What? You don't *want* me to install Internet Explorer 8?! OK ...

Apparently I can't install IE8 – I have IE7 currently – until I upgrade Silverlight from version 2 to the latest version 3 build. But, apparently the Silverlight website is convinced my computer is a Mac. OK, fair enough. I'll just install the latest Firefox version. All so I can file my taxes on turbotax.com (their website doesn't like Chrome).

Clean Your Balls!

I was reading this post about an $800 lamp you break (to let out the light) and I spotted this Axe ad – touching!

South African painter Mustafa Maluka

Tyler Cowen again with the ill links – some images of the art of South African painter Mustafa Maluka.

Reassurance about the State of the World

I was reading this post about the bad economic outlook in Greece, and it occurred to me (in a similar fashion as is transcribed below):

How nice it is that this person, and his wider community, can coordinate the exchange of information about all this activity – it's important that someone is paying attention; someone is fact-checking the numbers; someone is watching all the moves of all the players – it's great that there is now more of a connected audience for this little piece of the universe.

A lot of smart people I know are pessimistic about the world. Their actions betray their true beliefs, but this is what they maintain rhetorically.
I don't buy it.
We will fail to forestall all of our problems, but we will quietly prevent almost all of them.
And I'm reassured by the breathtaking diversity of thought I encounter every day.
Thank you thinkers!

Why do Unions Over-bargain?

Tyler Cowen at Marginal Revolution links to this New York Times article about the acrimonious negotiations between the NBA team owners and the players union in the months leading up to the expiration of their current agreement.
First, why the hell does the NBA have a player's union? Why isn't there a union for investment bankers too? [Is there?]
Second, why do unions always seem to over-bargain? The auto-worker's union(s) also had the quixotic habit of negotiating deals that were not in the long-term interests of their members. What are the dynamics that produce this behavior? Is it a lack of business knowledge on the part of the unions? Are they forced to negotiate the best short-term deal because they're feigning ignorance of the actual business conditions? Is this ultimately a result of the ignorance of the workers / union members?
Why isn't the nature of unions, and the legal protections they enjoy, more frightening to people? They're essentially employment agencies with a legal monopoly granted (in perpetuity?) for any companies they successfully organize – an employment agency that you can't quit save by finding another career, or being lucky enough to live in a right-to-work state (such as my home state, Florida).

Lala is not a backup service

I like Lala.
They have a program you can install called Music Mover that will download and upload music. Music you upload can be listened anywhere (from which you can browse the web [with sound!]). But you can't download music you upload.
And even more frighteningly, you can't re-download music you've already downloaded!
Oh wait – that's what iTunes does too.
Hmmm.
Time to invest in a backup procedure for my files? That's probably long overdue.

The web life of 'chilax'

Or rather google's history thereof. What happened 2001?

At Least Some Risk ... May Keep Us Safe

I've got Wireshark and I was thinking about whether I could use it to spot evil code (e.g. viruses, worms, etc.) using the WiFi connection. I could, but could some of these code-villians bypass this monitoring? Maybe most evil-code-doers already were.
It's almost certainly possible for them to bypass the tool that captures the network traffic (WinPcap), though it would involve manipulating the network devices outside of the operating system commands.
This is a stark example of the inevitable fallibility of any passive defense. But I realized that that fact is also a blessing, despite it being most remembered a curse. Walls are made to keep people in too. Freedom is abused by the vicious, but it's the only way to survive some evils we visit upon each other.
I've been reading Little Brother by Cory Doctorow about a near-future 'anti-terror' near-police-state San Fransisco and I'm appreciating the good that may be being done by people otherwise overloading our inboxes with spam.

"Photography is like reality getting ready for a fancy dress party"

Awesome quote from this mini-interview. I found the quote on ilovethatphoto, and I found that site from flavorpill.
Looking at the photos on that site, I wondered anew how the hell it is that photos are art (or artistic)? It must be the same way the world itself seems like art sometimes.

Awesome band name 17

so ... what did u really think of my hat?

44 in Memphis!

Poor Memphibians!

A justification (rationalization?) for gift-giving

I was just struck by the realization that I value providing specific experiences to people. Yes, I could give simply give my friend $5 – but I much more enjoy buying him a graph-paper notebook for his song lyrics, laundry lists, and engineering diagrams. But am I just acting selfishly, paying for the chance to know or say that I contributed or caused these 'wonderful' experiences? Would it be better to simply give $5?

The inevitable feedback-spaghetti of signaling games makes my head spin. What a precarious balance and never really achieved!

[If none of the above makes sense, go read Robin Hanson @ Overcoming Bias. He's always providing great examples of signaling in action.]

The "paradox of choice" is not robust

It has been a popular idea, both recently and throughout history, that reducing the scope, variety, or number of choices faced by people is or can be good. But apparently they can't measure the effect any more!

From Tyler at Marginal Revolution.

Font copyright question

Is it a violation of copyright to use a font by copying it by hand? If not, why should we treat computers (and, hence, files) differently?

The gift giving of economists

Do economists only/often/.../ever give cash gifts for birthdays/Christmas/Hannukah/weddings?

And what does that say about the relative importance of signaling in human affairs?

Are economists a stronger or weaker proxy for the importance of signaling in this regard?

In general, are guild allegiances sufficiently strong to counter public hypocrisy?

Contrast

I thought I was going to watch G.I. Joe.

Instead, I watched Funny People.

G.I. Joe would have been HEAVY – like a truck.

Funny People weighed at least four (4) Earth suns.

Oof.

Someone may be reading this (!)

Though she doesn't have a blog of her own.

Enso commands for your favorite webapps

Using Enso 'learn as open' command, I made the following 'open _' commands:

• gmail; opens gmail in my browser (Chrome)
• blog; opens blogger.com/start
• facebook

Now, I just hold the Caps Lock key and press 'o', then start typing any of the commands to launch the corresponding site.

This is almost as cool as the highlight (select) and 'Search google for _' Chrome command!

Organizational Capital versus Widgets

EconLog has had several posts about the recent productivity growth measured (of the US economy) and how it relates to 'organizational capital'. The idea is that productivity doesn't necessarily measure more labor on the part of the (remaining) workers; rather it can include substantial improvements in things like business processes, procedures – i.e. how a business operates. See this post for a recent example.

I have a perfect example from my own job: software as organizational capital. I work for a small software company and my job, as Support Director, has consisted in large part of developing improvements for our existing processes, like building the software from the latest 'source' version (e.g. making the new version of the program based on the accumulated changes made to fix bugs and add new features), or tracking the time we spend on specific projects or tasks. More and more, 'organizational capital' will be 'informational capital' in the form of software developed by internal programmers within a company!

Those spreadsheets that the Excel-guru in your company makes to track earnings, sales, etc. – encourage them to make them even better! Invest in your internal organizational-capital accumulators!

They'll get you eventually

The most frightening thing about a byzantine legal system, beyond the uncertainty as to whether you are a criminal, is that you can get away with something for such a long time, that when the inefficient bureaucracies that make-up governments everywhere finally get around to your 'crime', you're screwed.