09-06-2012

Pareto:

• 80-20 Rule = 80% of the effect comes from 20% of the causes
• Efficient = Any further increase in the production of one item curtails the production of another
• Front = Collection of Pareto efficient points 

"A party of order or stability, and a party of progress or reform, are both necessary elements of a healthy state of political life." (John Stuart Mill)

30% of US water footprint goes to meat consumption (Scientific American, June 2012, 96)

American Senate was appointed until 1913.

Extraction of oil from bitumen (tar sands) releases 3-4 times as much carbon etc. as conventional oil (Pembina Institute)

WEIRD = Western, Educated, Industrial, Rich, Democratic (attributes which may bias social studies done on Western undergraduates (Joseph Henrich, University of British Columbia)

Siddharth Suri has written a program which allows 60 Mechanical Turkers to interact in real time, overcoming a drawback to online crowdsourcing studies


Open Source Ecology project

US home to 1 of 4 of world's prisoners (Economist, May 19, 2012, page 35)

Android (Ice Cream Sandwich?) Features To Remember

I'm assuming the features I'm listing here are new to Ice Cream Sandwich. I've tried them out on my updated Samsung Nexux S

• Long hold of Home --> Recent Apps
• While in camera video mode, supposed to be able to tap screen for stills - couldn't get this to work.
• Power + Volume Down --> screenshot (view via notification)

Next Generation Connectivity

• The Diaspora Project
• FunkFeuer free net
• Commotion wireless project

Play Money: Or How I Quit My Day Job And Made Millions Trading Virtual Loot (Julian Dibbell)

Economist 2012.02.18 - Over-Regulated America?

Small Business Administration: Regulations add $10,585 in costs per employee
Dodd-Frank:

• 29 pages - 1864 law setting up American banking system
• 32 pages - 1913 Federal Reserve Act
• 37 pages - Glass-Steagall
• 848 pages - Dodd-Frank

400 rule-making requirements: 93 finalized, 164 deadlines missed

Economist 2012.02.04

Facebook: 845E6 users, 250E6 photos uploaded per day, 1 of every 7 minutes spent online is on Facebook
War In Afghanistan: cost US $119E9 in 2011
US Health Care: $2.6E12 spent in 2010 = 18% of GDP
Include health insurance and net social spending reaches 27.2% of GDP (higher than than in Denmark, Italy and higher than the OECD average)(according to Bruce Bartlet, former Reagan advisor)

Survival And The Sense Of Control

Bruno Betelheim noted that survival in the Nazi concentration camps:

depended on one's ability to arrange to preserve some areas of independent action, to keep control of some important aspects of one's life despite an environment that seemed overwhelming.

Rats deprived of any control over their environment gave up the struggle to survive under adverse lab conditions more quickly than those given some control (here).

Spending Cuts, Raising Taxes, Or Closing Loopholes (And Other Things)

From The Economist (Jan. 21, 2012) in the US:

• Returning top income tax rate from 35% to 39.6% would only raise revenue by 0.3% of GDP
• All current loopholes are worth 7% of GDP
• Top 1% has minimum net worth of $6.9E6, ranks swelled recently by those in the financial sector
• Top 1% identify as Republicans at 33% as opposed to 28% for the other 99%

Piketty, Saez, and Stantcheva: Reformation of tax code eliminating evasion and top tax rate could go as high as 83% without harming economy?

Zagheni: Average US carbon dioxide emissions as a function of age peak in the early 60s

Proportion of stock in American companies owned by institutions: 1970 19%, 2008 50%

India has world's 5th largest coal reserves, carbon dioxide emissions to go up 2.5X between 2010 and 2030 but will still remain below those of US and China (total and per capita)

US total change as %GDP 2000-2008 +75.2%, 2008-Q2 2011 -16.1% (latter largely due to foreclosures etc as result of housing bust. Profile similar to that seen by Sweden and Finland in early 1990s but without Scandinavian boom in exports. Difference between US and Europe now = ill-conceived premature European austerity measures?

Andy Grove, founder of Intel:

Our fundamental economic belief ... is that the free market is the best of all economic systems - the freer the better. Our generation has seen the decisive victory of free-market principles over planned economies. So we stick with this belief largely oblivious to emerging evidence that while free markets beat planned economies, there many be room for a modification that is even better.

Transparency International 2011 Corruption Index