...Sitting at the Adult's Table...

Here to help.

2009-01-11T09:46:00.000-05:00

Hilarity from Anthropologie

2008-12-22T15:23:00.001-05:00

"shop local" ....in a chain. Awesome.

Literary current events.

2008-12-15T13:23:00.001-05:00

I'm a bit worried about that massive helmet of hair on Blagojevich. He could be hiding another Voldemort under there.

Somebody warn the commission.

Irrationality ensues.

2008-11-13T18:41:00.000-05:00

Hilarity of the day:

Headline on CNN news: "America's high hopes for Obama."

Ya' think?

Econtastic.

2008-11-11T23:47:00.001-05:00

insurance requires uncorrelated risk, which is why "insurance" works against uncoorelated risks (like hurricanes, which when you have a broad base, one hurricane that hits some of your base isn't going to put you under) but not against corelated risk, like a housing market deflation (as in, it shrinking, not necessarily in the economic 'deflation' term) where your whole base can take a hit.

This has been a reiterated insight from this week's econtalk with Arnold Kling.

This is why we can't really have an exchange market to reduce risk in mortgages as we do in futures (oil, farm products, etc.), according to Kling. That is vastly profound....however....

I do wonder, if you increased your time horizon, and likely therefore your interest rates and capital holding requirements (you need to pay people more to allow you to lock up their money for longer and hold more cash on hand to avoid any runs or other catastrophies resulting from a downturn), if you couldn't do the same effect of broadening your base, but in a time, vs. a geographic, sense. Wouldn't this serve the same risk-diffusing purpose as insurance?

...related to that bernanke article I mentiones...and the latest econtalk.

2008-11-11T18:47:00.001-05:00

One additional issue, and a seemingly large one as we consider fannie/freddie having increased risk of defaulting on cdo's (Collateralized Debt Objects--at least a somewhat large bomb that hit the economy in the last few months)/securitized mortgages: their (Fannie/Freddie's) artificially-low-due-to-implicit-govt-support rates allowed the cancer to grow undetected for longer than it would have under typically rising rates in a regular bank that needs to pay larger interest in coorelation to larger risks. And, as they had their fingers in ~60% of the country's mortgages, their securitized mortgages got to spread that cancer far and wide.

But, at least more people bought houses. *sigh* That's good, I guess...

Opportunity. Cost?

2008-11-11T18:31:00.000-05:00

Wisdom can be gained when you'd fully bought into something and found out it was wrong.

another option for "gay marriage"...or "marriage" in general.

2008-11-05T19:47:00.002-05:00

It seems that people think the only way to solve issues is to get the government involved...another option is to get the government out of the marriage certification business altogether, and allow/enforce contracts between individuals that would emerge following the dissolution of special state-enforced shorthand contracts called "legal marriages." Then, any consenting individuals could determine to enter into asset sharing contracts, the breaking of which may require judicial intervention.

We may still then disagree about the definition of marriage, which is fine, but the disagreement wouldn't get to have the guns of the government backing it up. Remember, the only reason the State began certifying marriaages (issuing "marriage certificates"...why the hell does the government get to "allow" you to get married!!??) is to ensure that blacks and whites weren't getting married, as miscgenation was considered an abomination.

The state is evil.

Incidentally, and interestingly, this would serve to reduce the divorce rate. Why is that?

I think I like the Bernanke. And the market isn't to blame for mortgagegate...or, at least, your Government is to blame as well.

2008-11-05T15:29:00.005-05:00

Don't know a thing about Fannie/Freddie? Mortgage stuff confusing you a bit? Well, me too, so I used a paper to learn a bit about it.

Recently, I wrote a paper discussing HUD's regulatory analysis of a proposed federal rule increasing Fannie/Freddie's target goals (whenever some government agencies propose a federal rule with a certain dollar value of impact, they need to do a certain kind of cost/benefit analysis called a regulatory analysis. My paper is an analysis of that analysis). Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, if you weren't aware, are called Government Sponsored Enterprises or GSEs, as they are uniquely related to the Federal government. They're not exactly public nor private, and are regulated heavily by the government, specifically Housing and Urban Development, who sets the goals for the mortgage companies, essentially telling them what they need to be buying and when, and attempting to measure whether they are meeting the goals that Congress/HUD sets for them.

The largest goals of the GSEs are: Low and Moderate-Income Housing goal, Underserved Areas Housing Goal, and Special Affordable Housing Goal. These three areas are all measured as percentages of dwelling units whose mortgages were purchased by the GSE and qualified for each goal. These goals were all increased from their previous levels in a stepped, yearly amount by the 2004 rule, so as to give the GSEs time to react and innovate ways in which to meet the goals. This rule that was the basis of my paper is a revisiting of previous rules enacted by HUD in 1995 and 2000, setting purchasing goals that were to be in effect from 2005-2008, which we now in retrospect see as the peak and collapse of the housing market in the U.S., and subsequent federal conservatorship (i.e. nationalization) of the GSEs.

In 2007 (yes, I realize that this is quite a bit after the rule, but his comments are not so crazy that they shouldn't/couldn't have been considered earlier), Bernanke offered a few ways that some of Fannie/Freddie's main business should be modified, that main business being:

[T]he purchase of mortgage-backed securities and other types of assets for their own investment portfolios. This line of business has raised public concern because its fundamental source of profitability is the widespread perception by investors that the U.S. government would not allow a GSE to fail, notwithstanding the fact that--as numerous government officials have asserted--the government has given no such guarantees. The perception of government backing allows Fannie and Freddie to borrow in open capital markets at an interest rate only slightly above that paid by the U.S. Treasury and below that paid by other private participants in mortgage markets. By borrowing at this preferential rate and purchasing assets (including MBS) that pay returns considerably greater than the Treasury rate, the GSEs can enjoy profits of an effectively unlimited scale. Consequently, the GSEs’ ability to borrow at a preferential rate provides them with strong incentives both to expand the range of assets that they acquire and to increase the size of their portfolios to the greatest extent possible.

Bernanke's main 3 points were (from my paper summary):

1. A stronger regulatory framework in which the regulator has capabilities of adjusting the GSEs capital requirements (as it stood, they held capital equal to appx. 3.5% of assets, vs. 6-10% at other banks, while their investment mix in a private bank would have likely required even higher than 10% capital/asset ratio in reserve).
2. Establish a clear and credible receivership process, establishing that share and debt holders could suffer financial loss and not expect a governmental bailout.
3. Anchor portfolios to a well-understood public purpose approved by Congress (under the then-current situation, studies showed that affordable housing goals achieved very little in terms of increasing homeownership among low-income families).

The remainder of his short speech may be read here, and while some of it may be confusing, I encourage you to read it, especially if you believe primarily that more government regulation is the answer to preventing situations like this in the future.

While it is foolish to say that "this" or "that" caused the current situation, it is important to realize that governmental regulation at least played a small (and I would say a large) part in creating the laxity in private oversight that people would feel inclined to participate in when their money is on the line. This is a problem that would be exacerbated, not fixed, by increased government regulation.

The state of your local Shawn.

2008-11-05T09:45:00.000-05:00

..I gotta admit, the screaming and dancing here in Georgetown (until at least 2:30 when I went to a thankfully-interior room to sleep) was a bit contagious, despite my knowledge of economics and subsequent disgust for notions of a Presidential economic/social saviour...but now I really feel scared, literally scared, that he'll be shot. My assumption, strengthened by the apparently (I've heard no numbers) high voter turn out, is that the "reaction graph" has to be a reverse bell curve, and the people on the opposite side of all the crazy, jubilant revelers are conversely angry/slighted/offended/disparing, and the mirror image of that mania is terrifying.

I'm having a hard time sleeping...this is unprecedented.

Roger Ebert: Stick to movies, chap.

2008-10-04T20:31:00.005-04:00

ROGER, Roger, roger. Just as your capital letters have denigrated, so has your potency.

In a recent review, Mr. ebert waxes political and economic, showing his absolute concern for the working man (and utter ignorance in matters economic/corporate--strangely, therefore, showing his lack of concern for the working man). Basic econ, mr.ebert (now you're losing spaces)...a company can not just willy-nilly "cut their wages, pollute their work environment, deny them health care, force them to work unpaid overtime, bust their unions and other crimes". I would have agreed with you 5 years ago, when I was a foolish 25 year old. Now, you're a 67 year old fool. That is greater than 2.68 times as bad, because you have had longer to learn.

Granted...the average moviegoer doesn't understand either. But they're not being heard over the large airwaves. Shoot me an email, mrebert (before you start losing letters in your name), and I'll send you a book to teach you something. If that's too long, you can read a less 'intense' version. It's probably not as short as a movie, but vastly more profitable.

I don't even know what this means

2008-10-01T17:19:00.003-04:00

I wasn't even sure what sport this was about, until I saw the url.

just a little snapshot.

2008-09-28T22:57:00.001-04:00

One of the few times a picture from my phone has looked decent.

an adult's table guide to politics.

2008-09-26T21:36:00.001-04:00

If you ever hear a politician complain about a foreign country, run away. In fact, tell the man he's a damn fool. If that doesn't make sense to you, let me know. If you want to, research "comparative advantage," or read Russ Roberts' 'The Choice.'

a comment on the alleged debate agenda.

2008-09-26T21:19:00.001-04:00

Foreign
Policy
=
Freaking
Pandering.

15 or so minutes into the "debate," and there has been no comment whatsoever on foreign policy. Unsurprising, I guess, due to thee general tendency to discuss what is urgent vs. what is important.

he hate me.

2008-09-24T12:51:00.001-04:00

Often, people will say that economists only care about money, while real people are much more complex. This is true, in that people do have multi-faceted motivations.

This is false, however, in that it is most assuredly NOT all that economists consider. This is borne out in the preponderance of views and positions that are popular among economists, and social suicide among the vast population (and patently unpopular for the economist to hold...I can attest to this).

Minimum wage (you hate poor people!), affirmative action (you hate black people/women), welfare (you hate poor people), affordable housing (again with the poor-hating), the vast majority of governmental regulation-including the FDA and EPA (now...this isn't quite widespread, but it does happen in much higher proportions than the general population), public schools (at least as they stand generally), employer-provided health insurance....etc.

I'm sure there are others, but you get the point. It would be much more profitable and socially beneficial (in terms of pretty liberal girls liking us more, and hip liberal guys wanting to be our friends), to jettison this whole thing and go with the social(ist) flow.

We either are masochistic, or we truly do want to save everyone...but we have a longer time horizon and lower value in being seen as a savior-a low discount rate on saviorhood.

"you two should know better" -or- "drink, drink, drink, drink it up!"

2008-09-24T11:40:00.003-04:00

Quotations below via "NPR: All things considered"
18 September 2008
(transcript used expressly without consideration or permission)

Dr. LARRY SUMMERS (Former Treasury Secretary, Clinton Administration): "You know, it's very tempting to always think that the government should just stand back and let the private sector sort these problems out. That's the kind of thinking that made the Depression 'Great.'

Dr. Summers, you are a wise man, but haven't we shown conclusively that this sort of fallacy, this grade school myth told to encourage a child's faith in the ability of the government, is patently false? Don't you know in your incredibly educated mind what Friedman and Schwartz showed the profession...when was it...the 60's?...that it was the gross deflation caused by the fed taking 1/3 of the money out of circulation in something like 2 years (a government action), and then Roosevelt's subsequent arrogant tinkering with the economy that led to uncertainty and frozen capital, thereby further exacerbating the situation and prolonging the plunge for years into greatness? Perhaps the doctor disputes these causes that I thought were rather widely held, at least within the economics profession? Perhaps I drink the free-market punch, while he's sipping the government green tea. It's not comfortable to scold someone so ostensibly wise, but I can't avoid it. Dr. Summers gets a K (Krap Koolaid) for his comment, but he used to mix up some government koolaid for all the kiddies to sip, so he's comfortable with the unnatural stains on his hands.

Dr. MARK ZANDI (Chief Economist, Moody's Economy.com): You know, the financial markets are built on faith and trust. And there's no way to restore that faith and trust without the help of an aggressive federal government.

No, sir. Faith and trust within financial markets are built on belief that contracts will be upheld and that a system will continue in something like the trajectory you expect it to-the more oriented toward enforceable contracts the better. There may be a role for government in this, in terms of a judiciary, but that does not necessarily follow. There are several examples of complex ordering systems of commerce and trade existing separately of government force, and at least a nominally valid case to be made for a completely private judiciary (see Rothbard's 'For a New Liberty' on this, though I'm personally rather comfortable with a governmental role in this aspect). All that to say, it does not necessarily and inevitably follow that because we need faith and trust, we need governmental inter-action/-vention, much less that we need an aggressive government...at the federal level, no less. I give your comment a K, sir, and wish you all the best. Remember: never eat the koolaid right out of the pouch, it tastes horrible. If you're in the habit of drinking it, though, you probably already know that. Since I can't assume that a PhD is a fool, you must therefore be used to that kool sip of refreshment with all artificial colors and flavors. Drink up!

I realize that this quote is a soundbite, but it is so patently wrong, twisted, and misappropriating of the role of government that it simply can not be allowed to stand. Here, within this broad, vast freehold of the internet that is my kingdom, it shall not.

Wait...you mean only like four people will ever see this? Neither Dr. Summers nor Dr. Zandi will ever know or care about my vicious jabs? Ah.

Onward, Sancho!!

And now, in this corner, weighing in at a-paltry-lack-of-substantive-experience...

2008-09-24T00:59:00.004-04:00

With all due respect...Professor Walden has been quaffing the koolaid (kookaid?) when it comes to his assessment of the current housing/wall street/etc. debacle that's going on. Let's be honest, however...Professor Walden is, well, a professor...and he graduated from Cornell the year I was born. Yikes. I'm a first year grad student, and I'm not even taking 'grown up' PhD classes, but master's sections in econ classes. Oh, and I've never had an econ class in the past. Is that enough qualification? Alright, on to the kookiness.

1) You're going to compare the federal government to a doctor? I'm not even such a fan of doctors, but that's just disrespectful...to doctors. Doctors are highly trained, (arguably overly) specialized individuals. We all know about the pillage brokers, as Mencken referred to politicians, and what they're actually skilled at. This, as Munger stresses, is a look-at-me play perfectly timed for election posturing. To call them a doctor infers that they have some knowledge of that which they are operating on. Granted, Mr. Paulson knows a lot more than the average legislator...but not as much as the financial professionals know about their industry. There's more that can be said here, but let's leave it at "there is a huge dearth of true knowledge (vs. information and twisted incentives) among those in the government making the calls here".

2) "we" are going to have some asset in the future? HA. Unlikely, sir...unlikely. ASSUMING that there is some sort of efficient management that can occur through the government oversight of these assets (wow...I can't believe I said 'efficient' 'management', and 'government' in the same sentence), there will be no sort of disbursement to "the taxpayers", and no incentive to do so. Makes me think of non-profits, who have an incentive to increase the perquisites and decrease the left-over profits.

3) To continue on professor Munger's point, and professor Walden's analogy, the patients about to die on the table are corporations that made shit decisions, and made those decisions largely because the incentives were aligned against them, or more precisely, were aligned in precisely the right way to obtain exactly this wrong outcome. Russ Roberts has been detailing some of these incentives over the past few days at Cafe Hayek, primarily focusing on the governmental interventions in the housing market over the past few years.

What "we" should do is put those patients in quarantine, and allow them to die (note that I've tweaked the analogy to allow many patients, vs. the singular patient that Professor Walden described: we're not all dying, it's the infected ones that are). It's unfortunate; I'd like us all to live forever, but that's simply not possible at this point, and this rescue will simply allow the disease to spread its effects into more cities, towns, and countries.

Two out of the three parties in this party have a suspect incentive to desire this bailout, while the third has had little incentive to ever learn about the issue in the first place, and is now largely hearing voices from the first two camps. Is it surprising in the slightest that this would be an epic fail?

another PSA...Political Service Announcement.

2008-09-17T17:42:00.001-04:00

If you think that the President can do much more than "do no wrong" for the economy (vs. fixing it), you're deluded--or a fool.

People who know way more than me seem to continually stress that the President's (sole?) effect is in foreign policy, and that virtually every single political answer to a problem makes the problem worse...unless they move toward deregulation, but that's a politically suicidal move to make at this point, so don't expect to see it.

most depressing...

2008-09-14T23:39:00.001-04:00

Most depressing song ever:

Sufjan Stevens - John Wayne Gacy, Jr.

It's a beautiful day in the (off contract) neighborhood...

2008-09-10T16:51:00.001-04:00

...it's an exciting time to be coming off your mobile phone contract. :) and, better yet, coming off Sprint with viable alternatives available elsewhere. I always felt shady in the past talking to retentions, saying I was considering leaving, because nobody had a phone that I felt compared with my Treo 650/700p. Now there's the very awesome looking BB bold, this HTC Dream, the sony xperia....and, of course, the very awesome Touch Pro.

I really will be calling and saying "make me an offer I can't refuse, or I will take my and my wife's monthly contract elsewhere".

Now, I just have to get her to quit using dumb phones and calling me all the time to find information for her...but I'm not planning on that happening. :)

Maybe we Libertarians don't just hate people.

2008-09-03T13:22:00.003-04:00

Despite being continually seen as heartless, we must soldier on.

There is only one difference between a bad economist and a good one: the bad economist confines himself to the visible effect; the good economist takes into account both the effect that can be seen and those effects that must be foreseen.

Yet this difference is tremendous; for it almost always happens that when the immediate consequence is favorable, the later consequences are disastrous, and vice versa. Whence it follows that the bad economist pursues a small present good that will be followed by a great evil to come, while the good economist pursues a great good to come, at the risk of a small present evil.

Frederic Bastiat, The Seen and the Unseen, at EconLib

Iz Laybur Day.

2008-08-31T17:04:00.001-04:00

moar funny pictures

My first self-created lolcat. Yes, that's the desk in the front bay window. It's my favorite part of the house.

Digg and misplaced hopes.

2008-08-30T13:58:00.003-04:00

Tripping around on Digg, I happened upon the following article:

McCain Would Rather Win an Election than Pick a Qualified VP.

Now...I commented in the story, but here you go. As one of my professors (the inimitable Russ Roberts) said the other day, upon seeing 3 prius's in a row (in northern California, of course, and at a farmer's market, no less...it just doesn't get any more stereotypical than that), all festooned with Obama stickers, "man, are these people in for a disappointment." Until all of you really and truly learn this, you're going to be disappointed by every single election/aftermath:

"________ (insert politician's name here) would rather win an election than ________ (insert verb phrase here)."

the difference.

2008-08-23T17:46:00.001-04:00

"The answers aren't in a book or Wikipedia"...and that's the difference between knowledge and information, and that's why nobody knows how to make a pencil.

What would I miss?

2008-08-20T23:39:00.001-04:00

Know what's a beautiful thing?

Seeing a woman with a man, and knowing that she knows he's screwed up and deficient, but she's still there, rubbing his back, laughing at his stupid jokes.

Because it's just been too long.

2008-08-20T22:25:00.001-04:00

from "overheard in new york":
"66-
Suit lugging huge rolling suitcase to hobo taking up two seats on train: Pardon me.

Hobo (sliding over, looking at huge suitcase): What do you have there, a dog or something?

Suit (with deadpan look on his face, stroking suitcase fondly): I used to. (sighs)

(hobo slowly inches away)
-99"

if you know why...

2008-08-13T23:44:00.001-04:00

Please pray. This is tough.

why Palm isn't dead...and neither is Sprint.

2008-07-30T19:55:00.001-04:00

Jump in on the dogpile all you want, but the Palm Centro, combined with chatter email, is one bad ass communication device that easily rivals a blackberry (disclaimer: while I am a tech geek, and have several friends who have blackberries, I do not have and have not extensively used one myself), and certainly seems to get more things done more efficiently than an iPhone...except for doing it as slickly, which I concur is an aspect.

The Centro seems to be loads better than my current 700p, and coupled with sprint SERO plans, presents by FAR the best mobile communications options in mobile services today, in terms of cost vs. capabilities. For $30/mo, plus applicable taxes, you can get 500 daytime minutes, unlimited nights/wkends (starting at 7), unlimited texts, and unlimited (up to 5gb...but nobody is truly unlimited that i know of, and good luck hitting 5gb with a mobile phone, even using occasional tethering--coughcoughUSBMODEMcoughcough--on your plan) internet/data. with chatter, and an applicable IMAP email address (like gmail), you get email pushed to your phone within seconds of receipt. beat that...just try to anywhere else. I've been looking, and I can't.

That all said...If I could get comparable AT&T service for anywhere CLOSE to what I'm paying for sprint (as compared to ~2x+ the cost), I'd be there in a heartbeat, even paying full non-subsidized price for an iPhone.

Shawn against Government. Shocking, I know.

2008-07-27T15:12:00.003-04:00

More efficient Thermoelectrics.

...that is cool; and one great example of why I get worried when I see government subsidies for this or that "alternative energy source." I think...man, if government subsidies were greater, this guy would never have been trying this, b/c he would have (logically) been chasing the grant money elsewhere. How many brilliant people do we have looking at the wrong problems?

This is precisely why I oppose a "Manhattan Project" on energy, as I recently had a friend propose as a "solution" to the "energy crisis."

h/t: TotM

ye olde Milton...the Friedman variety.

2008-07-20T20:51:00.001-04:00

We now have several decades of experience with government intervention. It is no longer necessary to compare the market as it actually operates and government intervention as it ideally might operate. We can compare the actual to the actual. If we do so, it is clear that the difference between the actual operation of the market and its ideal operation – great though it undoubtedly is – is as nothing compared to the difference between the actual effects of government intervention and their intended effects.”

—Milton Friedman, 1962

Ayn Rand: facial expressions :: Charles Dickens: character descriptions

2008-06-26T13:38:00.001-04:00

The way that Ms. Rand writes her characters' perceptions of facial expressions is so unbelievable. Is it really possible to percieve that much in a look--an unspoken conversation--or is she simply putting words to the subconcious perceptions that we all make, the unspoken words we speak, as an artist sketches the lines we absorb without noticing, these things that we see without knowing we've seen them?

a "welcome to the city" gift?

2008-06-26T11:11:00.001-04:00

So...the Supreme Court struck down the D.C. gun ban, finally. I'm hesitantly ecstatic...only out of my relative ignorance as to the process, and subsequent fear that there's "something else" that could happen. Though...the supreme court is pretty...well...supreme.

competing fools.

2008-06-26T10:22:00.001-04:00

For if there is more tragic a fool than the businessman who doesn't know that he's an exponent of man's highest creative spirit--it's the artist who thinks that the businessman is his enemy.

-Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged, p. 719

I've said it before...

2008-06-25T16:55:00.001-04:00

But it's just sticking out, so I'll comment on it:

This whole "corporations are evil and nefarious" thing is interesting. I certainly used to subscribe to it...and then I started reading some economics (Sowell's 'basic economics' is great, as anyone who speaks to me or reads this knows) and it eased a bit of my vitriol and worry over a corporation's actual "power" over consumers.

My worry over the government's power (especially in the realm of granting monopoly power...which is the only real time you have a monopoly) has grown exponentially, however...so maybe everyone should just keep on directing their anger at companies and trusting politicians in order to maximize their happiness.

Ignorance, after all, is bliss.

first impression of boston?

2008-06-21T19:41:00.001-04:00

A bunch of dudes with sleeveless shirts on. I thought I left the rednecks behind?

unexpected effects.

2008-06-21T19:23:00.001-04:00

Reading Atlas Shrugged almost makes me want to smoke.

If you know me, you realize the preposterousness of that sentence.

a new appreciation.

2008-06-21T16:03:00.001-04:00

A wonderful thing about an appreciation of the wonders of creativity, of capitalism, is that things that look so familiar become new and wonderful. The glow of an HID bulb, tiny in size, brilliant in lumens, can be exciting, because you see the creativity behind the creation, and can be excited about the future, the possibilities, that this system uniquely in our history presents.

Barack OMFG.

2008-06-17T18:02:00.001-04:00

I'm a big believer in evidence. I'm a big believer in fact. You know, if somebody shows me we can do something better through a market mechanism, I'm happy to do it. I have no vested interest in expanding government or setting up a program just for the sake of setting one up. It's too much work.

-Senator Obama

That a politician would say that he has no vested interest in the political machinations of "government" is so horridly untrue that it would be laughable, were it not something that caused my peers to look starry-eyed at the man for saying.

economics while waiting in line.

2008-05-23T12:34:00.000-04:00

The next time you think that oil companies (or anyone else, for that matter) conspire to make "obscene" profits by simply charging higher prices, stop by Costco, and look at the insane lines for gas that's...what...$.10 cheaper per gallon? Worry not, the profit motive and competition are hard at work to drive down prices always and everywhere.

Carrot Juice?

2008-05-20T09:51:00.001-04:00

ands I is back, alls of y'alls...

2008-05-05T22:25:00.005-04:00

to say that Orson Scott Card done put an ass-whoopin on Ye Olde JKR:

J.K. Rowling, Lexicon, and Oz.

dayum. DAYUM. that's like Gandalf kicking your ass at...like...chess, or something.

Blogging is not fun anymore, at least at this point. If you wanna see my drivel, check me out on either:
Cafe Hayek
The Big, Bad, Bradley
El MungerAngus-arino

and, occasionally, on:
Bertastic.
MR...but those guys are all smarter'n me.
An April's blog...and she's probably updating more frequently than I am.

Until I get something more interesting to write about, that's where I'll be.

ed: POOR FORM!! h/t: Previously-Mentioned-Munger.

no kittehs were harmed:

2008-04-18T08:38:00.002-04:00

Thankfully, no high school softball players were harmed either.

via engadget.

music bleg

2008-04-17T07:48:00.001-04:00

Just one Beethoven cd. Gimme suggest-shawns.
Will also accept other famous composer 'one-cd' lists.

I'm judging you by your email address.

2008-04-10T14:49:00.002-04:00

If you're a professional, and you have an AOL address, you're actually not a professional. Especially if that is the only email address that your office has.

If you have a ".blahblah.rr.com" address, you just got high speed internet, and you're not really 'up' on the internet in general. But, welcome to the 'no modem' club. We're glad you're here finally...now please stop sending the rest of us your stupid forwards.

If you have a hotmail account...I wonder how you manage to click around and find things all on your own. But, at least you're not paying for your email account, and you've got an account that will follow you around. Good job on that.

Of course, brilliant people have gmail accounts.

I'm not sure about yahoo...I guess you can hang around; you did have imap before google, so kudos on that, but only if you're using imap.

Having your own domain is either really cool or phenomenally geek; I'm not sure which...but I may join those two into one characteristic.

But, seriously, AOL? For your business? You've got to be joking.

good...and great.

2008-03-08T15:26:00.002-05:00

A good book will show you amazing and wonderful characters. A great book will make you wish you were the character: perhaps not because they are so wonderous, but because you wish you could be that kind of a person, and then you realize that he's only only just so much greater than you, and maybe you could be him, sometimes, in brighter moments.

still laughing at trade deficits.

2008-03-08T14:19:00.003-05:00

I'm still quite upset by the fact that Ohio sells far more products to Texas than they buy. Pisses me off. Goddamn Ohio.

That from the rapier-sharp Marc Hodak, commenting over at Cafe Hayek. You might not get it; I wouldn't have gotten it if I listened to what the buskers sing.

cost benefit analysis

2008-03-07T19:27:00.002-05:00

I just saw a man drive by on a Harley with his 3 year old son on the back in a "child seat". The social costs of that must be huge...I bet he's a fascinating guy to hang out with.

A conversation I'm having:

2008-02-16T09:29:00.004-05:00

Following a previous post here at the Adults Table, where we took a look at fear-mongering, doom-prophesying anti-growth/population people's agendas and the ~~disgraceful~~ faulty economics behind these agendas, your host has recently been in a discussion with a fine gentleman over at another blog. You may see the post (interesting in and of itself) here.

the script of the conversation, readers digest version:

dave: "end coming!" "Repent!"

shawn: "[historical faultiness of dave's points]"

dave: "if you don't support my agenda, you hate your grandchildren," "end coming!" "Repent!"

shawn: "[rudimentary economics explanation]"

dave: "end coming!" "Repent!"

shawn: "[continued historical faultiness of dave's points]"

dave: "I am omniscient! end coming! Repent! Give the reins to me or you will all perish" (ed: note the thinly veiled power play)

shawn: "[refute central planning basis of dave's claims], [further economics refuting notion of a problem]"

dave: "you're a stupid poopyhead, Shawn. And you're...stupid."

(ed: you'll note the complete lack of any substantive points made by mr. gardner to this point, as well as his continued assertion that anyone not believing in his view of reality is apparently stupid and unworthy of conversing with, but only of being talked down to and patronized.)

The Political Spectrum

2008-01-31T17:55:00.001-05:00

The political spectrum: it's not a line; it's a compass, or a square, or some other sort of non-linear graph. :) Information taken from various places on Political Compass' website and mashed together. If any of you want to take the test, and email me your results (just your location on the graph), I'll put you in there.

In another 'quiz', I scored the following. As it's a shorter quiz, it's a bit more cut and dry. When you click on the previous link, it's going to bring you to a page showing a 'centrist' graph...that's not mine, that's based on essentially saying 'maybe' to every question. It's helpful to go there to read the descriptions, though, should you be interested in more of a definition about what this means.

Wanna' buy a Wii?

2008-01-26T12:30:00.000-05:00

My creative eBay listing.

Feel free to bid early and often...err...that's vote early, vote often...whatever, just pick up the wii.

Previous commenters from this blog will get a 5% discount. So, if any of the three of you want it, go right ahead.

prohibi-shawn

2008-01-24T20:15:00.000-05:00

"Let's do some good."

--Eliot Ness, The Untouchables.

God, that sentence is scary. Especially when spoken by a gun-toting man.

classic, or crap?

2008-01-20T18:38:00.001-05:00

Only in in one area of life are ten to fifteen year old songs considered good and normal: the church.

More Whining.

2008-01-16T09:33:00.000-05:00

Check the comments: "Are 5 iPod Touch applications worth $20?"

And, now, my open letter to people confused about purchasing products, and how the whole process works:

You say: "apple is clearly in the wrong” for having the audacity to charge for some new applications newly available for your ipod touch.

Didn’t realize you were being forced to do anything.

Here’s a newsflash: purchasers always want to pay less for something, sellers would always prefer you pay more. Where those two meet is the price.

If you don’t want to pay the price, don’t...simple.

There is no justification for any of the “should” in these complaints. What basis could anyone use for “should”? That’s an imperative...this is a consumer product, which EVERYONE BOUGHT WITHOUT THESE APPLICATIONS.

It was believed that the Touch was worth the money when it was purchased, there was no promise of forthcoming x or y programs. This is a different item, a different purchase: if it’s not worth it to you, don’t buy it. A different situation, where Apple would actually be in the wrong, would be if they had sold you an iPod, and then 6 months later it was rendered unusable by a new firmware upgrade (that was automatically delivered to you, w/o your consent), and you had to pay $20 to re-enable usage of your iPod. That would be actually wrong (and likely would be followed by a class action lawsuit), and be worthy of your vitriol.

You are, of course, free to say that you *think it should be less*, or that Apple is making a bad decision in charging for these new features, but you’re conflating words when you say they’re ‘clearly in the wrong’ about something freely offered as a new extra service.

Democracy: overrated (an example from the tech world)

2008-01-14T14:28:00.000-05:00

The comment thread at Engadget following their post on the RFID monitors-on-shopping-carts is a great demonstration of why it is a good thing that private profit-seeking individuals have the opportunity to try out new things, vs. having the government (or, in its more socially acceptable form, "democracy") determine what should be done. This particular thing may be a bad idea...it may not be....but at least we'll have a chance to try out some sweet ideas (if I do say so myself).

The general person (median joe voter) is going to think that every idea is a bad one. Interestingly, he's usually right, because most things fail, and he's always right a (vote-winning) majority of the time. However, he's always wrong about the ideas that succeed. Even the relatively tech-savvy individuals on Engadget are remarkably unified *against* this idea...at least in the comments. So, the 'experts' think that this couldn't be done...but maybe a firm can find a way to make it work. Let's get them to try it...with their own money, not mine, as it would be were this a democratically controlled process.

**Disclaimer: All of the information that went into the creation of this post originally found on Econtalk.

But think of all the good cashier jobs that will be lost!! [/sarcasm]

2008-01-14T11:30:00.001-05:00

Self-checkout shopping carts...coming soon?

There are so many cool opportunities here, I just don't know *what* to say!

Alright, I'll try. After all, this is a blog, what the hell else is it for but my musings on topics useful and useless?

Think of having a scanner at home: whenever you run out of an item, you swing the upc next to the scanner before tossing the box, and then it automatically adds that item (and other options, perhaps that you've pre-selected) to your virtual shopping list (which, as they've noted in the article, would be tied to your frequent shopper card. Personally, I'd rather have it tied to my cell phone, and let it tell me automatically, whenever i walk into a store, whether the items i want are sold at that store).

Then, as you're walking down the aisle, the cart tells you which items on your list are available, whether there are sales on competing items (while providing you quickly with the unit price of each item in every iteration available, so you can compare). When you get down to the last few items, it can also tell you which aisle you can go down (mini-scale GPS) to find the last items.

It will also keep track of your spending habits, and allow you to opt in to 'sale alerts' for items you like, but are only really concerned about getting when they're on sale. Like brie? Well, now you get alerted whenever brie is on sale when you go shopping.

The non-corporate sponsored version of this (probably a software add-on that keeps track of your purchased items) will also let you know how expensive an item is compared to its year-long history, so you can see if this 'sale' price is really a sale at all, or if it was marked-up to be marked down.

Cashier schmashier. Bring on this great RFID implementation.

In actuality, there will still be cashiers, because not everyone is going to like/need/want this technology. You'll still have customers who want to walk computer-less through the store, and all their screen will do is provide aisle-specific advertisements. What we WILL end up with, likely, is more knowledgeable cashiers (because only the best cashiers will be able to survive in the new, more competitive market) who will make a higher wage.

Another iteration would be personal shoppers, who can fulfill orders for their non-tech patrons and have them ready for them at a prescribed time: Ms. Jones wants her order ready at 5:15, when she’ll swing by the store on the way home from work to pick it up (or she has her errand-runner pick it up for her), already bagged and charged to her credit card or monthly bill. Alternatively, she simply drops by a printed list, consolidated from a ‘virtual store’ online, where she can browse aisle by aisle, click on the item she wants (in a similar iteration to Google street view), and have it added to the list. She knows exactly what’s in the store, because RFID keeps track of the exact quantities available. When she checks out, that item is listed as ‘sold’, or if it happened to be sold out, the computer tells her so and provides alternatives or gives the opportunity for her to be alerted when it is back in stock.

This technology is so easy to be excited about.

Wiki answers: Why the hell is my Time Machine drive so HUGE?

2008-01-14T10:13:00.000-05:00

Well, I'm up and running on Time Machine, backing up the data from my new home-server mac mini, which is storing azureus torrents and my music and dvd's on very cheap 500gb external Western Digital My Book (ecost had them as refurbs for $99 each...I got a pair), and backing up via Time Machine to one of the other 500gb drives.

For those of you interested, the 'monitor' for the mac mini is my new 60" Vizio 720p plasma...I love it. :) I've yet to find a keyboard/mouse combo that's worth a shit...I usually use my MacBook Pro w/ screen sharing to control the mac mini htpc/tv from the couch. FrontRow is GREAT on a 60" screen. :) I'll post up later the full details of the Apple HTPC, as soon as it's working exactly as I want it to...got to figure out some remote access issues, first.

Now, after a week of running this setup, I've been perplexed as to why my backup Time Machine drive (named 'Underground Lair', interestingly enough...the other drive is named "Tumnus' Cave"...fun stuff) was completely full, and deleting old backups already. There's only about 100gb of data on Tumnus' Cave, 30gb on the Mac Mini, and 20gb on the Macbook Pro (which is also backing up to Underground Lair via time machine, wirelessly...I love it). How in the hell did 150gb turn into >500gb so quickly??

...and, the answer is, from wikipedia:

Due to Apple's continuation of the HFS+ file system, Time Machine does not support block-level backups. If even one entry in a large data file changes, the entire new version of the large file must be backed up. Other backup solutions will simply back up the portion of the file that has changed. This missing feature has raised serious concerns; the main reason is because Macintosh users sometimes make use of virtualization; virtual disk images are very large and change every time they are booted, making it essentially impractical to include these disk images in Time Machine backups. Another reason for the concern is because some developers continue to use single database files to store data --- a common example here would be Microsoft's Entourage, which stores all email messages in a single file.

Wikipedia Time Machine Article.

What's happening is that every single time time machine looks at the files on Tumnus' Cave, it sees essentially a 'new' file for each of the azureus Torrents. If you're not familiar, a 'torrent' is a download that is typically used for large files, because it's a much more efficient way of distributing information...so, a file might be 2gb, and azureus will grab bits and pieces from all kinds of sources, rather than pulling the whole file from one server/source, as a download *typically* works. So, you'll maybe get parts 1, 5, 7, 75, and 89 from 'user 1' (who is also downloading the file), and parts 2, 3, 9, 98 from 'user 2', and on and on. Once you get all 100 parts of this 2gb file, azureus (or whatever torrent client you use) pieces them all back together and says: "here's your file!". Because azureus is updating miniscule little blocks of information (for some reason, to be explored later, I'm only getting about 10kb download speeds...I don't think my isp is limiting bandwidth to me, but I'm not sure...) all the time, Time Machine sees this folder(in fact, each file) as constantly being updated, and therefore constantly needing to be saved. As this folder is a large chunk of the space in Tumnus' Cave, it's making my backups HUGE. Apparently, there are other file systems than Apple's HFS that would only back up the parts of the file that changed since the last update (already have blocks 1-92 downloaded and backed up? well, once you get parts 93 and 95, the backup will just save those two parts and have a little link pointing back to parts 1-92 from a previous backup).

I guess everything has limitations, eh?

Solution: have Azureus save a copy of completed downloads to a different folder, and exclude your azureus downloads folder from time machine backups. Then, you'll have a backup of all of the completed downloads, but not of the incremental downloads (which are useless anyway).

We'll be implementing that when I get home. :)

Whoohoo...I love fixing problems.

Sarcasm honors.

2008-01-12T12:05:00.000-05:00

Ninjabread Man isn't just disappointing for its gameplay, though, which I fully expected (and hoped) to be completely horrible. It's horrible all right, and easily fits in among the year's worst Wii games, but it's all a hollow kind of bad. This isn't the kind of bad game that plays like it was programmed by someone who was honestly trying their best and failed miserably. This is a cynical, soulless exercise that distills all of the mechanics of a bad game into one package, but duplicates none of the charm. This is a bad game made by a machine that makes bad games, and is sprayed in bad game pesticide before it's shipped to stores, to ensure that it's as flavorless and as uninteresting as possible so that no one could ever possibly enjoy it.

From The worst 5 wii games of 2007

helping or hurting?

2008-01-11T21:09:00.001-05:00

Far too many Christians are far too stupid.

Las Vegas capitalist apologetics.

2008-01-08T10:21:00.000-05:00

Robots to build skyscrapers.

I'm sure someone will complain that this means that Mohawks are going to be out of work...and it's probably a safety hazard or something...

:)

Just another reason why reading the reports from CES this year has gotten me excited: not so much because of the tech that's on display (I'll get more excited next week after Jobs' keynote at MacWorld, where he hopefully announces the new subnotebook that I've managed to get Angel excited about), but because it's so beautiful that so many companies are clamoring for business, and they keep putting out great new stuff. Even the stuff that isn't great is still good, because at least somebody learned something (even if it's: don't ever do this again), and it didn't cost taxpayers a dime for these companies to come up with these wacky ideas...and when these gadgets suck, they're taken off the market immediately. When was the last time you saw a political idea taken off the market immediately? Communism killed millions and millions and millions of people...but you wouldn't know it due to its staying power.

I keep looking at CES as the reason that geeks should be capitalist, rather than the socialist that they tend to be (or so I've read somewhere...anybody got a link to those data?): none of this stuff would exist if the government decided how to spend money.

caption contest.

2008-01-04T07:37:00.000-05:00

You know how this works. Caption it up. If I may be so bold, pay particular attention to Mrs. Clinton's Nutcracker-looking jaw, and Mr. "Oh-my-this-is-a-tasty-bite-of-sandwich" behind her.

S'more governmental solutions to problems. And, me agreeing with Hillary.

2007-12-23T09:13:00.000-05:00

In honor of politicians, who I am sure do not drink six beers at the same time, and as a way of citing my use of 'Brilliant!!' in this post, I offer the following:

I happened upon an article last Thursday, had a nice discussion with some coworkers about it, and looked forward to seeing it lambasted throughout the blogging world as chicanery and fraud-of-all-other-types by "our" elected/appointed officials. This is a long post, because I was shocked at:

The tone of the article (how was the journalist not critical?)
The utter irony of the solution (on par with gravity being renounced as inconvenient)
The lack of comments that I saw on the blogosphere about it.

So, getting into/leaving the great city of New York can be a bit of a pain, especially during the holidays (and, by the way...shut the hell up about Christmas/holidays! People said 'holidays' before it was politically correct to not upset anybody, because they were referring to christmas/new year's), because...well...supply and demand: There are too many people trying to get into a small space, so you end up waiting.

A restatement of the problem: it takes a long time to get from point 'a' to point 'b'. What is the government's illustrious solution? Clip off up to 20% (this article shows 9%, but I've seen quotes of up to 20% elsewhere) of the means of getting from 'a' to 'b' during the busiest times of a-b travel.

Brilliant!!

Now...let's look at the public choice gem in this article. In this instance, I'm using 'public choice' as a euphemism for the idea that politicians/public officials are just as self-interested/self-centered/greedy as businessmen are...they just go about it differently, and only have to let people think that they're actually helping them, rather than actually providing them with a great service/product that they're willing to pay for (which is what a businessman actually has to do: give you something you're willing to pay for--the comparison to politics would be Publix/Piggly Wiggly/Kroger/whatever's-in-your-area being judged solely on what their advertisement says is in the store, vs. what actually is; if you show up, and they actually don't sell meat at all, never mind the $2/lb filet they were advertising, you can never go there again. Politicians get elected because they told you you could get $2/lb. filet, but you never actually make the trip to the store until a year or two later...and then you've forgotten about the advertisement, or they blame the greedy meat manufacturers for raising their prices).

The gem? Well, here you go:

"These new measures will cut delays, protect consumer choice, support New York's economy and allow for new flights as we bring new capacity online," U.S. Transportation Secretary Mary Peters said.

This is why the government is involved, and probably why U.S. Transportation Secretary Mary Peters gets giddy when their are major 'problems' at a U.S. Airport. 100% why. They get to tell you that they're helping you. This entire article is worded under the assumption that governmental interventions are both necessary and beneficial. The author, sadly, has not realized that governmental solutions aren't, historically.

Are there any other interesting points in the article? You betcha'.

Federal officials and airlines predicted that the flight reductions will have minimal impact on passengers' abilities to fly in and out of New York. JFK's largest carriers, Delta and JetBlue, said they did not expect to drop destinations served from JFK. It's too early to determine whether the changes could increase fares, said Air Transport Association President Jim May.

Given my reading history, and the tone of this post, I'm not surprised that governmental officials would predict (the absolute impossibility of) constant fare prices, given a reduction in quantity of flights. I haven't even taken Econ101, and even I can tell you that with a decreased supply, and without a corresponding decrease in demand, prices will increase. If you don't get that on the first day of economics, it's definitely before the first test. What I am shocked at is Mr. May's 'uncertainty'. He is the president of the trade association. As a private entity (isn't that what a trade association is?), he should know what the effect of these restrictions will be. Either I'm utterly and completely uninformed on this one, or shame on you, Mr. May.

Even as the government reduces flights, it is taking steps to add more flights once delays are brought under control. Peters said the Federal Aviation Administration will also install a "czar" who directly oversees the New York region and can press for improvements.

A "czar", eh? Hmm. We'll see how that works out for you. Governmental intervention in private business has definitely got a dubious history.

The Air Transport Association, which represents large airlines, applauded the agreement. "Flight caps are undesirable for air travelers but, under existing circumstances, airlines have little choice but to live with caps as a temporary measure," it said in a statement.

Here, finally, we can reasonably say that the response by the Air Transport Association (headed by the aforementioned Mr. Jim May) is not quite the same as that which is printed in the paper. Granted, we don't have the rest of the quote from the ATA, but they are most certainly not recorded as 'applauding' this measure. This is a bit of sneakyspeech from their PR head, but what is beneath that 'under existing circumstances' is: "we don't really have a choice on this. The government has set the rules, and we are forced to play by them. At least this way, we're only serving .90(x) customers, so that we can match our supply to our demand."

Now, I'm not in the airline industry, and I do not know the constraints that they face. However, I am willing to bet (and if there were a betting market on this, I would) that, given the freedom to do so, airlines would simply raise fares more during the busiest times. That would be the most efficient way of dealing with this overcapacity: raise fares during the busiest times, until you've pushed the most flexible travelers into different time slots, while still allowing those who value those slots the most to fly in them. Some of you may say that that is not "fair", that some people can not afford to pay higher prices, and this governmental regulation at least allows for them to not have to pay more money to travel. I say that, for whoever would have been flying on one of those now-cut 10% of flights, the price has gone to infinity. That is much more unaffordable than any fare increase. Similarly, I'm willing to bet that they are somehow not allowed to do so, or I will eat my own head, sir.

And, finally...how am I agreeing with Hillary? The dear woman, who seems usually to talk as if she has no economic sense (though she's most likely pandering) along with another local ~~vote whore~~ congressman Charles Schumer and NYC Mayor Bloomberg, (who must have some economic sense, as he's a gazbillionaire) delightfully criticized the move.

Clinton and Schumer, in a joint statement, called the plan "extremely disappointing" and "shortsighted." They said it has the potential to raise fares "and not even address" congestion. They called for new technology and hiring more air-traffic controllers. Separately, Bloomberg called the caps "a terrible idea."

I'm not, however, going to get too chummy with ol' Hil. Note that the author of this piece separated Bloomberg and the ~~vote sluts'~~ (man, I gotta stop doing that) congress members' criticisms. Bloomberg just called the whole thing terrible, while Clinton/Schumer, not content to leave it at simple criticism, had to propose more governmental 'solutions': new technology and more air traffic controllers. If you want more hilarious (unless it's your ass sitting waiting at the airport) examples of governmental ineptitude in this travesty of a solution, allow me to lay some knowledge on your ass:

Why, if it really would solve anything, would Hillary Clinton and Charles Schumer (who, if you were wondering, are NOT experts in running an airport) be the first to come up with the phenomenally deep and perspicacious suggestion of better technology and more air traffic controllers? The funny thing is, I don't know how the two airports in question are run, but I know that it's one of two things, based on Ms. Clinton/Mr. Schumer's quote (I'm ruling out the purely government-run solution here, as I think that went away with the dissolution of the Civil Aeronautics Board): Either the airline is privately run, and those that run the airline already have considered and rejected newer technology and more ATC personnel as a way to solve delays, or hiring and budgetary outlays are governmentally controlled, and the heads of this semi-private/government-funded entity have been clamoring for new technology and more ATC's for years, and it has fallen on deaf ears.

Now that Schumer and Clinton can secure some votes by swooping in to be the saviors--and, this is the best part--not only from the other, inept government agency (the FAA) that is screwing up these people's travel plans, but also from the foolish and greedy airlines that are over-scheduling air routes, this issue is gaining some foothold.

This problem was caused by governmental intervention, and it will be made worse by governmental intervention. Anything that would actually make the situation better would have been implemented by the people who actually know what the hell they're doing (those who run airports on a daily basis), unless those people are governmental officials, in which case they may be relied upon to only do that which puts the best looking advertisement in the newspaper, regardless of the product which they eventually deliver, because that is what allows them to keep their jobs.

Brilliant!!

'in the wild' quiz:

2007-12-21T17:41:00.001-05:00

..do you win affirmation or opprobrium if you get it right?

I have an addictive personality.

2007-12-21T08:37:00.000-05:00

...aside from it being easy for people to become addicted to me (and by 'it being easy', I mean 'it doesn't happen at all'), apparently it's very easy for me to become completely enthralled with a particular item/process/etc., and spend all kinds of time on it.

I'll research hard drives for *hours,* not knowing where the time went. I'll look up options on the best new this or that (especially if it's electronics) for days...weeks...before making a purchase.

I guess that this is better than drinking...but it's the same messed-up-ness feeding both fixations.

Now, I'm afraid I'm about to get hooked on apple geekery. I learn that something *can* be done, and now I want to figure out how it *is* done...and I probably need it myself.

two macs, one ipod, same itunes database on each mac, library on one mac.

2007-12-20T14:06:00.000-05:00

this guy might be able to help me out....I just put the following question on his blog...

...i'm looking all over these internets, and I have a feeling you can point me in the right direction.

Short short version: how can I mirror/sync the itunes database file (just the database, not the song files themselves) between two macs on the same home network, so that any changes made on one mac will show up when itunes is opened on the other mac? Foldershare doesn’t seem to be working…

I'm looking to:

*store my itunes library (the files) on my mac mini, storing no mp3's on my macbook pro (this is done, easily, by sharing the mini’s itunes folder and pointing the mbp to it…got that done already…it’s the sharing of the database file that I'm having trouble with)

*either NAS or external fw/usb drives for saving music/movies/photos attached to mini (raid 1 or 5…I’d love to hear suggestions of why a NAS or external would be a better bet…I'm leery about capability of NAS to stream high quality handbrake rips through my elcheapo linksys wrt54g router…would love to get lacie Ethernet RAID, but I don’t think it will cut it)

*use that repository of files on the mini/nas/external drive whenever i'm on my home network...rip a cd on the mbp, consolidate, it shoots over to the mac mini, and occasionally clean off the mbp so it’s got no MP3’s stored on it

*reference either the same library database file or have a mirrored library file on my macbook that updates/syncs regularly, so I can access the library (add new podcasts, new music from cd’s, etc.) even if I'm not on my home network

advantages:

*if i'm out and about, and add a cd to the mbp, or a podcast, I can still sync my ipod…the easiest solution of just pointing the MBP to the itunes library database on the mini is problematic, because if I'm off the network, I can’t use that library database, and I’ll get a blank itunes library, and not be able to sync the ipod. If, however, I set it up like I'm wanting to, whenever I'm out and open up itunes, I’ll just get the ‘grey exclamation point’ by all of the songs (because the actual files are still housed on the mini/external drive). Then, when I get back home and onto the home network, any changes I made to the itunes library (playcounts, playlists, etc.) would be mirrored back to the mini…and vice versa, if I happened to change the playlists on the mini…though I'm not so worried about changes from the mini being mirrored back to the MBP…that won’t happen all that often.

Problems:

I can’t get the damned itunes database file to mirror. I've tried foldershare to link folders between the two computers, and it *will* copy the itunes database over into each folder, but it loses some file information along the way: somehow, whenever it’s copied, the itunes database “turns into” a ‘unix executable file’, and is no longer recognized by itunes as a valid database file…I've looked at rsyncx (for about 15 minutes), but couldn’t figure out how to use it to do what I needed automatically.

do any of you know what you're doing?

2007-12-18T07:47:00.000-05:00

Lifehacker Article, pc-pc itunes library sharing over the home network. I need the same thing, but mac-mac library sharing...

Due to the little discount at going-out-of-business compusa, i just purchased a mac mini to do home server duties. While there are a few articles that I would like to see Lifehacker tackle (NAS or regular raid drive attached to mini, whether or not you can stream hd quality (or even full res handbrake dvd rips) over the nas connection, or whether it's worth it to just leave the mini running at all times for outside-network connectivity, etc.), the first one I'm interested in is something tailored to a mac setup based on their previous article, linked above.

What I'm looking to do, and tried for hours last night, setting all kinds of shares, aliases, and who-the-hell-knows what else, is to store all of my music (and movies) on the mac mini...at this point, it's sitting on the hard drive, but i'm going to get external storage (maybe NAS raid 5, maybe firewire raid 5, maybe a lacie raid-1 firewire drive, maybe a pair of 'sneakeRaid' drives as that's the cheapest option) to hold it all soon. I'd like to store all of that digitalness on the external drive, and access it from the lappy and the mac mini (hooked up to the tv) whenever I'm home. I'd also like to be able to see the 'exclamation point' library whenever i'm away from the home network, so that I can add cd's, podcasts, etc to the library, and consolidate when I get back home to the mini-connected drive. Maybe there's an easy way to do this, and I've been overcomplicating it, but I'll be damned if I could figure it out. Essentially, both computers will be looking at both the same repository of music, and also writing to the same itunes database file. This wouldn't be suggested for people who may be concurrently using and writing to the itunes database file (the file that saves ratings, play counts, etc.), but as it's going to be me either using the lappy or the mac mini, I'm pretty safe....too much monkeying could lead to a corrupted database file, I believe.

Mac+windows itunes connectivity would be helpful, at some point (and, do my eyes deceive me, or does itunes now--with leopard--include a windows compatible library file??), to link in the wife's laptop as well, but I'm not that worried about that, as we don't share tastes in music...

...if any of you can shoot me toward an article that already exists detailing the process, I'd love to see it. Hopefully LH will take my suggestion and work it into a full-on article.

shawn at publix.

2007-12-16T19:19:00.001-05:00

Shawn (checking out): 'oh, that's okay, I don't need a bag'

(bagger girl puts away bag)

bagger girl (idle conversation): '....save some of those trees...'

shawn (deadpan): 'those plastic trees.'

bagger girl: *blank look*

now...to be...umm...?fair?, this the same girl who I heard say to the customer in front of me: '...they'd get they car tookened away...'

..hold on to this job, kiddo...

how'd it happen?

2007-12-16T11:42:00.001-05:00

When did church become so boring? I used to enjoy, almost look forward to church...I haven't wanted to go for almost 2 years, and went this morning (in fact i'm still here)...and this is the most tedious, dry boredom.

Are your beliefs actually rationally determined?

2007-12-14T08:30:00.000-05:00

The most interesting post at MR I've seen....at least in a while...

update.

2007-11-30T18:20:00.001-05:00

1: I haven't had a drink in a week...more on this later.
2: I just saw a woman with a Guns n' Roses jean jacket on.

the good gets better.

2007-11-21T20:42:00.001-05:00

Heroes:

Much more fun to watch when you're a bit drunk.

And, I noticed the sign the second time it showed up....and backed up to the first time (first was on cheerleaders book...second was on black guy's necklace....lemme know if I missed one).

I also knew something was going on when the recruits started showing up in 'Fight Club'....I said to my friend (Aaron Moore, who had seen it before):

"He's not really there."
"What do you mean?"
"I don't know, but he's not really there."

****this has been a public service announcement, courtesy of Robert Mondavi Chardonnay...and some Heiniken (I looked at the bottle to be sure I spelled it right).

plans.

2007-11-19T21:19:00.001-05:00

I'm getting up at 7:00 sharp tomorrow and running, rather than putzing on the computer before my shower.

I write this here so you can ridicule me, so I have an incentive to actually go.

more random advice.

2007-11-17T22:51:00.000-05:00

This one from my dad, whom I remember little of:

Eat whatever you like least, first.

Random (good?) advice that stuck.

2007-11-16T19:58:00.000-05:00

If an author's name is larger than the title of the book, it's a bad book.
Beer before liquor, never sicker. Liquor before beer, in the clear. (ed.- I tell ya, I can't vouch for the second part of that, but the first is damn sure enough true...though, 10+beers followed by several shots of gin and Jack Daniels is gonna make anyone sick even if this saying is absolute crap....and, GOD do I hate the bartender at my friend's rehearsal dinner who, knowing that I'd had those 10+ beers, decided that the response to "Hmmm...I've nevherrr hadth gin beforrre, whath thith tahth like?" was "Here!")
If Momma ain't happy, ain't nobody happy.

Yours?

The Monster.

2007-11-14T21:53:00.002-05:00

I'm not sure what we're naming him yet, but he's so darn cute.

Self-Interest....or, rent-seeking with a fat tax.

2007-11-12T19:14:00.000-05:00

A recent story on Digg alerted me to calls by an Australian "expert in nutrition and weight-control" for a "Fat Tax" on obese passengers, ostensibly to cover extra thrust requirements of a plane burdened with too many chicken wings and pork rinds.

Now...on paper, I qualify as obese. However, while I certainly could stand to lose some weight, if I got down to what my personal BMI number should be for my height (something like 175), I would be a damned twig. The fact that my lazy ass hasn't worked out in a few months notwithstanding, my 250lbs is carried quite well.

So, I would likely be charged for this tax...

Oh, hell...let's just cut to the point:

This "Dr." stands to benefit from this tax: "oh, look at that, you're overweight, and the flight tax will cost you, on average, $100 in the next year. If you pay me $75, I will develop a personalized diet plan for you to fall below the threshold."
There is lots of confusion about this, and will be. Please remember that the airlines are not calling for this tax, the quacktor is.
This is a phenomenal advantage for lawmakers to nanny their citizens, and buy favors from individuals like Dr. Scratchnsniff, who would always be calling for the lowering of a 'healthy and safe weight, both for the individual and for the safety of the airline'.
The real issue here is...let the airlines charge whatever they need to. I can guarantee, at this point, that they're spreading out the extra cost of fuel for passengers over the rest of the passengers, why introduce governmental meddling?

I can guarantee that you will see several people complaining that skinny people are subsidizing the fat people. Well, that may be true...but I promise that you don't want the government making this decision. If it's a real problem, and people really care enough, an airline will offer variable pricing based on your ass width, and you'll have a choice.

In the meantime, let's stop trusting the government to fix things they have no business in, shall we?

an interesting 6-point (sorry, calvin) consolidation of the global warming debate.

2007-11-08T18:59:00.000-05:00

The following comment was a part of a hilarious post over at Marginal Revolution. The topic is 'cheat offsetting', where a cheating partner purchases an 'offset' for their infidelity from monogamous couples. Before you get all pissed of, it's satire (though...you can get pissed off at the first comment, by yours truly). A ways down the page, someone named foobarista makes a great comment that I wanted to include for further reference of my own:

AGW (ed--Anthropogenic Global Warming...or, human caused global warming, as opposed to 'natural' global warming, happening as a part of a typical earth cycle) is bunk. It requires the full-scale swallowing of the following bunch of Kool-aid:

1. That the earth is warming.
2. The warming is due to CO2 increases.
3. The CO2 increases are due primarily to human factors.
4. The human factors can be regulated somehow, to such a level that the warming due to (3) stops.
5. Enough of humanity will agree to the regulation for (4) to work.
6. And, all this climate mitigation stuff isn't worse than the alternatives, such as letting the world economy grow and prosper, and execute large-scale geo-engineering if/when needed. After all, to get China and India to agree to hard CO2 reduction won't happen without war.

if i've helped you, it's helped you.

2007-11-08T08:32:00.000-05:00

...funny that i'd be posting a 'please vote' thread the day after my 'voting is stupid' thread.

If you can tell me why the situation is different, you're the winner.

Now...EconTalk is up for an award. Unfortunately, they're competing for second place, as first place is locked up. Second, however, is phenomenally tight.

2007 Weblog Awards: Best Podcast

Ya gotta vote today and tomorrow (Friday). Voting is over this Friday, so just pop over and click on Econtalk if any of this economics talk has been interesting to you in the slightest, oh ye 4 readers. (I've gone up since February, when I had 3 readers.)

Pissing off the older generation. Or, you're not as important as you think.

2007-11-07T14:56:00.000-05:00

...speaking of candidates....which we weren't...

holy CRAP is it fun to mess with people about the futility of voting! Is this a sacred cow of people or what?

my standard line: "if three of us are voting on where to go for lunch, my vote counts. if a million of us are voting, it doesn't." (now...I stole that from someone on EconTalk...maybe it was Bryan Caplan, maybe the Munger...but irregardless...)

[commence blustering and indignation]

Scriptural support for agnosticism.

2007-11-06T18:33:00.000-05:00

...I'm pretty sure that somewhere in Proverbs, it says (in the King James):

Talkest not about what thou knowest not, especially on topical blogs, lest thine ass be shown.

This is the very short version of a previous post here at The Adult's Table.

Interestingly enough, the individual who made the comment that I'm referring to here is claiming to be Taleb, of Black Swan and Fooled by Randomness fame...so, either he misread the post, or he's not who he says he is...I find it hard to believe that he wouldn't know what a prediction market is.

can you think of any application this may have?

2007-11-04T10:54:00.001-05:00

"Why did you refuse to work for Dr. Stadler?"

The hint of his smile grew harder and more stressed; this was as near as he came to showing an emotion; the emotion was anger. But he answered in his even, unhurried drawl, "You know, Dr. Stadler once said that the first word of 'free, scientific inquiry' was redundant. He seems to have forgotten it. Well, I'll just say that 'governmental scientific inquiry' is a contradiction in terms.'
-Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged, p. 353

this weekend...

2007-11-02T18:57:00.001-04:00

I want a top 2 upset. Wisconsin and FSU for the win. Go 'Noles! (and that's a Florida grad speakiing).

OI...O?

2007-11-02T18:21:00.000-04:00

(Little boy to father while riding monorail from terminal at Orlando International Airport):

"Daddy, it's hot in Florida."

I just started laughing. Yer damn right it is, kiddo...and it's November!

The case for agnosticism.

2007-10-29T19:40:00.000-04:00

Today, Don Boudreaux over at Cafe Hayek posted a letter to the editor discussing some fears that another article author had about "monopoly tactics" being employed by Intel. Now, we're not discussing the actual article here, I just want to discuss the foolish ideas and attitudes that some people have while on the internet. Particularly, this is the idea that, if you don't know a damn thing about a topic, or only have rudimentary knowledge of it, don't act like you know what the hell you're talking about! And, especially, not to someone who DOES know what they're talking about!

If this is monopoly in action, bring it on.

Now, some way down the page, a wonderful individual says the following:

Holy moly, Boudreaux. Ever hear of "predatory pricing." Geez.

Now, should you not be familiar with the idea of 'predatory pricing', allow me to elucidate. The gist is, a large company could so drastically cut prices, even below their costs, that they would drive out competitors (because MegaCorp has the coffers to lose money for a while, while MiniCorp will go bankrupt soon). Once the smaller competitors go bankrupt, or are otherwise out of the market because they can't compete, MegaCorp can raise its prices to whatever it wants (cackling all the while) and make up the money it lost, and then some. That is 'predatory pricing', because MegaCorp is preying on the smaller company, and the consumer (eventually).

Well...to start off, I admit that I used to believe that that was true, and that that was a viable and crucial reason for anti-trust legislators. I would cheer the SEC when it went after some huge corporation, and this sort of thinking would get me pissed off at big companies in general, because I believed that they were all heinous, and only got ahead by tricking people. Thankfully, this is one of many fears that economics has cured me of.

You see...the problem is, as is also mentioned in the Cafe Hayek comments on this issue, that this is a hypothetical issue that has never actually been proven or spotted in the wild (the marketplace). If you're interested, pick up Sowell's Basic Economics book and look at the pertinent sections in there. You'll be glad you did. If you don't want to read Sowell's well written, but significantly dauntingly sized book, do check out an article by Boudreaux himself: Comments Before the Department of Transportation on the Statement of Enforcement Policy Regarding Unfair Exclusionary Conduct in the Air Transportation Industry. That's a mouthful, but it's 100% related to this topic, and shows the groundlessness of predatory pricing fears.

Now, to my point (which is mostly a copy of the comment I made at the Cafe):

It really is phenomenally unbelievable to me that people think that a simple, one line answer will 'refute' the writings or words of a well-studied professional in this or that field. Now, granted, I think socialism is bunk...but even the most socialist thinker can't be written off by a single sentence uttered by some joe schmoe.

"have you ever heard of predatory pricing?"

Yes. Of course. Goodness. Perhaps, just perhaps this professor of economics has even said something about it.

Now...it's fine to ask about something that seems obvious, a la:
"This seems so obvious, that I realize there must be a problem with it, or at least that you would somehow disagree with the idea: Predatory pricing."

See? there's no arrogance there, when you have no right whatsoever to be arrogant about something that someone very likely knows more about than you do.

Please, realize that someone HOSTING A TOPICAL BLOG, and that is a TEACHER OF THAT TOPIC, will not be 'beaten' by your simplistic rebuttals to their points. Would you question a doctor so cavalierly? Your dentist? an engineer? I'm not saying that you should shut up and listen to every word they say as if it's the gospel, but to think that it's so simple is just...foolish. Just sit back, and be doubtful, possibly uncertain, and questioning.

Be agnostic.

OH, glorious day! Gmail with IMAP!!

2007-10-28T18:46:00.000-04:00

For those of you non-tech-geeks, you may not know how great of a thing this is...but it's a great thing for me!

Gmail with IMAP access.

Now, my treo will be reading/syncing mail directly from my gmail account...gotta love it! I don't have to forward it to another stupid email address that only works half the time in order to have it pushed directly to my phone with Chatter Email.

If you have a treo, this is a great day.

Whoohoo! Now, they've just got to enable it for my account **drumming fingers**

Ah, and, if you'd like to configure your phenomenal Chatter+gmail machine, here's a simple tutorial:

Proud Geek's Pimpingly Great chatteremail setup for da brand spankin' new treoberry...now with google goodness!

Karma Police, arrest this man!

2007-10-27T19:03:00.000-04:00

I downloaded Radiohead's new In Rainbows album for 0 pounds, 0 pence. Nada.

Oh, the irony.

supply and demand...ya can't get around it.

2007-10-27T12:23:00.000-04:00

What up, WSJ'ers ...want a beer? Thanks for stopping by.

Apple imposes new limits on iPhone sales

SAN JOSE, Calif. - Apple Inc. no longer accepts cash for iPhone purchases and now limits sales of the cell phone to two per person in a move to stop people from reselling them.

The new policy started Thursday, said Apple spokeswoman Natalie Kerris. Before then, there was no cash restriction and the purchase limit was five per person.

"Customer response to the iPhone has been off the charts, and limiting iPhone sales to two per customer helps us ensure that there are enough iPhones for people who are shopping for themselves or buying a gift," Kerris said. "We're requiring a credit or debit card for payment to discourage unauthorized resellers."

Why would people be reselling them? Perhaps there's a market where people are willing to pay more? So, why not just raise the price? If I owned apple stock, I'd be a bit pissed that they'd dropped the price if people were obviously willing to pay more. That, and the fact of imposing "limits" on iphone sales...strange business model, oh Cupertino...very strange.

Or, perhaps, this is an arbitrage opportunity that smart people are jumping on. Hmm...a little economics learnin' being put to use.

IF they're reselling them, as Apple alleges and is apparently trying to quell, I have to assume that they're selling them for a profit.

...and, a quick visit to ebay gave me the answer. They're selling them *unlocked*...so, they've done the work of unlocking them (just as a scalper does the work of waiting in line or calling around to obtain a ticket to a hard to see show/game/concert), and they're selling them to tech luddites who are scared or unable to unlock them themselves, or simply don't want to go through the trouble of doing so. Another likely possibility is that they're selling them overseas (or possibly in Canada or Mexico). Regardless, there obviously is a profit opportunity, and apple's trying to guard against it....but that leads to the question: why wouldn't they sell as many as possible??

The only reason that apple would be hesitant to sell as many iphones as they could is because AT&T is pissed off that they're losing revenue to unlocked and unregulated phones, and they're leaning on apple to keep that from happening. There's a pissed off memo sitting on someone's computer at AAPL.

Maybe AT&T should pass an "anti-dog-eat-dog" rule to protect them from competition of other providers.

A PSA about music, iPods, and mp3's.

2007-10-27T11:45:00.000-04:00

There are some half-truths mentioned around this here internet, primarily based on old information, about the way to listen to music on an iPod if you have slightly better than average ears. Personally, most digital music sounds crappy to me, especially if it's listened to on anything other than a cheap pair of earbuds (like the ones that come with the iPod). I can hear what are called 'artifacts' surrounding, particularly, 's' sounds and cymbals (high frequencies). The ears are very sensitive in this region, and a poorly compressed music file will mess up frequencies by not devoting enough space for those frequencies.

Many people, especially on audio forum sites, will suggest having your music as 'apple lossless' to overcome this poor sound, and while apple lossless is great, it's about 4x-10x as large as a properly encoded mp3. That means much less music on your ipod, and also shorter battery life (because the player has to keep re-loading more chunks of music, rather than having it all stored in the buffer). If I had infinite space (or access to a terabyte server) I'd have all my music as apple lossless or some other sort of lossless encoding. Unfortunately, as there are no solutions, only tradeoffs, we must live in a world of lossy audio so we can carry more around on our ipods. The trick comes in getting that music at the correct balance of sound quality and small size.

Now, there are some easy steps you can follow to have very very high quality mp3's on your iPod, and no matter how you listen to them, they'll sound great:

It ALL depends on how you rip the music, and how you encode it. The variables are:

quality of rip (the initial data that's pulled off of a cd...a bad rip will give you audible pops. Typically this is only a problem if the CD is scratched badly, though there can be other things that will contribute to pops; read on to find out how to keep from getting pops in the first place with EAC.)
encoding algorithm (just purely the 'machine' that that initial data is fed through...a bad or old algorithm will give you shitty results no matter what the bit rate is)
bit rate (the amount of data that's allowed to stay after it's been fed through that machine...everyone's familiar with bit rate, but that's only part of the story.)

A non-scratched-to-hell cd that's ripped with Exact Audio Copy (or EAC) on a PC (there is a program called "Max" on a mac is similar but not AS good), and encoded with the current LAME encoder (go to www.hydrogenaudio.org to find out what the current recommended compile is...at this point, it's 3.97 I believe) at V2 or V3 will be *transparent* to the ears. Almost almost almost nobody will be able to double blind it from the original. LAME is an open-source encoder, and it's been tweaked phenomenally to provide mp3's that are leaps and bounds better than what was produced when mp3's were first hitting the scene.

So, if you do your mp3's correctly, you'll end up with appx. 200kbps files (it's variable bit rate, so it devotes more bits to complicated music, as determined by the algorithm's analysis, and less bits to the 'easy' portions of a track) that will sound awesome!

For a detailed 'how-to', visit www.bestmp3guide.com. Unfortunately, this is the only program that doesn't work on a Mac that I miss (eac, that is)

The following is from the hydrogenaudio LAME wiki page:

High quality: HiFi, home or quiet listening

-V3 --vbr-new (~175 kbps), -V2 --vbr-new (~190 kbps), -V1 --vbr-new (~210 kbps) or -V0 --vbr-new (~230 kbps) are recommended. These settings will produce transparent encoding (transparent = most people cannot distinguish the MP3 from the original in an ABX blind test). Audible differences between these presets exist, but are extremely rare.

If you have ears that aren't as picky, I'm very glad for you. :)

Personally, I rip mine at V3, because the majority of my listening is done through my (quality) headphones on my iPod...once/if I get a system set up in the house, I MAY re-rip my favorite albums to V0, but I doubt it.

You'd better only be drinking this this this THIS much....Ah, hell, we don't know!

2007-10-23T09:53:00.000-04:00

Guidelines on safe alcohol consumption limits that have shaped health policy in Britain for 20 years were “plucked out of the air” as an “intelligent guess”.

Subsequent studies found evidence which suggested that the safety limits should be raised, but they were ignored by a succession of health ministers.

One found that men drinking between 21 and 30 units of alcohol a week had the lowest mortality rate in Britain. Another concluded that a man would have to drink 63 units a week, or a bottle of wine a day, to face the same risk of death as a teetotaller.

The disclosure that the 1987 recommendation was prompted by “a feeling that you had to say something” came from Richard Smith, a member of the Royal College of Physicians working party that produced it.

He told The Times that the committee’s epidemiologist had confessed that “it’s impossible to say what’s safe and what isn’t” because “we don’t really have any data whatsoever”.

Mr Smith, a former Editor of the British Medical Journal, said that members of the working party were so concerned by growing evidence of the chronic damage caused by heavy, long-term drinking that they felt obliged to produce guidelines. “Those limits were really plucked out of the air. They were not based on any firm evidence at all. It was a sort of intelligent guess by a committee,” he said.

bwahahahahha...that's awesome.

I imagine the health ministry dude mumbling into his shirt collar, while sliding his toe around on the floor:

"'scausewejusmadeemupthosenumbers"
"Excuse me, sir?"
"ahsaidisscuzweforkinpulledemOUTTA OUR ARSES!"

Oh, government, we trust and love thee.

Second guy, exhibit 'b'.

2007-10-22T17:22:00.000-04:00

oh. my. GAWD.

See, now, here's another perfect example of my 'second guy' theory. When you've got a shitty idea of your own, that's fine, and understandable, because you're a bit blind about your own ideas. However, when you tell that idea to another person, and that person says "hey! great idea! do THAT!", HE is the person that should be flogged.

This girl, dumb as she may be, said to someone else:"Ya know what? I want to to a trumpet solo to the star wars theme, and act out some of the pieces with some phenomenally stupid dance moves."

guy 1: "...."
guy 2: "that's gonna be awesome!"
shawn [clubbing guy 2]

Really?

2007-10-21T16:59:00.001-04:00

People play football on Sunday? Who'da thunk it?

Work: good for all, a soapbox for some.

2007-10-21T16:46:00.000-04:00

Relatively few people recognize Mr. Borlaug’s name. Makes me think of the world as a place in which melodramatic loud-mouths thunder to and fro in the foreground while actually doing very little of any value but stealing all of the credit for civilization and its benefits. Meanwhile, in the background, millions upon millions of decent, creative people work diligently at their specialties – welding, waiting tables, writing computer code, performing orthopedic surgery, designing shopping malls, running think-tanks – each contributing to the prosperity of the rest. Some contributions are larger than others – as Dr. Borlaug’s certainly is – but even a contribution as colossal as his is quickly taken for granted, any potential notice of it submerged beneath the swagger and bellicosity of the political classes who pretend to be prosperity's source. How wrong. How arrogant.

-The Cafe, emphasis mine.

Another valid emphasis there is the illustration of the inherent value of work.

Latest CD

2007-10-21T16:13:00.001-04:00

True. Back to high school (when I first learned of The Doors and Zeppelin). Unfortunately, the track listing isn't the same, so when I'm *expecting* the next song, it's not there....oh well, guess that's also a general casualty of iPods.

progression through progressivism.

2007-10-21T11:26:00.001-04:00

Apparently, Winston Churchill said something to the effect of "if you're not a liberal when you're 20, you have no heart. If you're still a liberal at 40, you have no brain."

Word Factory.

2007-10-16T10:16:00.000-04:00

Previously, I referred to Econtalk as econporn, in the same way that people say 'crackberry'. Then, there was Mungercast, the name for my favorite episodes of Econtalk, featuring (can ya guess?) Mike Munger. Now, I've coined a new word: Greensanity (pronounced gr-EEN-sanity) - the irrational exuberance displayed by anyone for a product or service said to be 'green' or 'sustainable', without any idea what that means or what the tradeoffs are.

"Recycling is better no matter what the cost" is a good example of greensanity. There are times when attempting to recycle a product is just foolish, because it uses more resources to get it back into a usable state than other methods. That is wasting resources, the very thing that 'recycling' is attempting to reduce in the first place.

small gains.

2007-10-14T17:09:00.001-04:00

To be at the point where someone else mows your lawn...that's a nice accomplishment, and I'm glad to be able to have it.

strange ritual...

2007-10-14T10:24:00.001-04:00

Why is it that people with Harleys always wear Harley shirts when they go riding them? You don't see that with other products...

It's like they're somehow making money off of it, like it's MLM or something.

The Godfathers of Broadway.

2007-10-12T07:44:00.000-04:00

The upcoming Econtalk podcast is with Bob Frank. I read a short article of his after seeing it linked on MarginalRevolution, discussing how he'd been revising the ways Econ 101 is being taught, primarily through the use of narrative.

I hadn't checked out his book at all, so did a little homework before the podcast...

Unfortunately, clever "enigmas" and short answers create a cumbersome and artificial organizing structure for dealing with fascinating issues such as the logic of price discrimination, the failure of collective action, and the relevance of markets to mating. The result is often repetitious and too often simplistic and unsatisfying....Nor does he explain with any satisfaction why Broadway theaters have figured out how to sell last-minute tickets undercutting the prices they charge rich patrons, but airlines can't figure out a similar strategy for filling their empty seats.

That from the Amazon review (via the Washington Post) of The Economic Naturalist.

Now...my notion is that there is social status value in supporting the theater. A "rich patron" is paying, partly, to BE a patron, to feel that he is meaningfully contributing. Whenever he goes to a show, and sees the actors on stage, he's given extra satisfaction (over and above the actual show itself) because he's "putting food in the mouths" of these "up and coming actors". It's an investment, to him, and when one of those shows, or one of those actors, becomes big, he gets to feel the satisfaction of "helping him out." Airlines, on the other hand, will never be able to accomplish this, because the early ticket buyer is getting none of the patronizing benefit, and will always wish he paid less.

Sound reasonable to you?

Git while the gittin's good. Or, another reason to not trust politicians to be other than as self-serving as everyone else is.

2007-10-11T13:25:00.000-04:00

Munger and Angus...those guys appreciate a good bit of sarcasm.

As the king of ethanol hype, Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, put it recently, "Everything about ethanol is good, good, good."
This is not just hype -- it's dangerous, delusional bullshit. Ethanol doesn't burn cleaner than gasoline, nor is it cheaper. Our current ethanol production represents only 3.5 percent of our gasoline consumption -- yet it consumes twenty percent of the entire U.S. corn crop, causing the price of corn to double in the last two years and raising the threat of hunger in the Third World. And the increasing acreage devoted to corn for ethanol means less land for other staple crops, giving farmers in South America an incentive to carve fields out of tropical forests that help to cool the planet and stave off global warming.

A quote from Rolling Stone, of all places...maybe economic education in America isn't *quite* so bad. As someone has been known to say, perverse incentives are endemic; just look at what the "good" environmental movement is causing South American farmers to do.

Feel free to extend the subsequent distrust engendered by a realization that ethanol is not the Jesus juice that it’s made out to be to other “environmental” issues. As Thomas Sowell has said, “there are no solutions, only tradeoffs”. Most pressing in this instance is the cost to the world’s poorest, who are often hit hardest by any governmental regulation that artificially raises the cost of anything.

Unfortunately, however, the last paragraph is chock-full-o-nuts.

In the end, the ethanol boom is another manifestation of America's blind faith that technology will solve all our problems. Thirty years ago, nuclear power was the answer. Then it was hydrogen. Biofuels may work out better, especially if mandates are coupled with tough caps on greenhouse-gas emissions. Still, biofuels are, at best, a huge gamble. They may help cushion the fall when cheap oil vanishes, but if we rely on ethanol to save the day, we could soon find ourselves forced to make a choice between feeding our SUVs and feeding children in the Third World. And we all know how that decision will go.

They mention 'blind faith', yet call for "mandates coupled with tough caps on greenhouse-gas emissions" as the way to "solve all our problems". This is the "hair of the dog" line of reasoning, demonstrating blind faith in the very regulatory agencies that they decry in the first couple of paragraphs. They also mention a "fall" when cheap oil "vanishes", as if it's going to happen overnight. No mention either of the viability of nuclear power but for, again, the regulation/NIMBY attitude of Congress that's kept it hamstrung. Talk about blind faith.

Ehrlich/Simon v2.0...or, Soloman was right, there's nothing new under the sun...(but we'll get better at using what is there.)

2007-10-09T08:32:00.000-04:00

From a recent MSNBC article sent to me by a coworker: Could vertical farming be the future?
Farm able to feed 50,000 people could 'fit comfortably within a city block'

To answer the question of the title: NO. Vertical farming is NOT the future.

Oh my.

This is replete with so many errors, I *almost* don't know where to begin. Let's go with the marked historical similarities to another doomsdayist. Look at the Paul Ehrlich/Julian Simon debate in 1980.

Beginning in the 1960s, an environmental trend which was broadly anti-industrial began to be a major feature of western political thought. Throughout the 1970s it became fashionable to predict general doom for western civilization for a number of reasons. Concerns about over-use of natural resources were often cited in support of this prognostication, such as the Peak Oil issue (ed: for good discussion of Peak Oil, check out the recent Econtalk podcast with Munger, the Grab Bag podcast). By the end of the 1970s it was common to hear extreme predictions of industrial collapse in a few years due to shortages of raw materials, followed by the fall of western civilisation.

Ehrlich was sure that because of the population boom, there would be mass starvations in the coming future, because there would not be enough food to feed all of these people. According to Ehrlich, England, as an island that didn't produce enough food to feed itself, would DISAPPEAR within 20 years. Apparently, that hasn't quite panned out.

Julian Simon, an eminent economist, challenged Ehrlich's doomsday fears to a bet. Simon said that no raw materials would run out, and in fact, the cost of them would go *down* over a 20 (or 10? can't remember) (ed: it's 10) year period. Ehrlich was allowed to select the materials, and "purchase" them with $1,000. He failed miserably. Not only did the prices of the materials go down in real terms (inflation adjusted), but some went down in absolute terms. Not only that, but reserves of many of the materials actually rose in the span of time.

Have a guess as to why that is, economically speaking?

We could also discuss comparative advantage, profit motive/windfall profits, more history (guess what percentage of the American population was in farming in the early 1900's...guess how many are now), and supply and demand, all of which would say with one voice that we will never face mass starvations due to a lack of food to feed people because farms are not capable of producing that food. I can *almost* see this becoming real, but it would be because people are alarmist, and would be scared into providing tax funding for products that only the richest in a city would still be able to afford. There will probably be people who try to get funding for foolish pet projects like this on "terrorist" grounds: "We've got to be able to provide food for people in case of a war, or terrorist attacks!! What if lower Manhattan was completely cut off during 9/11? If there was a food-scraper like this, they could eat!" Man...I'd better stop now, or I'll give some fool ideas.

Oh my...there really is so much to laugh at, but it's not a laughing matter.

A short quote from Simon, to begin to display the economics behind this:

More people, and increased income, cause resources to become more scarce in the short run. Heightened scarcity causes prices to rise. The higher prices present opportunity, and prompt inventors and entrepreneurs to search for solutions. Many fail in the search, at cost to themselves. But in a free society, solutions are eventually found. And in the long run the new developments leave us better off than if the problems had not arisen. That is, prices eventually become lower than before the increased scarcity occurred.

And, finally, a good summation of the entire debate from the Wikipedia article:

Simon's thesis is that humanity's life-style will continue to improve, and several of the points of Ehrlich's second bet may increase for wholly benign reasons. For instance, the prediction of less agricultural soil per capita is a trend that Simon observed in The Ultimate Resource which Simon attributed to long-term rises in agricultural productivity.