Saturday, February 27, 2010
Work naps
I've been saying this for a while. After lunch you're typically pretty sleepy and a short nap would be the perfect pick-me-up--but since sleeping at work is taboo, everyone is forced to resort to drugs (read: coffee, which is of course provided to everyone for free). The American siesta: LET'S DO THIS.
Friday, February 26, 2010
Haiti-capitalism bruhaha
There should be a term for when your comments on a blog post are orders of magnitude larger than the blog post itself. "Overstaying your welcome"?
PS: The Sword and the Ploughshare--no doubt an obscure Magic: The Gathering reference--is the old Target Practice, just with a face-lift and a name change.
PS: The Sword and the Ploughshare--no doubt an obscure Magic: The Gathering reference--is the old Target Practice, just with a face-lift and a name change.
Sunday, February 21, 2010
It's the way of the world, son
The other day when I was, er, occupying a stall in the restroom at work, I overheard this adorable conversation between a father and maybe his 4 or 5 year old son:
Boy: Hey! It smells like lemons in here.
Father: Just stand right there, ok?
Boy: Ok.
Father: Hey! No no no! Don't touch that. It's dirty.
Boy: Dirty?
Father: It's filled with dirty pee.
Boy: (incredulous) But it smells like lemons!
Father: They make it smell that way, so that you don't smell the pee.
Boy: Wow!
Thursday, February 18, 2010
Government stimulus impossible?
I usually try to stay away from The Corner, but this (via Yglesias) strikes me as pretty egregious:
This, in a word, is bullshit. The concept of "borrowing money out of the economy" is a non-sequitor--if anything, money is borrowed into the economy, in the sense that every dollar borrowed is a dollar spent (in other words, people don't borrow money just to stuff it under a mattress--they borrow money with something to buy in mind, like a house, car, etc.).
In fact, normally the main mechanism by which the economy is regulated is by manipulating the amount of borrowing going on. This is accomplished by the Federal Reserve, which has its finger on the interest rate--lowering the rate makes borrowing cheaper, and so more borrowing--and therefore more spending--takes place. And more spending==increased demand==stimulus (these are just semantically equivalent terms).
The problem these days is that the Federal Reserve can no longer increase demand amongst the private sector by lowering the interest rate because the interest rate is already at zero (or near zero--I think it's like 0.25% or something). And so the federal government has stepped in to shoulder the burden, borrowing--and spending--hundreds of billions of dollars on its own. I have a feeling Riedl wants to say something like, "yes, but this demand is canceled out by the fact that the money will have to be repaid later via taxes", but this is no different in principle than the fact that the car or house-buying private citizen needs to eventually repay the loan that was taken out. Obligation to pay down debt later doesn't negate the fact of money being spent now, whether you're talking about a private individual, a company, the government, or whatever.
The idea that government spending creates jobs makes sense only if you never ask where the government got the money. It didn’t fall from the sky. The only way Congress can inject spending into the economy is by first taxing or borrowing it out of the economy. No new demand is created; it’s a zero-sum transfer of existing demand.
This, in a word, is bullshit. The concept of "borrowing money out of the economy" is a non-sequitor--if anything, money is borrowed into the economy, in the sense that every dollar borrowed is a dollar spent (in other words, people don't borrow money just to stuff it under a mattress--they borrow money with something to buy in mind, like a house, car, etc.).
In fact, normally the main mechanism by which the economy is regulated is by manipulating the amount of borrowing going on. This is accomplished by the Federal Reserve, which has its finger on the interest rate--lowering the rate makes borrowing cheaper, and so more borrowing--and therefore more spending--takes place. And more spending==increased demand==stimulus (these are just semantically equivalent terms).
The problem these days is that the Federal Reserve can no longer increase demand amongst the private sector by lowering the interest rate because the interest rate is already at zero (or near zero--I think it's like 0.25% or something). And so the federal government has stepped in to shoulder the burden, borrowing--and spending--hundreds of billions of dollars on its own. I have a feeling Riedl wants to say something like, "yes, but this demand is canceled out by the fact that the money will have to be repaid later via taxes", but this is no different in principle than the fact that the car or house-buying private citizen needs to eventually repay the loan that was taken out. Obligation to pay down debt later doesn't negate the fact of money being spent now, whether you're talking about a private individual, a company, the government, or whatever.
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
All the conventional wisdom that's fit to print
Remarkably, there is an entire article in the NYT about "party gridlock in Washington" that doesn't even contain the word "filibuster", let alone any explanation of its historically unprecedented abuse. It's "analysis" like this that prevents me from feeling all that bad when I hear that newspapers are going under.
Friday, February 12, 2010
Femme fatale
I think one of my favorite things about this Age of the Internets that we live in--and YouTube in particular--are all the covers of songs by amateurs sitting around in their living room. Even songs I've listened to a million times seem to come out fresh and new. I could watch 'em all day.
Anyway, here's Femme Fatale, sung by a beeyootiful lady:
Anyway, here's Femme Fatale, sung by a beeyootiful lady:
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Quote of the day
“Give me whereon to stand”, said Archimedes, “and I will move the earth.” The boast was a pretty safe one, for he knew quite well that the standing place was wanting, and always would be wanting. But suppose he had moved the earth, what then? What benefit would it have been to anybody? The job would never have paid working expenses, let alone dividends, and so what was the use of talking about it? From what astronomers tell us, I should reckon that the earth moved quite fast enough already, and if there happened to be a few cranks who were dissatisfied with its rate of progress, as far as I am concerned, they might push it along for themselves; I would not move a finger or subscribe a penny piece to assist in anything of the kind.
Mark Twain (1835-1910)
“Archimedes”
Sunday, February 7, 2010
Terms of abuse?
Via some guy on Twitter, it seems as though Burning Man enforces some pretty ridiculous restrictions in the fine print of the ticket:
However, though it might make sense in this particular case, it does seem to set a troubling precedent. It doesn't seem right that a company can use a contract to arbitrarily limit what a person can say or do with content collected at an event (although some limits I think are pretty reasonable to enforce). But, really, I'm completely unfamiliar with the thinking on this issue.
PS: It's a pet peeve of mine when causes resort to using silly insults to refer to their targets. For example, this organization keeps substituting "terms of use" with "terms of ab(use)". Not only is this grammatically wrong--it should be "terms of (ab)use"--it just makes the organization look petty and impotent, like they're so powerless to stop what's going on and are so infuriated that the only thing they can do is stand on the sidelines and uselessly sputter in rage. It's like when people use "U$", or "Amerika"--or, for that matter, "Stanfurd" (something I've always been against).
Last year we noted how the Burning Man Organization (BMO) used online ticket terms to require participants to assign to BMO—in advance—the copyright to any pictures they took on the playa. Tickets for the 2010 event went on sale in mid-January, and we hoped the new terms would acknowledge the concerns we had expressed. Sadly, the new terms are just as onerous as before.It's hard to say where I come down on this. The thing is, at Burning Man there are a lot of respectable people doing things that are normally not very respectable, like strutting around in the nude. So there's a big danger to people's reputation if some wise guy decides to snap a bunch of photos and post them online without permission. This gives Burning Man the authority they need to immediately take down any such photos.The "assignment in advance" clause is not the only burdensome provision. The BMO ticket terms limit participants' rights to use their own photos online, obliging them to take down any photos to which BMO objects for any reason and forbidding them from allowing anyone else to download or copy the photos. This means participants cannot donate their works to the public domain or to license their works, even through Creative Commons—no matter what is depicted or whether a use is noncommercial.
Even the notoriously protective Olympics allow spectators to take their own pictures or videos under their Ticket License Agreement, requiring only that the images "not be used for broadcast, publication, or any other commercial purpose." It is disappointing that the BMO cannot be at least as flexible.
Burning Man also continues to strip ticket holders of their right to make perfectly legal uses of its trademarks, forbidding participants from even using the (trademarked) term "Burning Man" on any website. In other words, participants who’d like to blog about their experiences at the event can’t use the words ”Burning Man.” Thus Burning Man uses contract law to do what it cannot under either copyright or trademark law—exert extraordinary control over participants' speech.
However, though it might make sense in this particular case, it does seem to set a troubling precedent. It doesn't seem right that a company can use a contract to arbitrarily limit what a person can say or do with content collected at an event (although some limits I think are pretty reasonable to enforce). But, really, I'm completely unfamiliar with the thinking on this issue.
PS: It's a pet peeve of mine when causes resort to using silly insults to refer to their targets. For example, this organization keeps substituting "terms of use" with "terms of ab(use)". Not only is this grammatically wrong--it should be "terms of (ab)use"--it just makes the organization look petty and impotent, like they're so powerless to stop what's going on and are so infuriated that the only thing they can do is stand on the sidelines and uselessly sputter in rage. It's like when people use "U$", or "Amerika"--or, for that matter, "Stanfurd" (something I've always been against).
They do it their way
Apparently, singing Frank Sinatra's version of My Way at karaoke in the Philippines can get you killed. Which is, you know, ridiculous.
Juking the stats
Life imitates The Wire.BONUS SECTION: I just learned yesterday that there is, indeed, a The Office-The Wire connection. It seems that Office producer/actor B.J. Novaks is a big Wire fan, and so he's been giving Wire alums bit roles. What's funny, though, is that the actors invariably end up playing basically the same character in the Office as they were in the Wire. So, for example, Stringer ends up playing the hardass corporate boss; Beadie ends up playing the mellow love interest (Holly); and in a recent episode, we had the wormy Managing Editor from the Baltimore Sun, Thomas Klebanow, play the wormy fact checker from the new parent company.
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
Extra extra read all about it
Monday, February 1, 2010
Sweet budget proposal interactive graphic thingy
The NYT does it again. Check it out if you want to know what the federal budget is like.
I don't know whether to slap my forehead or rub my temples
From a front page NYT article:
Arrrrrggggggg! This is just not true. Health care insurance reform was projected to reduce the deficit by, among other things, raising revenue and cutting back somewhat on existing Medicare entitlements for seniors. And if the liberals had really had their way, and included a robust public option, the deficit would have been cut far more substantially. (All this according to the CBO!)
Meanwhile, it has been the Republicans who have been promising not to cut Medicare, not the Democrats. And it is the Republicans who passed the unfunded expansion of Medicare, the unfunded tax cuts, and financed the unfunded wars of the Bush years.
So the real story is that it is the Republicans who are overwhelmingly responsible for the unsustainable levels of debt that our nation finds itself in. But in the mainstream press you always get the "both sides are to blame" narrative.
Mr. Obama has published the 10-year numbers in part, it seems, to make the point that the political gridlock of the past few years, in which most Republicans refuse to talk about tax increases and Democrats refuse to talk about cutting entitlement programs, is unsustainable.
Arrrrrggggggg! This is just not true. Health care insurance reform was projected to reduce the deficit by, among other things, raising revenue and cutting back somewhat on existing Medicare entitlements for seniors. And if the liberals had really had their way, and included a robust public option, the deficit would have been cut far more substantially. (All this according to the CBO!)
Meanwhile, it has been the Republicans who have been promising not to cut Medicare, not the Democrats. And it is the Republicans who passed the unfunded expansion of Medicare, the unfunded tax cuts, and financed the unfunded wars of the Bush years.
So the real story is that it is the Republicans who are overwhelmingly responsible for the unsustainable levels of debt that our nation finds itself in. But in the mainstream press you always get the "both sides are to blame" narrative.
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