EclectEcon

I Spent My Career Training Students to Be Bad People

According to Professor Wade at Occidental College, if you studied economics, you are likely to be a bad person.

Dr. Wade writes that if you have taken classes on Economics, you “are less likely to share, less generous to the needy, and more likely to cheat, lie, and steal.”

She largely bases her belief on a study from 2010. In the study, students were asked if they would like to contribute money to a liberal political group or a group that is pushing for lower tuition, possibly by asking for more subsidies from taxpayers.

Students with an understanding of economics were less inclined to donate to these groups than students with other majors. And for that reason, Dr. Wade has declared that they are “anti-social.”

But as the article points out,

The flaws in this assessment [are] blatant, however. The first and most obvious is that there were no conservative groups to donate to. To say that donations to liberal groups correlate with the goodness of people is patently ridiculous.

Second, it could very well be that people who understand Economics are more aware of the consequences of just giving money to political groups. Or perhaps they know more about the effectiveness of using money to solve a problem instead of having a plan to actually fix things.

These things do not run through Dr. Wade’s head as she is all too happy to declare that Economics majors are anti-social. Further, she says that Econ majors need to take ““balancing” classes, ones that present a different kind of economics.”

Here is the link to Professor Wade's piece [via J Alan, who notes the comments on her piece make good points as well.].

Massive Changes in US Immigration Patterns

This graphic highlights the enormous shift in immigration patterns into the US from pre-WWII to post-WWII. If you go to the source (here), the graph becomes interactive, showing actual numbers by country and by decade as you mover cursor over the graph.

Note that these are total numbers. As a percentage of the total population, immigratin is considerably less than it was in the 1920s. Note, too, that immigration dipped when there were sizable economic downturns.

Wouldn't it be interesting to see something like this for Canada! (or other countries, for that matter)

Channeling Charles Dickens

Jack reminded us the other day how poignant the introduction to Tale of Two Cities is:

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times,

it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness,

it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity,

it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness,

it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair,

we had everything before us, we had nothing before us,

we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way –

in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.

Cauliflower Grilled Cheese Sandwiches

Last week I came across this recipe for Cauliflower Grilled Cheese Sandwiches. It is low-carb, gluten-free, and vegetarian-friendly.

We made them yesterday morning, and they were certainly better than "not bad". And for a guy who detested cauliflower until just a few years ago, that's high praise.

Here is the recipe (annotated, of course) with photos of our progress:

Cauliflower Grilled Cheese

For the cauliflower “bread”
1 small cauliflower head, cut into  florets (should yield approximately three cups of cauliflower rice)
1 Tbsp olive oil, plus extra to grease
1 free-range egg, lightly beaten [we used a double-yolk egg]
1 oz grated Parmesan
1 oz grated comté, appenzeller, or mature cheddar cheese [We shredded some old cheddar cheese.]
1/4 tsp fine sea salt

For the grilled cheese
1 Tbsp butter, room temperature
3 oz. comté and mature cheddar cheese
1 large pickled gherkin or jalapeño finely sliced (optional)

For the “bread”
1. Preheat oven to 450°F.
2. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and liberally grease it with olive oil. Set aside.
3. In a food processor, rice the cauliflower florets until they are a fine crumb.

4. Heat the olive oil in a large frying pan on a low-medium heat. Add the cauliflower rice (about three cups) and cook for 10 to 15 minutes, stirring continually or until soft. You want the water to evaporate as much as possible from the cauliflower without developing color. The cauliflower rice needs to be dry, otherwise you’ll end up with mushy dough. We did this for over 20 minutes, and there was still steam rising from the frying pan. We could probably have done it even longer.

5. Transfer the cauliflower rice to a mixing bowl, add egg, Parmesan, comté, salt, and mix well. We grated some old cheddar cheese and used grated Parmesan from a can:

 

Here is the mixed batter:

then spread the mixture onto the lined baking sheet and shape into four bread squares.

Place the baking tray in the oven and bake for about 12 to 15 minutes, or until golden.

6. Remove and let cool for ten minutes, then gently peel them off the parchment paper.

To Assemble
1. Heat a pan over medium heat. Butter one side of each slice of the cauliflower bread and place the buttered side down on the pan.
2. Cover the bread liberally with your chosen cheese, plus gherkin or jalapeño (if using) and top with the remaining slice of cauliflower bread, buttered side up.

I like what I call white "plastic" cheese --- processed slices; Ms Eclectic prefers havarti/jalapeno cheese slices. We used a LOT of cheese for each sandwich, and next time we might use even more.

3. Cook until golden brown, about two to four minutes, then gently flip and cook until golden brown on the other side.

4. Serve with spicy hot sauce, a salad, and your condiments of choice.

The cauliflower "bread" mixture actually held together like bread for awhile:

But in the end we decided to use a knife and fork.

Next time we will probably cook the cauliflower rice a bit longer to get rid of even more moisture from it, we might bake the cauliflower bread a tad longer, and we might let it cool longer before grilling the sandwiches.

Also we would likely consider eating them with ketchup or salsa, and we might even put pepper into the bread mixture. Alternatively, we would seriously consider using pre-shredded Tex-Mex cheese in the "bread" batter.

Overall, it was a fun but terribly inefficient process. It probably took us over an hour and a half to make these. That's a lot of work and time for just two sandwiches. But it was fun, they were pretty tasty, and they are on the Atkins diet.

In Praise of Entrepreneurship and Creative Destruction

Don Boudreaux has a wonderful piece at Cafe Hayek, inaptly titled, "Applause for Fossil Fuels". His piece, while praising the rapid increases in the quality of life provided for so many people because of fossil fuels, goes beyond that. Here is a good-sized chunk:

I energetically applaud entrepreneurial experimentation with other energy sources – just as I applaud entrepreneurial experimentation to ‘transform’ transportation, or food production, or telecommunications, or hair-braiding, or whatever.

The world was made modern and the masses made rich by orgies of innovation and the resulting, on-going process of creative destruction.  But the only such entrepreneurial experiments that are likely to work to enrich the masses are experiments done in competition with the status quo and with other entrepreneurial experiments – experiments driven not by politics (that is, not by romantic passions fueled with other-people’s-money, and not by the greedy lust for special privileges) but by the visions of individuals who each risks his or her own money and efforts in the quest to profit from generating new products or processes that are voluntarily accepted by consumers and input suppliers as the best among all bargains currently available.

Do I believe that fossil fuels are perfect?  Not at all.  Do I believe that intellectual and political elites overestimate the scope and significance of these imperfections?  Yes, absolutely.  And do I believe that these same elites underestimate the ability of humans to adapt through the market to these imperfections?  Yes again.  Finally, do I believe that these elites enormously overestimate the ability of political institutions to deal well with whatever problems are caused by fossil-fuel use and to out-perform the competitive entrepreneurial market at potentially finding acceptable alternatives to fossil fuels?  Yes, without question.

Related articles

Applause for Fossil Fuels

The Political Economy of Envy

I have written before about the economics of envy. In non-economics jargon, for envious people if someone else has more stuff, the envious people feel worse off, even if they have more stuff too.... especially if someone else has a lot more stuff.*

As Todd Zywicki recently wrote in a comment on Facebook,

Didn't envy used to be considered a sin? Rename it "inequality" and it is apparently a perfectly legitimate thing to talk about publicly. Praiseworthy even in some quarters. There's another difference between today and a century ago.

Envy and comparisons are not new, but something seems different to me. It is now considered politically and socially acceptable to say, "You have it; I want it. Or at the very least I want to tell you what to do with it....  and I'm going to use the force of gubmnt to make you give up a bunch of what you have."

Todd's remark was in reaction to this post by former student, David Henderson, in which about 10% or so of his audience said they would rather be wealthy in comparison with their peers, than be better off than that in any other sense but worse off relative to their peers. Talk about invidious comparisons!

Some people have called this "The Jones Effect" -- people comparing themselves to others. Some economists, following Veblen, refer to conspicuous consumption as a part of these invidious comparisons.

Also see this lengthy post about inequality by Scott Sumner. 

 

*In economics jargon, it looks as if the interdependent utility function terms are getting a lot stronger these days for some people, and with negative first partial derivatives attached to other peoples' consumption bundles.

Sweden's Foreign Minister Condemns Saudi Record on Human Rights

From the Spectator:

A few weeks ago Margot Wallström, the Swedish foreign minister, denounced the subjugation of women in Saudi Arabia. As the theocratic kingdom prevents women from travelling, conducting official business or marrying without the permission of male guardians, and as girls can be forced into child marriages where they are effectively raped by old men, she was telling no more than the truth. Wallström went on to condemn the Saudi courts for ordering that Raif Badawi receive ten years in prison and 1,000 lashes for setting up a website that championed secularism and free speech. These were ‘mediaeval methods’, she said, and a ‘cruel attempt to silence modern forms of expression’. And once again, who can argue with that?

 

I'd Guess a Lot of Faculty Members Would Like to Do This: Draw Double Salary

The Prez of The University of Western Ontario worked through his "administrative leave" and so he collected double salary last year. No foolin'.  This is the guy whose main claim to fame (so far as I can tell) has been to change the name of the university from "The University of Western Ontario" to "Western University". From CBC:

The university based in London, Ont., issued a news release Friday explaining the salary jump this way: 

"To ensure continuity of leadership at a critical time, Chakma received payment in lieu of a one-year administrative leave that was included in his first five-year contract, which concluded in June 2014. ...

Western's board of governors chair Chirag Shah told CBC News that instead of taking one year of paid administrative leave included in his contract, Chakma opted to stay and work through 2014 at what Shah said was a "critical time" for the university. 

Doesn't that mean Chakma was essentially paid twice his salary for one year of work?

Shah told CBC News it doesn't. He says Chakma was permitted to take a year of salary for not working and instead chose to stay and work, meaning he was essentially entitled to twice his annual salary in one calendar year.

I can imagine a lot of faculty members would loveto forgo their sabbaticals and draw double salary. Look for the faculty union to be negotiating for this option in the future.

Sheesh. Critical time? Hunh.

The American Library Association Partners with Anti-Semitic Book Fair

From the Elder of Ziyon. The American Library Association recently partnered with the Sharjah International Book Fair in the United Arab Emirates. Some of the books promoted at this book fair are examples of extreme anti-semitism.

The anti-Semitic books for sale at the fair were listed along­side main­stream books in var­i­ous cat­e­gories. For exam­ple, The Pro­to­cols of the Learned Elders of Zion was listed in the “Polit­i­cal Sci­ence” cat­e­gory. Among the other anti-Semitic books fea­tured at the fair were:

• Blood for The Pie of Zion (The Jew­ish Dis­trict) by Najib Al Gailany. This novel tells a story of a Chris­t­ian priest from Dam­as­cus who was abducted by the Jews in order to use his blood for Jew­ish rit­u­als. The story details how Jews danced and celebrated while Rab­bis drain the blood of the elderly catholic priest. The book was listed in the “Nov­els” cat­e­gory and sold for 15 AED, or approx­i­mately $4.
• The Jews and the Secret Move­ments in the Cru­sades by Baha Al-Amir. The book, which sug­gests that the Jews played a role in the Cru­sades, includes an intro­duc­tion in which the author claims that “God the almighty declares in his state­ment to the peo­ple that all wars were started by Jews.” The book was listed in the “Inter­na­tional Affairs” cat­e­gory and sold for 50 AED (approx­i­mately $14).
• Human Sac­ri­fices and Tal­mu­dic Slaugh­ter­ing by Jews and Pagans by Fathi Muham­mad Zughbi. The book was listed in the “Faith” cat­e­gory and sold for 83 AED (approx­i­mately $23).
• Mein Kampf by Adolf Hilter. This book was listed in the “Gen­eral knowl­edge” cat­e­gory and sold for 20 AED (approx­i­mately $5).

The fair pro­vided sev­eral grants and awards in var­i­ous fields of lit­er­a­ture. In the past, it report­edly gave a grant to Gilad Atz­mon to trans­late his anti-Semitic book “The Wan­der­ing Who,” into Ara­bic. The other problem is that if you try to register for the fair, in the list of countries you can be from there is one that is missing. Take a wild guess....

The EoZ adds,

So the ALA is now explicitly partnering with an event that activley promotes anti-semitism and discriminates against Israelis,

In the past, when principled organizations and prominent personalities told the UAE that they would not participate in activities that excluded Israelis or Jews, the UAE was anxious to drop the ban and do whatever they needed to do in order to not be embarrassed.

Clearly the American Library Association has no such principles.

And the UAE is purportedly one of the more moderate, modern Arab-Muslim countries in the middle east.

New Ransomware Hits UWO Computers

From Western's ITS:

RISK: VERY HIGH

ALERT: Five Western faculties or business units are reporting new ransom-ware infections.  This unnamed threat appears to be either an audio wave file attachment, an infected MP4 (movie file) or an email appearing to provide a user's resume.  If you receive a resume unexpectedly (out of the blue) with an attachment, or with attached media files from someone not in your contact list, do not open the attachment.

Ransomware is software which scans a computer encrypting all data files it finds, basically hijacking the data. Unless backups exist, this data is unrecoverable unless payment is made to the virus author.

ITS is reporting our community is at risk. Faculty, Staff & Students are being targeted and victimized by a new ransomeware threat whose name is not yet known.  Thankfully no faculty has lost data because all affected data was backed up, showing the importance of having backups.

Myron Scholes to Visit UWO Next Week

I will definitely be making an effort to see/hear this. I expect it will be jam-packed.

More on Freedom of Speech vs. Freedom of Religion

Ever since I started writing this blog over a decade ago, I have argued that when "freedom of expression" and "freedom of religion" clash, I want us to choose freedom of expression.

I much prefer competition in the marketplace of ideas to stifling the expression of ideas. But, sadly, this competition is being blocked and thwarted by too many people with strong political voices, saying essentially, "If you say that, we will shut you down."

A recent example comes from Trinity University in Dublin [why is it so often universities that try to limit freedom of expression?]:

[T]he cancellation of yesterday's planned lecture on 'Apostasy and the rise of Islamism' by Iranian human rights activist Maryam Namazie is something that should worry us all. ...

There was a telling insight into the mentality of the organisers, the Society for International Affairs (SoFIA) who expressed concerns about their ability to host the event: "In a safe environment where individuals are free to express themselves without fear of being threatened after the discussion."

Just who did they think would cause a disturbance after the event? Namazie's fellow apostates who face an automatic death sentence in 11 countries around the world for seeing sense and leaving their faith?

Or maybe they were worried about how some of Trinity's Muslim students might have reacted? After all, the Trinity Muslim Student Association recently hosted a radical cleric called Sheikh Kamal El Mekki, who was there to explain why apostasy and infidelity are sufficient reason to kill people.

Freedom of expression for me but not for thee? This sounds amazingly unbalanced.

Universities used to be bastions of the defence of freedom of expression. They used to defend mightily their explorations of unpopular ideas. And yet, it appears, many universities nowadays shy away from challenging the extremist Islamists.

It's time for universities to regrow a backbone. It is time for universities to renew their role of encouraging students (and faculty members!) to explore diverse views and to provide a safe, if uncomfortable, environment for these journeys.

Addendum: See this, in which a professor strongly negative views about Hamas and is bullied by students at Connecticut College. It is a lengthy piece, but it looks as if he was targeted not just for that expression but for his other views as well.

Also, see this, which I wrote many years ago about my late friend BenS and his confrontation with the speech police.

 

 

51 Facts about the Human Body

"The Human Body is a treasure trove of mysteries, one that still confounds
doctors and scientists about the details of its working. It's not an
overstatement to say that every part of your body is a miracle. Here are
fifty-one facts about your body, some of which will leave you stunned...or... [via Jack]." I want to know (sort of, but not really) how anyone knows some of these.

1. It's possible for your body to survive without a surprisingly large fraction of its internal organs. Even if you lose your stomach, your spleen, 75% of your liver, 80% of your intestines, one kidney, one lung, and virtually every organ from your pelvic and groin area, you wouldn't be very healthy, but you would live.

2. During your lifetime, you will produce enough saliva to fill two swimming
pools. Actually, Saliva is more important than you realize. If your saliva
cannot dissolve something, you cannot taste it.

3.. The largest cell in the human body is the female egg and the smallest is the male sperm. The egg is actually the only cell in the body that is visible by the naked eye.

4. The strongest muscle in the human body is the tongue and the hardest bone is the jawbone.

5. Human feet have 52 bones, accounting for one quarter of all the human body's bones.

6. Feet have 500,000 sweat glands and can produce more than a pint of sweat a day.

7. The acid in your stomach is strong enough to dissolve razor blades. The reason it doesn't eat away at your stomach is that the cells of your stomach wall renew themselves so frequently that you get a new stomach lining every three to four days.

8. The human lungs contain approximately 2,400 kilometers (1,500 mi) of
airways and 300 to 500 million hollow cavities, having a total surface area
of about 70 square meters, roughly the same area as one side of a tennis
court. Furthermore, if all of the capillaries that surround the lung cavities were unwound and laid end to end, they would extend for about 992 kilometers. Also, your left lung is smaller than your right lung to make
room for your heart.

9. Sneezes regularly exceed 100 mph, while coughs clock in at about 60 mph.

10. Your body gives off enough heat in 30 minutes to bring half a gallon of
water to a boil.

11. Your body has enough iron in it to make a nail 3 inches long.

12. Earwax production is necessary for good ear health. It protects the
delicate inner ear from bacteria, fungus, dirt and even insects. It also
cleans and lubricates the ear canal.

13. Everyone has a unique smell, except for identical twins, who smell the
same.

14. Your teeth start growing 6 months before you are born. This is why one out of every 2,000 newborn infants has a tooth when they are born

15. A baby's head is one-quarter of its total length, but by the age of 25
will only be one-eighth of its total length. This is because people's heads
grow at a much slower rate than the rest of their bodies.

16. Babies are born with 300 bones, but by adulthood the number is reduced to 206. Some of the bones, like skull bones, get fused into each other, bringing down the total number.

17. It's not possible to tickle yourself. This is because when you attempt
to tickle yourself you are totally aware of the exact time and manner in
which the tickling will occur, unlike when someone else tickles you.

18. Less than one third of the human race has 20-20 vision. This means that two out of three people cannot see perfectly.

19. Your nose can remember 50,000 different scents. But if you are a woman, you are a better smeller than men, and will remain a better smeller throughout your life.

20. The human body is estimated to have 60,000 miles of blood vessels.

21. The three things pregnant women dream most of during their first
trimester are frogs, worms and potted plants. Scientists have no idea why
this is so, but attribute it to the growing imbalance of hormones in the
body during pregnancy.

22. The life span of a human hair is 3 to 7 years on average. Every day the average person loses 60-100 strands of hair. But don't worry, you must lose over 50% of your scalp hairs before it is apparent to anyone.

23. The human brain cell can hold 5 times as much information as an
encyclopedia.  Your brain uses 20% of the oxygen that enters your bloodstream, and is itself made up of 80% water. Though it interprets pain signals from the rest of the body, the brain itself cannot feel pain.

24. The tooth is the only part of the human body that can't repair itself.

25. Your eyes are always the same size from birth but your nose and ears
never stop growing.

26. By 60 years of age, 60% of men and 40% of women will snore.

27. We are about 1 cm taller in the morning than in the evening, because
during normal activities during the day, the cartilage in our knees and
other areas slowly compresses.

28. The brain operates on the same amount of power as 10-watt light bulb, even while you are sleeping. In fact, the brain is much more active at night than during the day.

29. Nerve impulses to and from the brain travel as fast as 170 miles per
hour. Neurons continue to grow throughout human life. Information travels at different speeds within different types of neurons.

30. It is a fact that people who dream more often and more vividly, on an
average have a higher Intelligence Quotient.

31. The fastest growing nail is on the middle finger.

32. Facial hair grows faster than any other hair on the body. This is true
for men as well as women.

33. There are as many hairs per square inch on your body as a chimpanzee.

34. A human fetus acquires fingerprints at the age of three months.

35. By the age of 60, most people will have lost about half their taste
buds.

36. About 32 million bacteria call every inch of your skin home. But don't
worry, a majority of these are harmless or even helpful bacteria.

37. The colder the room you sleep in, the higher the chances are that you'll have a bad dream.

38. Human lips have a reddish color because of the great concentration of tiny capillaries just below the skin.

39. Three hundred million cells die in the human body every minute.

40. Like fingerprints, every individual has an unique tongue print that can
be used for identification.

41. A human head remains conscious for about 15 to 20 seconds after it has been decapitated.

42. It takes 17 muscles to smile and 43 to frown.

43. Humans can make do longer without food than sleep. Provided there is water, the average human could survive a month to two months without food depending on their body fat and other factors. Sleep deprived people, however, start experiencing radical personality and psychological changes after only a few sleepless days. The longest recorded time anyone has ever gone without sleep is 11 days, at the end of which the experimenter was awake, but stumbled over words, hallucinated and frequently forgot what he was doing.

44. The most common blood type in the world is Type O. The rarest blood
type, A-H or Bombay blood, due to the location of its discovery, has been
found in less than hundred people since it was discovered

45. Every human spent about half an hour after being conceived, as a single cell. Shortly afterward, the cells begin rapidly dividing and begin forming the components of a tiny embryo.

46. Right-handed people live, on average, nine years longer than left-handed people do.

47. Your ears secrete more earwax when you are afraid than when you aren't.

48. Koalas and primates are the only animals with unique fingerprints.

49. Humans are the only animals to produce emotional tears.

50. The human heart creates enough pressure to squirt blood 30 feet in the air.

51. Here is one more amazing thing the human body can do: If you remove half of your liver, it will grow back to the same size (it has memory) within 4 to 6 weeks. And, if they removed half, part of your liver is transplanted into another person, that half a liver will grow back to the same size as the donors liver in 6 to 8 weeks in the recipient .

Some Qualifications

Lest you think from my various pro-Israel posts that I am an uncritical supporter of Israel, I'm not. In addition to questioning the continued expansion of settlements into the West Bank, I find  some of the things mentioned in this article as disturbing as I would find them in any country.

The rest of the world was shocked, but the fact is that Israel has become a right-wing society where nakedly racist language is common. “Arab taste” is a well-known term for vulgar, ostentatious style, for example. Right-wing legislators have in recent years physically assaulted Arab Knesset members while they were giving speeches. There are many examples that would shock Western liberals but are shrugged off in Israel. Members of the Knesset have given speeches in which they referred to migrants from Sudan as “a cancer in our body.”

Right, left, it doesn't matter. What matters is the apparent racism.

There are many things in that article which seem stretched or slanted, but there is no excuse for racism nor for pandering to racism. That should apply in Israel (and the arab countries in the Middle East!), as well as the rest of the world.

Peace between Israel and Palestine? Not Likely in our Time but Don't Blame Netanyahu

Charles Krauthammer has an excellent column in the Washington Post explaining the situation in the Middle East. It is brief, and hence misses many nuances I am sure, but it summarizes a lot of my own views about Israel.

If you grant that Israel has a right to exist (I do, but I am quite certain some of my friends do not), and if you grant Israel has a right and even an obligation to defend itself, then it is hard to blame just Israel for everything that happens there.

From Krauthammer,

I have news for the lowing herds: There would be no peace and no Palestinian state if Isaac Herzog were prime minister either. Or Ehud Barak or Ehud Olmert for that matter. The latter two were (non-Likud) prime ministers who offered the Palestinians their own state — with its capital in Jerusalem and every Israeli settlement in the new Palestine uprooted — only to be rudely rejected.

This is not ancient history. This is 2000, 2001 and 2008 — three astonishingly concessionary peace offers within the past 15 years. Every one rejected.

The fundamental reality remains: This generation of Palestinian leadership — from Yasser Arafat to Mahmoud Abbas — has never and will never sign its name to a final peace settlement dividing the land with a Jewish state.

But please, PLEASE read the entire column. It explains a lot of what lies behind my fairly strong pro-Israel views.

For my previous blog posts on Israel, click here.

Privacy on the Internet

Over 30 years ago, when I first started reading and participating in newsgroups on the web (rec.humor, rec.sport.baseball, etc.), I was cautious at first. One reason was that I saw some quoted email to the effect that,

Isn't it wonderful that we can carry on our affair now using email and our spouses won't know about it.

That message had gone viral, to the extent that "going viral" happened in those days. It was circulated as a warning to all that anything we write on the internet can, and likely is, on some server somewhere. Nothing is private. I have tried to keep that lesson in mind myself ever since then.

If you need more of a warning, watch this very brief (two minutes?) video:

 

Microsoft Explorer -- the Subject of Misapplication of US Anti-trust Laws

Remember the massive US gubmnt lawsuit against Microsoft over a decade ago? One of the major issues in that case was that Microsoft's web browser, Internet Explorer, was included with Windows and that inclusion foreclosed the browser market to others, especially Netscape.

What a travesty that suit was. The policy makers/enforcers didn't foresee the specific potential entrants and so they myopically assumed there would be none. Hah!

Netscape is dead (much of it morphing into early versions of Firefox). And now Microsoft Internet Explorer is dying [see this]:

A commonly held belief among heavy web users is that it's only acceptable to use Internet Explorer for the purpose of downloading Firefox or Chrome.

Snarky as this sentiment may seem, for many who have purchased a computer running Windows in recent years it’s also painfully rooted in the fact that Internet Explorer can no longer keep up with its competitors.

Once a market leader with a whopping 95 per cent usage share when it peaked in 2002, Microsoft’s flagship browser has experienced a steady decline in its user base since Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome hit the scene in 2004 and 2008, respectively.

Today Internet Explorer holds just eight per cent of global internet traffic — and a reputation for being the “most-hated web browser” in existence.

Competition and entry limited Microsoft's market power and continues to do so. I stopped using Netscape when it didn't keep up with computer changes and the other browsers offered better options and control. And I rarely used Internet Explorer ever.

For one of my earlier posts about Microsoft and the antitrust suit, see this.

As I wrote early on when I started blogging, US anti-trust policy is so short-sighted it behaves as if it has these two rules:

1. You must compete.
2. You must not win

Policy makers have little to no idea where the next innovation or competition might come from. As a result, when the more market-oriented economists ramble on about competition and entry but have no specific answers to the question, "But who will even consider entering against such a behemoth?", policy makers tend to overlook the extreme power of longer-run market forces, especially if the gubmnt doesn't get in the way of them.

The result? The entrants have displaced Internet Explorer and the antitrust suit against Microsoft was a monumental waste of resources for both the US taxpayers and Microsoft's stockholders.

Diets, Pizza, Self-Control, and Self-Deprecation

A few days ago, my weight was down to within 2/10 of a pound of reaching my goal weight. That's right, I was 0.2 lbs away from my goal!

So what did I do?

Eat a truckload of pizza. Not only that, but I ordered more than enough for our family so that I have enough for huge breakfasts the next few days.

That has been the story of my dieting.... lose some weight, binge on carbs, lose some weight, binge on carbs, etc. But I'm still more than 40 lbs lighter than I was 5 years ago.

Leftover pizza for breakfast!!!! Yea!!!

Supermoon, Equinox on March 20th

From EarthSky:

On March 20 – same date as the 2015 March equinox – the moon turns new only 14 hours after reaching lunar perigee – moon’s closest point to Earth in its orbit. Thus this moon is a supermoon – at the new phase – not visible in our sky, but having a larger-than-average effect on Earth’s oceans. Plus this new supermoon swings right in front of the equinox sun on March 20, so that the moon’s shadow falls on parts of Earth.

Frank Zappa and the Nihilist Spasm Band

A couple of days ago, I posted this picture to my Facebook feed:

I really enjoyed two albums by Frank Zappa and The Mothers of Invention:

• the two-album set Freak Out, and
• Over-Night Sensation, with the classics "Montana", Camarillo Brillo, and Dynamo Hum".

After I posted that picture, Rebekah post a link to this Youtube feed of Frank Zappa as a guest on the Steve Allen show in 1963:

It's a 16-minute selection which concludes with a jumble of sounds that reminds me of London Ontario's own Nihilist Spasm Band. [NSB]

 [The Nihilist Spasm Band] uses homemade instruments. Indeed, most of the NSB's instruments are modifications of other instruments, or wholly invented by the members. ... The range of the improvisation is such that instruments are not tuned to each other, tempos and time signatures are not imposed, and the members push the ranges of their instrumentation by engaging in constant innovation.

I knew several of the members of NSB, and back in the late 1970s, I had the "honour" of sitting in with them during a session. The description is accurate, and it is very much like what Frank Zappa was encouraging Steve Allen and the others to do back in 1963.

Zappa was a musical genius ahead of the times in many ways.

Shakespeare: a really awful writer?

For over 40 years I have enjoyed going to Stratford to watch plays, including many by Shakespeare. Before that I saw Hamlet at the Tyrone Guthrie Theatre in Minneapolis, and King Lear at Carleton College. I've read many/most(?) of Shakespeare's plays, and I even played a Shakespeare scholar in one of my first mystery dinner theatre shows.

I remember quite enjoying reading Julius Caesar in 10th grade and Macbeth in 12th grade in high school.

But never have I acted in a play by Shakespeare.... until now. I will be playing Theseus, Duke of Athens, in a production of Midsummer Night's Dream (The Arts Project, April 7-11).

Here, slightly edited, is my take on this endeavour, as I wrote it to Jack and JR:

Not that you need this advice, but never NEVER agree to do a Shakespeare role. You may disagree with this, but that guy cannot write for crap: his words and word orders are so messed up that it is nearly impossible to learn the frickn lines.

For example, "and as imagination bodies forth the forms of things unknown.... blah blah blah. "

I know what it means, but trying to learn those words in that order is quite a challenge (at least for me).

As I said to Jack and JR, "Never again, unless it's a really small role."

I know I have many friends who are likely to disagree with my assessment of Shakespeare's plays; and I know I will likely still enjoy watching performances of them; I might even enjoy (re)reading some of them, but I really do not enjoy trying to learn the lines.

I realize the word order is driven, at least in part, by the "need" for iambic pentameter; but lines like,

"I wonder if the lion be to speak,"

just don't roll off the tongue. And metre cannot possibly be the explanation for this line:

Now is the mural down between the two neighbours.

unless you really want to mess with the emphasis on the syllables:

now IS the MUral DOWN beTWEEN the TWO neighBOURS? HUH?

Maybe it's just the Philistine in me, re-emerging. After all, I am the self-declared chair of the Philistine Liberation Organization.

 

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Theatre Tag

Super Pi Day. This is a VERY special day

Pi = 3.141592654

3/14/15  9:26:54

Celebrate with champagne and pie at 9:26:54 this morning.

Theatre Tag

My friend, Kerry Hishon, posted these questions along with her answers on her blog.

Here are the questions, along with my answers:

1. When did you start getting into theatre? I was 12 years old in grade seven (or, as we called it in the US, 7th grade). I played Pete Thursday in a junior high school mystery play. 

2. How many shows have you been in? Difficult question. Counting mystery dinner theatre shows, probably hundreds. Stage shows, maybe 20 - 25. Films, maybe 3-4.

3. Favourite role ever played? Martin Dysart in Equus was an amazing role. I will be forever grateful for having had that opportunity.

4. A tip you always give to new theatre people? Speak up and enunciate clearly. You can tell my roots are in community theatre with this kind of advice.

5. Biggest theatre pet peeve? nah, I think I'll pass on this one...

6. Biggest strengths, biggest weaknesses? Strengths: sensitivity, ability to learn quickly. Weaknesses: getting into the character.

7. Biggest Inspiration in theatre? Several. Dabbs Greer and Patrick Cronin to name two.

8. What's your dream role? Something small and easy, yet with a fun cast and crew.

9. Do you prefer plays or musicals? I would like to be, and have been, in both. I think my singing voice dictates, though, that I primarily do plays or maybe luck out and make it into the chorus for musicals.

10. What is your favourite improv game? I hate improv, which may seem odd, since we do so much of it in mystery dinner theatre. But those shows are different from improv games. In the shows, I have thought long and hard about the background of the character, and though much of each show is unscripted, it is all part of that preparation.

11. What is your favourite show? Play: Death of a Salesman or Equus. Musical: Sound of Music. Film: Three Days of the Condor.

12. What has been your most awkward onstage moment? appearing in female lingerie at the end of "Academia Nuts". That, or trying to jump scenes in one performance of another play (a very embarrassing moment which another actor saved, fortunately).

13. What has been your best off-stage moment in theatre? The amazing cast party put on by the director of Norm Foster's "My Darling Judith". Or maybe the first audition I had in London many years ago.

14. What has been your most challenging role to play? This is going to seem weird to some people. Dysart had over 600 lines, many of which were monumental monologues, but I'm finding it much more challenging to try to learn the role of Theseus for "Midsummer Night's Dream." The words in Shakespeare just don't flow for me.

15. What would you be doing if theatre didn't exist? Undoubtedly writing more about economics and world affairs.

This is a self-tagging game. Play if you wish by posting in the comments here, in a note on Facebook, or on your own blog.

Why Aren't Norway and Finland Being Over-run with Students?

I have read from several friends on Facebook that Finland lets anyone from anywhere attend public university there for no charge. And other friends have been circulating this photo about Norway:

I Snoped these assertions because I'm not always sure about things I read on Facebook, but Snopes has nothing about them.

So here is my question: why aren't the universities in these countries being swamped with students? Is it because students from other countries (supported by their parents?) would rather beg, borrow, and/or take part-time jobs than learn a new language (or travel? really? or live in a foreign country? really?)?

It seems to me that learning the new language would be a bonus. Study the language, then go there to study whatever, and both have a university education and be bilingual.

How many foreign students are there in public universities in Norway and Finland? How good are the educations they receive?

Krugman, Galbraith: Economists for People Who Hate Economics

In the summer of 1966 I read books by both Milton Friedman and John Kenneth Galbraith. Friedman impressed and convinced me. Galbraith didn't come close. And I drifted away from my undergrad training by elitist interventionists toward becoming a Chicago, free(r) market, economist. Yesterday I read these remarks by Scott Sumner at Econlog and was delighted.

As Krugman has steadily moved to the left, he hasn't just changed his mind in the sense of changing his opinions; he's changed his mind in the sense of changing the way he thinks. [EE: he no longer practices "the Economic Way of Thinking" -- read the entire post to see the examples.]

Tyler Cowen has argued that Paul Krugman is the Milton Friedman of the early 21st century, and in many ways that's true. Among all economists, he is clearly the most influential public intellectual. But an even better comparison might be John Kenneth Galbraith, who was the favorite economist of intellectuals who hated economics.

I've noticed that if you explain to intellectuals that a minimum wage will hurt the poor by increasing unemployment, or that rent controls hurt renters by creating shortages, or that unemployment insurance increases unemployment, or that taxes on investment income should be abolished, they'll give you this look like "I don't know whether this guy is evil or crazy." Non-economists strongly resent the implications of much of economic theory, as it punctures holes in all their pet theories. So when a Nobel Prize winner comes along that confirms all their political views, he's going to be extremely popular among intellectuals. Especially when he's as brilliant and witty as Paul Krugman.

I don't want this too sound too negative. Just to be clear, Krugman is 10 times the economist that Galbraith was. I often disagree with him on macroeconomics, but his views are defensible and brilliantly explained. He's a great writer, and a superb theoretician. Galbraith was a great writer and . . . and that's about it.

But today Krugman's appeal to intellectuals is quite similar to the appeal of Galbraith in the 1950s and 1960s---the economist for people who hate economics. [emphasis added]

I'm sure that's true. And I'm sure that when I read Galbraith was when I realized I love, not hate, economics.

Eat, Drink, and Be Merry

... for tomorrow we die?

Maybe, if some top cosmologists' warnings are to be heeded:

With the reopening of CERN's 'large hadron collider' in March of 2015, two leading and well respected scientists, theoretical physicist and cosmologist Stephen Hawking and Astrophysicist Neil de Grasse Tyson, have recently issued independent warnings that, when looked at through the eyes of the supernatural war taking place right now upon our planet Earth between the forces of good and evil, send us a clear message: "This is it!". The reopening of CERN will bring together scientists playing with unknown forces, attempting to re-create the 'big bang', ... the moment of the creation of the universe.

Dr. Stephen Hawking recently warned that the reactivation in March of CERN's large hadron collider could pose grave dangers to our planet...the ultimate reality check we are warned. Hawking has come straight out and said the 'God particle' found by CERN "could destroy the universe" leaving time and space collapsed...

Astrophysicist Neil de Grasse Tyson has also sounded the alarm in a hypothetical manner by telling anyone who might want to 'blow up a planet' how to do so...is this CERN's attempt to do so by attempting to 'recreate' the big bang within a man made structure that has frightened Stephen Hawking so much? Do they know that they know that they know what they're doing?

If they are correct, I hope the process is instantaneous and painless. Meanwhile, I have some Ledaig to use up soon...

Dr. Stephen Hawking recently warned that the reactivation in March of CERN’s large hadron collider could pose grave dangers to our planet…the ultimate reality check we are warned. Hawking has come straight out and said the ‘God particle’ found by CERN “could destroy the universe” leaving time and space collapsed - See more at: http://yournewswire.com/cern-to-attempt-big-bang-in-march-stephen-hawking-issues-warning/#sthash.ouzjUJsN.dpuf

Dr. Stephen Hawking recently warned that the reactivation in March of CERN’s large hadron collider could pose grave dangers to our planet…the ultimate reality check we are warned. Hawking has come straight out and said the ‘God particle’ found by CERN “could destroy the universe” leaving time and space collapsed - See more at: http://yournewswire.com/cern-to-attempt-big-bang-in-march-stephen-hawking-issues-warning/#sthash.ouzjUJsN.dpuf

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10-year-old Ledaig

I Don't Care What She Said, I Like It

As I boarded the elevator this afternoon, I was greeted with peals of laughter from a woman already there. I thought she was laughing because I was unnecessarily wearing a very warm (and warm-looking) scarf and the temperatures are well-above freezing today.

Nope. She just kept laughing and said, "John, pink just isn't your colour."

I don't care. As I said to a Facebook friend who made a similar comment about the scarf there, "I'm quite confident in my masculinity, and I like pink. I even have eight pink shirts."

It is a very warm scarf, and I love it.

The Ethanol Rip-Off

I was surprised to see this Op-Ed in the NYTimes this morning. Surprised but pleased.

For nearly a decade I have been writing about the ethanol rip-off (see here, for what I wrote in June, 2005).

The NYTimes Op-Ed says it all very well, though. An excerpt:

[T]he indirect environmental costs involved, including growing, harvesting and processing corn into fuel, are significant. Ethanol diverts corn from the food supply, driving up food costs; it promotes inefficient and harmful land-use strategies; and it can damage small engines. But a more fundamental problem is its high cost when compared with conventional gasoline. And that higher cost is directly related to its lower energy density.

Ethanol contains about 76,000 B.T.U.s per gallon. Gasoline contains about 114,000 B.T.U.s per gallon. Therefore, to get the same amount of energy contained in a gallon of gasoline, a motorist must buy about 1.5 gallons of ethanol. ...

[V]ehicles running on the most common form of ethanol-blended fuel, E10 (which contains 10 percent ethanol and 90 percent gasoline), will typically get “3 percent to 4 percent fewer miles per gallon” than they would if they were running on pure gasoline. That mileage penalty — in essence, a tax — must be paid at the pump through the purchase of additional fuel.

And that takes us to the cost issue. Since 1982, officials in Nebraska (which is the second-largest ethanol producer, behind Iowa) have been monitoring monthly and annual wholesale, or “rack,” prices for ethanol and gasoline at fuel depots in Omaha. In December 2014, the rack price of a gallon of ethanol was $2.40, while a gallon of unleaded gasoline was $1.73. But recall that we need 1.5 gallons of ethanol to match the energy contained in a gallon of gasoline. That means you would need to pay about $3.60 to get the same amount of energy as from a gallon of gasoline, making ethanol about twice as expensive.

That’s not unusual. Since 1982, the price of an energy-equivalent amount of ethanol has, on average, been about 2.4 times the price of gasoline.

What was supposed to be a "green initiative" has been nothing more than a tax on gasoline users that benefits corn farmers and ethanol producers, that wastes land, and that drives up the prices of food products (thus disproportionately hurting the poor).

The sooner the the ethanol programme is ended, the better.

For some of my earlier blog posts about ethanol, see this and this.

 

Saskatchewan

When Ms Eclectic and I traveled to Saskatchewan a number of years ago, I was absolutely blown away by the beauty and the lovely openness of the province. Most of the areas we drove through had rolling hills, gorgeous valleys, and big sky awesomeness.

One weekend while I was teaching out there, I rented a car and drove to the SW region of the province and hiked in the coulees. Photos are here and here. The hikes there reminded me of the openness I had come to love in the foothills near Plateau Mountain in Alberta, in the Three Peaks district of the Yorkshire Dales, and along the Seven Sisters and South Downs in SE England.

The other day Ms Eclectic's cousin sent us this video about Saskatchewan. I'm not a fan of C&W music, and the video doesn't really emphasize the rolling hills and coulees the way I would, but I love the video anyway.

McDonalds Menus. The 1960 version.

Several of my Facebook friends have recently posted a photo of a 1972 Menu board at McDonalds.

I worked at a McDonalds in 1961. This is pretty much what the menu looked like then:

Actually the above menu is reportedly from 1960, and I don't know where this was. In 1960 where I lived, it was also possible to get a large(r) soft drink for 15 cents in addition to the smaller one for 10 cents. Other than that, these prices are just as I remember them.

The "All-American" meal was a burger, fries, and a shake for 45 cents (plus tax). A standard order that I remember filling often was 3 burgers, 2 fries, and 2 cokes for 88 cents (3 cents sales tax).