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1:46AM - Вера

Орден кающихся, Испания.

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4:38PM - В продаже появился ONYX BOOX 60

Posted via web from v_x

7:09PM - What Just Happened?, by Bryan Caplan

http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2009/12/what_just_happe.html

Can someone help me make heads or tails out of this piece on the Senate bill?  Key claims to reconcile:

1. Demand for health insurance is going way up:

Health insurers get some big presents in the Senate's health overhaul bill -- about 20 million new customers and no competition from a new government plan.

2. But the main customers will be money-losers:

People without insurance would be required to buy it -- in some cases, subsidies will help them pay for it -- or face fines if they don't. Insurers, in turn, would no longer be able to deny coverage based on pre-existing conditions such as diabetes or cancer.

But the proposed fines are too weak and the subsidies too meager to truly motivate people to buy insurance, Laszewski said. This means the people most motivated to buy coverage through these exchanges will be those who already have health problems -- who are money losers for insurers.

3. Insurer stocks are way up:

Shares of the five largest managed care companies have risen more than 120 percent, on average, since they bottomed out in early March. In contrast, the Standard & Poor's 500 index has increased about 63 percent over the same span.

You could say that in March, the industry expected much worse, but is that really credible?  Wasn't the most reasonable guess in March that Obamacare would peter out just like Hillarycare sixteen years earlier?  What's really going on?

6:09PM - Suits vs. Geeks, by Arnold Kling

http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2009/12/suits_vs_geeks_1.html

Tyler Cowen asks why pay differentials in software development do not reflect the large differences in productivity across developers. James Kwak gives what would have been my answer.

the way salaries are set at companies. At a high level, they are set by management teams, headed by a CEO (who is rarely a former developer), and supervised by a board of directors. The people making these decisions do not understand the nature of software development

The challenge in an organization is to link business knowledge with software development skills. Pure coding ability is not useful if it is employed on a bad idea. Tyler's example of a good developer is someone with business knowledge. So, if the suits do not understand what geeks do, that is problem. But if the geeks do not understand the business, that is a problem as well.

One is tempted to demand that CEO's be experts in everything. We have seen what happens if bank CEO's do not really understand mortgage security valuation. If they do not understand software development, they can really mess up there as well.

It is not possible for CEO's of large organizations to have enough knowledge to oversee every aspect of the organization. Either they have to be really good at subdividing responsibility or they need to limit the scope of their businesses. Limiting scope requires humility, a trait that is not selected for in the process of filtering business executives.

3:27AM - Несколько мыслей по поводу фильма А

Это я под кат уберу - а то мало ли, измученные нарзаном пострадают. Ну или в пиаре опять обвинят, ( не знаю )

6:00PM - Trend setters may only be visible in rear view mirror

http://www.mindhacks.com/blog/2009/12/trend_setters_may_on.html

I've just found this excellent Fast Company article from last year challenging the idea that there is a 'tipping point' in fashions or trends driven by small numbers of highly connected people who have a disproportionate influence over which new products or ideas become popular.

The piece is based on work by Duncan Watts, a physicist and sociologist, who created numerous computer simulations of how trends move through society in a similar way to how medical scientists model how diseases spread.

One study has suggested that the role of key highly influential people in starting fashions or trends is likely to have been vastly overstated. This conclusion has rattled the cages of many in the marketing world who have been focussed on identifying and targeting 'trend setters' for many years.

Watts set the test in motion by randomly picking one person as a trendsetter, then sat back to see if the trend would spread. He did so thousands of times in a row.

The results were deeply counterintuitive. The experiment did produce several hundred societywide infections. But in the large majority of cases, the cascade began with an average Joe (although in cases where an Influential touched off the trend, it spread much further). To stack the deck in favor of Influentials, Watts changed the simulation, making them 10 times more connected. Now they could infect 40 times more people than the average citizen (and again, when they kicked off a cascade, it was substantially larger). But the rank-and-file citizen was still far more likely to start a contagion...

Mind you, Watts does agree that some people are more instrumental than others. He simply doesn't think it's possible to will a trend into existence by recruiting highly social people. The network effects in society, he argues, are too complex--too weird and unpredictable--to work that way. If it were just a matter of tipping the crucial first adopters, why can't most companies do it reliably?

As Watts points out, viral thinkers analyze trends after they've broken out. "They start with an existing trend, like Hush Puppies, and they go backward until they've identified the people who did it first, and then they go, 'Okay, these are the Influentials!'" But who's to say those aren't just Watts's accidental Influentials, random smokers who walked, unwittingly, into a dry forest? East Village hipsters were wearing lots of cool things in the fall of 1994. But, as Watts wondered, why did only Hush Puppies take off? Why didn't their other clothing choices reach a tipping point too?

However, Watts' work is largely based on computer simulations. These have the advantage of having to be based on very explicit well-defined descriptions of the phenomenon, which many of the more popular accounts are not, but have the disadvantage or having to include various assumptions and simplifications about what actually happens when people pass on ideas.

The Fast Company article is interesting as it looks at how some core marketing ideas are being tested by Watts, and how the public relations world is reacting to having some of their assumptions questioned.

Link to Fast Company article 'Is the Tipping Point Toast?'

12:16AM

© Автор: Andreas Hinzer

12:14AM

© Автор: Mario Ventura

7:06PM - Предновогодний стол трудовой Америки

оздоровлен Сибирским Другом,
которому едоки шлют особые пожелания и чувства:

ermakova_s_i [ЛУК ЭНД РЕДЬКА В МАРИНАДЕ. Нарезала редьку палочками, яблоко палочками, лук-репку кольцами. Посолила, влила лимонный сок и оливковое масло. Можно сразу есть с горячей картошкой; а назавтра будет совсем вкуснятина.]

12:59AM

Пони девочек катает.
Пони мальчиков катает.
Пони бегает по кругу.
И в уме круги считает ...

4:52PM - Девочки шутят

Д. по телефону рассказывает мне о новом авангардном дизайне гостиной:
- Мы покрасили стену... ну, как бы тебе сказать... ты знаешь, что такое чссбрд?
- Что-что?
- Chisssbod
- Chess-board что ли? Знаю.
- Вот мы так покрасили.
- И какие же цвета?
- Красный и оранжевый...
- Наверное, бледные, пастельные, - честно пытаюсь представить себе этот кошмар в мелкую клеточку.
- Нет, нормальные.
- Детка, так, как ты рассказываешь - это просто какой-то вырви-глаз! А какие размеры квадратов???
- Большие. Как если бы я расставила руки и обняла.
- А-а, тогда может быть и не так страшно...
- Конечно не страшно. Классно. Так что вставь глаз обратно!

5:29PM - А что - на концерт 18-го никто не ходил ?

 ?

12:18AM

Прозрачный хай-тэковский лифт медленно тащит нас вверх по стеклянной трубе, мы отражаемся в узких зеркалах, прижавшись спинами к перегородке мира. Нам бы хотелось, чтобы этот лифт был в Париже или Стокгольме, в крайнем случае – в Токио или Вене…
Наша погибающая Империя расстилается внизу, мерцая ночными огнями, пока ещё безымянная. А под ней, ещё глубже, грохочет подземка – прирученная преисподняя нашей действительности (жетон для Пиларта – и ты пропущен).

Мы плывём над всем этим, уже не связанные с арматурой строения ни стальными тросами, ни подъёмными механизмами.
Персональный космос посреди замёрзшего мегаполиса.
Стеклянный куб качается над городом, как кабинка "чёртового колеса". Я поминутно утыкаюсь носом тебе в плечо, а ты наклоняешься и целуешь меня в ложбинку между шеей и ключицей.
Северное полушарие моего мозга медленно оттаивает и растрескивается тонкими желобками, словно твой голос врезают в него иглой для винила - вечный саунд в моей голове: Пина-Пина…

В складках небесных простыней наши тела так текучи, так уродливы в своём совершенстве. В темноте твоё лицо светится, как у божества. И весь ты, как новорожденный Шива на гладком шёлке постели, а я вся, как «мудра-шанкха». Древнейший ритуал еженощной смерти, неизбежность ежедневного бессмертия…
Наши ангелы-хранители пьяны, и пока они спят в обнимку на диване в холле, я спаиваю тебя вермутом, как птенца, прямо изо рта. Твои глаза меняют цвет, а голос - тембр.
Время меняет ход, а серце - ритм.
Город меняет имя, а календарь – тысячелетие.
Мы бежим по переходу, и наше отчаянье пахнет мандариновой кожурой и фруктовым «Орбитом». Не оглядывайся, не оглядывайся…

Пока ты делаешь бумажного журавлика из конфетной обертки, на маленькой планете погибает вверенная тебе роза.
Каждую минуту кто-то погибает на одной из маленьких планет… Нет, мы не в ответе. Нет, не верь, это капкан (нас обманули ещё в детстве). У любви нет капканов.
Наши ошейники пахнут репеллентом. Сорви. Бежим со мной! Из этого карманного Шоушенка, из этого уютного изолятора.
И если нам перекроют кордоны, у нас всегда есть два жетона в запасе.

Прозрачный лифт ползёт вверх, вдоль стального хребта здания, словно по кроличьей норе.
Если посмотреть вниз, то можно различить вытоптанное в снегу: «Я вернулась. Твоя Пина».
И если закрыть глаза, то легко представить, что мир населён только нами. Ты берешь меня за руку, и от близости твоей кожи моё нутро сводит судорогой. Рёбра каменеют, словно кованные цветы в перилах лестниц.
Я задерживаю дыхание.
Время останавливается… ждёт… и начинает течь в обратном направлении.
Если есть жизнь после смерти, то это она.
Лифт остановился десятью годами раньше. Но однажды утром я просыпаюсь от того, что ты поёшь в ванной!..
И вдруг где-то внутри обрывается стальной тросс, и я лечу вниз. Вместе с лифтом, с нашим космосом, с целой россыпью маленьких планет. От моего крика лопаются стёкла и барабанные перепонки.
И наши ангелы-хранители одномоментно просыпаются от похмельного сна и приступают, наконец, к своим прямым обязанностям.

2:15AM - Памятный камень

Снято в Бюске (Byske).

[&]

11:03PM - Barcelona.

10:46PM - Nigerian bomber

The guy who tried to blow up the plane between Amsterdam and Detroit recently, has a father that is a former minister and bank director of Nigeria. The father tried to warn the US of his son's radical tendencies.

I can vividly imagine the e-mails he sent.
"Dear US Embassy. I am a former minister and bank director in Nigeria. I am writing to you for your assistance in a matter of......"

I think the US government can be excused for this oversight :-)

3:30PM - Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab.

http://althouse.blogspot.com/2009/12/umar-farouk-abdul-mutallab.html

Some facts about the Christmas Day bomber:

1. He was an engineering student who lived in a $4 million apartment in London.

2. His father, a banker, warned American authorities about his son months ago. (How much will Obama be blamed?)

3. His bombing was interrupted by a passenger, Dutch video director Jasper Schuringa, who heard a noise and saw that "he was holding a burning object between his legs. 'I pulled the object from him and tried to extinguish the fire with my hands and threw it away.'"

4. "He was staring into nothing."

ADDED: Mutallab had a 2-year visa that was issued in 2008, and "the initial information was not specific enough to raise alarms that he could potentially carry out a terrorist attack":

“The information was passed into the system, but the expression of radical extremist views were very nonspecific,” said the senior administration official, who has been briefed on the inquiry but spoke on condition of anonymity because it is continuing. “We were evaluating him, but the information we had was not a lot to go on.”

Satisfied with the job the administration is doing protecting us from terrorism? George Bush protected the American homeland after 9/11. Is Obama taking it seriously enough? Would Bush have kept Mutallab off that plane?

3:11PM - "My 'C,' 'D,' and 'F' students this semester are almost exclusively American..."

http://althouse.blogspot.com/2009/12/my-c-d-and-f-students-this-semester-are.html

"... while my students from India, China, and Latin America have - despite language barriers - generally written solid papers, excelled on exams, and become valuable class participants."

3:01PM - The Shalala Bowl.

http://althouse.blogspot.com/2009/12/shalala-bowl.html

Miami and Wisconsin.

1:28PM - С праздниками!

С прошедшими и с наступающими!
Будьте счастливы.