Ezra Klein collects The 10 juiciest tidbits from the ‘fiscal cliff’ talks "Three excellent reconstructions of the fiscal cliff talks have been released by the Washington Post, the National Journal, and Politico. Here are the juiciest and most important parts:"
Thursday, January 03, 2013
How Obama Decides Your Fate If He Thinks You're a Terrorist
The Atlantic shows How Obama Decides Your Fate If He Thinks You're a Terrorist.
"Over the years, U.S. authorities have responded with astonishing variety to American nationals suspected of terrorism, from ignoring their activities to conducting lethal drone strikes. All U.S. terrorists are not created equal. And the U.S. response depends heavily on the role of allies, the degree of threat the suspect poses, and the imminence of that threat -- along with other factors. What follows is a flow chart that takes us through the criteria and decision points that can lead to a suspect terrorist’s being ignored as a minor nuisance, being prosecuted in federal court, being held in a Pakistani prison, or being met with the business end of a Hellfire missile."
It's a flow chart, and clicking on each box shows some interesting details.
"Over the years, U.S. authorities have responded with astonishing variety to American nationals suspected of terrorism, from ignoring their activities to conducting lethal drone strikes. All U.S. terrorists are not created equal. And the U.S. response depends heavily on the role of allies, the degree of threat the suspect poses, and the imminence of that threat -- along with other factors. What follows is a flow chart that takes us through the criteria and decision points that can lead to a suspect terrorist’s being ignored as a minor nuisance, being prosecuted in federal court, being held in a Pakistani prison, or being met with the business end of a Hellfire missile."
It's a flow chart, and clicking on each box shows some interesting details.
America's Real Criminal Element: Lead
Kevin Drum writes America's Real Criminal Element: Lead. "New research finds Pb is the hidden villain behind violent crime, lower IQs, and even the ADHD epidemic. And fixing the problem is a lot cheaper than doing nothing."
It's sounds pretty crazy, but he cites several studies, both econometric and biological and then does some estimates on a cost-benefit analysis of the cleanup. It's a little long, but worth a read.
"Put all this together and you have an astonishing body of evidence. We now have studies at the international level, the national level, the state level, the city level, and even the individual level. Groups of children have been followed from the womb to adulthood, and higher childhood blood lead levels are consistently associated with higher adult arrest rates for violent crimes. All of these studies tell the same story: Gasoline lead is responsible for a good share of the rise and fall of violent crime over the past half century.
Like many good theories, the gasoline lead hypothesis helps explain some things we might not have realized even needed explaining. For example, murder rates have always been higher in big cities than in towns and small cities. We're so used to this that it seems unsurprising, but Nevin points out that it might actually have a surprising explanation—because big cities have lots of cars in a small area, they also had high densities of atmospheric lead during the postwar era. But as lead levels in gasoline decreased, the differences between big and small cities largely went away. And guess what? The difference in murder rates went away too. Today, homicide rates are similar in cities of all sizes. It may be that violent crime isn't an inevitable consequence of being a big city after all."
"So lead is a double whammy: It impairs specific parts of the brain responsible for executive functions and it impairs the communication channels between these parts of the brain. For children like the ones in the Cincinnati study, who were mostly inner-city kids with plenty of strikes against them already, lead exposure was, in Cecil's words, an "additional kick in the gut." And one more thing: Although both sexes are affected by lead, the neurological impact turns out to be greater among boys than girls.
Other recent studies link even minuscule blood lead levels with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder. Even at concentrations well below those usually considered safe—levels still common today—lead increases the odds of kids developing ADHD."
"So is this all just an interesting history lesson? After all, leaded gasoline has been banned since 1996, so even if it had a major impact on violent crime during the 20th century, there's nothing more to be done on that front. Right? Wrong. As it turns out, tetraethyl lead is like a zombie that refuses to die. Our cars may be lead-free today, but they spent more than 50 years spewing lead from their tailpipes, and all that lead had to go somewhere. And it did: It settled permanently into the soil that we walk on, grow our food in, and let our kids play around."
"Put this all together and the benefits of lead cleanup could be in the neighborhood of $200 billion per year. In other words, an annual investment of $20 billion for 20 years could produce returns of 10-to-1 every single year for decades to come. Those are returns that Wall Street hedge funds can only dream of."
It's sounds pretty crazy, but he cites several studies, both econometric and biological and then does some estimates on a cost-benefit analysis of the cleanup. It's a little long, but worth a read.
"Put all this together and you have an astonishing body of evidence. We now have studies at the international level, the national level, the state level, the city level, and even the individual level. Groups of children have been followed from the womb to adulthood, and higher childhood blood lead levels are consistently associated with higher adult arrest rates for violent crimes. All of these studies tell the same story: Gasoline lead is responsible for a good share of the rise and fall of violent crime over the past half century.
Like many good theories, the gasoline lead hypothesis helps explain some things we might not have realized even needed explaining. For example, murder rates have always been higher in big cities than in towns and small cities. We're so used to this that it seems unsurprising, but Nevin points out that it might actually have a surprising explanation—because big cities have lots of cars in a small area, they also had high densities of atmospheric lead during the postwar era. But as lead levels in gasoline decreased, the differences between big and small cities largely went away. And guess what? The difference in murder rates went away too. Today, homicide rates are similar in cities of all sizes. It may be that violent crime isn't an inevitable consequence of being a big city after all."
"So lead is a double whammy: It impairs specific parts of the brain responsible for executive functions and it impairs the communication channels between these parts of the brain. For children like the ones in the Cincinnati study, who were mostly inner-city kids with plenty of strikes against them already, lead exposure was, in Cecil's words, an "additional kick in the gut." And one more thing: Although both sexes are affected by lead, the neurological impact turns out to be greater among boys than girls.
Other recent studies link even minuscule blood lead levels with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder. Even at concentrations well below those usually considered safe—levels still common today—lead increases the odds of kids developing ADHD."
"So is this all just an interesting history lesson? After all, leaded gasoline has been banned since 1996, so even if it had a major impact on violent crime during the 20th century, there's nothing more to be done on that front. Right? Wrong. As it turns out, tetraethyl lead is like a zombie that refuses to die. Our cars may be lead-free today, but they spent more than 50 years spewing lead from their tailpipes, and all that lead had to go somewhere. And it did: It settled permanently into the soil that we walk on, grow our food in, and let our kids play around."
"Put this all together and the benefits of lead cleanup could be in the neighborhood of $200 billion per year. In other words, an annual investment of $20 billion for 20 years could produce returns of 10-to-1 every single year for decades to come. Those are returns that Wall Street hedge funds can only dream of."
Good Riddance to Rottenest Congress in History
Ezra Klein writes Good Riddance to Rottenest Congress in History.
"What’s the record of the 112th Congress? Well, it almost shut down the government and almost breached the debt ceiling. It almost went over the fiscal cliff (which it had designed in the first place). It cut a trillion dollars of discretionary spending in the Budget Control Act and scheduled another trillion in spending cuts through an automatic sequester, which everyone agrees is terrible policy. It achieved nothing of note on housing, energy, stimulus, immigration, guns, tax reform, infrastructure, climate change or, really, anything. It’s hard to identify a single significant problem that existed prior to the 112th Congress that was in any way improved by its two years of rule."
"When it ends, the 112th Congress will have passed about 220 public laws — by far the least of any Congress on record…Of course, raw productivity statistics can mislead. After all, if the 112th Congress’s laws were particularly worthwhile, or if its low productivity reflected a period of political calm and economic growth, the slow rate of legislating might even be a good thing. In this case, however, the raw data mislead in the other direction. The 112th Congress wasn’t merely unproductive: It was devastatingly counterproductive."
Klein isn't the only one saying such things. The Week points to several others in 10 insulting labels for the outgoing 112th Congress.
Here's a list of the laws passed by the 112th Congress (as of now it lists 218 through 12/20/12). I haven't gone through them all to see how many of them are things like naming post offices. Okay, I did, there are at least 30 of them and it seems one more to amend the address of one of them. There are 7 more designations of things like courthouses. Also 6 laws about commemorative coins. 3 were appointments to the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution. There are also a bunch that are "Continuing Appropriations" or "Extensions" and 5 that are corrections to previous laws passed by the 112th Congress.
"What’s the record of the 112th Congress? Well, it almost shut down the government and almost breached the debt ceiling. It almost went over the fiscal cliff (which it had designed in the first place). It cut a trillion dollars of discretionary spending in the Budget Control Act and scheduled another trillion in spending cuts through an automatic sequester, which everyone agrees is terrible policy. It achieved nothing of note on housing, energy, stimulus, immigration, guns, tax reform, infrastructure, climate change or, really, anything. It’s hard to identify a single significant problem that existed prior to the 112th Congress that was in any way improved by its two years of rule."
"When it ends, the 112th Congress will have passed about 220 public laws — by far the least of any Congress on record…Of course, raw productivity statistics can mislead. After all, if the 112th Congress’s laws were particularly worthwhile, or if its low productivity reflected a period of political calm and economic growth, the slow rate of legislating might even be a good thing. In this case, however, the raw data mislead in the other direction. The 112th Congress wasn’t merely unproductive: It was devastatingly counterproductive."
Klein isn't the only one saying such things. The Week points to several others in 10 insulting labels for the outgoing 112th Congress.
Here's a list of the laws passed by the 112th Congress (as of now it lists 218 through 12/20/12). I haven't gone through them all to see how many of them are things like naming post offices. Okay, I did, there are at least 30 of them and it seems one more to amend the address of one of them. There are 7 more designations of things like courthouses. Also 6 laws about commemorative coins. 3 were appointments to the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution. There are also a bunch that are "Continuing Appropriations" or "Extensions" and 5 that are corrections to previous laws passed by the 112th Congress.
100 Greatest Sports Photos of All Time
Sports Illustrated presents 100 Greatest Sports Photos of All Time
Congress tries democracy for a change!
Steven Pearlstein explains Congress tries democracy for a change!
"In the Senate, it’s the ridiculous rules requiring unanimous consent to take up a bill or a nomination, and the filibuster that lets a minority of the Senate ‘talk’ a bill or a nomination to death without actually having to show up on the floor and talk. So even if there are 51 or 55 or even 59 senators willing to do something that is politically difficult — such as curbing the growth in entitlement spending, for instance — they can’t unless they get the 60-vote supermajority now required under Senate practice.
The House, particularly under Republican control, has also effectively repealed majority rule. Since the mid-1990s, Republican leaders have vowed not to bring legislation to the floor that isn’t supported by a ‘majority of the majority’ — a majority of the members of the Republican caucus. And once the caucus decides what to do, then it is expected that all Republicans will fall in line and support the party position. To accomplish this, bills have to be crafted to satisfy virtually every member of the Republican caucus, which pulls them even further to the right and makes them odious to Democrats, who similarly fall in line and vote as a bloc against them.
What this means in practice is that Republicans have to pass bills only with Republican votes. And since the party has a thin majority in the House, the defection of only 20 or so of its most conservative members effectively dooms any legislation, as it did with Speaker John A. Boehner’s ill-fated Plan B.
What happened yesterday was that things worked the way the framers of the Constitution imagined they would work. The Senate took up a bill without unanimous consent, debated and acted on it without the losers resorting to a filabuter. And the House reverted to majority rule. By honoring his promise to the president and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) to bring up any Senate-passed bill, Boehner (R-Ohio) agreed to set aside the ‘majority of the majority’ standard and allowed a centrist, bipartisan coalition to work its will — in this case over the objection of a majority of the Republican caucus.
This is the template for doing difficult things in Congress. In fact it, is the only template."
"In the Senate, it’s the ridiculous rules requiring unanimous consent to take up a bill or a nomination, and the filibuster that lets a minority of the Senate ‘talk’ a bill or a nomination to death without actually having to show up on the floor and talk. So even if there are 51 or 55 or even 59 senators willing to do something that is politically difficult — such as curbing the growth in entitlement spending, for instance — they can’t unless they get the 60-vote supermajority now required under Senate practice.
The House, particularly under Republican control, has also effectively repealed majority rule. Since the mid-1990s, Republican leaders have vowed not to bring legislation to the floor that isn’t supported by a ‘majority of the majority’ — a majority of the members of the Republican caucus. And once the caucus decides what to do, then it is expected that all Republicans will fall in line and support the party position. To accomplish this, bills have to be crafted to satisfy virtually every member of the Republican caucus, which pulls them even further to the right and makes them odious to Democrats, who similarly fall in line and vote as a bloc against them.
What this means in practice is that Republicans have to pass bills only with Republican votes. And since the party has a thin majority in the House, the defection of only 20 or so of its most conservative members effectively dooms any legislation, as it did with Speaker John A. Boehner’s ill-fated Plan B.
What happened yesterday was that things worked the way the framers of the Constitution imagined they would work. The Senate took up a bill without unanimous consent, debated and acted on it without the losers resorting to a filabuter. And the House reverted to majority rule. By honoring his promise to the president and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) to bring up any Senate-passed bill, Boehner (R-Ohio) agreed to set aside the ‘majority of the majority’ standard and allowed a centrist, bipartisan coalition to work its will — in this case over the objection of a majority of the Republican caucus.
This is the template for doing difficult things in Congress. In fact it, is the only template."
Economist's View on the Deal
What do economists think of the deal? Mark Thoma collects views from Brad DeLong, Paul Krugman, Jeff Sachs, and Greg Mankiw and one more from Tim Duy.
Jim Tankersley wrote in the Washington Post, ‘Fiscal cliff’ deal falls short under three economic theories. "Economists generally offer three theories for what’s hampering the still-sluggish U.S. economy: the Keynesian theory, which would like to see lower taxes or more government spending; the spending/debt theory, which would like to see both of those reined in; and the uncertainty theory. Under none of them can the deal to avert the “fiscal cliff” be considered an economic success."
Reporter Brad Plumer points out the U.S. now on pace for European levels of austerity in 2013.
William K. Black made the case against austerity in Kill the 'Fiscal Cliff' Instead of the Economy.
"Austerity is a policy of raising taxes and/or cutting governmental spending for the purported purpose of cutting the deficit. If one raises overall taxes in response to the Great Recession the result is a reduction in private sector demand. If one cuts governmental spending the result is a reduction in public sector demand. The result of reducing private and public sector demand in the recovery phase from the Great Recession, where overall demand is already grossly inadequate, is to throw the nation back into recession or even a depression. That causes the budget deficit to grow. A policy of austerity undertaken under the claim that it will reduce the deficit causes a gratuitous recession that leads to a massive loss of wealth, far higher unemployment, and in increased deficit. That is why austerity is a policy that is the self-destructive economic analogy to the medical insanity of bleeding patients.
We have known that austerity is an idiotic response to a severe crisis for 75 years. The U.S. was in the midst of a strong recovery from the Great Depression until FDR's neo-liberal economists convinced him in 1937 that is was essential that the U.S. adopt an austerity program to reduce the federal deficit. Austerity forced our economy back into a Great Depression.
It was only the stimulus of federal spending in World War II that brought the U.S. out of the depression. During World War II and for the remainder of that decade the ratio of debt-to-GDP was at or near historically record levels. The result was the greatest industrial expansion in history, full employment (including a massive influx of women), strong economic growth, and sharply declining deficits and debt-to-GDP ratio because the growth led to large increases in revenue and the low unemployment greatly reduced spending on the unemployed. We also defeated the Axis powers, created Social Security and the GI Bill, and began an extraordinary expansion of our housing stock to house the baby boom.
We learned many lessons from the catastrophic failure of austerity and the extraordinary success of stimulus in this era. The U.S. adopted a fiscal system of 'automatic stabilizers.' These are counter-cyclical (they push in the opposite direction of the business cycle) fiscal effects that are designed into the system and do not require new legislation once the recession or inflation begins. The result of these automatic stabilizers has been to reduce the severity and duration of recessions. Indeed, studies show that the larger the national governmental role in the economy, the less volatile the economy. This makes sense because the stabilization function should be more effective if the stabilizers are larger relative to the economy."
Update: And it seems the IMF is starting to understand that austerity doesn't work. An amazing mea culpa from the IMF’s chief economist on austerity.
Jim Tankersley wrote in the Washington Post, ‘Fiscal cliff’ deal falls short under three economic theories. "Economists generally offer three theories for what’s hampering the still-sluggish U.S. economy: the Keynesian theory, which would like to see lower taxes or more government spending; the spending/debt theory, which would like to see both of those reined in; and the uncertainty theory. Under none of them can the deal to avert the “fiscal cliff” be considered an economic success."
Reporter Brad Plumer points out the U.S. now on pace for European levels of austerity in 2013.
William K. Black made the case against austerity in Kill the 'Fiscal Cliff' Instead of the Economy.
"Austerity is a policy of raising taxes and/or cutting governmental spending for the purported purpose of cutting the deficit. If one raises overall taxes in response to the Great Recession the result is a reduction in private sector demand. If one cuts governmental spending the result is a reduction in public sector demand. The result of reducing private and public sector demand in the recovery phase from the Great Recession, where overall demand is already grossly inadequate, is to throw the nation back into recession or even a depression. That causes the budget deficit to grow. A policy of austerity undertaken under the claim that it will reduce the deficit causes a gratuitous recession that leads to a massive loss of wealth, far higher unemployment, and in increased deficit. That is why austerity is a policy that is the self-destructive economic analogy to the medical insanity of bleeding patients.
We have known that austerity is an idiotic response to a severe crisis for 75 years. The U.S. was in the midst of a strong recovery from the Great Depression until FDR's neo-liberal economists convinced him in 1937 that is was essential that the U.S. adopt an austerity program to reduce the federal deficit. Austerity forced our economy back into a Great Depression.
It was only the stimulus of federal spending in World War II that brought the U.S. out of the depression. During World War II and for the remainder of that decade the ratio of debt-to-GDP was at or near historically record levels. The result was the greatest industrial expansion in history, full employment (including a massive influx of women), strong economic growth, and sharply declining deficits and debt-to-GDP ratio because the growth led to large increases in revenue and the low unemployment greatly reduced spending on the unemployed. We also defeated the Axis powers, created Social Security and the GI Bill, and began an extraordinary expansion of our housing stock to house the baby boom.
We learned many lessons from the catastrophic failure of austerity and the extraordinary success of stimulus in this era. The U.S. adopted a fiscal system of 'automatic stabilizers.' These are counter-cyclical (they push in the opposite direction of the business cycle) fiscal effects that are designed into the system and do not require new legislation once the recession or inflation begins. The result of these automatic stabilizers has been to reduce the severity and duration of recessions. Indeed, studies show that the larger the national governmental role in the economy, the less volatile the economy. This makes sense because the stabilization function should be more effective if the stabilizers are larger relative to the economy."
Update: And it seems the IMF is starting to understand that austerity doesn't work. An amazing mea culpa from the IMF’s chief economist on austerity.
Fiscal Cliff Deal
Politico has the story about the dealing that went on, The fiscal cliff deal that almost wasn't. I've got less respect for Boehner. Also it seems to confirm that while the Republicans want spending cuts, they never proposed any. Their problem is that the representatives want to cut entitlements but their constituents don't really want to. So they want the Democrats to propose the cuts they're willing to live with and take the political heat. So far they've been smart enough to avoid that.
Everything is Terrible is a funnier and more complete telling of the history of all this stuff going all the way back to the word "lockbox".
Here's the history of the negotiations in one chart:
WonkBook has Everything you need to know about the fiscal cliff deal, but you can get away with Your fiscal cliff deal cheat sheet explains it all in terms anyone can understand. The New York TImes has a graphic showing how everyone in the House voted.
Tuesday’s tax increase is the biggest in decades has a number of charts making the point. It was posted New Year's Eve so it doesn't include the final deal, but this chart says a lot:
Also Who would foot the higher 2013 tax bill, in one chart
Ed Kilgore explains The Deal and the Working Poor and Suzy Khimm says Make between $200,000 and $500,000? Congrats, you got the best ‘fiscal cliff’ deal!
You might hear two numbers for what this deal costs. The fiscal cliff deal’s price tag: -$3.9 trillion or +$600 billion depending on whether you compare to before or after we went over the cliff. Remember, going over the cliff was going to set in austerity, it would cut the deficit $4.5 trillion over 10 years. So this deal is either +$0.6T or -$3.9T.
And of course, there was pork, 8 Huge Corporate Handouts in the Fiscal Cliff Bill. They are: $43 million over 2 years for NASCAR, $165 million/year for railroads, $150 million/year for Hollywood, tax incentives for mining companies to train miners in safety, subsidies for Goldman Sachs Headquarters, $9 billion off-shore financing loophole for banks, extension to allow US multinationals to not pay taxes on income earned by companies they own abroad, and bonus depreciation and R&D tax credits worth $120 billion. Brad Plumer repeats some of these in listing the 10 weirdest parts of the ‘fiscal cliff’ bill. And also, The fiscal cliff deal cuts $1.9 billion from Obamacare.
Ezra Klein sums up The lessons of the fiscal cliff. "The White House didn’t hold firm on their promise to let the Bush tax cuts expire for all income over $250,000. They agreed to a $450,000 threshold instead. But at the same time, they pocketed more than $600 billion in revenue, $30 billion in extended unemployment benefits and five years of stimulus tax credits without giving up any real spending cuts." He then goes on to predict how the next set of negotiations will go.
Everything is Terrible is a funnier and more complete telling of the history of all this stuff going all the way back to the word "lockbox".
Here's the history of the negotiations in one chart:
WonkBook has Everything you need to know about the fiscal cliff deal, but you can get away with Your fiscal cliff deal cheat sheet explains it all in terms anyone can understand. The New York TImes has a graphic showing how everyone in the House voted.
Tuesday’s tax increase is the biggest in decades has a number of charts making the point. It was posted New Year's Eve so it doesn't include the final deal, but this chart says a lot:
Also Who would foot the higher 2013 tax bill, in one chart
Ed Kilgore explains The Deal and the Working Poor and Suzy Khimm says Make between $200,000 and $500,000? Congrats, you got the best ‘fiscal cliff’ deal!
You might hear two numbers for what this deal costs. The fiscal cliff deal’s price tag: -$3.9 trillion or +$600 billion depending on whether you compare to before or after we went over the cliff. Remember, going over the cliff was going to set in austerity, it would cut the deficit $4.5 trillion over 10 years. So this deal is either +$0.6T or -$3.9T.
And of course, there was pork, 8 Huge Corporate Handouts in the Fiscal Cliff Bill. They are: $43 million over 2 years for NASCAR, $165 million/year for railroads, $150 million/year for Hollywood, tax incentives for mining companies to train miners in safety, subsidies for Goldman Sachs Headquarters, $9 billion off-shore financing loophole for banks, extension to allow US multinationals to not pay taxes on income earned by companies they own abroad, and bonus depreciation and R&D tax credits worth $120 billion. Brad Plumer repeats some of these in listing the 10 weirdest parts of the ‘fiscal cliff’ bill. And also, The fiscal cliff deal cuts $1.9 billion from Obamacare.
Ezra Klein sums up The lessons of the fiscal cliff. "The White House didn’t hold firm on their promise to let the Bush tax cuts expire for all income over $250,000. They agreed to a $450,000 threshold instead. But at the same time, they pocketed more than $600 billion in revenue, $30 billion in extended unemployment benefits and five years of stimulus tax credits without giving up any real spending cuts." He then goes on to predict how the next set of negotiations will go.
2012: The Year in Graphs
2012: The Year in Graphs "As 2012 draws to a close, Wonkblog asked our favorite professional wonks — economists, political scientist, politicians and more — to see what graphs and charts they felt did the best job explaining the past year. Here are their nominees."
Wednesday, January 02, 2013
Amazon.com’s Socially Engineered Replacement Order Scam
Amazon.com’s Socially Engineered Replacement Order Scam explains how customer service can be too accommodating and can cause a security hole.
Where to Be Born
The Economist wrote Daily chart: Birth right. "A QUARTER of a century ago, The World in 1988 light-heartedly ranked 50 countries according to where would be the best place to be born. Then, America came top (see chart on left). Now the Economist Intelligence Unit has more earnestly calculated where would be best to be born in 2013. Its quality-of-life index links the results of subjective life-satisfaction surveys—how happy people say they are—to objective determinants of the quality of life across countries. Being rich helps more than anything else, but it is not all that counts—things like crime and trust in public institutions matter too"
The US is now ranked 16th.
The US is now ranked 16th.
The Essential Guide To Dim Sum
The Essential Guide To Dim Sum made me hungry.
"Regular patrons of North American dim sum restaurants will find most, if not all, of the selections pictured here familiar. Newcomers should find the illustrations—which have been grouped by their method of preparation and general type—helpful in identifying some of the more typical offerings. This arrangement will provide even first-time visitors to dim sum restaurants with access to field identification in a clear and rational array."
"Regular patrons of North American dim sum restaurants will find most, if not all, of the selections pictured here familiar. Newcomers should find the illustrations—which have been grouped by their method of preparation and general type—helpful in identifying some of the more typical offerings. This arrangement will provide even first-time visitors to dim sum restaurants with access to field identification in a clear and rational array."
New Year's Celebrations Around the World
I didn't think I'd be that interested but yet again, In Focus won me over. New Year's Celebrations Around the World. "Last night, as the stroke of midnight rolled across the world's time zones, people gathered in private and took to the streets to celebrate the arrival of the New Year, 2013. Fireworks erupted from Sydney to Moscow, and revelers gathered in London, Dakar, New York, Las Vegas, and thousands of other places, raising a glass, keeping warm, making resolutions, and wishing each other a 'Happy New Year!' [33 photos]"
Leap Seconds
What If tackles Leap Seconds giving more information and more fun that the topic usually gets (or perhaps deserves).
6 Places You'll Recognize from the Background of Every Movie
Cracked wrote 6 Places You'll Recognize from the Background of Every Movie. "We rarely pay attention to the locations in a film, unless the landscapes are unusually breathtaking (probably CGI) or, like, literally wallpapered in genitals. However, if you think back to your favorite films, you might notice that many of them used the same locations. Just like with actors, there is an elite group of places that tend to show up in hit and/or classic movies."
Avis Bought Zipcar
Avis bought Zipcar for $12.25/share. I've never used the service, but I mostly agree with Steven Pearlstein: How Avis will ruin Zipcar.
"The real issue in these deals is culture. Zipcar has a way of doing things that is particularly appealing to the young, hip urbanites who walk, bike and use public transportation most of the time and don’t own a car. They like the types of cool cars (Mini Coopers, Toyota Priuses) that Zipcar provides, the convenience of picking them up in their neighborhood and the very idea of “sharing” cars with people like themselves. Everything about the company — from its marketing to its customer interface to its rules — supports that brand identity.
The only way for Avis to realize its over-promised cost savings will be to force Zipcar to consolidate the two operations and become more like Avis in everything it does. Eventually, all the old Zipcar executives will be fired or will migrate somewhere else. Auto purchasing will be centralized, as will the pickup points. The Zipcar Web site and computer system will be merged into the Avis Web site and computer system. Avis will want to do package deals with airlines and hotel chains and drag Zipcar customers into its loyalty program. They’ll even try to upsell Zipcar customers every time they reserve a car: Wouldn’t you like something bigger for only $2 more? Wouldn’t you like extra insurance?"
I agree with the predictions in the second paragraph but wouldn't call them "culture" issues. Those are just typical failings of big mergers. As you integrate something new into something bigger and preexisting, there are lots of conflicts that need to be resolved (typically because the new use cases weren't taken into consideration when the initial systems were built). It's not culture or brand identity that causes those decisions to be made badly, its just bad management. Get this done instead of get this done right. Presumably Avis bought Zipcar because they thought they did some things better than Avis did (or they just wanted to kill competition) but the push will be to make the Zipcar systems work the Avis way. It will make things easier for the remaining employees and maybe even for some Avis customers, but not for Zipcar customers. It certainly gets harder to do right when all the new people leave or are let go because they're duplicating skills.
"The real issue in these deals is culture. Zipcar has a way of doing things that is particularly appealing to the young, hip urbanites who walk, bike and use public transportation most of the time and don’t own a car. They like the types of cool cars (Mini Coopers, Toyota Priuses) that Zipcar provides, the convenience of picking them up in their neighborhood and the very idea of “sharing” cars with people like themselves. Everything about the company — from its marketing to its customer interface to its rules — supports that brand identity.
The only way for Avis to realize its over-promised cost savings will be to force Zipcar to consolidate the two operations and become more like Avis in everything it does. Eventually, all the old Zipcar executives will be fired or will migrate somewhere else. Auto purchasing will be centralized, as will the pickup points. The Zipcar Web site and computer system will be merged into the Avis Web site and computer system. Avis will want to do package deals with airlines and hotel chains and drag Zipcar customers into its loyalty program. They’ll even try to upsell Zipcar customers every time they reserve a car: Wouldn’t you like something bigger for only $2 more? Wouldn’t you like extra insurance?"
I agree with the predictions in the second paragraph but wouldn't call them "culture" issues. Those are just typical failings of big mergers. As you integrate something new into something bigger and preexisting, there are lots of conflicts that need to be resolved (typically because the new use cases weren't taken into consideration when the initial systems were built). It's not culture or brand identity that causes those decisions to be made badly, its just bad management. Get this done instead of get this done right. Presumably Avis bought Zipcar because they thought they did some things better than Avis did (or they just wanted to kill competition) but the push will be to make the Zipcar systems work the Avis way. It will make things easier for the remaining employees and maybe even for some Avis customers, but not for Zipcar customers. It certainly gets harder to do right when all the new people leave or are let go because they're duplicating skills.
Marking the birth of the modern-day Internet
Yesterday was, by one measure, the 30th anniversary of the Internet. Vint Cerf explains: Marking the birth of the modern-day Internet.
Timeline of the Far Future
Wikipedia has a few Timelines of the future. Some are lame, like the Timeline of the near future which lists only 6 things in the 2010s. But I found the Timeline of the far future to be really interesting and probably more accurate than Mayan predictions.
"While predictions of the future can never be absolutely certain, present scientific understanding in various fields has enabled the course of the far future to be plotted if only in the broadest outlines. These fields include astrophysics, which has revealed how planets and stars form, interact and die; particle physics, which has revealed how matter behaves at the smallest scales, and plate tectonics, which shows how continents shift over millennia."
"While predictions of the future can never be absolutely certain, present scientific understanding in various fields has enabled the course of the far future to be plotted if only in the broadest outlines. These fields include astrophysics, which has revealed how planets and stars form, interact and die; particle physics, which has revealed how matter behaves at the smallest scales, and plate tectonics, which shows how continents shift over millennia."
A Breakthrough Against Leukemia Using Altered T-Cells
The New York Times reported a month ago, A Breakthrough Against Leukemia Using Altered T-Cells.
"Desperate to save her, her parents sought an experimental treatment at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, one that had never before been tried in a child, or in anyone with the type of leukemia Emma had. The experiment, in April, used a disabled form of the virus that causes AIDS to reprogram Emma’s immune system genetically to kill cancer cells.
The treatment very nearly killed her. But she emerged from it cancer-free, and about seven months later is still in complete remission. She is the first child and one of the first humans ever in whom new techniques have achieved a long-sought goal — giving a patient’s own immune system the lasting ability to fight cancer."
"Desperate to save her, her parents sought an experimental treatment at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, one that had never before been tried in a child, or in anyone with the type of leukemia Emma had. The experiment, in April, used a disabled form of the virus that causes AIDS to reprogram Emma’s immune system genetically to kill cancer cells.
The treatment very nearly killed her. But she emerged from it cancer-free, and about seven months later is still in complete remission. She is the first child and one of the first humans ever in whom new techniques have achieved a long-sought goal — giving a patient’s own immune system the lasting ability to fight cancer."
Tenth Grade Tech Trends
Josh Miller wrote Tenth Grade Tech Trends. "Learning from past mistakes, I took some time over the holiday break to ask my [15 year-old] sister many, many questions about how her and her friends are using technology. Below I’ve shared some of the more interesting observations about Instragram, Facebook, Instant Messaging, Snapchat, Tumblr, Twitter, and FaceTime. I hope you’ll find them as informative, surprising, and humbling as I did."
I found this somewhat interesting. I found out about Facebook years ago because a friend said his teenage daughter though email was how old people communicated. She did everything with MySpace (and I looked at that but thought Facebook was a better fit for me at the time). I've never heard of snapchat and a quick look at their webpage tells me I'm not the target demographic.
Some of the insights are interesting but I think he might be reading too much into some things.
"For me, Twitter is predominantly a link discovery service — admittedly, that is a simplified view, but it’s helpful for these purposes — so I followed-up on her Twitter comments by asking where she discovers links. “What do you mean?” She couldn’t even understand what I was asking. I rephrased the question: “What links do you read? What sites do they come from? What blogs?” I don’t read links. I don’t read blogs. I don’t know. You mean like funny videos on Facebook? Sometimes people post funny links there. But I’m not really interested in anything yet, like you are."
She probably doesn't read a newspaper either so the above questions seem as useful as asking her about how to better design the New York Times' front page. It's also not valid to say based on this that newspapers are doomed. It strikes me as similar to those people that said Facebook needed a music solution because they were losing that war to MySpace. Different markets.
I found this somewhat interesting. I found out about Facebook years ago because a friend said his teenage daughter though email was how old people communicated. She did everything with MySpace (and I looked at that but thought Facebook was a better fit for me at the time). I've never heard of snapchat and a quick look at their webpage tells me I'm not the target demographic.
Some of the insights are interesting but I think he might be reading too much into some things.
"For me, Twitter is predominantly a link discovery service — admittedly, that is a simplified view, but it’s helpful for these purposes — so I followed-up on her Twitter comments by asking where she discovers links. “What do you mean?” She couldn’t even understand what I was asking. I rephrased the question: “What links do you read? What sites do they come from? What blogs?” I don’t read links. I don’t read blogs. I don’t know. You mean like funny videos on Facebook? Sometimes people post funny links there. But I’m not really interested in anything yet, like you are."
She probably doesn't read a newspaper either so the above questions seem as useful as asking her about how to better design the New York Times' front page. It's also not valid to say based on this that newspapers are doomed. It strikes me as similar to those people that said Facebook needed a music solution because they were losing that war to MySpace. Different markets.
Census Dotmap
Census Dotmap "This is a map of every person counted by the 2010 US and 2011 Canadian censuses. The map has 341,817,095 dots - one for each person." It's Zoomable and cool.
A massive star plows through material between stars
This is now the wallpaper on my iPad:
"This is a Spitzer Space Telescope view of the star Zeta Ophiuchus (or Zeta Oph to its friends), a massive star plowing through the gas and dust floating in space. Zeta Oph is a bruiser, with 20 times the Sun’s mass. It’s an incredibly luminous star, blasting out light at a rate 80,000 times higher than the Sun! Even at its distance of 400 light years or so, it should be one of the brightest stars in the sky … yet it actually appears relatively dim to the eye. That’s because it’s sitting in a dust cloud, dense opaque material that absorbs the light from the mighty star and diminishes it. However, infrared light can penetrate the murk, allowing us to peer into the cloud and see what’s going on."
"This is a Spitzer Space Telescope view of the star Zeta Ophiuchus (or Zeta Oph to its friends), a massive star plowing through the gas and dust floating in space. Zeta Oph is a bruiser, with 20 times the Sun’s mass. It’s an incredibly luminous star, blasting out light at a rate 80,000 times higher than the Sun! Even at its distance of 400 light years or so, it should be one of the brightest stars in the sky … yet it actually appears relatively dim to the eye. That’s because it’s sitting in a dust cloud, dense opaque material that absorbs the light from the mighty star and diminishes it. However, infrared light can penetrate the murk, allowing us to peer into the cloud and see what’s going on."
Twine - Listen to your world, talk to the Internet
"Twine is a wireless sensor block tightly integrated with a cloud-based service. The durable, rubbery block has WiFi, on-board temperature and orientation sensors, and an expansion connector for other sensors. Power is supplied by micro USB or two AAA batteries (and Twine will email you when you need to change the batteries).
The Twine web app makes it simple to set up and monitor your Twines from a browser anywhere. You set rules to trigger messages — no programming needed. The rules are put together with a palette of available conditions and actions, and read like English: WHEN moisture sensor gets wet THEN text 'The basement is flooding!' We'll get you started with a bunch of rule sets, and you can share rules you create with other Twine owners."
Neat idea.
The Twine web app makes it simple to set up and monitor your Twines from a browser anywhere. You set rules to trigger messages — no programming needed. The rules are put together with a palette of available conditions and actions, and read like English: WHEN moisture sensor gets wet THEN text 'The basement is flooding!' We'll get you started with a bunch of rule sets, and you can share rules you create with other Twine owners."
Neat idea.
A Visual Bibliography of Tree Visualization
A Visual Bibliography of Tree Visualization.
"Tree visualization is one of the best-studied areas of information visualization; researchers have developed more than 200 visualization and layout techniques for trees. The treevis.net project aims to provide a hand-curated bibliographical reference to this ever-growing wealth of techniques. It offers a visual overview that users can filter to a desired subset along the design criteria of dimensionality, edge representation, and node alignment. Details, including links to the original publications, can be brought up on demand. Treevis.net has become a community effort, with researchers sending in preprints of their tree visualization techniques to be published or pointing out additional information."
"Tree visualization is one of the best-studied areas of information visualization; researchers have developed more than 200 visualization and layout techniques for trees. The treevis.net project aims to provide a hand-curated bibliographical reference to this ever-growing wealth of techniques. It offers a visual overview that users can filter to a desired subset along the design criteria of dimensionality, edge representation, and node alignment. Details, including links to the original publications, can be brought up on demand. Treevis.net has become a community effort, with researchers sending in preprints of their tree visualization techniques to be published or pointing out additional information."
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