I recently posted “my thoughts on the upcoming presidential election”:http://theludwigs.com/2012/10/why-i-will-vote-for-obama-in-the-presidential-election/, and a couple people mentioned how concerned they were about economic issues. Hey, me too! They aren’t the most important issues for me this election, but I worry about deficits, […]
In the late 80s, IBM attempted to reassert control over the PC hardware platform with the introduction of the PS/2 and its proprietary “MicroChannel”:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micro_Channel_architecture architecture. The cloners fought back, customers voted with their feet, the PS/2 initiative failed, and the […]
“Mitt pays $3M+ in taxes a year”:http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-romney-tax-20120125,0,7825338.story — that is a s%^tload of money, whatever the rate. And people want another $3M a year out of him? When I see numbers this size, I wonder more about where it is […]
I’ve been fortunate. I had great access to education due to support from my parents, and I was lucky to be at Microsoft during a very heady period for the company. I am clearly a 1%er. And I understand that […]
I watched bits of LSU/WVU (LSU is my #1), Toledo/Syracuse, ND/Pitt, UW/Cal. But key games I watched yesterday were OSU and USC. * OSU is in for a tough year. Yes they tackled better yesterday, but it was Colorado. If […]
Some interesting commentary on “Google’s business model by Gruber”:http://daringfireball.net/linked/2011/08/23/swartz-google-evil — a total Apple fan, doesn’t view ads as inherently evil, but says you need to be very respectful of your users. And referring to “an original article by Aaron Swartz”:http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/googevil […]
A bag of stuff I’ve read recently that was compelling: * “Coffee as economic health indicator”:http://paul.kedrosky.com/archives/2010/05/coffee_as_city.html. Yay Seattle! Contrast with… * “World Class Orchestras”:http://reason.com/archives/2010/05/24/how-to-save-cleveland * “McKean’s Inversion”:http://whatever.scalzi.com/2011/08/11/mckeans-inversion/. Whatever you publicly espouse to be — you probably aren’t. * “Wicked Problems”:http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2011/07/wicked-1.html. […]
OK so Amazon’s “move against Macmillan”:http://whatever.scalzi.com/2010/02/01/all-the-many-ways-amazon-so-very-failed-the-weekend/ was seriously ham-handed and Amazon is “still caught up in their own undershorts”:http://whatever.scalzi.com/2010/02/01/seriously-now-theyre-just-being-dicks/. Some Amazonians deserve some serious reprimands, this is just not the way these things are handled. Now Amazon has created even […]
No theme here other than “stuff I happened across recently” Terry Tao math blog. Brain stretching. How Goldman profited on housing crash. Don’t know how reliable this source is but disturbing. Controversy about whether there is or is not a […]
* World’s busiest ports * Fractal Nature of Legal Systems. Human systems/societies/cultures are capable of pretty much unbounded complexity. It is not just legal systems. * Kid solves rubik’s cube while playing guitar hero. Ah, youth. * Why are cheap […]
Random posts that have caught my eye recently: * The VC Math Problem — excellent discussion of the “macroeconomics” of the VC asset class. * What to fear. The truth about what is going to kill you. The sensationalist news […]
Buying Risky Assets | The Big Picture. — cogent picture explaining the program.
Bernanke Pushes the Button | The Big Picture. “The prospect of hundreds of billions of newly minted dollars coursing through the global financial system caused currency traders to thrash the greenback by almost 3%.” ” The Fed is “now bringing […]
“It’s time to let the sun shine in on this mess.” via Scott Loftesness: The AIG Firestorm Spreads. Hear hear.
Quotation of the Day: “I’m Captain Asphalt.” TIMOTHY J. GILCHRIST, newly appointed stimulus czar for New York State. via Today’s Paper – New York Times. Love this. Is civil engineering going to become cool again?
Force Structure FY09 Beyond. — the armed forces wrestling with massive budget cuts. And the global manufacturing collapse — not a pretty picture. It is hard to see how we are not going to have significant unemployment issues for years.
Marginal Revolution: GM fact of the day. Wow. Market cap 1/3 of bed bath and beyond. Worth 10% of apple’s cash. 96K employees but paying benefits for 1M people. Some of the numbers are a little misleading but still.
Madoff Story Smells Funny | The Big Picture. The WSJ and NYTimes seem to be hinting at this today too, investigators seem to feel that the sheer amount of work required more than one person working on the fraud. Fascinating.
A SWOT Analysis On America. Don’t agree with many of the detailed points but the core idea of looking at our situation with a SWOT analysis is a good idea. Too often as I read the papers these days, I […]
