Sunday, August 5, 2012
Kettle Mountain Meadow...
We want a meadow like this on our place in Idaho...and maybe someday we will! From BPotD, of course...
Kids Say the Darndest Things, Part 6,823...
Via my mom:
A 1st grade school teacher had twenty-six students in her class. She presented each child in her classroom the first part of a well-known proverb and asked them to come up with the remainder of the proverb. It's hard to believe these were actually done by first graders. Their insight may surprise you. While reading, keep in mind that these are first-graders, 6-year-olds, because the last one is a classic!Excellent!
Proverb... Kid's Ending Don't change horses... until they stop running. Strike while the... the bug is close. It's always darkest before... Daylight Saving Time. Never underestimate the power of... termites. You can lead a horse to water, but... how? Don't bite the hand... looks dirty. A miss is as good as a... Mr. No news is... impossible. You can't teach an old dog new... math. If you lie down with dogs, you'll... stink in the morning. Love all, trust... me. The pen is mightier than the... pigs. An idle mind is... the best way to relax. Where there's smoke, there's... pollution.
Women Who Know Their Place...
Via my mom:
Barbara Walters, of 20/20, did a story on gender roles in Kabul, Afghanistan, several years before the Afghan conflict.
She noted that women customarily walked five paces behind their husbands.
She recently returned to Kabul and observed that women still walk behind their husbands. Despite the overthrow of the oppressive Taliban regime, the women now seem happy to maintain the old custom.
Ms. Walters approached one of the Afghani women and asked, 'Why do you now seem happy with an old custom that you once tried so desperately to change?'
The woman looked Ms Walters straight in the eyes, and without hesitation said, "Land mines."
There's A New Blog in the Valley!
I have no idea whose blog this is, but they have put up signs in Lawson Valley sending people to it. There are only two posts up so far, first on one July 22, so it's a bit hard to tell what sorts of things are going to be posted there. So far its theme is much more coherent than my blog's theme: it's local news. This valley's plenty big enough for two bloggers – welcome aboard, neighbor!
Saturday, August 4, 2012
Flowers and Butterflies, Oh My!
“You Didn't Bake That!”
More here...
Friday, August 3, 2012
Robot Apocalypse? Not So Much...
The one and only Randall Munroe (XKCD) discusses what would likely happen if the robots of the world decided to rebel against humankind. Short version: don't worry. Long version: hilarious.
Thursday, August 2, 2012
“We Built It”
You know the Obama campaign is ruing the day their boss said “You didn't build that!” New ad from the Romney campaign continues hammering:
Ants, Part 4,923...
One of the facts of life out in the chaparral is ants. Large quantities of ants. Long-time readers may recall the epic battle we fought for years against these little bugs – a battle that we actually won about two years ago. How did we do that? One word: silicone.
That marvelous substance, in the specific form of silicone caulking, allowed us to plug even the tiniest little holes in our house. It took me about two years of tracking down ant trails, locating holes, and devising strategies for plugging them. Some holes were easy (like the cracks between cabinets and the wall); others were far more challenging (like slab cracks under the middle of a carpeted room). But in the end, I seem to have plugged them all – because starting about two years ago, we had no ants. Zero. Zip. Nada.
If you've never lived in the chaparral, that probably seems unremarkable. If you have lived in the chaparral, you'd be willing to kill for my secret (but there's no need, as I've freely blabbed it all over the Internet!).
So why am I raising the ant topic again? Well, because a few days ago we started seeing the little buggers in our kitchen again. After two years of total ant freedom, this was dismaying. So off to Jamul Hardware I went, to buy a tube of silicone caulking, and the next morning Debbie called me into the kitchen, her horrified finger stabbing in the direction of an ant trail. This one turned out to be almost trivially easy – their entry point was a teensy little crack under the baseboard, not three feet from where Debbie spotted the trail. One little squirt of silicone, and ... we're blissfully ant-free again.
I love silicone caulking!
That marvelous substance, in the specific form of silicone caulking, allowed us to plug even the tiniest little holes in our house. It took me about two years of tracking down ant trails, locating holes, and devising strategies for plugging them. Some holes were easy (like the cracks between cabinets and the wall); others were far more challenging (like slab cracks under the middle of a carpeted room). But in the end, I seem to have plugged them all – because starting about two years ago, we had no ants. Zero. Zip. Nada.
If you've never lived in the chaparral, that probably seems unremarkable. If you have lived in the chaparral, you'd be willing to kill for my secret (but there's no need, as I've freely blabbed it all over the Internet!).
So why am I raising the ant topic again? Well, because a few days ago we started seeing the little buggers in our kitchen again. After two years of total ant freedom, this was dismaying. So off to Jamul Hardware I went, to buy a tube of silicone caulking, and the next morning Debbie called me into the kitchen, her horrified finger stabbing in the direction of an ant trail. This one turned out to be almost trivially easy – their entry point was a teensy little crack under the baseboard, not three feet from where Debbie spotted the trail. One little squirt of silicone, and ... we're blissfully ant-free again.
I love silicone caulking!
Wednesday, August 1, 2012
The Wrong Lesson...
Bruce Schneier has a nice piece up on CNN (of all places!), all about drawing the wrong lessons from horrific events. This was prompted by the Aurora shootings, of course...
More Curiosity...
U.K. colleague Paul H. sends along this nice BBC piece and the animation below:
And here's another variation, with William Shatner:
And here's another variation, with William Shatner:
Milton Friedman...
Doug S. wrote to ask for my thoughts on Dr. Milton Friedman. He didn't say, but I assume what prompted him was that yesterday was the 100th anniversary of economist Dr. Friedman's birth. There was a veritable blizzard of Milton Friedman centenary commemoratives yesterday. He died almost six years ago, at age 94, having lived long enough to see many, many fruits of his intellect.
What are my thoughts about him? Dr. Friedman is one of my heroes, quite simply. His politics were essentially libertarian, largely in correspondence with my own, and I believe that was a result of his study and observation of economics – where he frequently and eloquently pointed out the negative effects of government interference. His economic writings and advice were strong influence on two generations of governments. In the U.S. this was most notable in President Reagan's administration. He also worked with foreign governments, most famously in Chile in the '70s.
I had the privilege of watching Dr. Friedman's economic theories actually being put into practice in a modern country. This happened in Estonia, starting in 1991 when Estonia won back its independence from the disintegrating Soviet Union. Three successive companies I worked for from the early 1990s through 2005 had software development subsidiaries in Tallinn, Estonia (and also nearby St. Petersburg, Russia), and in that period I made many trips over there. During those trips I traveled extensively all over the country, met hundreds of people in all walks of life, and made some lifelong friends. It's fair to say that I got to know the country quite well.
In 1992, Mart Laar became the first elected Prime Minister of Estonia after they regained their independence. In the early '90s, Estonia was a nearly unknown destination. On one of my trips, I was invited to an informal dinner at the U.S. embassy put on by our trade representative to introduce Mr. Laar to the U.S. business people already there (with the obvious objective of encouraging more business, which Estonia desperately needed). I had a chance to speak with Mr. Laar for a few minutes; he was very interested in businesses developing intellectual property, seeing them as the big future opportunity for Estonia (as opposed to manufacturing). I was astonished at his detailed understanding of the software development business, and especially at his understanding that Estonia had a very valuable resource in their large, well-educated group of software engineers – no matter what those engineers earned. He (correctly) saw their then-low salaries as a temporary matter, and insignificant to their attractiveness in the long run.
That conversation provoked me into doing a bit of research on Mr. Laar, and in that research I learned of the large influence that Dr. Friedman had had on his economic and political thinking. This influence wasn't actually hidden at all – Mr. Laar frequently quoted or otherwise invoked the thinking of Dr. Friedman. But more importantly, he actually drove some of Dr. Friedman's most important ideas to implementation. Probably the most famous example of this (but far from the only one) is Estonia's flat income tax, constructed in exactly the way Dr. Friedman proposed. It is widely acknowledged to be the single most important driver of Estonia's economic success, earning it the nickname of the “Baltic Tiger”.
I long for the day – that happy day! – when the U.S. will actually put the advice of its preeminent economist to work in our own country. I do believe that day will come. The only question is whether it comes via the ballot box or via a revolution of some kind...
What are my thoughts about him? Dr. Friedman is one of my heroes, quite simply. His politics were essentially libertarian, largely in correspondence with my own, and I believe that was a result of his study and observation of economics – where he frequently and eloquently pointed out the negative effects of government interference. His economic writings and advice were strong influence on two generations of governments. In the U.S. this was most notable in President Reagan's administration. He also worked with foreign governments, most famously in Chile in the '70s.
I had the privilege of watching Dr. Friedman's economic theories actually being put into practice in a modern country. This happened in Estonia, starting in 1991 when Estonia won back its independence from the disintegrating Soviet Union. Three successive companies I worked for from the early 1990s through 2005 had software development subsidiaries in Tallinn, Estonia (and also nearby St. Petersburg, Russia), and in that period I made many trips over there. During those trips I traveled extensively all over the country, met hundreds of people in all walks of life, and made some lifelong friends. It's fair to say that I got to know the country quite well.
In 1992, Mart Laar became the first elected Prime Minister of Estonia after they regained their independence. In the early '90s, Estonia was a nearly unknown destination. On one of my trips, I was invited to an informal dinner at the U.S. embassy put on by our trade representative to introduce Mr. Laar to the U.S. business people already there (with the obvious objective of encouraging more business, which Estonia desperately needed). I had a chance to speak with Mr. Laar for a few minutes; he was very interested in businesses developing intellectual property, seeing them as the big future opportunity for Estonia (as opposed to manufacturing). I was astonished at his detailed understanding of the software development business, and especially at his understanding that Estonia had a very valuable resource in their large, well-educated group of software engineers – no matter what those engineers earned. He (correctly) saw their then-low salaries as a temporary matter, and insignificant to their attractiveness in the long run.
That conversation provoked me into doing a bit of research on Mr. Laar, and in that research I learned of the large influence that Dr. Friedman had had on his economic and political thinking. This influence wasn't actually hidden at all – Mr. Laar frequently quoted or otherwise invoked the thinking of Dr. Friedman. But more importantly, he actually drove some of Dr. Friedman's most important ideas to implementation. Probably the most famous example of this (but far from the only one) is Estonia's flat income tax, constructed in exactly the way Dr. Friedman proposed. It is widely acknowledged to be the single most important driver of Estonia's economic success, earning it the nickname of the “Baltic Tiger”.
I long for the day – that happy day! – when the U.S. will actually put the advice of its preeminent economist to work in our own country. I do believe that day will come. The only question is whether it comes via the ballot box or via a revolution of some kind...
Tuesday, July 31, 2012
Eastern Europe?
The Economist has some ideas about naming the various bits of Europe. My favorite: “Solvent Europe”, which Estonia is part of...
The World She's A-Changing...
The newspaper business' traditional business model was a fairly simple one: you created a newspaper with content that people found compelling, and you sold advertising space in that newspaper to businesses who wanted to reach the people reading your newspaper. In most cases, it didn't really matter if people actually bought your newspaper, as the revenue from advertising absolutely dwarfed the subscription revenue. In fact, it was common for all the subscription revenue to go to third-party distribution services (e.g., the paperboy and his supply chain) and not to the newspaper at all.
The advent of online advertising (can you spell Google?) and the concurrent decline in newspaper readership has drastically changed all this. Now comes word that in the first quarter of this year, the group of newspapers whose flagship is the New York Times has passed a significant milestone: they now make more money from subscriptions than they do from advertising. This change is almost entirely due to declining advertising revenuel; subscription revenue (including online subscription revenue) has inched up but slightly. This is the brave new business world the newspapers are trying – and largely failing – to navigate. Much gnashing of teeth occurs amongst the progressivati over this. Personally, I just take some satisfaction in the fact that the marketplace is working...
The advent of online advertising (can you spell Google?) and the concurrent decline in newspaper readership has drastically changed all this. Now comes word that in the first quarter of this year, the group of newspapers whose flagship is the New York Times has passed a significant milestone: they now make more money from subscriptions than they do from advertising. This change is almost entirely due to declining advertising revenuel; subscription revenue (including online subscription revenue) has inched up but slightly. This is the brave new business world the newspapers are trying – and largely failing – to navigate. Much gnashing of teeth occurs amongst the progressivati over this. Personally, I just take some satisfaction in the fact that the marketplace is working...
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