Big Pickles

I never thought of this before, but it's true. Every base is base 10, in that base.

Labels: math

This Band Aid parody is a pretty seamless edit of the original.

The parody is good, but I had just as much fun seeing the old footage of George Michael, Boy George, Sting, and Bono back in the day.

Labels: music, video

Let's hope this one doesn't become bimodal.

Labels: economics, math

This video is awesome.

The subject matter is very interesting, to begin with. The idea that you can compare apples and oranges (or seahorses and English people) to determine the best thing is pretty cool.

But what makes this video so fun to watch is the juxtaposition of irreverent, sometimes profane language an otherwise very refined, academic style.

You might disagree with the value judgments--it seems clearly biased toward a liberal, hipster aesthetic--but I guarantee you will be entertained.

Labels: video design

CNN has an article on TiVo Guilt today. The New York Times had a similar op-ed two years ago. So it's not a new thing.

It's very similar to Netflix Guilt. And isn't this just the modern version of letting your newspapers and magazines and books stack up unread?

The deal with TiVo is that you have limited hard drive space to work with, so you have to manage it. If your TiVo is full when you go to bed, then it will start deleting shows to make room for new stuff, and because you haven't meticulously accounted for every contingency and programmed it accordingly, its algorithms might cause it to prioritize what to get rid of first slightly differently than you might have. In other words: Unmitigated Disaster.

So when you watch two hours of TV and maybe even delete a few shows you're not interested in, you feel like you've had a productive evening. You've freed up plenty of space so that TiVo doesn't have to take matters into its own hands, and you can rest easy until the next day. If, on the other hand, you watch a Netflix movie, you've accomplished nothing. Two hours, utterly wasted. TiVo is still full, and getting fuller. Soon it will start deleting things, and then you run the risk of Missing A Show.

(Of course, by Missing A Show I mean that you will have to download it the next day or watch it on hulu. We're not barbarians, after all.)

Your Netflix movies don't give you the same "use it or lose it" ultimatum. They'll patiently sit there and wait until you're ready to watch them. No late fees, remember? Sure, there's this nagging feeling that you're not getting your money's worth if you don't watch at least four movies per week, but that's nothing when TiVo is holding an episode of Numb3rs hostage.

(Updates below.)

Peter Schiff was an economic adviser for the Ron Paul campaign and a frequent guest on financial news shows. Over two years ago he predicted that we would be in exactly the mess we're in now, when all those around him were predicting the opposite.



The thing that gets me about this video isn't so much that he was right and Art Laffer, Ben Stein, and all the rest were wrong. It's that they all find his opinion so detestable that they can't resist interrupting him even when they all have equal time to talk in a non-confrontational format. The animosity they have for his prediction seems to betray that deep down they know he might be right.

If that's the case, than he is committing the ultimate betrayal among financial pundits. These guys don't have to be any better than astrologers, and the news shows will keep inviting them back because they can always find an excuse for why they were wrong--especially if they are all wrong together. Usually they just claim that "no one could have predicted this" and they go right on making predictions. (Like Karl Rove, who is somehow still considered credible after his "The Math" blunder on NPR.) But Peter Schiff takes this out away from them by actually doing his job--examining the fundamentals and basing his prediction on his best analysis of reality--and they hate him for it.

UPDATE: Turns out Peter Schiff loves a good analogy.

UPDATE II: NPR picks up the story.

UPDATE III: Hey, no media fad would be complete without a conspiracy theory. In this video, CNN loses the feed right before Schiff is about to say that everything the government is doing is just making things worse (at about the 4:00 mark). Or should I say, "loses the feed," wink wink, nudge nudge.

Labels: economy, video

At least, I try.

I've read two of Malcolm Gladwell's books, and I loved them. They are fun to read, and they make you think. I was just telling Dan about him this weekend, and yet, I was at a loss to explain what these books are actually about. "He just has some good ideas..." was about all I could muster.

Then I read something like this and it makes me wonder if I've been had. In fact, it brings back memories of another book that was fun to read and made me think.

Rich Dad, Poor Dad.

My loathing for that book is now the stuff of legend, but in 2002 my exuberance towards it and subsequent disillusionment with it awoke in me a skepticism that I've tried to cultivate ever since. John T. Reed was the one that opened my eyes, as he demonstrated that while Kiyosaki may be fun to read and while he may make you think, in the end you can't really say what his books are about, either.

I still say Gladwell is the better writer--and also, his books don't have the added danger of inspiring you to blow your meager savings on more books, seminars, and shady real estate shemes. But it's good to be reminded that for all my skepticism (some would say cynicism) I'm still not above getting swept away by the occasional siren song.

Labels: books

From teh 1905.