15 October, 2008

Conservatives eating one of their own?

Go read Christopher Buckley's explanation of his NR resigation - its a fascinating look at how one conservative thinks of the "modern conservative movement."  The latter now apparently means, think as we tell you to think, and disloyalty must not be tolerated.  A lot of people are realizing that the current Republican leadereship, with its concentration of executive power, expansion of government spending, and theocratic totalitarian tendencies is not what used to be called the "Republican Party" just a few decades ago.

...click to continue reading.

14 October, 2008

Comedy Central leads the way

Good to see someone is finally asking their users to upgrade to IE6. I hope more websites start ignoring support for IE6 soon, since its such a headache to cater to. Of course, each will have to make its own cost-benefit decision, but we're pretty close to the point that for most sites, supporting IE6 isn't worth the time and effort. Just let your page degrade, and provide an avenue for users to upgrade.

...click to continue reading.

7 October, 2008

Yeah, about that bailot/rescue plan ...

Seems it probably won't work so good. Glad to see Bolivia bucking the trend here. Seems like privatizing, oops, I mean purchasing shares in a bank is more effective.

RGE - Nouriel Roubini's Global EconoMonitor

But government purchase of bad assets was the exception rather than the rule. It was used only in Mexico, Japan, Bolivia, Czech Republic, Jamaica, Malaysia, and Paraguay. Even in six of these seven cases where the recapitalization of banks occurred via the government purchase of bad assets such recapitalization was a combination of purchase of bad assets together with other forms of recapitalization (such as government purchase of preferred shares or subordinated debt).
...click to continue reading.

Power Plants in China

Market forces could be used to clean up power plants in China by encouraging the use of cleaner burning coas. We need China to clean up its power sector if we want to make a real dent in global Carbon emissions. On CARMA, you can see the best publicly available data on the Chinese power sector's emissions. There are over  are 2,162 plants, emitting 3.12 billion tons of CO2.

...click to continue reading.

6 October, 2008

Unintended consequences of relaxing lending standards...

If you're trying to figure out why we're in the financial mess we are in, I highly recommend reading the report linked below. From what I can gather, its a systemic failure, and one cause came from relaxing lending standards. While it helped many people who couldn't afford a home afford one, a lot of them, obviously couldn't keep their homes once their adjustable rate mortgages readjusted. I think a lot of people had an interest in a few metrics focused on measuring home ownership and didn't consider other potential effects of their policies, namely the influx of speculators and flippers who took advantage of said standards.

...click to continue reading.

Some good news for TiVo stockholders

TiVo and EchoStar, of Dish Network fame, have been embroiled in patent litigation for a number of years, regarding a number of patents that TiVo uses to implement some of its DVR features (AFAIK, these are not trivial patents but IANAL so don't quote me on that). TiVo got some good news today, as the Supreme Court refused to hear EchoStar's appeal and letting the preevious judegement stand. The stock, unlike most of the rest of the market,

...click to continue reading.

Bolivia: Talks yield no resolution

I sincerely hope that both parties are negotiating in good faith and trying to prevent further violence and bloodshed.  But that's me, I'm a bit of an optimist that way.  When Morales says he will get his constitution approved "Por las buenos, o las malas", essentially translated as "By any means necessary", its difficult to believe that the opposition would come to the table and make many concessions.

Here's the thing, I agree that most, if not nearly all, Bolivians of European backgrounds hold very disturbing and racists views towards indigenous people.

...click to continue reading.

15 September, 2008

Unrest in Bolivia - any solution in sight?

Things continue to deteriorate in Boliva. First, Evo's government expels the U.S. ambassador - but at the same time sent a letter to Dept. of State indicating that Bolivia wants to "maintain bilateral relations." Me thinks someone should explain to him what expelling an ambassador indicates. The eastern provinces are in basically full rebellion against the central governnment.

Both sides have all the rhetoric, but at the heart of this dispute is who controls one of South America's largest natural gas reserves and the revenues that it generates.

...click to continue reading.

11 September, 2008

WOOT - we beat up on T&T

Dear Landon, now lets see you put on such a performance against a team near the top of the FIFA standings.
Americans Get It Right at Home, Cruise in Qualifier - washingtonpost.com
"We were excellent," forward Landon Donovan said. "The first half was one of the most dominating performances I have ever been a part of. We were good all over the field."
...click to continue reading.

9 September, 2008

Would you vote for a creationist VP?

As if there was any chance left that I'd vote for McCain this fall, this pretty much seals it. BTW, Comedy Central last Thursday had a great movie about candidate McCain. Yeah, I'm a few days behind on that, but life is hectic with a kid. Its actually kind of nice - practically the only time TV is on is for a soccer game.

Wonk Room » Is Sarah Palin A Creationist?

Is McCain’s choice for vice president a creationist?
...click to continue reading.

2 September, 2008

Verizon FIOS TV DVR

I sure am glad I went with the TivoHD instead of going with Verizon's DVR. What TiVo Could Teach My Verizon FiOS TV DVR « NewTeeVee
I recently swapped my old Series 2 TiVo for an HD-capable DVR from Verizon FiOS. While I love the fact that I can record high-def programming, I miss my trusty, user-friendly TiVo. Here are a few things that Verizon — and all of the cable companies that also rent DVRs to their customers — could learn from TiVo.
...click to continue reading.

27 August, 2008

InPrivate browsing?

Surfing on the sly with IE8's new "InPrivate" Internet

These new features are part of Microsoft's continuing Trustworthy Computing initiative to ensure that software and websites respect the user's privacy.

I might be a bit paranoid, but shouldn't that read:

These new features are part of Microsoft's continuing Trustworthy Computing initiative to ensure that software and websites must go through Microsoft to get a user's private information.
...click to continue reading.

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Latest Comments

Oscar said

After reading those passages, my only conclusion is we should trust government even less with our money than ever.... [more]

Jason Lefkowitz said

I guess I don't understand how anyone can read passages like It is the thesis of this report that this large increase in defaults had been a potential problem waiting to happen for some time.... [more]

Sandy said

I read it as Oscar does--the author argues that, had the relaxed standards been means-tested or limited to minorities, the bubble wouldn't have happened.... [more]

Oscar said

We must read things in different ways. Just pointing out that the motivation for the policy is not the same thing as blaming minorities for causing the mortgage/housing default mess.... [more]

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Latest Links

Defaming Milton Friedman: Naomi Klein's disastrous yet popular polemic against the great free market economist - Reason Magazine
In the future, if you tell a student or a journalist that you favor free markets and limited government, there is a risk that they will ask you why you support dictatorships, torture, and corporate welfare. The reason for the confusion will be Naomi Klein's book The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism.
WebWorkerDaily » Archive Yuuguu Inside: Screensharing Comes to Gmail & Google Talk «
Fortunately, Yuuguu’s been thinking ahead and at this week’s The Future of Web Apps in London, announced that Gmail and Google Talk users will be able to invoke Yuuguu screensharing sessions with existing contacts, rather than those within the Yuuguu client. Coupled with the earlier launch of a Flash-based viewer, this helps to broaden the usefulness of the service as its reach extends beyond previous technical barriers.
Life With Alacrity: Collective Choice: Rating Systems
in depth look at the strengths/weaknesses of various online rating approaches.
The DCenters: On the Houston Louis Crayton Incident (A DC United Blog)
Dynamo President Oliver Luck has not tried to play some silly PR game to save face. He manned up and took the high road. Houston reported the incident to MLS, without waiting for United to take some action. We can argue about details here and there, but this is a refreshingly honest and strong denunciation:
Beta blockers? : Article : Nature
In particular, Thomson is demanding that GMU stop distributing the newer beta-version of Zotero that allegedly allows EndNote's proprietary data format for storing journal citation styles to be converted into an open-standard format readable by Zotero and other software. Thomson claims that Zotero "reverse engineered or decompiled" not only the format, but also the EndNote software itself.