November 2009
1 post
1 tag
July 2009
3 posts
Wagner's Tannhäuser is logical! →
I want to see this Opera pretty badly.
Google and Grameen together in Uganda →
So, Google just posted a new item on their blog, (no, not THAT one from yesterday).
I think that little projects like this are what really makes technology worthwhile.
One can be fairly certain that the first question these people ask is not “Who can has cheezburger?”
Google OS
ben:
John Dvorak might be rightabout Google Chrome OS.
Yeah, I tend to agree more with Dvorak rather than the more sensationalist posts I read about it from The Economist and TechCrunch (a nuclear bomb!?!)
As usual, SlashDot makes for very interesting reading.
June 2009
3 posts
I'm rationalising my current overspending by...
Does this make me good or bad at managing money?
Benford's law of controversy
Benford’s law of controversy is an adage from the 1980 novel Timescape, stating:
Passion is inversely proportional to the amount of real information available.
via
I like this tongue-in-cheek law. I will be quoting it a lot!
May 2009
1 post
April 2009
5 posts
2 tags
Does being around hard line conservatives make you...
6 tags
I try not to swear on this blog*
but holy sh!t f@ck, it only hit me today just how much the UK government is borrowing, when I read this article today (Camilla Cavendish in the Times), and specifically, this quote:
“By next year the Treasury expects debt interest payments to equal spending on education and defence combined.”
That’s a whole lot of borrowing.
I’m scared. Especially when I read a...
Google and economic statistics | Googling the... →
When you are holding an election to decide which...
March 2009
2 posts
7 tags
“as Winston Churchill once put it, “I have nothing to offer you, but blood, toil,...”
– Gideon Rachman on John McCain talking about Afghanistan (Source)
February 2009
7 posts
Better a fox than a hedgehog | Free exchange |... →
The Economist’s ‘Free exchange’ blog calls Dr Doom a hedgehog. Harsh words. For the moment, the hedgehog is ahead of the foxes anyway.
Freudian Slip at the Financial Times? via naked... →
This is a bit like when Gordon accidentally said that he saved the world back in December.
What is the biggest problem in your life? | GOP... →
They must have all their best people on this, they solved my problem straight away.
5 tags
I'm not an expert - a disclaimer:
This post, by Steven D. Levitt, over on the Freakonomics blog, reminds me to post some sort of disclaimer regarding my knowledge of economics:
I’m probably one of the least well informed economics bloggers on the web. I don’t want to pretend I’m anything but this, but I will be trying to stretch myself and my knowledge.
I don’t want to come across as an...
6 tags
Luigi Zingales
speaking sense as always (PDF).This time it’s regarding the incoming US Secretary of the Treasury, Timothy Geithner. Zingales proposes a plan to allow banks to split in to two separate entities, one with good assets and the other with bad assets. The beauty of the plan is that the toxic assets will not affect the bank’s lending any more. The only problem with this practical solution,...
I can't believe
the lipstick index doesn’t actually work.
Economics gone wrong
Zimbabwe removed 12 zero’s from its currency on monday. Hyperinflation is just so unbelievable. I can’t fail to be astounded by a country with an official inflation rate of 231 million percent, let alone knowing that “independent economists say the figure could be anything in the trillions”.
May 2008
3 posts
THE MEDIAN AGE AT DEATH FOR PEOPLE IN SUB-SAHARAN...
* Weighted average of 30 sub-Saharan African States, taken from World Bank (1993) World Development Report (Report accessible here: http://tinyurl.com/3oe2a3 - i’m quoting data from page 200 of this)
To whom it may concern...
…within the Burmese government
Your people are dying, and you won’t let us help them. This isn’t about your new constitution…we just want to make sure that your people survive this cyclone.
http://tinyurl.com/64bera
…within the UN
Just ship the aid in. Now. Ban Ki-Moon, please take swift action in saving the Burmese people. Just drop the aid in, are they really...
“The first thing I will do, back here in New York, will be to get our Task Force...”
– Ban Ki-Moon 5th May 2008 http://www.un.org/News/ossg/hilites.htm That’s not really full speed is it? Is it?! Oh I forgot, it’s the UN - of course that’s full speed. BAHHHHHHHHHH