elbows too pointy

Irisa in 1.03 The Devil in the Dark I’m undecided on...

Thu, 02 May 2013 00:23:38 +0100

Irisa in 1.03 The Devil in the Dark

I’m undecided on Defiance. I really like the idea, but I was hoping it would be a ‘moving around’ show rather than a ‘town’ show. A brand new world, it seems a waste to spend it all in a town.

I’ll keep watching but I don’t really care for the family v family storyline, I care more about what people have done in a post-apocalyptic type world. The drama is just a distraction.

Also, huge pet peeve of mine is how shows these days do a whole pilot, and then in the last 30 seconds really force the issue by introducing some bigger story arc rather than having the arc develop naturally. Defiance did it at the end of the pilot and I hate it.

chojubo: Shortened for brevity elbowstoopointy: This video...

Thu, 25 Apr 2013 01:18:07 +0100

chojubo:

Shortened for brevity

elbowstoopointy:

This video is, IMO, a perfect example of how a little bit of knowledge can be a dangerous thing. Many of the basic premises of this video are fundamentally flawed, especially on the topic of growth.

Here is an article that could almost have been written as a direct rebuttal to this video.

…

Really? Dangerous? Gosh darn those hippies pushing for a more sustainable means of living, they’ll be the downfall of us all!

For the record, the video could be debated on every aspect I’m sure, but I think you’d be hard pressed to cover that many topics in 12 minutes and not hit the same issue. I intended for it to provide an engaging overview, pretty high level stuff.

I should have emphasised the word little. It is my personal opinion that the person who made this video has all the right intentions, but has either not thoroughly researched her ideas or has only researched from sources which support her view. It took me a single Google search to find the article I posted which refuted some of her points, and it was the first result too.

The article linked was a decent read though, I must say, although I feel that in regards to the video above this is more of a dispute over semantics than a rebuttal. My main qualm with (aside from the condescending tones used) is that the entire thing seems to gloss over the minor detail of environmental consequences when business is at play. Pollution, habitat, waste, and the knock on effects of these are ‘externalised costs’. They don’t factor in. Regulation can help there, but I have a feeling you may have a thing or two to say about that.

What confuses me about those who don’t get this is, well, why don’t they get it? Why do they say that economics doesn’t understand that resources are scarce, and that we cannot have more growth? Aren’t they aware that economics is in fact the study of the allocation of scarce resources? That’s the whole damn point of the subject. So of course it has already considered these concerns. That’s what it’s all about, innit?

I suspect a lot of people (Tim Worstall included) think that environmentalists do what they do for shits and giggles - this is concerning. Honestly I wish this video was totally wrong, it would be the easiest thing in the world to forget about all this and just live a carefree life.

There are two halves to the environmental argument, one legitimate and one not IMO. The first is the argument about irreparable damage to the environment which is something everyone is concerned about. There is debate over constitutes irreparable damage and I don’t know enough about it, but I generally side with the environmental side since it was hammered in to me at school. I really have no strong opinion because on the odd time I’ve tried to research it, it’s difficult to find unbiased articles.

The second argument, one which I don’t consider to be legitimate and which is a central theme of the video, is that we need to move away from oil because oil will eventually run out and it will be apocalyptic. I’m probably not representing that view well, but I’ll explain further.

The reason we don’t use renewables isn’t a big conspiracy from the oil companies, it’s because the technology isn’t there. Solar Panels is a perfect example. Solar Panels are too expensive because silicon crystals are expensive and time consuming to grow. Once a cheaper alternative is developed, prices will fall and solar will be able to compete. However even if this doesn’t happen, renewable energy will naturally become more competitive as oil prices rise. The video is spot on when it says we are spending more and more to extract oil, and there will eventually become a tipping point where oil becomes unprofitable to extract and alternatives will be used.

Here is an interesting video on how this works in practice. Even if you disagree with his figures about oil, the example of Copper is an illustration of what I’m saying

I would say that economics being “the study of the allocation of scarce resources” is perhaps the crux of the issue at hand. Have we not already failed if we’ve reached the point at which our most precious resources are scarce? At said point, the implication is that (if nothing else) all routes to easy access of this resource have been taken, which in turn likely (usually) means that irreparable amounts of damage have been done to ecosystems, land, and water that many people live upon.

I think this is a misunderstanding of what he is saying. Replace the word ‘scarce’ with ‘finite’ and it perhaps becomes more apparent. We live in a finite world with finite resources, and Economics is the study of how to best allocate those resources, whether they be natural resources like oil or copper or human resources like labour.

Profit is the creation of value, and it signals that these resources are being put to good use. Conversely losses are a destruction of value and indicate a mis-allocation of resources.

chojubo: A nice handy summary of how modern civilisation is...

Wed, 24 Apr 2013 21:34:12 +0100

chojubo:

A nice handy summary of how modern civilisation is pretty much fucked.

And how we can try to make it not so.
In 12 minutes :).

This video is, IMO, a perfect example of how a little bit of knowledge can be a dangerous thing. Many of the basic premises of this video are fundamentally flawed, especially on the topic of growth.

Here is an article that could almost have been written as a direct rebuttal to this video.

Heres a couple paragraphs for those who don’t read the link, but it’s worth it to do so

So, using GDP, can we have infinite economic growth on a finite planet by just making ever more things? No, clearly, we cannot: there is a limit to the number of atoms available to us. But that’s not actually what we’re measuring in GDP: we’re not measuring the amount, tonnage (it was the Soviets who measured that), volume or even number of things that are made. We are measuring the value.

This advancing technology is known as an increase in total factor productivity (TFP). What we’d like to know next is how much limiting ourselves to only this type of growth is going to limit total growth. Bob Solow once worked out that 80 per cent of the economic growth in 20th-century market economies came from TFP growth. Only 20 per cent came from more resource use: in the socialist economies there was no TFP growth, and all growth came from greater resource use. So we can indeed have quite a lot of economic growth even in the greenest of economies, can we not?

What confuses me about those who don’t get this is, well, why don’t they get it? Why do they say that economics doesn’t understand that resources are scarce, and that we cannot have more growth? Aren’t they aware that economics is in fact the study of the allocation of scarce resources? That’s the whole damn point of the subject. So of course it has already considered these concerns. That’s what it’s all about, innit?

prettygirlfood: Poutine

Tue, 23 Apr 2013 12:15:33 +0100

prettygirlfood:

Poutine

sillylittlebear: jumbled-memory: The UK iTunes chart as of...

Fri, 12 Apr 2013 19:48:09 +0100

sillylittlebear:

jumbled-memory:

The UK iTunes chart as of Thursday April 11th.

The BBC not playing this is ridiculous. I mean, it’s a chart show. It’s an informative count down of what people have been buying, not a glowing endorsement of the reason people have been buying it. Playing a 5 second clip and explaining why it’s in the news is a pointless move. Just play the damn song.

I think the BBC probably should play it, but I don’t think it’s as simple as saying the chart show is ‘informative’.

There are a host of songs actually written about Margaret Thatcher that would have been much more appropriate. ‘Ding Dong The Witch is Dead’ doesn’t just suggest a protest but a celebration of her death which most find distasteful.

An Open Letter to my Friends on the Left

Thu, 21 Mar 2013 17:42:33 +0000

An Open Letter to my Friends on the Left:

freemarketliberal:

My friends,

In the last week or two, I have heard frequently from you that the current financial mess has been caused by the failures of free markets and deregulation. I have heard from you that the lust after profits, any profits, that is central to free markets is at the core of our problems. And I have heard from you that only significant government intervention into financial markets can cure these problems, perhaps once and for all. I ask of you for the next few minutes to, in the words of Oliver Cromwell, consider that you may be mistaken. Consider that both the diagnosis and the cure might be equally mistaken.

Consider instead that the problems of this mess were caused by the very kinds of government regulation that you now propose. Consider instead that effects of the profit motive that you decry depend upon the incentives that institutions, regulations, and policies create, which in this case led profit-seekers to do great damage. Consider instead that the regulations that may have been the cause were supported by, as they have often been throughout US history, the very firms being regulated, mostly because they worked to said firms’ benefit, even as they screwed the rest of us. Consider all of this as you ask for more of the same in the name of fixing the problem. And finally, consider why you would ever imagine that those with wealth and power wouldn’t rig a new regulatory process in their favor.

Read More

—Steve Horwitz

I feel that there are some posts made this morning that will be of much enjoyment to you. See specifically 'Women can't be sexist towards men'

Mon, 11 Mar 2013 18:57:01 +0000

Feminists gon’ feminist.

foodfetishfridays: Smoky Sweet Potato Burgers with Roasted...

Tue, 05 Mar 2013 07:28:19 +0000

foodfetishfridays:

Smoky Sweet Potato Burgers with Roasted Garlic Cream & Avocado by How Sweet It Is

awesomethatisstuff: stfuconservatives: diegueno: The highest...

Sun, 17 Feb 2013 06:22:42 +0000

awesomethatisstuff:

stfuconservatives:

diegueno:

The highest minimum wage in the nation is set to rise again in 2013, as San Francisco’s low-end compensation rate will increase from $10.24 to $10.55 per hour.

In 2003, voters approved a local ordinance tying the minimum wage to the regional rate of inflation in San Francisco, Oakland and San Jose. Set at $8.50 per hour when the law took effect, The City’s minimum wage has increased in every year but one since 2004.

City officials and low-wage worker advocate groups have long argued that increasing the minimum wage helps the local economy by giving service industry workers more disposable income to spend.

S.F. employers paying more

Minimum wage has risen almost every year since 2004:

2004: $8.50 per hour

2005: $8.62 per hour

2006: $8.82 per hour

2007: $9.14 per hour

2008: $9.36 per hour

2009: $9.79 per hour

2010: $9.79 per hour

2011: $9.92 per hour

2012: $10.24 per hour

2013: $10.55 per hour

Source: San Francisco Office of Labor Standards Enforcement

In addition, a 2004 peer-reviewed UC Berkeley study found that the rising minimum wage had no impact on jobs or the propensity of employers to leave the area. Instead, it concluded that restaurants in particular passed on increased costs to customers, with prices rising 6.2 percent for fast food and 1.8 percent at sit-down eateries.

(via San Francisco’s minimum wage will rise again to $10.55 | Dan Schreiber | Local | San Francisco Examiner)

A sterling example of how increasing the minimum wage does not hurt jobs.

Delivery for Ricardo Winter.

Okay I’ll try not to make this too long, but obviously I disagree. First and foremost, I implore anybody who has an opinion on this topic to actually read about it, rather than just taking your opinions from a graphic on Tumblr.

Now on to San Francisco and this graphic. First of all, comparing the San Francisco figure to that of California is a nonsense. California has a minimum wage figure above the federal minimum wage, and has one of the highest (if not the highest) unemployment figures in the country. It makes much more sense to compare it to the unemployment rate of the US as a whole, which is 7.8%. Still a win for San Francisco, but I guess that doesn’t look so great on a graphic.

Second, lets take a look down the road to San Jose. They also have a much higher minimum wage than both California ($8/hr) and the US Federal Minimum Wage ($7.25/hr) at $10/hr. The unemployment rate for the San Jose metro area is 8.6% which is 0.9% above the national average. In a nice symmetry, that makes it almost as bad as San Francisco is good, and shows using a single data point such as that of San Francisco is meaningless in isolation.

These figures are also woefully inadequate to really analyse the actual problem of the minimum wage, which is the effect of the lowest skilled workers. For those who keep a job when the minimum wage rises, fantastic, but it’s those who lose jobs or can’t find jobs in the first place that suffer, and most often these are young people. I found it impossible to find a youth unemployment figure for San Francisco itself, but youth unemployment is 19% in California for 20-24 year olds and 34% for 16-19 year olds, compared to 17% average in the US for Under 25s.

Following on from that is the cost of living. Is it any surprise that San Francisco and San Jose are #4 and #5 in the most expensive places to live in the US? They trail only Manhattan, Brooklyn and Honalulu. If anything, the indexing of the minimum wage to inflation is a self fulfilling prophecy in the Bay Area. As pointed out by your article, the higher minimum wage is passed on to consumers in higher prices, which causes inflation, which raises the minimum wage etc…

Lastly, I’ll talk about the economic research. The article linked in the post talks of a study by Yelowitz at the University of Kentucky that concludes “that for each $1 increase in floor compensation, the unemployment rate among younger workers increases by 4.5 percent”, but considering this is linked to the Employment Policies Institute, a conservative think tank, we can side step that one.

A piece of research from the largest economics research organisation in the US, the National Bureau of of Economic Research, found that the minimum wage was detrimental to employment. A couple of quotes from the abstract of this paper by Neumark and Wascher (http://www.nber.org/papers/w12663) which analysed over 100 studies from the US and abroad on the minimum wage:

“…the oft-stated assertion that recent research fails to support the traditional view that the minimum wage reduces the employment of low-wage workers is clearly incorrect.”

“…among the papers we view as providing the most credible evidence, almost all point to negative employment effects”

“…the studies that focus on the least-skilled groups provide relatively overwhelming evidence of stronger disemployment effects for these groups”

Once In A Blue Moon: hillaryrodham: why do boys act like they’ve committed a great...

Fri, 08 Feb 2013 21:50:19 +0000

Once In A Blue Moon: hillaryrodham: why do boys act like they’ve committed a great...:

once-in-a-blue-moon:

hillaryrodham:

why do boys act like they’ve committed a great humanitarian deed and single handedly solved world hunger when they say ‘i like girls with no makeup’ like congratulations would you like a nobel peace prize you fantastic feminist you

And this.

On the off chance that my last…

You make an interesting point, but you’re missing the real crux of the matter, and thats evolutionary biology.

Everything women do to enhance their appearance is based around looking youthful and healthy. Larger eyes are a youthful characteristic, hence eye liner, mascara etc… to make the eyes look bigger. Clear skin is a sign of health, hence foundation, as is shiny hair. Blonde hair is associated with youthfulness, as is having longer legs relative to the torso, hence high heels.

It doesn’t take a scientist to realise why men look for these characteristics, its because of reproduction. Women with these traits are considered the healthiest and best for making babies.

By contrast, there is no evolutionary value for a woman to look for youth in a man. Men are valued on having characteristics which suggest high testosterone, such as broad shoulders, a pronounced brow, strong jaw line and muscles. Again it’s not difficult to see why, men with high testosterone make better protectors. If women valued youth in a man the way men do in women, men would wear make up etc… Women don’t, so men don’t.

In fact, both men and women do things to accentuate these characteristics, it’s just easier for women. Men can’t fake broad shoulders or a strong jaw line with makeup the way a woman can make her skin look near flawless. with foundation In fact one of the only options a man has is to go to the gym and build muscle, hence why it should be no surprise that the weights area is dominated by men.

There was a very interesting video I saw the other day (which I sadly can’t find) which had someone doing a survey of random women about which men they find attractive. They had 5 drawings of male faces, from #1 with low testosterone (i.e. weak jaw) to #5 with the high testosterone. The general opinion was that very few women chose numbers 1 or 2 (low test), women chose 3 or 4 for a relationship and 5 for a one night stand.

charlyr: simplymorethanthisx: …I’ve gotten myself hooked on The Carrie Diaries. This is not good....

Fri, 25 Jan 2013 16:03:58 +0000

charlyr:

simplymorethanthisx:

…I’ve gotten myself hooked on The Carrie Diaries. This is not good. I don’t ever watch TV. It was bad enough being stuck on Bunheads. Ughh.

I did the same, but in reverse. Got hooked on The Carrie Diaries, and now Bunheads. But hey, i loved the Gilmore Girls and its the same writer. My dad used to stop me watching GG because they talked too fast, and then I would start talking too fast and it would annoy him. oops.

Amy Sherman-Palladino has a new show? Well there goes my evening.

katmeeeow: Also, not that I’m questioning your citing, in my...

Fri, 18 Jan 2013 17:59:50 +0000

katmeeeow:

Also, not that I’m questioning your citing, in my eyes 26 is small for a class. We have 28 and I don’t think that’s particularly large - we’re a small, rural school. Although if this takes into account private schools, I would understand where this figure came from - would be interested to see what it was for state schools (and how this varied from inner city to rural areas).

I was surprised. I assumed 30-35 but thought I’d google it and the 26 figure came up. The article says 26 is a measure of just state schools, with private schools around half of that and OECD average around 21. Very surprising if true.

katmeeeow: Bad things about teaching: Next week, I’m teaching...

Fri, 18 Jan 2013 16:44:22 +0000

katmeeeow:

Bad things about teaching:

Next week, I’m teaching addition and subtraction of decimals, and problem solving related to this. On Wednesday we’re doing mixed problem solving (as it’s when I’m being observed).

Their maths work is usually done from sheets. But there are no problems for next week, so I have to write them all. 3 days of problem solving, 3 different levels of problems, and 15-20 problems for each.

Only 150 word problems to write. No biggie.

73 down, 77 to go.

Here’s a question I have for teachers. It seems to me that the education system is very redundant in many aspects, and this is a perfect example.

There are approximately 500,000-750,000 children in the UK in each year group. Lets say there are 500,000 in the public education system for this arbitrary age group, at an average of 26 students per class that means there are around 19,000 teachers of each year group all teaching from the same curriculum.

Now it strikes me as obvious that teachers up and down the country are all doing the same work as each other every day. By that I mean, amongst these 19,000 teachers, surely at least one has already written an equivalent 150 problems for teaching their class. Why isn’t this kind of stuff shared between teachers all around the country?

Obviously every class has its differences and to an extent material needs to be tailored towards each class, but with 19,000 other classes out there I find it hard to believe teaching material is really significant from one class to the next, especially since I assume most teach out of the same text books.

It’s not so much about specific worksheets of problems, but even whole lesson plans. Teachers could upload their lesson plan on to a big database and make brief comments on what their class is like, how the lesson worked, what could be improved etc… Other teachers could use these lesson plans, rate them, comment on how they changed them and how well it worked etc…

Furthermore, parents could be allowed access to some (if not all) of this material to give their kids more directed help at home.

Maybe something like this already exists, obviously I’m not a teacher so I wouldn’t know. It just seems giving teachers the ability to share their work amongst themselves would help share ideas that worked well and save teachers a lot of time.

katmeeeow: charlyr: Reasons I know that school teaches nothing...

Sat, 12 Jan 2013 09:43:32 +0000

katmeeeow:

charlyr:

Reasons I know that school teaches nothing about religions:

Today I learnt that the Dalai Lama is not one person from history (as I had previously assumed), but in fact there have been 14 so far, all believed to have been re-incarnations of the first one. I only discovered this after finding the Dalai Lama on twitter and getting real confused as I thought he was a historical figure. Then I thought he was maybe like the pope. Then I had to do a bit of reading, and found out a bit more. All in all, as much education as I have been through, and as much as I do know, there is a hell of a lot of what I assume ought to be ‘worldwide’ knowledge that I don’t have a clue about.

oops.

You can’t expect a school to teach you everything about every religion in the world. At school, we learnt about the “main” religions - Christianity, Judaism and Islam. I think we also covered aspects of Hinduism and Sikhism. The thing is, in Britain at the moment, these are the most relevant religions, the ones that you are most likely to encounter on a daily basis. Schools simply don’t have time to teach you about every single religion in detail - at some point, you have to take responsibility for learning about things independantly. And especially in a topic like Religious Education, you can’t be guaranteed that people are actually going to pay attention.

No question re: kids not paying attention in RE and I agree about learning about things independently, but aren’t we taught RE from 5 until 14? And even then I know my school had a mandatory RE short course during GCSE years. Surely there’s enough time in all those years to go in depth to all major world religions.

Personally I would like to see RE for secondary school students change and become more about religious history than just being told about the 5 pillars of Islam for example which doesn’t engage most pupils. Teaching about things such as the Crusades and the Holocaust in RE would be more interesting for older pupils.

hannahorvath: “Now is not the time to talk about gun control.” Yeah, now is not the time to talk...

Sat, 15 Dec 2012 00:53:50 +0000

hannahorvath:

“Now is not the time to talk about gun control.”

Yeah, now is not the time to talk about gun control.

The time to talk about gun control was after Columbine. And then again after Virginia Tech. And then again after Fort Hood. And then again after the Giffords shooting. And then again after Aurora.

When 18 elementary school students have been shot and killed, it’s too late.

While I absolutely agree and am all for gun control in the US, can we please not pretend that this is a problem limited to the United States and their gun possession laws. Plenty on countries with much stricter gun control laws have equally terrible tragic school shootings.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/School_shooting#Europe

This doesn’t even include the 33 under 18s (77 people total) killed by Anders Breivik in Norway last year, where the gun laws are about as strict as they are here in the UK.

Quality video on how your body language affects how others...

Fri, 07 Dec 2012 00:57:02 +0000

Quality video on how your body language affects how others perceive you and how you perceive yourself.

aw daw daw daw

Wed, 05 Dec 2012 05:24:03 +0000

aw daw daw daw

One of my favourite Firefly quotes

Wed, 21 Nov 2012 17:16:42 +0000

One of my favourite Firefly quotes

Photo

Fri, 05 Oct 2012 15:37:47 +0100

katmeeeow: myfireinside: jenfold: Because the gifs can’t do...

Tue, 25 Sep 2012 22:36:10 +0100

katmeeeow:

myfireinside:

jenfold:

Because the gifs can’t do justice to the insanely funny horror that is Mr Blobby on the Big Fat Quiz of the 90s.

You know when you see something that completely alters you’re childhood view on something. Yeah, that just happened. How on Earth was I not scared of that thing…. Scarier than the Weeping Angels.

Mr Blobby scared me when I was a kid. I’ve just figured out why - it’s the eyes! His eyes are freaking terrifying!!

I (Lucy) watched this yesterday and actually cried with laughter and couldn’t stop. Just everything about it tickled me. Winter was actually quite worried about me, he kept telling me it wasn’t that funny as I gasped for air.