Like everyone else, I’ve been following the drama on Wall Street, Main Street, Washington DC and so on.
Bless their hearts, they have posted a document called “firstdraft.pdf” to allow the masses to examine the bill which will authorize the bailout (a bit of irony?)
It’s way over my head, but a quick scan does reveal some rather large numbers being bandied about…
Wow!!!!
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A very interesting article in Edge.org (by the way, an always interesting site.) This one is called Moral Psychology and the misunderstanding of religion:
“I study morality from every angle I can find. Morality is one of those basic aspects of humanity, like sexuality and eating, that can’t fit into one or two academic fields. I think morality is unique, however, in having a kind of spell that disguises it. We all care about morality so passionately that it’s hard to look straight at it. We all look at the world through some kind of moral lens, and because most of the academic community uses the same lens, we validate each other’s visions and distortions. I think this problem is particularly acute in some of the new scientific writing about religion. ” (from Edge.org)
And a totally different, yet equally interesting article: “Smart Taxes: An Open Invitation to join the Pigou club”. Among other things, you learn in this article what Pigovian taxes are:
“My topic for today is a policy about which there is a particularly large gap between economists and the public: Pigovian taxation. In particular, I want to talk about taxes on energy-related products, such as gasoline taxes.Not long ago, the economist Steve Levitt, coauthor of the best-seller Freakonomics, wrote on his blog, “For a long time I have felt the price of gasoline in the United States was way too low. Pretty much
all economists believe this.” Levitt then went on to argue for higher taxes on gasoline.At about the same time, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi had precisely the opposite perspective. She announced “a series of hearings to address rising gas prices—focusing on the causes, the burdens they put on American families and businesses, and solutions.” (from “Smart Taxes: An Open Invitation to join the Pigou club“)
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Interesting article about the sale of DVDs in Silicon Alley Insider:
“Just a reality check on the video download/rental business: There
really isn’t one yet. At least not compared to good old-fashioned DVD
sales and rentals.” (from “Forget iTunes: Americans still love to buy DVDs“)
Interesting article. I wonder, what about music CDs?
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I just downloaded the new ITunes 8. It has this new thing called the iTunes Genius which seems like it is going to help me create play lists or something. Maybe it’s gonna out Pandora Pandora or Last.FM. Don’t know exactly what I am getting but I pushed the big red button and got it enabled.
I got curious though when I saw the CPU pegged for a while and saw this ‘progress bar’:
Looks like iTunes is giving me a colonoscopy and sending all the results to Apple.
Now I love Apple but this gives me a little bit of the creeps. I have no secrets (that I know of) buried in my play lists.
Still.
Anyone?
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Maybe this is one more of the futile petitions that we send around and to each other, but the goal rings true to me:
“It is critical that our policymakers turn their attention to our
deteriorating financial health which, if not addressed responsibly and
quickly, will cause severe economic hardship for our nation and its
citizens, especially the young and future generations.” (from “Letter to Candidates”)
Read the whole thing here, and if you like, sign it!
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A good article in the New York Times Magazine about the so-called ‘ambient awareness’ phenomenon:
“Social scientists have a name for this sort of incessant online contact. They call it “ambient awareness.” It is, they say, very much like being physically near someone and picking up on his mood through the little things he does — body language, sighs, stray comments — out of the corner of your eye. Facebook is no longer alone in offering this sort of interaction online.” (from New York Times: I am So Totally, Digitally Close to You”)
The article talks about the Facebook Friend Feed and how it originally was rejected by the users, but soon became the key to a burst of growth of Facebook. Twitter is also explored in detail. This is a good introductory article on the Twitter phenomenon.
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The quote below is from this post from ReadWriteWeb
While we are certainly seeing more and more examples of products being given away for free, it is not necessarily a good thing. There are different aspects and faces of free. The Flickr free, which Fred Wilson calls freemium, is the model where the basic version is free and the premium one costs money.This model is very different from the GMail model where the entire product, with full features, is completely free. The downside of freeconomics is a monopolistic market, with barriers to entry, and little incentive to innovate. In addition the middle-man and transactional complexities are the other side effects of this new economic trend.
(Read the whole thing: Beware of Freeconomics)
It is of course on a topic that I’ve written a lot about, so I won’t comment on it further, just that I agree 
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I read the New York Times, and magazines like The Atlantic and The New Yorker, and web sites like Salon. Each of these, IMO are relatively thoughtful and interesting and a good way to keep up with what’s going on. And I tend to agree with them often. I guess my liberal bias matches their liberal bias.
I feel like I am not hearing ‘the other side’.
What are the counterparts to for example The Atlantic or Salon for the right? Whatever commentary I come across that leans more conservative tends to be shrill, partisan and impossible to take seriously. I’ve been looking at the Wall Street Journal’s political coverage which qualifies.
But can someone point me to the conservative equivalent of The Atlantic or New Yorker or Salon?
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Gizmodo shows the first ad, and even though I love Jerry and like Bill, it, indeed, makes no sense.
Maybe I am just to literal minded.
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An interesting article from Bruce Schneier about why he believes that TSA requirement of photo IDs is a waste of time:
“The problem is that it is unverified passenger names that get checked against the no-fly list. At security checkpoints, the TSA just matches IDs to whatever is printed on the boarding passes. The airline checks boarding passes against tickets when people board the plane. But because no one checks ticketed names against IDs, the security breaks down.” (from Los Angeles Times)
Particularly interesting is that he has specific instructions in the article on how “anyone on the no-fly list can easily fly whenever he wants”. I remember a couple of years ago some guy got into heap trouble with the FBI for posting a little web hack for doing just what Schneier gives instructions for. I wonder whether Schneier will get a call from them? Nah, he’s too well known!
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