving the estate tax!
Most telling of all: your income does not come from working, it comes from collecting rents. Later in the game, when a few players have started to build houses, you quickly discover that you lose money during your own moves, and only make money during the other players’ moves.
It follows that, later in the game, the best square to land on is Go To Jail! From the comfort of Jail, you don’t have to worry about paying rents to anyone else, but you are free to accumulate wealth from your own properties. It’s really just a vacation resort for white-collar criminals.
The only mildly redistributive action that occurs in the game is the rare-but-devastating “building repairs” card that comes up occasionally in Chance and Community Chest, and which does impact the rich disproportionately. But, significantly, the money doesn’t go to other players, but to the Bank (which is the real source of evil in the whole game).
On the other hand, the game does make you hate the Income Tax. So there’s some mixed messages there.

So I’m thinking that there is quite a subtle subversive message in the dynamics of Monopoly, now being spread to a new generation through their handheld gadgets. Of course, one must already be of a suspcious cast of mind to read the above features as cautionary tales; if cutthroat competition is more your style, you might just think they are cool.

Agreed, but I always thought that the unfairness of it all was the point. I remember grown-ups (and their mimicking prodigy) sometimes saying Monopoly was a way to get a taste of the way the real world worked. Perhaps the eyes of a child are clearer than grown-ups in the ratrace. Sometimes the grown-ups meant the strategy was to save, others to buy, and some smarter ones to just play smart. But its mostly in the damn dice. What's even worse, of couse, is that in the real world we do not start out with an equal share of unmarked rainbows bills.

Love it or leave it--it remains the most popular game. But, based on the tantrums it's caused, it's not always fun.

a beautiful revolution

2006-08-06T22:12:00.000-07:00

via

then, there's private regulation

2006-08-03T00:44:00.000-07:00

As an interesting addendum to the last post on crowdsourcing regulation of network neutrality (or alternatively, monitoring discrimination)--- A company is already offering up a service to do the monitoring.

Kaminsky calls his technique "TCP-based Active Probing for Faults." He says that the software he's developing will...track what path Internet traffic takes as it hops between two machines on different ends of the network.

...Kaminsky's software will be able to make traffic appear as if it is coming from a particular carrier, or being used for a certain type of application, like VoIP. It will also be able to identify where the traffic is being dropped, and could ultimately be used to finger service providers who are treating some network traffic as second-class.

He will release his own, more sophisticated software sometime within the next six months as part of a free suite of tools called Paketto Keiretsu, version 3, he said.

The security researcher said he is curious to see what people do with his software. "People are going to start looking [at networks] and who knows what they are going to find," he said.

Already a handful of carriers have tried blocking certain types of Internet services. In March 2005, the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) fined Madison River Communications US$15,000 for blocking Vonage's VoIP service, but the FCC has since changed its broadband carrier requirements and it's unclear whether it would again issue a similar fine.

Kaminsky believes that net neutrality will eventually become law, and that the type of software he is developing will help keep the carriers honest. "If you're going to enforce by law that networks be neutral, the question becomes, 'How do you test for this?'" he said. "I'm going to make sure that the tools are going to be in place."

link, Kaminsky's research

Crowdsourcing regulation

2006-08-02T22:56:00.000-07:00

The network neutrality bill amendment, currently heading towards its legislative fate, really has firebrands in a largely polarized battle fired-up. This post describes the issue of network neutrality first so that it can discuss some interesting, views in repsonse to it.

Since the inception of the internet, both the freedom of information on it and its own success have relied on what is referred to as 'network neutrality'. In non-technical terms, network neutrality means that information flowing between computers is treated equally (ceteris paribus, without traffic jams).* For some, the telecommuiations restructuring bill is a threat because it would allow ISP providers to discriminate against (delay or block) connection to non-preferred websites. Others see the tactical advantage for the ISP companies as a market good because only those that most valued the fastest service would receive it.

The latter is a purely economic argument--descrimination in this instance is meant to prevent the over supply of a good connection to those who don't really appreciate it, which in theory is a waste of value/money. The internet structure is somewhat ideal, in that it allows most computers to connect at most times without hassel, reaching the data it was seeking and therefore producing an economic good of its own (which may be underestimated, and could out-weigh that in the preceeding argument).

Optimizing public access at no real extra cost sounds desirable, but drafting and enforcing a law to protect network neutrality would be extremely challenging (and potentially costly). It is hard to tell when a provider is purposefully discriminating internet access versus accidentally doing so versus dealing with a technical glitch.

Skpe (an online phone service, voip) is especially sensitive to delays in connection because it requires constant streamin. Tom Evslin sees this as an opporuntity to measure disconnects and monitor uneven distribution of internet service (via BuzzMachine). Aggregating just 1% of the voluntarily-provided Skype user data would provide very useful data.

An excellent idea, but BuzzMachine goes one step further, too, by suggesting that using convenient widget technologies allows this method of public regulation to scale efficiently in a number of areas. For example, college applicants could donate their personal stats and help others identify how admissions committees are really determining acceptance/rejection and scholarhip decisions.

One can imagine no end of ways to enable such large-scale distributed reporting. Some services are trying to get people to report gas prices. Jay talked about surveying prescription drug prices across the country...We could all log out calls to customer service of certain companies — what gets fixed and what doesn’t and how long it takes. We could report and compare how much our local government officials are paid and spend: Every citizen is a reporter. Imagine the possibilities.

I like it. That's a smart system of democratic regulation---one might reapply the net lingo, and call it crowdsourcing regulation.

As for the fate of net neutrality, it's awaiting a senate floor vote. I am for its intent but doubt it's means; then this is really a perfect for the application of the least harm principle based on rational expectations.

In the end, I think outright discrimination is fundementally more harmful (to individuals, economically, for the future of the internet---however you measure it) than sloppy-soft legislation. If the legislation is effectively unenforceable, it will do no active harm. If it attempts to regulate inefficiently, it will unenvelly distribute justice to discriminators---which would might occassionally be unfair to a few companies rather than a habitual hamper to thousands of people daily.

*[For a straight-forward explination of the nuts and blots of network neutrality (and the potential benefits and costs of regulating it), turn to a paper by Freedom to Tinker.]

blogger jailed

2006-08-02T17:28:00.000-07:00

A young blogger is jailed for refusing to turn-over sources. The 24 year-old Scott Wolf shot footage of officers being harrassed during a San Francisco protest of the G8 conference in Switzerland. It was not long ago that a CA appeals court judge ruled that bloggers do not differ from journalists with respect to protecting sources (v. Apple)

Though following in the legally-entangled footsteps of Judith Miller, NYT:

Jane Kirtley, a professor of media ethics and law at the University of Minnesota, said that although the jailing of journalists had become more common, Mr. Wolf’s case was the first she had heard of in which a blogger had been pursued and eventually jailed by federal authorities.

the pedestrian

2006-08-02T00:41:00.000-07:00

Fame has a way of wearing away at the edges of the psyche, pushing aside the balanced mind by its pliable corners of vanity and creating a disorientating prisim from the vision of original intent. I return to mention I have a new blog----for signs and sightings beyond even the expansive bounds of this little doohickey. It's called The Pedestrian, located at http://ksintel.blogspot.com/. You're welcome to get lost there, as well.

Témoignage (Testimony)

2006-08-01T19:44:00.000-07:00

Sarkovsky laied it down for the French in his new book Témoignage.
Times:

THE French need to work harder and display less arrogance, if they are to recapture former glories, Nicolas Sarkozy, the Interior Minister, tells his countrymen in a highly personal 281-page book published yesterday.
Just as they embark on their long summer break, he has a blunt message for them: the holiday is over.

In an account that may make for uncomfortable reading on the beaches, M Sarkozy demands effort, reform and an end to the Gallic habit of delivering lessons to the rest of the world.

Externalities, intrinsic to capitalism

2006-07-26T22:33:00.000-07:00

Here's a good post on how externalities are inhernent to capitalism, and so reasonable capitalists should face them like grown ups---not argue them away (however semantically successful) while letting their negative costs run rampant on society. There was never an anthropologic theory without holes in its application, and economists admit (but sparingly) yes, indeed capitalism is but a theory at last.

The economy, however is not even a theory. It is a work in progress (though that may rankle both those that would control it and those that image it perfectly free). Human hands shape it, and do so imperfectly.

All that was a rambling introduction to a fine post by Tom Evsilin (Fractals of Change) on the importance of recognizing (facing) externalities and government's (place +/- adjective here) role in addressing them.

Regulation is essential to capitalism. I’m damned near a libertarian and certainly a capitalist but I do believe SOME forms of targeted regulation are necessary – even though all regulation poses a danger...A very good form of regulation is to force the externalities to become costs of production. Tradable pollution credits really work to reduce pollution. Why? Because they are technology neutral and result specific. Instead of leaving the good guys at a cost-disadvantage, they create an economic incentive to fix or avoid pollution. Of course, the cost must be applied to ALL producers and that usually means some form of international cooperation. That’s hard! And that’s why the Kyoto treaty with its lofty goals and exclusion of huge developing economies can’t work.

It scares me a bit that a post I agree with so closely in this matter with a person who one post back says he voted for Bush, but hey I feel lucky to find any sense out there. I feel deeply sympathetic to the way this carefully thought and well-balanced opinion is routinely sidelined in the chasm of political thought between both "right" and "left".

'Bring it on!'

2006-07-26T18:51:00.001-07:00

Jay Rosen launched the idea for an online community, NewAssignment.net, that proposes and commissions reporters to write journalistic stories its members want covered. Rosen discusses his idea in an NYU J-School "interview". I'm imagining a Digg-like feed for stories---the public voting to the press on what stories it wants to learn about. I like it. Rosen may have something else in mind. But he does envision donations fueling writers' fee--perhaps they could be a paid with user/subscriber fees intstead (in addition to the expected ads).

This would be a smart, natural compliment to the community-editorial process of news bookmarking: if everyman can be an editor who likes/dislikes a story, they can certainly be an editor who commissions them too. What else do editors do? Let's make a list at maybe trump Javis (fat chance) next time around: hmmm, copy-editing, maybe not.

Getting the public closer to the story is an issue that has always bugged me. This would be particularly useful for political, investigative stories. There is so little money for that hardest-of-hard work---all the economic game theory is against it, you might say. Here it might find a better foothold because the stories would be so specifically demanded and particularlly funded: proof of demand--without all those lingering questions of 'will this cover sell advertising?' (Magazines are the best for journalism and the worst for funding, so depressing.)

In this vein, there's the new PopUp Politician that will display basic information & 'dishes dirt' when a politician's name is moused-over. (via TechCrunch.) Someone make this a Firefox extension!

*blink @875,000 bits/s

2006-07-26T17:41:00.000-07:00

Bandwidth of the eye: Scientists have estimated that the human retina can transmit data at approximately 10 million bits per second, equivalent to a standard ethernet connection. (UPenn study via BoingBoing)

That's cool. Now, if only our brains could absorb that information. (Or if I could obtain my contacts as quickly enough to even see it.)

literary aspirations & literati pretentions

2006-07-26T14:43:00.000-07:00

Happy Birthday little site, you are hereby one year old. To celebrate, a blog more worthy of note might check out publishing their blog in print.

A new service: Blurb--technology I'm very excited to welcome-- prints and binds your favorite blog posts into a 3-dimensional body of eye-candy satisfying to the ardent bibliophile. (NYT story)

Dietary Study of the homolegoblogis

2006-07-24T20:52:00.000-07:00

True I haven't posted for a week but I refuse to apologize (I've already done that post). Pulitzer can just find another show horse. Besides I had a very good, irreproachable reason (it's summer). Namely, (*cough) it was a scientific-er-behavioral experiment in-um search engine user habits. Yes, right, I was observing the remarkable blog roaming patterns of the migratory reader. Hence.... "Dietary Study of the homolegoblogis"
You see, Waston, thrown from of its diurnal migratory RSS feed pattern (equivalent to the human cornmeal), the homoblogovsere must seek out an alternative, active mental spring. A habitual creature, the homolegoblogis may first attempt to revisit the same emptied trough several times before seeking other sources, but eventually it is forced to hunt across the intellectual Savannah via a social network of live links. (Or its mobile battery empties and it dehydrates from excess esspresso in the cafe; that's called natural selection).

But then, you ask, who is left at the domusblogus? Non-endemic quaeroapparati run amok, searching and stumbling upon the now evacuated domusblogus (much like raptors to a hallow carcass, but the data is certified pesco-vegetarian.) In short, search engine traffic comes to dominate the blog by tracking these leads:

That's right folks: Round 3 of backwards-search!
Strange/interesting highlights of real searches that brought readers to my site:

[#Rank in search engine - search terms]

#1 in Blogger - bondage
#1 in G - "goofy business cards"
#1 in G - liveblog sports sf giants
#1 in G - superheroes of the renaissance
#2 in G - ombibulous
#2 in Hebrew G - duoploy
#2 in G (for my other site) - Fruit Yelling
#3 in AOL - Emelda Marcos autobiography
#3 in G - che bello
#3 in G - mc plus+ lyrics dear engineer
#3 in G - infosthetic
#4 in G - The only way for a woman, as for a man, to find herself, to know herself as a person, is by creative work of her own. There is no other way.
#6 in G - facebook ceo business card
#6 in My Web Search (powered by G) - shawshank redemption institution and personal experience
#8 in G - t-shirt " not a place of honor"
#9 in G - ate opponents brains invented cocaine
#9 in G - indiekarma
#9 in G - myspace stalk me program
#9 in G (for my other site) - false fruit
#11 in G - Scientology Orientation Video mirror
#12 in G - green myspace ruined my life shirt
#15 in Yahoo - how to hack facebook
#18 in G - Goonies Sound Bites
#21 in G - mc hawking entropy
#33 in G - flock + blogspot
#39 in G - first class stamp counterfeit

So, if you've ever wondered what this site is about - now you certainly have no idea.

If you're the poor devil who missed the original jems, here's Round 1 and Round 2. Here's another backwards search.]

--
Note: Given the wild thrashing about of x's and y's in search engine algorithmic DNA, this site likely will not turn up for the same result rank today (if reenacted) as when I recorded it. The worst/best example is for the phrase "only in a closed system must the entropy count rise"---at one point this site came up as the #1 top result in Google, and now it does not show at all.

Painting the White House Green

2006-07-17T09:16:00.000-07:00

Environmental-Economics published my review of Painting the White House Green. Despite the title, it is not a book about building a facade of green politics. Rather, it is subtitled Rationalizing Environmental Policy Inside the Executive Office of the President. All eight contributors, including eds. Randall Lutter and Jason F. Shogren, were senior members of the President's Council of Economic Advisors. And each played a direct role in shaping the environmental policies they evaluate. The book provides insight into the power of economic analysis to improve the efficiency of environmental policy for all players. In addition, the book is a rare glimpse into how the CEA (and economics) interacts with politics, how it can be impeded by exogenous factors, and finally when and where it recognizes its own limitations.

You can read the review here.

to know and to act

2006-07-16T16:30:00.000-07:00

Two articles by the UK Telegraph and the Times Online reinforce the trepidation, soundly-grounded in economic theory, that I expressed earlier about America's future--and with America the world.

So, more and more, this analysis is reaching the mainstream public, slowly and in limited syndication articles. But when will it enter national consciousness? And when will the interrelation between the current accounts deficit and ill-balanced international exchange market? When will the slow gears of society and government begin to anything about what they've come to realize?

So slowly. It's a situation with a high amount of expert knowledge to be grasped by laymen, much like global warming, before consensus can build and move forward. We know how that's going.

The Internet Tubes

2006-07-14T14:51:00.000-07:00

Fortuitous indeed

2006-07-12T11:20:00.000-07:00

After my post about my quasi gender-bending experience on Fortuitous yesterday, I sent the site a link and the founder, Chris Stegner popped me a nice email to help set things right. Here's his email:

I actually read this earlier today. But I could not find a user name to
correct it. I take it this is your account?

By the way, I did think it was really neat how well you camouflaged the
aethestics of who you were and focused on who you were inside.

Take care,

Chris

p.s. Nice write up, I will get this fixed for you tomorrow

As a plus, Chris aggreed to so a Q&A here as well--something to look forward to.