Leave it to a Yale man to determine that the most just solution to climate change is to increase consumption:
"A third alternative would be a Rawlsian perspective that societies should maximize the economic well-being of the poorest generation. The ethical implication of this policy would be that current consumption should increase sharply to reflect the projected future improvements in productivity."
William Nordhaus, A Review on The Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change
Thursday, May 13, 2010
Saturday, May 8, 2010
The Four Freedoms, or Why I Still Don't Know Where Laura Merideth's Party Is.
Facebook is a great tool for inviting people to parties. It saves you all the time of going to evite.com, thinking about who you want to invite, and looking up their email addresses. It also makes me want to tear my face off. My latest unnoticed facebook strike is over the social quantification of what was previously a free-space for data entry. Your profile data entries previously linked to a search for the same string. If you had put "Cooper Union" in for "School," facebook's lame-ass search engine searched for "Cooper Union." If you put "I did not attend school, rather I was raised by wolves," facebook split this into two distinct searches for two distinct nonsensical and unique terms: zero results. For those of us who would rather not have webcrawlers persistently aggregating our name, birthdate, and personal and institutional associations, this was a swell system--those who wanted to be listed were, those who didn't weren't. The recent and subtle change has been to replace the search link with one to a distinct facebook social page. While this preserves one's ability to enter garbage and fend off the webcrawlers, it creates trackable pages for every line of garbage. Now, "rather I was raised by wolves" will be a social facebook page, cached by google, bing and whoever else, forever to remain accessible to anyone bothering to look. Given that it's garbage, there's no particular concern over this except that it's stupid.
What is disconcerting is the notion that any particular string can only have one meaning. Par Example, my previous interests include "Red Guard, Constant Revolution, and The Four Freedoms." Astute sinologists will recognize each of these as propaganda terms from the cultural revolution in China. Facebook recognized these as three social groups that I 'like'. The first was appended to "Redguard" and linked to a group of people discussing something about airsoft guns. The last linked to a group of people who were really excited about Roosevelt's Four Freedoms.
The urge to break things down into quantifiable chunks is one endemic to the engineer's mind, and I sympathize with those facebook programmers who spend all day dreaming and scheming about what they can do with their truly impressive wealth of social data. But in their efforts to macify the user experience of the social internet, facebook is recklessly tossing not only user privacy but also space for individual expression to the wind.
Also, it's just stupid.
What is disconcerting is the notion that any particular string can only have one meaning. Par Example, my previous interests include "Red Guard, Constant Revolution, and The Four Freedoms." Astute sinologists will recognize each of these as propaganda terms from the cultural revolution in China. Facebook recognized these as three social groups that I 'like'. The first was appended to "Redguard" and linked to a group of people discussing something about airsoft guns. The last linked to a group of people who were really excited about Roosevelt's Four Freedoms.
The urge to break things down into quantifiable chunks is one endemic to the engineer's mind, and I sympathize with those facebook programmers who spend all day dreaming and scheming about what they can do with their truly impressive wealth of social data. But in their efforts to macify the user experience of the social internet, facebook is recklessly tossing not only user privacy but also space for individual expression to the wind.
Also, it's just stupid.
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
Trade
At dinner tonight with a physician from Cleavland--one who couldn't help but question the Canadians in company on the quality of their healthcare--the topic of "the reality of the situation" came up. It turns out, son, that "the reality of the situation" is increased taxes, lower quality of care, less choice, and untold other horrors. I'm not looking to discount these fears, but I really resent the notion (one powerfully insinuated and openly accused at the Boston Tea Party) that being young implies that I just don't know about how genuinely horrible taxes are--I paid self-employment tax last year, for Pete's sake! So here's the trade:
If you voted for Bush, you get to pay Medicare Part D, the Trillion-Dollar War, and the bank bailouts. Oh yeah, and you can go ahead and start by making up for the tax cuts...
I'll pay for healthcare. Hell, I'll even chip in for Afghanistan.
If you voted for Bush, you get to pay Medicare Part D, the Trillion-Dollar War, and the bank bailouts. Oh yeah, and you can go ahead and start by making up for the tax cuts...
I'll pay for healthcare. Hell, I'll even chip in for Afghanistan.
Friday, September 11, 2009
A Correction
Those who've been around me while drinking may know there's no end to my disdain for the Stata Center at MIT; Frank Gehry's notorious abuse of a generation's developmentally-rooted fealty to cartoonishness.
But MIT, it turns out, has a subtly handsome little quarter that's grown on me over the last two weeks. As it turns out, the unobtrusive livability and stoic beauty are the brainchildren of I.M. Pei. My favorite is the Landau building, but their all beautiful (though these photos don't do justice to the Green building, whose base is open on two sides, and goes up two floors).
But MIT, it turns out, has a subtly handsome little quarter that's grown on me over the last two weeks. As it turns out, the unobtrusive livability and stoic beauty are the brainchildren of I.M. Pei. My favorite is the Landau building, but their all beautiful (though these photos don't do justice to the Green building, whose base is open on two sides, and goes up two floors).
Thursday, September 10, 2009
Glenn Beck stole LG logo?
Not that I'm a fan of licentious application of copyright, but with Rush Limbaugh's recent capricious comparison of the OFA health-care logo to the Nazi standard, I think it's not too too cynical to question the creative sources of Glenn Beck's 'Danger! I'm as dangerous to a political debate as radon in your basement!' logo. Judge whether LG may have actionable grounds for filing suit for yourself. Evidence:
Friday, August 21, 2009
"All Wee Wee'd Up." .com
Perusing through my daily links, I got to TPM's day in 100 seconds including Obama's 'wee wee'd' quote. More specifically:
These days, you can't hesitate too long after hearing an obscure turn of phrase without thinking '...com?', especially when it falls off the lips of one of the most beloved men in the world. To be honest, Obama's been throwing out a lot recently, but ruckus.com has already been used (free streaming music for college students...).
Before the clip was finished, I was already checking for availability of www.allweeweedup.com. Taken. But to be sure it was because of Obama, I needed to know when it was taken. From the whois:
August 20th at GMT 20:14, which in EDT is 4:14 PM. According to the helpful C-Span ticker, Obama uttered the phrase at 2:53 PM, EDT.
Now, I don't see any use, or any profit in www.allweeweedup.com, but you never can tell. What we really ought to look for is when the timing flips. Which Obama intern will start registering Obama phrases he hears in the hallway before he even says them? It's not really that far off...
"There's something about August going into September where everyone in Washington gets all 'wee-weed' up"
These days, you can't hesitate too long after hearing an obscure turn of phrase without thinking '...com?', especially when it falls off the lips of one of the most beloved men in the world. To be honest, Obama's been throwing out a lot recently, but ruckus.com has already been used (free streaming music for college students...).
Before the clip was finished, I was already checking for availability of www.allweeweedup.com. Taken. But to be sure it was because of Obama, I needed to know when it was taken. From the whois:
Domain Name: ALLWEEWEEDUP.COM
Registrar: MONIKER
Registrant [5950]:
Gregg Ostrick dns2@gnomailbox.com
GNO, Inc.
P.O. Box 43353
Birmingham
AL
35243-3353
US
. . .
Record created on: 2009-08-20 20:14:38.0
Database last updated on: 2009-08-20 20:14:37.84
Domain Expires on: 2010-08-20 20:14:38.0
August 20th at GMT 20:14, which in EDT is 4:14 PM. According to the helpful C-Span ticker, Obama uttered the phrase at 2:53 PM, EDT.
Now, I don't see any use, or any profit in www.allweeweedup.com, but you never can tell. What we really ought to look for is when the timing flips. Which Obama intern will start registering Obama phrases he hears in the hallway before he even says them? It's not really that far off...
Saturday, June 20, 2009
Give it up for ... 'the Sipper?'
After watching Joe Scarborough's self-assumption of elder-statesman status on last week's episode of (the much-declined) Meet the Press with David Gregory (much, much declined), it occurs to me that the man who has spent his time in between supporting Obama's most rational policies writing books about how he is different from the wacky republicans who don't may be considering himself the man to fulfill his own perscription. At least the thought of a 2012 run had to have crossed his mind (a narsicistic television personality? Gasp!) Okay, it's a long shot, i know--there's a lot of baggage that comes with nearly daily presence in front of a video recording device for several years, but hell, we've already had The Gipper, and The Governator (get to the chopper, now!), and at least Scarsdale has held elected office before...
At this point, the only worry would be that between Scarborough, Eric Cantor, and my previously mentioned potential candidate, George Pataki there'd be too much chin on stage at any early debates.
Post Script: For the last couple months, blogger has been blocked in china, which i naturally used as an excuse to completely quit updating this blog...sorry about that. As far as China goes, there are several important topics which I have been mulling over, and which someday, perhaps some lazy budapest morning, I will compose into the longer, essayish sort of posting. For now, suffice it to say that the semester is almost up, I will be in Budapest next Sunday, and I have mastered enough chinese to confuse the overworked McDonalds manager with my insistence that he refill my used coffee cup rather than throw it out and give me a new one.
At this point, the only worry would be that between Scarborough, Eric Cantor, and my previously mentioned potential candidate, George Pataki there'd be too much chin on stage at any early debates.
Post Script: For the last couple months, blogger has been blocked in china, which i naturally used as an excuse to completely quit updating this blog...sorry about that. As far as China goes, there are several important topics which I have been mulling over, and which someday, perhaps some lazy budapest morning, I will compose into the longer, essayish sort of posting. For now, suffice it to say that the semester is almost up, I will be in Budapest next Sunday, and I have mastered enough chinese to confuse the overworked McDonalds manager with my insistence that he refill my used coffee cup rather than throw it out and give me a new one.
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