News I Find Interesting

Google may launch iPhone rival with Dell

Scientists discover memory reversal mechanism

10 Amphibians you may not have known about


Hat Tip to Brian Hollar at Thinking on the Margin

Educational Duties to the Future

Video clip of Richard Dreyfus on liberal education.



Any Questions?

Hat Tip to Brian Holler at Thinking on the Margin.

Immigration Regulations

On the other side of this argument are the well reasoned arguments of Samuel Huntington in Who We Are. My personal perspective is more along the lines of how immigration restriction restricts freedom, here explained by Don Boudreaux.

Huntington's point about culture is true, immigrants will change a culture, and ideal characteristics that attracted the immigrants are likely to be watered down or eliminated. But immigration is the very freedom that allowed those settlers to create this nation in the first place and removing that freedom seems very wrong to me. A wall on the border, for it's own sake seems like a perfectly reasonable project to me, but not for the purposes of keeping immigrants out. The great wall of china was built for real security reasons, I have no problem with that. I'd support the wall, if open immigration were in place on a very permanent basis.

Hat tip to Ampersand at Alas, a blog.

Robot vs Puppy

Anon vs. Scientology

A hacker group called Anonymous, has declared war on the 'church' of Scientology. So far they seem to have successfully executed a DoS attack on the Scientology website, and a prank on the church's hotline.



Various Media outlets have picked up on this.
Australia Wired The Register National Post

Anon has responded to media coverage of the 'war.'

I fight the urge to support Anon in this solely because of the quality of their videos. But really I don't see what they're going to do. They can't cause any real harm by pulling pranks like a DoS or phone line redirects. They'd really have to cause financial messes, like stealing money from the 'church' and sending it to the FBI, then send an email politely asking them to spend the money investigating the 'church.' That would be impressive, because it's really hard to do. So until they show themselves to actually be serious in this, I have to write them off as a bunch of kids playing important on YouTube.

Head Tracking using the Wii-mote

It's important to note, that Johnny is not actually using the Wii to run this program. But I haven't seen anything to indicate that the capacity to run this type of operation isn't there.

The one thing holding Nintendo back from destroying the M$FT and Sony empires is the perpetual Wii shortage. The Wii has been completely sold out of stores ever since the system launched 14 months ago. The ticker symbol is NTDOY.


Another hat tip to my roommate, Ryan Lea. He's the guy on the left.

Masseffect Madness

Fox News did their best to ream Masseffect. EA, who bought Bioware after release of this game, sent Fox a livid letter saying they should clear up the many false claims they made in the piece. A partial list of the lies Fox let out about this game is below.

• The game includes 'full digital nudity'

Nothing in the game is anything that can't be seen regularly on prime-time broadcast TV.

• The player chooses what happens 'between the two people, you know what I mean.'

The 13 minutes of game play that is in the game is a cut scene that probably won't even happen for most players, due to the decisions you have to make to activate the cut scene.

• That 'Princess Enchanted Brides' is an actual game that exists.

Google searches only turned up comments on blogs and Digg about how nobody know what this game is. So far, there's no evidence that the game exists except for that panelist's comment.

• Adolescent males are mostly who play video games.

According to ESA, the average gamer age is 33.

• Adult Only is a viable rating for a game.

AO rated games DO NOT GET SOLD IN STORES. It's essentially an X rating that is only used to ban a game from the market. The M rating includes some sexual content and is similar to an R movie rating. Here's a link to Gamestop's ratings explanation.

The commenter on the left that flamed the game (without even playing it) has had her book on Amazon torn to shreds by the gaming community in response to her comments on the show. Her rating is down to 1 star.

Hat tip to my roommate Ryan.

Branson's Spaceship

Virgin Galactic Unveils Spaceships That'll Take Passengers to Space in 2009

More reasons why I intend to be a millionaire by age 30.

Also, check out the Spaceport in New Mexico that the amazing Richard Branson is building to launch.

Libertarian Solution to a Political Conflict

A Libertarian Solution to Evolution Controversy: No More Public Schools

When you force people to teach a subject in a way they don't want it taught, and the school system is a political beast, which our public schools are, you're going to see the curriculum you have in mind corrupted by the political process. People campaigning for strong teaching of evolutionary biology in public schools are ignoring that this is what's purportedly been going for the last 50 years. There are no states with a theistic presentation in their classrooms. Real science is what's supposed to be taught; yet when you look at polling data, the ones who see a non-theistic, purely naturalist explanation are in the minority.

The particular libertarian speaking there is strongly pro-evolution, and is trying to resolve the debate about whether to allow the intelligent design curriculum to be taught in public schools.
A lot of people feel very strongly that EVERYONE should be well educated. I rather agree with that, education expands the human experience and gives them the tools to provide high quality services to the people around them throughout their lives. It preserves the knowledge base for a growing economy.
Many people assume however, that the ONLY way to do this is through a ubiquitous government run public education system. The argument for 'school choice' is that you could use the same tax dollars used to fund the public education system to provide limited credits that can be used to pay tuition at all sorts of educational institutions. This would make the market for education more competitive, raising quality, lowering price, and vastly simplifying the content debate.

I am in favor of school choice from kindergarden through the fourth year of college.

Tasty Chocolate Grubs

I had dismissed this yesterday as only marginally interesting. My opinion quickly changed when my boss saw this on my screen and asked me what it was.
So, would you offer a tray of these at your company picnic?

Hat tip to Pink Tentacle.

Stimulus Schimulus

Russ Roberts: Don't Jump the Gun on Stimulus Plans

The money has to come from somewhere. If you raise taxes to fund the plan, the people who are taxed are poorer and they'll spend less. If you borrow money to fund the plan, the people who buy the government bonds have less money to spend and that offsets the stimulus. It's like taking a bucket of water from the deep end of a pool and dumping it into the shallow end. Funny thing—the water in the shallow end doesn't get any deeper.

But you do spend time and effort moving a bucket full of water.

There's also other factors. If I told you I was going into debt JUST to consume more stuff, see more movies, eat out more, etc. Would you say that I'm doing my part to improve the economy, or would you tell me I'm ruining my finances because I'll have to pay that interest for years since I'm not using the money improve my productivity. Well, the stimulus package consists of taking on debt in the HOPES that people will consume with the money.

Forcing debt on the tax payers in hopes that they blow it on useless crap? Why won't Keynes just go away?

Less is More

We're doing more with less. That's good for planet Earth.

Since 1977 the value of the U.S. economy has doubled, yet the amount of physical stuff it took to supply all the needs and wants of Americans fell from 1.18 trillion pounds to 1.08 trillion pounds. Even more astonishing: the "weight" of the economy fell while U.S. population grew by some 55 million people.

This probably not true for each individual resource, only in aggregate. 55 million additional people will require additional water, and while water can be delivered and used more efficiently, the total supply is not unlimited. The good news is that although the use of water probably went up, that means other resources were probably used less, and those other resources were probably less environmentally friendly than water.

I recommend checking out the other Knowledge labeled posts. As this sort of change is what knowledge economies are good for.

Hat tip to Brian Hollar at Thinking on the Margin. Which is rapidly becoming one of my all time favorite blogs! Not to detract from my extensive respect for the eminent professors at Marginal Revolution & Cafe Hayek. Their sites are much better known.

Anti-anti-smoking Forces

Customers desert smoke-free restaurant

A restaurant owner in China started to ban smoking in the restaurant, and lost about 20% of his patronage.
Assuming that the smokers know how bad smoking is for their health (which might not be accurate, they might just not know) this owner can see the direct results of his policy in the patronage. It might be that the people that perfer a smoke-free environment just haven't heard about the restaurant yet, and will more than compensate for the 20% loss. But based just on the content of the article. I'd say he should let folks light up.

Mario Galore

No effort Mario

Mario Live

Super Mario 3 in 11 minutes


WoW Mario

Tabarrok on the knowledge economy

Dismal Science Sees Upbeat Future - Alex Tabarrok

So imagine this: If China and India were as wealthy as the U.S., the market for cancer drugs would be eight times larger than it is today.
...
People used to think that more population was bad for growth. In this view, people are stomachs--they eat, leaving less for everyone else. But once we realize the importance of ideas in the economy, people become brains--they innovate, creating more for everyone else.

New ideas mean more growth, and even small changes in economic growth rates produce large economic and social benefits. At current income levels, with an inflation-adjusted growth rate of 3% per year, America's real per capita gross domestic product would exceed $1 million per year in just over 100 years, more than 22 times higher than it is today. Growth like that could solve many problems.

It's definitely about time for some major works on how the knowledge economy works. There's just not a lot out there and it leads to some real misunderstanding and probably miss communication.

This is a somewhat connected to an earlier post by Tyler Cowen, co-author of Marginal Revolution with Alex Tabarrok. Also my commentary on that post.

Hat tip to Brian Hollar @ Thinking on the Margin.

Google 'OS'? kind of.

Though the title suggests a Google OS, this is actually Ubuntu Linux with a bunch of Google features integrated so smoothly that Gmail, Google Calendar, and maybe desktop search work like native programs.

Funny thing about that. If your Internet lags, your system performance might seem to lag, because your 'apps' are really web 2.0 apps that rely on external servers.

I hearby promise to set this up in a virtual os on my compy when I get home. I'll add comments to this post to keep you appraised of my opinions on this. I'd probably ignore this except that they're marketing it as a real alternative to Windows machines with the support of Walmart.

Also, it's essentially open source, just not on the GPL licence, this is notable on a Creative Commons license that allows for derivative works. If this takes off, and the Google integration improves, ... . Well, I don't know if I can even think about that right now, that's probably bigger than my mind can follow effectively. But it would probably be cool.

The All Seeing Eye - New policies

US drafting plan to allow government access to any email or Web search

Without this law, anybody plotting a terrorist attack is going to use encryption, so why bother? If you won't be able to understand the only people that you claim you want to watch, then why pass a law saying you can look at everything everywhere anytime with no notice or accountability?

I lack expertise in this area, but I've read some good stuff about the security features of the BSD operating system.

It seems the interest in encryption has been decreasing for the past 4 years or so. I wonder if this policy will have an effect on that trend.

Seagate has released a full encryption drive, which would not protect against this policy, but would protect against your data from theft of your drive physically.

What would help against this policy is OpenPGP.

Student Expelled For 'getting involved' on campus

Student expelled for student body activism

NEWSFLASH: When you make a stink about something, your target will look at you're background.
The real news is that they might expel you for making amateur movies (nothing indecent, either) for a contest. If you read it through, there was apparently an ad the student put together that scared the president so much he asked for a temporary bodyguard. But seriously, there was no real threat in the ad.

In a related story, from the article above:

FIRE is simultaneously pressuring Valdosta State to reverse its “free speech area” policy, which is unusually rigid in restricting student expression to a single stage on the 168-acre campus, only between the hours of 12 and 1 p.m. and 5 and 6 p.m., with prior registration.

GO MASON.
Go Mason Student Government.
Hat-tip to 'flutterecho' at Slashdot

Candidate Calculator

My Top Match
John McCain (R) - 80.33%,

My Other Top Matches
Tom Tancredo (R) - 77.05%
Sam Brownback (R) - 74.59%
Duncan Hunter (R) - 68.85%

Middle of the Pack
Fred Thompson (R) - 68.85%
Ron Paul (R) - 67.21%
Mike Huckabee (R) - 56.56%
John Cox (R) - 53.28%
Governor Mitt Romney (R) - 49.18%
Mayor Rudy Giuliani (R) - 46.72%
Bill Richardson (D) - 34.43%
Mike Gravel (D) - 31.97%
Dennis Kucinich (D) - 22.95%
Christopher Dodd (D) - 19.67%

Bottom of the Barrel
Joseph Biden (D) - 18.85%
John Edwards (D) - 18.03%
Hillary Clinton (D) - 16.39%
Barack Obama (D) - 15.57%

Thanks to Jerry who sent me this Candidate Calculator.

The results surprised me since I think I more closely match Ron Paul. But then, there isn't a question asking if I think the IRS should be closed.

I think probably my opinions on Iraq and Iran are probably what pushed Ron Paul all the way down to fifth place.

I actually ran through this twice, and both times came up McCain. I do find it interesting, that 6 out of the next 7 matches are incredibly low in the polls.

Information Disclosure

New law enhances Government transparancy

If you pass enough laws, eventually you'll accidentally come up with something good.

Freedom

Libertarianism didn't used to be radical.

Sometimes, I randomly say 'freedom' to break a silence, or as a greeting, or any time really. Occasionally, when I do this, somebody gets confused and says, 'Freedom?' like they've never heard of it.

I now know why I say it. Many people don't know what I mean when I say 'freedom,' and it gives me a chance to tell them. Freedom is the liberty to say what you want, think what want, be what you want, love, hate, do, avoid, and try to change whatever you want as long as it doesn't hurt anybody else.

I promise not to go too overboard on these feel good posts. I don't promise that I might go overboard in my support of freedom.

Carbon Tax

For those of you who maybe thought, wow that looked like a good policy, freedom should take a back seat for policies that good. Let me go ahead and make a specific argument about it.
If people use more electricity than they should, then it's because there's costs that they don't feel. Like costs to the environment, and costs to somebody else's comfort in some other way, econ calls those unfelt costs 'externalities.'

I really feel like emmissions trading would be a good thing. Basically, somebody (probably a government) sells pollution credits to industries that need them. This sets a cap on the amount of pollution and people who don't pollute much don't have to pay for them. This might raise the cost of coal electricity to above that of solar, since solar doesn't really pollute. A book about it.

This is the basic idea behind the Kyoto treaty, but there's a bunch of other problems that make that particular treaty a bad plan. (politics...)

Problems with Kyoto:
Harvard magazine
ktracy.com
npr

Freedom or Welfare

Don Boudreaux: Rampaging Regulators

Professor Boudreaux explains again again the case for freedom to exercise good judgement.

Boudreaux for President!

Taxes galore

I don't know for sure that Mr. Paskel is the gentleman who authored this text. But I thank him for forarding it. I especially thank Jerry Holsworth for sending it to me. I don't beleive in forwarding emails myself, but I encourage my friends to read my blog, so I'm posting this here.

---- Original Message -----
From: Stanley L. Paskel Sr.
Sent: Monday, January 07, 2008 9:18 PM
Subject: What is a Billion???

The next time you hear a politician use the word 'billion' in a casual manner, think about whether you want the 'politicians' spending YOUR tax money.

A billion is a difficult number to comprehend, but one advertising agency did a good job of putting that figure into some perspective in one of its releases.

A. A billion seconds ago it was 1959.
B. A billion minutes ago Jesus was alive.
C. A billion hours ago our ancestors were living in the Stone Age.
D. A billion days ago no-one walked on the earth on two feet.
E. A billion dollars ago was only 8 hours and 20 minutes, at the rate our government is spending it.

Add to this list: A billion grains of salt fills a bathtub.

UPDATE: I don't know how long this has been circulating, but I just recalculated how long it takes to blow through a billion dollars. According to figures in this white house report, it takes the federal government 3 hours, 7 minutes, and 48 seconds to spend a billion dollars.

There is a lot more to this email and you can see the rest at GoogleDocs.
I highly recommend it.

Big brother in your lap

Laptops Searched and Confiscated at U.S. Border

The government can and apparently does search your laptop contents when you travel internationally.

For those of you who may want to be safe in this, here's a coupe of encryption programs that will help you hide your contraband data.

TrueCrypt
&
Omziff