Year: 2008

Categories
technology

So you want to shoot a video… Information across the generations

Recently, I had gotten some inquires from a local museum wondering if I wanted to do a video project. When I asked what it was, I kept getting told that it was an oral history project. That sounds good, but it was a little vague. Still, the idea of shooting a documentary, however short, was appealing. I was finally directed to another museum’s site to see what had made everyone so excited about getting this underway.

I quickly decided that this is yet another generational issue involving technology and information. The clips are just that, clips of people talking. Apparently, they are shown, “multi-media” style at the museum using a touch screen interface. This really impressed the people that saw this display. Here’s what I saw… I saw some rather amateurish looking clips put into categories depending on what they were talking about. There was no narrative, there was no coherence, and I don’t think there was much point.

When I got to sit down with one of the board members and tried to figure out what it was they wanted to do, I was amazed. They wanted to hire me (or this other guy) to run the camera and edit the footage. They also may have needed me to do the “multi-media” installation at the museum. Ummm, what decade are we living in?

I had to break it to them that it doesn’t take much of a genius to record people talking, or even to string clips together. Just as digital photography has made acceptable looking images easy to get, digital video cameras have made it really easy to get acceptable looking video without knowing much.

Of course, if I shot the stuff for them, it would look much better. That’s still the difference between a hack and someone that cares. Lighting and composition will always separate the men from the boys. Of course she didn’t really understand what it was you need to pay for when it comes to video production like this. Like I said, shooting it is a piece of cake, editing is always work, but it wouldn’t be too bad for a project like this. What you end up paying for is the ability to organize images and sound in order to tell a story, or in this case, history.

This had never crossed anyone’s mind as far as I can tell. They were ready to pay me money to simply record stuff. They were then going to take those clips and put them on a screen via a touch screen interface. Like I said before, I think there is a generational gap at work here. What role do documents and information in general play in learning history? And where does that information belong?

To many people, especially older ones, the act of getting information transferred into bytes is an amazing and unknowable process. The fact that it happens at all is seen as a miracle. In their world, you need to have lots of arcane technical knowledge to do that, that’s why you have to pay people for that. To people that are comfortable with these things (like everyone under the age of 25 and some of us older folks), it is as normal as putting on our shoes. For us, getting the footage or image is understood. What we want to know is what are you going to do with that info?

If teaching history is the main reason for recording this stuff at all, why are you going to stick it in a museum? A museum in Mathews county of all places… Once again, for people in the younger generations, information does not belong in a building where it is subject to opening and closing hours. It is not meant to have limited access. If you want information to be useful, put it on the web so that anyone can have access to it. At one time, museums were very good for that. Nowadays, they are much better suited for showing objects and hosting educational activities.

So I am going to speak to the board in December. I’m hoping to be able to explain the difference between recording data and using data to create something useful. I’m also hoping to convince them that any of them can run a video camera. No, it won’t look as good, but it will be a hell of a lot cheaper. Sometimes quantity is more important than quality… If they do want that data to be made into something useful, the last thing they want to do is limit access to it. I will try to introduce them to the internet…

That’s not really fair, they do know what the internet is, but they seem to have a very limited view of what it is. Older people tend to see the internet as something akin to TV. You tune it in and see what’s on. It doesn’t occur to them that they should contribute. I do wish that people would stop being afraid of technology. I’ll try to do my part in a couple of weeks and hopefully if they ever want to do an actual documentary, they’ll call me…

Categories
technology

Wow, where’ve you been Google?

I had noticed my daily hit rate on my site had been going down recently. The other day, a Google bot crawled my website and suddenly I’m getting all sorts of hits. Not only are some of my old popular pages (demand curves, profit is important, in defense of black sabbath, etc.) getting hit again, but Im getting hits on pages that never got them before. I have no idea why my numbers dropped off so much, but I’m amazed that the Google bot has done as much as it has. Glad it stopped by!

One other thing that is interesting, about 30% of visits to my site last longer than 5 minutes. That may not sound like a big deal, but it means that people are reading stuff. Here’s an amazing statistic, as of tonight, 10% of the last 200 visits to my site have lasted longer than an hour! That makes a guy feel good!

Categories
economics

NO NO NO NO NO!!!!

Yesterday, Paulson said, “…the most important thing we can do to mitigate the housing correction and reduce the number of foreclosures is to increase access to lower cost mortgage lending.”

GAH! Ok, why does he think that lower cost mortgages will be helpful? They were, to a large extent, what brought us to this current mess. I have already talked a bit about the “correction” (see my last post), but let’s think about what a mortgage rate is.

A mortgage rate is the rate of interest someone will charge you so you can borrow money to buy a house. What that rate is is determined by what it costs them to get that money, your likely ability to pay that loan, and the availability of higher rates of return on other lending options. None of those things are created out of thin air, they’re all important The company with the money wants to loan money, that’s how they make money, but they need to charge the right amount in order for it to work. In addition, they have to make sure they don’t lose money, it’s can be a tricky thing.

So along comes the federal government and decides to lower interest rates. Hmm, what can they do? Well, they make it less expensive to get money to lend. That makes the bank more willing to lend to people that have shaky credit, and it makes it more profitable than lending money for other purposes. In addition, the government guarantees risker mortgages through Freddie Mac and Fannie May. The end result? More houses are sold than would be otherwise, and through our friend “Moral Hazard,” more houses are sold to people that can’t really afford them. That drives the cost of houses higher than it should be (supply and demand being what they are) and also causes a large amount of resources to be spent on the building of houses that shouldn’t have (labor in particular). Poof! Instant bubble… Because the feds made this so profitable, various kinds of mortgage derivatives were formed which were then heavily invested in by banks. In short, it’s a huge distortion, it’s something that wouldn’t have happened if things were left to their own devices.

But they weren’t, and now we have what we have. The good news is that the mortgage market is trying to correct itself, the bad news is that Paulson (and a lot of others on capital hill) want to get back to the same level of house buying and construction that started this whole mess. Someone, somewhere has to start thinking, “Well, maybe we should let the market get back to where it would have been if we hadn’t screwed around so much..” I’m not holding my breath. This is how depressions last, by trying to force markets to go uphill…

Categories
economics

When is it going to end?

So the Fed is jumping in with hundreds of billions of dollars to “help” the financial crisis. At what point do we say enough? I see two big problems with these ongoing debt raising shenanigans. First, there is the issue of how the economy is going to react. The whole point of this is that many people do not like the way the economy (of the world) is reacting to the current mess. Paulson actually commented on “… mitigating the correction..” The key word here is correction. The market is trying to get back to a stable point, and that’s going to mean less spending and less credit than we had before. It is quite possible that the market will over correct, after all, there isn’t a single thing that does this correcting, it’s millions of transactions trying to figure out what to do with money. I’ve said it before, but market forces are a lot like water flowing downhill. You can try to divert it, or dam it, but that water will eventually get downhill. If you don’t like what the water is going to hit and divert it, you can be sure it will hit something else, and maybe get around to hitting the original thing anyway. Damming can work for a while, but when it overflows or breaks the dam, watch out! Both the Treasury’s and the Fed’s actions are very blunt attempts to “correct” a very complicated correction. Collateral damage, here we come!

Another big problem is how these actions are continuing and deepening the fall in consumer confidence. Think about it, if people hear the the financial system is collapsing and we need to pull out all of the stops to rescue it every day, do you think they will want to go spend money? Ultimately, people spending money is what makes things happen, but with so much uncertainty, the spending continues to dry up. “But what’s the alternative Isaac? There are big problems..” Yes, there are problems, but I blame people in DC for fanning the flames and making everyone shoulder the load through taxpayer money. I would have preferred that the institutions that screwed up be allowed to fail. That way, the more conservative ones would have been in a position to profit, and that’s the way it should be. Now, we are in a weird situation where the companies that took risks and got burned are being rewarded. With this sort of bailout, what incentive do you have for being conservative with money?

You can think of it as pulling the bandage off quickly. There would be pain, but things would be primed to correct much more quickly and more accurately than this government led fiasco. Yes, it’s a fiasco, the careless and stupid companies that caused this whole mess are being kept alive and at everyone’s expense…

Categories
food

Pomegranates

I learned to love pomegranates when I was over in Yemen. I bought a few, but they were kind of a pain to eat. I ate them over the sink by cutting them in half and then just spreading the seeds out and gobbling them down. The problem was that method was messy and they stain like crazy. I ended up getting the fresh juice at the juice stands and loving it. I also combined it with fresh orange juice for an especially wonderful beverage…

When I went to someone’s house to eat, they had pomegranates out of the fruit and we ate them with spoon. Much more civilized, and a hell of a lot easier…

So how do you eat pomegranates? Well, you could try the sink method above, but I don’t recommend it unless you’re wearing dark clothes… Here’s a good way to do it. Quarter them in a sink. There’s a lot of juice, and it stains, so the sink is your friend… Then, you can spread open the quarters underwater and simply brush the fruit off of the pith with your fingers. The fruit sinks to the bottom of the bowl and the peel and pith floats! After you have done that, you can drain the water and munch away! You can also add them to salads, ice cream, or even put them in the blender for a great juice… I eat the seeds. They’re good fiber and I honestly don’t taste them really, they have a very weak nut/seed taste that is totally overwhelmed by the juice.

The fruit inside should be anywhere from a pink to a deep red and be sweet. There is a significant amount of tannin in there, so sometimes you may not be up to eating an entire pomegranate. I keep my fruit in an old cool whip container. I got about 10 oz. from two fruits! Eat them while they’re here! Enjoy!

Categories
odds and ends

I’ve passed a test

One of the motivators of me going to Yemen was the prospect of getting out of the job I had. I was an assistant manager in a photo equipment store. Not to toot my own horn too much, but I was one of their better employees. I felt like I was stuck, the best I could hope for was to manage a store. It would be an OK living, but I don’t think I could ever be happy doing that.

The trouble with the job is that I always knew I could go back. I didn’t burn any bridges… On the one hand, it’s nice to have a safety net, but on the other I have to be careful not to do the easy thing and regress back to something I don’t want to do.

Sure enough, since the job market is a bit soft (ahem) right now, I inquired at my old job. I was hoping to create a position that would be a little more rewarding. Sure enough, they offered me a job. Not only that, they offered me a promotion. I haven’t been there in two years and they offered me a store of my own… It was flattering, but it wasn’t what I was looking for. I said no.

That hurt a bit, it always hurts to turn down money, but I’m trying to think long term. I think it’s working out for me even now. No, I don’t have a job, but by eliminating that, I’ve become much more open to other possibilities. I figure that’s half the battle if you want to change careers.

I have an application in with Apple. I have every belief that I will be hired once they lift their hiring freeze. I have the experience and skills they’re looking for. Plus, I have a solid recommendation on the inside… As it turns out, if I did take my old job, I wouldn’t be able to work for Apple. My old employer is an authorized Apple dealer (they sell iPods) and Apple won’t poach employees from authorized dealers.

While I’ve been waiting for that, I’ve been scanning some negatives for a woman my dad knows. That in itself isn’t a big deal, but it may turn into something else. She has recommended me to help the museum she (and my father) are very active in. They want to do a history project for the museum. I may end up getting back into film making with this. Nothing has been settled yet, but if this comes to anything, I’ll be shooting video, recording the audio, possibly lighting, and the editor of the project. We’ll see what happens…

And the oddest possibility is a job in Yemen. Yes, I found a job opening back in Yemen. It’s with a UN affiliated group that does work with children. I still think that the political situation in Yemen is a bit unstable, but I think I’d go back if I think I could actually help in some form. This group has very focused goals and I think they are a good example of what an aid organization is capable of doing. It’s not the kind of thing that you’ll get rich doing, but it pays well for a job in Yemen. More importantly, it would be incredible experience in a totally different career field. Honestly, getting this job is a bit of a long shot, but I’m going to apply and see what happens.

So even though I don’t have a job right now, and even though Christmas is coming (sorry guys, the gifts from me are going to be pretty lame), I’m optimistic about my job prospects. Don’t worry, I’ll let everyone know how all this turns out…

Categories
religion

Fear and fundementalism

I’ve been going to a book club the past 3 weeks or so. It’s held at an Episcopal church and not surprisingly, the books revolve around religion. Right now, we’re doing a book about the Gospel of Mary (Magdalan). The stuff about the book is interesting but often times the tangents are more interesting.

I had an interesting discussion after the meeting the other night and one of the ladies brought up something that rang true to me. I can’t remember the exact way this was put (Mary, please correct me if I’ve butchered this) but the general idea is that all fundamentalism seems to be driven by fear.

The fear could be of any number of things. They could be afraid of being wrong, of other people thinking they’re wrong, of the influence of people outside the group, or maybe even schisms inside the group. The one thing they never seem to be afraid of is the one thing they should be. They don’t seem to be afraid of God. They don’t have any problem with judging and carrying out what they think of as God’s will. They feel the need to point out the errors of others if not carry out justice in the here and now. They seem to also fear anyone “getting away” with something. It’s as if they don’t trust God. They want justice NOW! Why wait? What if the offending party doesn’t end up in hell?

The lack of trust can also manifest itself in inflexability. God must be a certain way, things must be a certain way, and they will yell until things get that way… All of the religious people I’ve met that I respect seem to be comfortable with a certain level of uncertainty. There is an understanding that things will work out, that things are going the way they should be. Or as Mary pointed out the other night, they trust God.

So think about those things the next time you hear someone on a religious rant. I hope it isn’t me… 🙂

Categories
culture politics

Prop 8, Detroit Bailout, and other things…

Sorry I haven’t been posting for a while, just haven’t been up to it. I have been systematically worn down with all of the crazy economic talk, I just can’t deal with it anymore… Imagine my surprise when senators and congressmen didn’t rush through bailout legislation for Detroit. I am pleasantly surprised that there is some scrutiny. I’m also amazed that people are now finally realizing that the status quo up there is not sustainable. We don’t have to worry about what will happen if they fail, they have already failed. I recently saw a report that essentially said that the amount of money that has been thrown away up there in capital expenditures over the past 15 years could have bought all of the shares of Honda, Hyndai, and several other big automakers. Unbelievable… Anyway, they will have to go through bankruptcy and with any luck they will be able to reorganize enough to make those businesses viable again.

I see that the supreme court of California is going to weigh in on prop 8. I have already written about what I think of that law, that’s not what this is about. There are plenty of people that are getting indignant over the court even looking at this. After all, “the people” have spoken, this is a democracy, right? We will hear more about “activist judges” and how they can usurp the will of the people…

It’s important to remember that the courts are at their best when they overturn popular laws. One of the basic functions of the court is to avoid the tyranny of the majority. Just because people like a law does not mean that it should be in effect. This is, IMO, one of the basic functions of a government, protecting individual rights.

The classic examples of this in American history were slavery and then later the Jim Crow laws. Slavery was popular across the south, and I’m sure there were fans of it in the north as well. The Jim Crow laws had wide support through the south. In the courts, Brown vs. Board of Education is a prime example of “activist judges.” They usurped the law that had been voted into effect by the population. Who’s complaining about that now?

I think the prop 8 issue is more complicated from a legal perspective, and I know nothing about the California constitution so I’m not going to guess on the outcome. I do know this; if the courts say that the law is constitutional, it will be on technical legalities buried in the constitution. If they overturn it, it will because they felt that rights that are defined in the constitution are being withheld. If that happens, it will be an example of the courts doing what they are supposed to do, no matter what people think of them…

Categories
freedom politics

"Tear down this wall!" and freedom in the middle east

I heard a clip of this speech the other day on the radio and I realized that I had never heard the entire thing. I made the effort and I’m glad I did. It’s quite the history lesson. It’s also good to hear the man himself instead of relying on fuzzy memories and modern critics. Listen to it here:

The first 30 seconds or so is a blurb about who is hosting the file, the speech begins after that. This wasn’t that long ago, a little over 20 years, but my how things have changed! Some of the more interesting bits IMO:

1) “The Soviet Union is pointing nuclear weapons at all of the capitals of Europe…” Wow, doesn’t that take you back? We were worried about nuclear war, and for good reason. Reagan has the reputation of being a war monger, but listen and you’ll hear a man that felt that he was doing what had to be done. he certainly didn’t seem to relish the arms race…

2) SDI. Yes, I can hear all of you groan from here. The “Star Wars” project was an infamous government waste of money. It was a waste insofar as it didn’t actually produce any sort of defense anything and cost an amazing amount of money. Believe it or not, there are more than a few historians that credit the SDI with the beginning of the end of the arms race. How? As early as 1968, Reagan had written that the best way to make the Soviet Union collapse was to make them spend a lot of money. His reading of Hayek made him realize that the Soviet system was inherently inefficient (despite all sorts of people, including a fair number of economists thinking otherwise). The American system could absorb many more losses and still function fairly well. History has born out both Hayek’s and Regan’s visions. SDI didn’t have to work, in fact I’m sure that Regan knew it wouldn’t work. All he had to do was convince the Soviets that there was a way to make it work given enough money. The Soviets couldn’t start that kind of research and keep up the ongoing arms race. It was the first crack in their armor, SDI is what made it clear that the US could afford much more than the Soviets, and they started to change…

3) Freedom. I know that use of “freedom” in a political speech is out of favor these days due to dub-ya’s mistakes in the name of it. But really, what Reagan said and what W has promised isn’t all that different, so why is Reagn’s speech moving and W sounds like a buffoon? I think that it was primarily what was causing the lack of freedom. Socialism was an organized, powerful, directed movement against liberty. The USSR was an easy target, and they were genuinely repressing people that wanted things to be different. Today is much different. Except for a few sad holdouts (N. Korea, Cuba), socialism is dead. There are still governments that repress their citizens of course, but none of them are large enough to pose a world-wide threat. They are also not large enough, or powerful enough to consistently fire up Americans… The freedom that W talked about was freedom at the point of a gun. Yes, Saddam was a monster, but that entire area seems to be disposed to autocratic rulers. My time in Yemen made it clear to me that they were not convinced a democracy like the US’s was in their best interests. Most of them would rather have a king…

In other words, the lack of freedom in the middle east was not so much dependent on governments (although there are more than a few repressive ones over there) as it was ingrained in their culture. If you ask them, they will of course claim to desire freedom, but that word has very different connotations to them than to people in the US usually. So the thing that limits freedom is not a monolithic, militarily powerful entity in that part of the world. It is instead diffuse, ingrained, and largely beneath the surface. How do you fight that? Trick question, you can’t “fight” that, you have to cultivate freedom.

So in short, I think that a lot of what caused W problems was the fact that there wasn’t a single thing that he could fight and “win” against. Today’s problems with freedom are quite a bit more complex than in years past. This last administration has been an absolute disaster in that regard. I really hope that Obama can get a feel for the real obstacles to freedom and act accordingly.

Categories
economics free market freedom of choice

Scalping silliness

I’ve noticed a few places where people are complaining that the “free” tickets to the upcoming inauguration are selling for up to $2500. The basic argument seems to be that since the people got the ticket for free, they shouldn’t sell it. Well guess what? Those people don’t think the same way you do, time to move on…

Seriously, regardless of the cost of the item, that person now has something that other people value. If he values the money more than the event, why shouldn’t he take the money? Why shouldn’t he profit from it?

We can (and should) flip that around too. Why should someone be denied the opportunity to go to an event just because they weren’t willing to stand in line/didn’t know someone in order to get tickets? If they are huge fans of Obama and worry that they might miss a historic event, why not allow them to pay whatever they think is a fair price? Think about it, what would you have paid to be there when King said, “I have a dream…” or Kennedy said, “Ask not..” or Reagan when he said, “…Mr. Gorbechev, tear down that wall!” or Kennedy when he said, “Ich bin ein Berliner!”? I’m not saying something of that magnitude is going to happen, but there is definitely a non-zero chance of it happening. Why not let people pay for that opportunity?

So many laws are passed with only the idea that “I don’t think people should do that,” When it’s really none of their business. If someone owns something and someone else values it more than the owner, than the trade will most likely take place regardless of what you think. Just let it happen and spare everyone your outrage….