I'm caught up on most magazines, including The Economist, but I'm still on last month's Atlantic. It had an article, iGov that's the best explanation for the layman I've seen for how government websites might be improving a lot.
"Federal agencies have been online since the mid-’90s. Obama’s first crack at a Google-for-government law led to USAspending.gov, a budget tracker that looked like everything else the feds had put up on the Web—until I saw one geek-speak phrase on the home page, so small I almost missed it: API Documentation. To understand its significance, let me tell you how I got subway schedules on my iPhone."
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Jim Cramer vs. Jon Stewart Continues
I posted last week about Jon Stewart Shredding CNBC and Jim Cramer in particular. Cramer fired back and Stewart did again last night and Cramer was on the Today show with another volley. The LA Times has a complete rundown including the full 6 minute clip on the Today show this morning.
Erin Burnett says "Jim has to go out every day and make these calls." They seem to have missed the bigger point, that perhaps his job, that part of someone having to go out every day and make calls is perhaps wrong. Maybe CNBC shouldn't be predicting the future but actually reporting on verifiable facts. Maybe they should be digging into the financial statements that no one else had time to read. Stewart is saying the financial press fell down on the job just as the main stream media did on the run up to the Iraq war because they were too busy being cheerleaders.
Gawker gets it..
Apparently Stewart will have more on the topic tonight. I can't wait.
Erin Burnett says "Jim has to go out every day and make these calls." They seem to have missed the bigger point, that perhaps his job, that part of someone having to go out every day and make calls is perhaps wrong. Maybe CNBC shouldn't be predicting the future but actually reporting on verifiable facts. Maybe they should be digging into the financial statements that no one else had time to read. Stewart is saying the financial press fell down on the job just as the main stream media did on the run up to the Iraq war because they were too busy being cheerleaders.
Gawker gets it..
Apparently Stewart will have more on the topic tonight. I can't wait.
How's Obama Doing?
Nate Silve in How's He Doing? writes about Obama's approval ratings 50 days into his presidency.
Mark Bluemnthal follows up with When Does Gravity Begin for Obama?
At least he seems to be fixing the signing statements mess Bush made.
Mark Bluemnthal follows up with When Does Gravity Begin for Obama?
At least he seems to be fixing the signing statements mess Bush made.
Using Technology to Skip the Doctor’s Office
I wish my doctor answered questions via email. Using Technology to Skip the Doctor’s Office.
"A study published on Tuesday in the medical journal, Health Affairs found that visits to the doctor’s office can be significantly reduced in practices that use electronic health records and secure e-mail messages between physicians and patients. The study, focusing on the experience of Kaiser Permanente in Hawaii when it implemented electronic health records, secure e-mail and a Web portal, found that patient visits declined 26 percent from 2004 to 2007."
"A study published on Tuesday in the medical journal, Health Affairs found that visits to the doctor’s office can be significantly reduced in practices that use electronic health records and secure e-mail messages between physicians and patients. The study, focusing on the experience of Kaiser Permanente in Hawaii when it implemented electronic health records, secure e-mail and a Web portal, found that patient visits declined 26 percent from 2004 to 2007."
Monday, March 09, 2009
Obama's Order on Stem Cells Leaves Key Questions to NIH
The Washington Post reports Obama's Order on Stem Cells Leaves Key Questions to NIH.
"President Obama's open-ended order lifting limits on federal funding for stem cell research raises the prospect that taxpayer money could be used for a much broader, much more controversial array of studies than many scientists, officials and activists anticipated.
Although the decision to allow expanded funding had been long expected, many thought Obama would limit federally funded scientists to working with cell lines derived from embryos destined to be discarded at infertility clinics. Instead, he left that key issue open.
The task of deciding what kinds of studies will be supported now falls to the National Institutes of Health, which finds itself confronting far more extensive questions than its officials were contemplating. It has 120 days to do the job."
I think I'm more comfortable with the NIH having to decide this than the president.
"President Obama's open-ended order lifting limits on federal funding for stem cell research raises the prospect that taxpayer money could be used for a much broader, much more controversial array of studies than many scientists, officials and activists anticipated.
Although the decision to allow expanded funding had been long expected, many thought Obama would limit federally funded scientists to working with cell lines derived from embryos destined to be discarded at infertility clinics. Instead, he left that key issue open.
The task of deciding what kinds of studies will be supported now falls to the National Institutes of Health, which finds itself confronting far more extensive questions than its officials were contemplating. It has 120 days to do the job."
I think I'm more comfortable with the NIH having to decide this than the president.
A Little More on Wolfram Alpha
TechCrunch writes: Wolfram Alpha Computes Answers To Factual Questions. This Is Going To Be Big.
"Wolfram has created a set of building blocks for working with formal knowledge to generate useful computations, and in turn, by putting these computations together you can answer even more sophisticated questions and so on. It’s a system for synthesizing sophisticated computations from simple computations. Of course anyone who understands computer programming will recognize this as the very essence of good software design. But the key is that instead of forcing users to write programs to do this in Mathematica, Wolfram Alpha enables them to simply ask questions in natural language questions and then automatically assembles the programs to compute the answers they need."
"The system is beautiful, and the user interface is already quite simple and clean. In addition, answers include computationally generated diagrams and graphs — not just text. It looks really cool. But it is also designed by and for people with IQ’s somewhere in the altitude of Wolfram’s — some work will need to be done dumbing it down a few hundred IQ points so as to not overwhelm the average consumer with answers that are so comprehensive that they require a graduate degree to fully understand."
"Wolfram has created a set of building blocks for working with formal knowledge to generate useful computations, and in turn, by putting these computations together you can answer even more sophisticated questions and so on. It’s a system for synthesizing sophisticated computations from simple computations. Of course anyone who understands computer programming will recognize this as the very essence of good software design. But the key is that instead of forcing users to write programs to do this in Mathematica, Wolfram Alpha enables them to simply ask questions in natural language questions and then automatically assembles the programs to compute the answers they need."
"The system is beautiful, and the user interface is already quite simple and clean. In addition, answers include computationally generated diagrams and graphs — not just text. It looks really cool. But it is also designed by and for people with IQ’s somewhere in the altitude of Wolfram’s — some work will need to be done dumbing it down a few hundred IQ points so as to not overwhelm the average consumer with answers that are so comprehensive that they require a graduate degree to fully understand."
Sunday, March 08, 2009
Al-Marri Detention Case Ended
SCOTUSblog reported Al-Marri detention case ended. "The Supreme Court on Friday wiped out a lower court ruling that gave the President the authority to detain indefinitely as terrorism suspects individuals who are living legally in the United States. The order also approved transfer of Ali Saleh Kahlah Al-Marri from military custody to civilian custody for a trial on criminal charges in a regular federal court, presumably in Illinois"
"The Court’s action ended the Qatari national’s case – Al-Marri v. Spagone (08-368) — that the Court had agreed to hear. Thus, a hearing set for April 27 will not be held. The petition challenged the President’s authority to order domestic detentions, arguing that neither the 9/11 Resolution enacted after the 2001 terrorist attacks or the Constitution authorized such actions."
"The Court’s action ended the Qatari national’s case – Al-Marri v. Spagone (08-368) — that the Court had agreed to hear. Thus, a hearing set for April 27 will not be held. The petition challenged the President’s authority to order domestic detentions, arguing that neither the 9/11 Resolution enacted after the 2001 terrorist attacks or the Constitution authorized such actions."
This American Life on Bad Banks
This American Life did another great show, this one called Bad Banks.
"The collapse of the banking system explained, in just 59 minutes. Our crack economics team—the guys who explained the mortgage crisis, Alex Blumberg and NPR’s Adam Davidson—are back to help all of us understand the news. For instance, when we talk about an insolvent bank, what does it actually mean, and why are we giving hundreds of billions of dollars to rich bankers who screwed up their own businesses? Also, two guys go to New Jersey to look at a toxic asset."
"The collapse of the banking system explained, in just 59 minutes. Our crack economics team—the guys who explained the mortgage crisis, Alex Blumberg and NPR’s Adam Davidson—are back to help all of us understand the news. For instance, when we talk about an insolvent bank, what does it actually mean, and why are we giving hundreds of billions of dollars to rich bankers who screwed up their own businesses? Also, two guys go to New Jersey to look at a toxic asset."
Finally Some More Treasury Dept Appointees
The Associated Press reports Treasury Dept. gains 3 more Obama appointments "President Barack Obama has chosen three people to join the senior ranks of the Treasury Department, where a slow pace of hiring has put the agency on the defensive. The White House on Sunday said Obama is nominating David S. Cohen to be assistant secretary in dealing with terrorist financing; Alan B. Krueger for assistant secretary for economic policy; and Kim N. Wallace as assistant secretary for legislative affairs. Each nominee is already serving as a counselor to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner. All three are now subject to Senate confirmation."
Text to get smarter in Mac OS X 10.6
One of the reasons I like the mac so much more than windows is that in general it seems that Apple puts innovation into system-wide frameworks that anyone can use while Microsoft puts it into Office. Their system-wide frameworks (like .net) enable systems to work together but don't have actual end-user features. They can let you build a dictionary module that other apps can use but (AFAIK) MS doesn't provide one, except in Office.
On the mac, Apple has put some of these things in the text widget. Any application can enable a popup dictionary in any text field. Same with spell-checking and editing keys (emacs-like by default but customizable). In 10.5.6 it seems Text will to get smarter.
Spell-checking will be extended to spell-correction (from iPhone and MS Word).
Text substitutions will allow you type some text string and have it expand to another string (like TextExpander or abbrevs in Emacs).
Services will be included in the context menu, making them more obvious to use. Also some new text based ones will be included, like capitalization.
Data Detectors introduced in Mail in Leopard will be available in any text field. So e.g., the system can recognize text that's a phone number and offer easy easy to commands for phone numbers (add to Address Book or maybe dial).
Great stuff. I hope it's implemented well.
On the mac, Apple has put some of these things in the text widget. Any application can enable a popup dictionary in any text field. Same with spell-checking and editing keys (emacs-like by default but customizable). In 10.5.6 it seems Text will to get smarter.
Spell-checking will be extended to spell-correction (from iPhone and MS Word).
Text substitutions will allow you type some text string and have it expand to another string (like TextExpander or abbrevs in Emacs).
Services will be included in the context menu, making them more obvious to use. Also some new text based ones will be included, like capitalization.
Data Detectors introduced in Mail in Leopard will be available in any text field. So e.g., the system can recognize text that's a phone number and offer easy easy to commands for phone numbers (add to Address Book or maybe dial).
Great stuff. I hope it's implemented well.
Friday, March 06, 2009
Star Trek Trailer Show Promise
This is the first of the Star Trek trailers that gives me hope this might be good:
Aaron Greenspan: Why I Sued Google (and Won)
Aaron Greenspan: Why I Sued Google (and Won) is a pretty fun (and I assume true) story of someone who dealt with Google's maddeningly opaque (lack of) customer service. I've experienced this with Blogspot support but since I don't pay anything for it I have little to complain about. Since there was some money involved in Greenspan's story it's more fun. I'm still waiting for the terms of service of web companies to get rewritten to be sane (and I assume legal).
The Big Dither
Paul Krugman writes in The Big Dither about why he thinks the Obama administration isn't acting faster to fix the banking crisis. They keep repackaging the same plan to buy up zombie assets at more than their worth.
"So why has this zombie idea — it keeps being killed, but it keeps coming back — taken such a powerful grip? The answer, I fear, is that officials still aren’t willing to face the facts. They don’t want to face up to the dire state of major financial institutions because it’s very hard to rescue an essentially insolvent bank without, at least temporarily, taking it over. And temporary nationalization is still, apparently, considered unthinkable. But this refusal to face the facts means, in practice, an absence of action. And I share the president’s fears: inaction could result in an economy that sputters along, not for months or years, but for a decade or more."
"So why has this zombie idea — it keeps being killed, but it keeps coming back — taken such a powerful grip? The answer, I fear, is that officials still aren’t willing to face the facts. They don’t want to face up to the dire state of major financial institutions because it’s very hard to rescue an essentially insolvent bank without, at least temporarily, taking it over. And temporary nationalization is still, apparently, considered unthinkable. But this refusal to face the facts means, in practice, an absence of action. And I share the president’s fears: inaction could result in an economy that sputters along, not for months or years, but for a decade or more."
Thursday, March 05, 2009
Introducing The New York Times Graphic Books Best Seller Lists
Introducing The New York Times Graphic Books Best Seller Lists
"Comics have finally joined the mainstream. Anticipation for the live-action film version of ‘Watchmen,’ the dark and violent superhero opus that saw its birth in comic books and arrives in theaters on Friday, has built to a nationwide boil. And today The Times introduces three separate lists of the best-selling graphic books in the country: hardcover, softcover, and manga. We’ll update those lists weekly in this space, and offer a few observations along the way."
"Comics have finally joined the mainstream. Anticipation for the live-action film version of ‘Watchmen,’ the dark and violent superhero opus that saw its birth in comic books and arrives in theaters on Friday, has built to a nationwide boil. And today The Times introduces three separate lists of the best-selling graphic books in the country: hardcover, softcover, and manga. We’ll update those lists weekly in this space, and offer a few observations along the way."
USPS Buys $1.2 Million Home For Relocation
CNN reports Postal Service draws criticism for $1.2 million home buy "At a time when the U.S. Postal Service says it is experiencing a financial crisis, it purchased a $1.2 million home from an employee so he could relocate, a CNN investigation has found."
"The 8,400-square-foot, six-bedroom home on Lake Wateree, about 30 miles north of Columbia, is likely to be the last million-dollar home purchased by the Postal Service...The South Carolina home belonged to Ronald Hopson, the former postmaster in Lexington, South Carolina, and his wife, Evelyn. The property includes five acres, four bathrooms, two half-baths and an indoor swimming pool."
"Hopson is now the customer service manager for the USPS branch in Carrollton, Texas."
"The 8,400-square-foot, six-bedroom home on Lake Wateree, about 30 miles north of Columbia, is likely to be the last million-dollar home purchased by the Postal Service...The South Carolina home belonged to Ronald Hopson, the former postmaster in Lexington, South Carolina, and his wife, Evelyn. The property includes five acres, four bathrooms, two half-baths and an indoor swimming pool."
"Hopson is now the customer service manager for the USPS branch in Carrollton, Texas."
Heart Surgery for Robin Williams
CNN reports Robin Williams to undergo heart surgery. "Williams will undergo an aortic valve replacement, the publicist said."
Na-Nu Na-Nu.
Na-Nu Na-Nu.
A Simpsons Guest Star Quiz
A Simpsons Guest Star Quiz. I got a pathetic 6/15.
I did 10/15 on the Troy McClure Film or Actual Terrible Movie? quiz.
I did 10/15 on the Troy McClure Film or Actual Terrible Movie? quiz.
Is Obama Responsible for Wall Street's Meltdown? Of Course Not.
Robert Reich has a good post Is Obama Responsible for Wall Street's Meltdown? Where Populist Rage is Heading. He lists several right-wing sources saying so (WSJ editorial page, Fox News, Lou Dobbs, CNBC) and then calls the argument absurd. Read the post, it's worth it. He ends with...
"The Wall Street and Republican media attack machine doesn't know exactly what to make of this. The Wall Street Journal's editorial page, along with CNBC, alternates between attacking Obama for bailing out Wall Street and excusing Wall Street's excesses. But then again, Obama doesn't seem to know exactly what to make of it either. He seems to vacillate as well -- one moment scorning Wall Street, the next moment justifying further bailouts. I do hope he takes a firmer hand, drawing a clearer distinction and making a clearer connection between clearing up these financial balance sheets and helping average people. Otherwise, the next populist uprising will be born in this moneyed quagmire. It is here -- within the muck that was created by AIG, Citigroup, Fannie and Freddie, other giant financial institutions, now in combination with the U.S. Treasury and Fed -- that the public is most confused, bears its most serious scars, and is potentially most burdened in future years, by decisions still made in secret."
"The Wall Street and Republican media attack machine doesn't know exactly what to make of this. The Wall Street Journal's editorial page, along with CNBC, alternates between attacking Obama for bailing out Wall Street and excusing Wall Street's excesses. But then again, Obama doesn't seem to know exactly what to make of it either. He seems to vacillate as well -- one moment scorning Wall Street, the next moment justifying further bailouts. I do hope he takes a firmer hand, drawing a clearer distinction and making a clearer connection between clearing up these financial balance sheets and helping average people. Otherwise, the next populist uprising will be born in this moneyed quagmire. It is here -- within the muck that was created by AIG, Citigroup, Fannie and Freddie, other giant financial institutions, now in combination with the U.S. Treasury and Fed -- that the public is most confused, bears its most serious scars, and is potentially most burdened in future years, by decisions still made in secret."
Wolfram|Alpha Is Coming in May
Will Stephen Wolfram of Mathmatica fame doing it again? Wolfram|Alpha Is Coming!
"And that one would be able to ask a computer any factual question, and have it compute the answer.But it didn’t work out that way. Computers have been able to do many remarkable and unexpected things. But not that. I’d always thought, though, that eventually it should be possible. And a few years ago, I realized that I was finally in a position to try to do it."
"But armed with Mathematica and NKS [A New Kind of Science] I realized there’s another way: explicitly implement methods and models, as algorithms, and explicitly curate all data so that it is immediately computable. It’s not easy to do this. Every different kind of method and model—and data—has its own special features and character. But with a mixture of Mathematica and NKS automation, and a lot of human experts, I’m happy to say that we’ve gotten a very long way."
"And that one would be able to ask a computer any factual question, and have it compute the answer.But it didn’t work out that way. Computers have been able to do many remarkable and unexpected things. But not that. I’d always thought, though, that eventually it should be possible. And a few years ago, I realized that I was finally in a position to try to do it."
"But armed with Mathematica and NKS [A New Kind of Science] I realized there’s another way: explicitly implement methods and models, as algorithms, and explicitly curate all data so that it is immediately computable. It’s not easy to do this. Every different kind of method and model—and data—has its own special features and character. But with a mixture of Mathematica and NKS automation, and a lot of human experts, I’m happy to say that we’ve gotten a very long way."
Another View of the Moon Landing
High quality footage of that One Small Step. "Jon Donni of Bad Psychics has posted footage footage of Neil Armstrong’s first step on the Moon on the site TV is Cool. It comes from the 16 mm Data Acquisition Camera mounted in the lunar module...It gives a different perspective on some of the most famous footage in history! You can see Buzz reflected in the lander window, and even hear Houston telling him how to set camera."
The Galileoscope
This is for all you parents out there, "The Galileoscope is a high-quality, low-cost telescope kit developed for the International Year of Astronomy 2009 by a team of leading astronomers, optical engineers, and science educators. No matter where you live, with this easy-to-assemble, 50-mm (2-inch) diameter, 25- to 50-power achromatic refractor, you can see the celestial wonders that Galileo Galilei first glimpsed 400 years ago and that still delight stargazers today. These include lunar craters and mountains, four moons circling Jupiter, the phases of Venus, Saturn's rings, and countless stars invisible to the unaided eye."
It's $15+shipping.
It's $15+shipping.
Vote to Name a Part of the Space Station
Help NASA Name Node 3! "NASA wants your opinion in naming the International Space Station’s Node 3 – a connecting module and its cupola – before the two segments travel to space and are installed on the orbiting laboratory. The name should reflect the spirit of exploration and cooperation embodied by the space station, and follow in the tradition set by Node 1- Unity- and Node 2- Harmony."
And what's winning so far? Serenity.
Vote here.
And what's winning so far? Serenity.
Vote here.
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