This post on a New York Times blog ends with the best sentence ever written in journalism. Seriously, if you're busy, just read the last sentence.

Well, I've been absent for quite a while. I've been involved in a few side projects, which have been taking up all of my time that isn't spent working (a rapidly diminishing quantity, sadly). So, to anyone who's still reading this, sorry, and I haven't forgotten about you (hypothetical though you may be).

And just so this isn't a boring self-interested post providing nothing of value, I nominate the following so-called "research" for "Most Unnecessary Research Ever" award:

Research Shows That People Really Love Bacon

I'll try to post more.

My You-Plural

Happy Thanksgiving, y'all!

Incidentally, I'm starting to come around on the various plurals of "you." Incorrect though they may be, they do add efficiency. I actually prefer "yous" to "y'all," but for some reason it sounds a little awkward to end a sentence with it (though even if one were wishing a singular person a happy holiday, one wouldn't put "you" after a direct address comma to conclude the benediction).

So here's what I propose (and I know it's complicated, but so is the rest of our language):

1) When ending a sentence addressed to a group, a folksy Southern "y'all" is correct.
e.g.) "Happy Thanksgiving, y'all"
2) In the middle of the sentence, a hearty Northeastern "yous" is correct.
e.g.) "What do yous want?"
3) When beginning a sentence, "y'all" is correct, unless addressing a named group of people, in which case "yous" becomes the modifier.
e.g.) "Y'all come back now!" and "Y'all want some lemonade?" as opposed to "Yous guys are good people" or "Yous congressional leaders need to stop acting like children."

So...what do yous readers think?

I really want to know how this story works out. A couple college kids refused to pay an automatically added gratuity at a restaurant which provided terrible service. Now it's going to trial as a criminal case.

Personally, I'm rooting for the kids. Any lawyers out there think they have a case? Or don't? I'd content the automatic addition of a gratuity for service constitutes a promise by the establishment to provide acceptable service, a promise the students acted upon in good faith by ordering off the menu in a group of 6 or more as clearly stated. If the establishment didn't follow through, the students shouldn't still be on the hook for services rendered--or in this case, not rendered.

Trivia Time Answered

Not that anybody cares, but here's the answer to what I thought was a pretty awesome trivia question.

Q: What do the following people all have in common?: Meg Ryan, Tim Curry, Ed Asner, John Ratzenberger, Jeff Goldblum, Martin Sheen, Sting

A: They all voiced recurring Captain Planet villains.

True story. Bust that one out next time you're at a party.

Any Catholics out there want to stick up for this one? The Church really has its priorities out of whack...it seems they have lost all ability to do cost-benefit analysis, and are perennially willing to stand by as large tragedies happen in order to avoid smaller ones.

Trivia Time

What do the following people all have in common?:

Meg Ryan
Tim Curry
Ed Asner
John Ratzenberger
Jeff Goldblum
Martin Sheen
Sting

(Also, though less famous: Maurice LaMarche, Frank Welker, David Warner)

Highlight of my day: packing up my laptop case for a short trip without having to think "Should I pack my GRE book?"

Thing that immediately brought me back down to Earth: realizing my "pleasure reading" consisted of a book about economics and a book about social/psychological research.

So, it seems like people with economics degrees find this comic a LOT funnier than people without economics degrees...

Would Jesus Be A Capitalist?

Michael Moore, as part of his anti-capitalism campaign, is sending around an e-mail asking if Jesus were alive today, would he be a capitalist, or would he be opposed to capitalism? Here's my response:

Name an economic system that would be better for the poor than capitalism. Seriously.

Sure, it creates big gaps between rich and poor, but would Jesus want you comparing your life's worth to the life of your neighbor? The poor in America have a better standard of living than the poor in most non-capitalist countries, with more opportunities for social mobility as well. A poor person in capitalist America is better off than both a poor person pretty much anywhere in non-capitalist Africa and a poor person anywhere in the world during the time of Jesus. Heck, they're better off than most rich people in both those situations (certainly most middle-class people). Better access to healthcare, education, resources, the tools for self-improvement, travel opportunities, social and socioeconomic advancement and development...

And to those who make the argument that those are trappings of modern society and not of capitalism itself, which economies invented all that stuff? Communist and socialist countries lagged behind the societies which lavishly rewarded those who brought tremendous value to those societies. Not everyone's a genius and a saint like Norman Borlaug. We're human, by and large, and respond to incentive structures. Life saving medicine is invented by pharmaceutical companies who expect patents on their $50 pills which save the taker a $10,000 operation (which itself was once not that big a price to pay for 20 more years on Earth). The best way to make money in a well-run capitalist economy is to provide things people want, that make their lives better. Sure, we've got regulatory gaps, but to abandon the system entirely? I don't buy it.

To those who say "OK, fine, capitalism was good, but now it's run its course. Let's go another direction," I reply: "What about tomorrow's poor?" Do we want to freeze the state of poverty, redistribute the wealth, and squelch innovation? Crawl along in a dangerous world not giving people strong incentives to better everyone? Capitalism was worse a hundred years ago than it is now...the current crisis highlighted some steps back, but we're still far ahead of where we were. We're making progress within capitalism, and the capitalists are making more progress than others.

What's the alternative? Non-capitalist countries are quickly adopting capitalist activities and policies, but the reverse isn't happening. Even successful "socialist" countries are really capitalist countries with socialism-inspired domestic policies. And they wouldn't be where they are today without the help of capitalist friends and trading partners.

Yes, we need a better safety net. Yes, we need to regulate markets and correct for market failures. But the dirty little secret is America won't really fail because capitalism will tumble...the Visigoths at our gate are not socialists, communists, or anything else. They're capitalists, who will beat us at our own game, the only game in town among superpowers, nations on the rise, and great societies. They'll better regulate, better incentivize, better innovate, better create...solar panels are coming from China and Germany; wireless innovations are coming from developing nations without legacy systems and inflexible out-of-date policies like India and Israel; we're being out-manufactured by places that can do it cheaply--and in doing so take the poor out of the streets and put them in bad jobs, but jobs nonetheless. Jobs where there were none before. And all these countries are coming around to capitalism.

Would Jesus be a capitalist? Would he find jobs and dignity for the poor? Would he help invent life-saving drugs or safer cars or cleaner energy? Would he sell software to help us make better decisions, and donate the money to a big foundation to level the educational playing field? Would he still walk around the countryside talking to people dozens at a time, or would he go with a book, a blog, a podcast, a TV segment, an Op-Ed? Almost 7 billion people, can't save them one at a time anymore.

He might not speculate in the derivatives market, because it's more or less a zero-sum game...but would he frown upon a farmer buying a weather derivative that pays off in case of an extra-dry season, giving him enough money to get by and replant next season? Would he tell Merck to close up shop? Would he disapprove of accessing capital markets to raise funds to build a hospital? Darn right Jesus would be a capitalist were he alive today. Just like the rest of the Jews.

Geek Movie Plot Holes

So Wired magazine published a list of the Top 10 Unanswered Questions in Geeky Movies. (HT: Neat-O-Rama)

I thought it was a good read that merited sharing, but not without comment. A few of these plot holes aren't really plot holes at all. Specifically, the Star Wars ones. Maybe some of the others have explanations too, but I don't know enough to offer a rebuttal.

Quoting from the article:
"4. Star Wars: The Death Star’s slow attack - So the Death Star follows the tracking device on the Millennium Falcon to the rebel base. They jump out of light speed, and, for no clear reason, emerge on the far side of the planet Yavin from the moon where the base is. This light-speed jump takes a split-second, but now they have to wait minutes so they can clear the planet. Not only that, but the Death Star is capable of blowing up entire planets, not just moons, so why don’t they just blow up the entire planet of Yavin? Surely that would effectively destroy anything on its moons as well."

Resolution: The Death Star is a giant space station that travels very slowly. Hyperdrives (the faster-than-light) technology operate on completely different principles than the sublight drives. The Death Star followed the Millennium Falcon to the Yavin system, and once it got there, had to use its slow engines to get around the planet (the long lag time makes sense). Why not hyper-jump around the planet? Hyperdrive jumps take a while to calculate, and gravity is a big obstacle that limits where you can go safely. Intra-system jumps were never part of the story--hyperdrives only get you from system to system.

Why not blow up the planet Yavin itself? This one bothered me too, and several answers come to mind. One, it's a gas giant, so blowing up the relatively tiny core might not be a guaranteed kill against the moon, especially if most of the planets mass is actually in the gas or there are other strange principles at work (magnetic ones come to mind, but I won't expand on that here). Why not blow up the planet, THEN blow up the moon if you miss? I'm guessing a giant superlaser like that takes long enough to recharge that it made sense to go for a guaranteed kill after a 20 minute trip than to risk having to wait around for hours (maybe more) for your second shot, giving the Rebels plenty of time to evacuate.

A bigger unanswered question in my mind would be: why didn't the Rebels start evacuating the moon of Yavin IV immediately, just in case 24 one-man fighters didn't manage to destroy a space station that was 235 miles in circumference?

"2. The Empire Strikes Back: Time dilation - Luke and R2D2 leave Hoth to go to Dagobah at the same time Han, Leia, Chewbacca, and C3PO leave to go… well, they never really say what their initial destination is. Anyway, on Dagobah, Luke embarks on an intensive Jedi training course with Yoda — it’s never stated, but it’s heavily implied that this takes a long time; and besides, you would think a full course of Jedi training would take at least months, right? (We know it’s a full course, because when Luke comes back in Jedi, Yoda tells him he doesn’t need more training.) So, at the same time that Luke finishes this months-long training and runs off to Cloud City, his friends have clearly just gotten there a short time before. Yet all they did on the way was flee from a Star Destroyer and fly down the gullet of a giant space worm. That must have taken hours, not months. So was the Millennium Falcon flying at close to the speed of light (but not at light speed) for a while and thus experiencing time dilation? Yeah, that’s the ticket."

Resolution: This one's pretty easy: the Millennium Falcon's hyperdrive was out. They had to make the trip from Hoth to Bespin at sublight speeds. I think it's more amazing that didn't take YEARS, as planets are typically pretty far apart (and Hoth was in a supposedly remote region). What's amazing here isn't that Luke's training was so short--it's that the OTHER storyline was so chronologically compact (or, conversely, that the training was so long and the Falcon had enough emergency rations so no one died of starvation or dehydration along the way).

My Question

My favorite blog on the internet published an interview today with Tim Harford, the "Undercover Economist." The way Freakonomics interviews work is that readers submit questions, and the interviewee picks a few of his or her favorites to answer. Well, I got a question in this time (the 5th of 8 in the interview). I was excited to see it there, and appreciated the response. I have my own comments, but I thought I'd share it with my readers and see what you guys think first.

Is it me, or does it seem like the Philadelphia unions (or at least their leaders) don't care how bad things get, as long as they don't get the blame?

Consumer Marketing Question

The more choices a person is faced with, the less likely they are to make a choice at all. People are almost 10 times more likely to buy jam if they have to choose from 6 jams than if they have to choose from 24. For every 10 extra funds in a 401k program, participation goes down 2%. People don't like having too many choices, unless the choices is fun to make and variety adds real value (like choosing sundae toppings, or in nerdy cases, configuring a new computer).

OK, keep that in mind. Now consider marketing tactics: multiple brand names is often a dominant strategy. If there are 6 laundry detergents on the shelf, and people randomly select, Company A has a 17% market share. But by coming out with 4 new brands, all pretty much the same thing, they now have 5/10 instead of 1/6. 50% market share. And that strategy also works with just about everything else in the grocery store.

Now combine these, and you have a real prisoner's dilemma in consumer goods marketing. More brands and choices means a bigger slice of the pie for a company. But more brands and choices also means a smaller overall pie for non-essential products.

How do companies balance out these interests? There's clearly a rational limit on the number of choices you can offer in a grocery store, but that number--and the number of choices many consumers are given--is almost certainly larger than the number that would maximize the size of the pie. And there's another cost--as producer sales and producer surplus rise, consumer surplus also rises, because individuals won't feel incentivized to skip a first choice product for a substitute that's easier to navigate. At the very least, it lowers transaction costs (choosing costs, including effort and time), which is a gain for consumers.

How does this tug of war dynamic play out in marketplaces? Would it even be legal for companies to agree to limit branding diversity, even if it's for everyone's benefit? Is there a simple strategy, like in a prisoner's dilemma problem, that's clearly dominant? Or even a simple strategy that's clearly good?

Star Wars Food

Usain Bolt Humor (~1 minute video).

Healthcare, Stick Figures and Analogies

This YouTube video (found by Lilly) not only spells out the case for universal healthcare, including a public option, but ends with a great analogy that will help people struggling with the complexities of the current system.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jng4TnKqy6A

(I had it embedded, but the dimensions of the video exceed the space allotted and I'm too lazy to recode the main page. It's 4:37, well worth it, amusing, and not a Rick-Roll.)

The problem with playing poker in Vegas is: if enough people stay in with hands they shouldn't be playing, you're still likely to lose even if you have by far the highest chance of winning of everyone.

Ate another amazing meal last night, while DeluxX was busy winning almost 400 dollars playing poker all through the night. So, good for him. I'm going to stick with devoting the largest portion of my funds-to-gamble to stock picking...it's just as uncertain, but I'm way better at it. Up about 80% YTD on those picks already (I should put more money into those and less into the "smart" investments...).

Also, why is 30 Rock such a great show?

Vegas Tip: Go to a breakfast buffet about 30 minutes before it turns into a lunch buffet. That way you get TWO meals chock full of variety, for the price of not only one, but of the less expensive one! Did that this morning at Harrah's (one of the best breakfast buffets on the strip). I recommend the made-to-order omelets, the kung pao lamb, and the beef medallions (or whatever they were) that get cooked on a spit. Biscuits, bacon and pastries were available in quantities that can only be described as "excessive."

LiveBlogging from Vegas

So I'm in Vegas, and this is my second blog post. I'm going to aim for short punchy updates of a shallow self-absorbed nature, but not in a Twitter kind of way.

Anyway, you'll all be pleased to know I've made SEVERAL Futurama references already. For example, so far I have:
-Tried to put 100 bucks on Rectoid Zambot while playing roulette.
-Asked what the house limit on Do-Overs is.
-Refused to see a Celine Dion contest.

I'll probably do a food report either here or on Awesomeopolis at some point. I've already eaten two things I'd award 5-stars if I had a map for their particular categories.

All right, gotta go. BlastFax Kudos all around.

In Vegas through Monday night. First vacation in 19 months, so I'm looking forward to it. People out here are nuts. It's like neon signs meet Wall Street, circa 2007. Also, as soon as I got off the plane everyone was talking about how Michael Vick signed with the Eagles. And I'm thinking "no way, I just came from Philly and I can assure you, good sir, that you are insane." Weird town. Oh well.

Gambling Ledger: Down $1

What are peoples' thoughts on what happens here staying here? Does that count for calories, cholesterol and sodium? Man I hope so...

Tony Danza wants to teach a 10th grade English class in a Philadelphia public high school, and film and televise the results. He'd also be active in chaperoning prom, and lend his considerable acting experience to the school play. We'd all be able to see this unfold on a new reality/documentary TV series called Teach. Apparently, before he became an actor, he always wanted to be a teacher.

You can't make this stuff up.

I know a lot of dorky readers who will appreciate these rarely seen Star Wars photos. (Hat Tip: Lilly)

I imagine these hypothetical diary entries of a cat and a dog are more accurate than we'd think.

The dog diary reminds me of Doug the Dog, from Pixar's Up.

Sadly, I know a lot of people who would probably enjoy this handbag...

Baseball statistics question: which is a better predictor of strikeouts thrown by Pitcher A in an upcoming game?:
(1) Total strikeouts per game of starting pitch for Team A?
(2) Total strikeouts per game of Team B's starting lineup?

And in general, what bodes better for your team? A better pitcher, or worse opponents?

I feel like a super in-depth analysis could probably lead to some gambling opportunities as well as satisfaction of curiosity...

Happy Birthday, Lilly. And thanks for helping me get 3 new places on the BurgerMap (Varga Bar, National Mechanics, and Square Burger at Franklin Square).

My Facebook Ad

One thing I've always been mildly impressed by is Facebook's ability to target advertising. They use the profile pretty well. Single people gets ads for dating services; I get ads for Futurama t-shirts; fans gets advertisements for tickets and merchandise relating to local sports teams...I always thought it was a pretty good way to do targeted marketing. Sure, every now and then I get a "Christian Dating" link, but I am single and have plenty of Christian friends, so while it's not a great guess, it's no worse than random link posting.

Today, however, I got something that really threw me through a loop...I get that facebook thinks I might be into the 76ers or want an online MBA...but this one made me wonder what kind of guy Facebook thinks I am:

Aside from being mildly worried (what if Facebook knows me better than I know myself? I should get tested...), I found this amusing in light of my earlier blogging about how specialized online dating networks are growing and wondering what the trade-off is between potential network size (incredibly valuable) and specific, distinguishing appeal. That said, given the data, HWerks.com has a much bigger target market than crewdating.com.

I thought this was clever, on both sides. Someone who's still in school, please try it and let me know how it goes.

I make a lot of graphs...

Shoutout to DeluxX, who finally beat Minesweeper on expert. This is kind of a big deal for him, so be supportive.

Saw something awesome while in Harrisburg.

How 'bout that Sarah Palin?

For the sake of my entertainment, I hope we haven't seen the last of her.

My Diary

Sunday night/Monday morning was a bit of an adventure for Chuck and me. I’ve included below a diary of the events. Times are approximate, and get wildly inaccurate as the night goes on:

11:30PM – Power goes off

11:45 – Get panicked call from neighbor (Miniyee): can’t get Chuck on phone, is worried about power outage, sees many emergency vehicles outside

11:49 – Conclude even backup systems non-operational, possibly including alarms; disaster possible

11:55 – Agree to go investigate with Chuck, report back to Miniyee (and other neighbors) on situation

12:00AM – Grab Chuck’s very bright LED lamp and start heading downstairs from 18th floor

12:01 to 12:10 – Pick up many people along the way, scared lightless people hoping to piggyback on Chuck’s beacon of hope

12:04 – I make first Lord of the Rings reference (after our group expands to 9 people trekking into the dark)

12:12 – Get to bottom floor, discover outage not localized to our building, but biggest problems are; emergency vehicles gone, problem diagnosed as part of grid, city and electric company could take hours to repair it, but no immediate danger

12:13 – Report to Miniyee, who tells the neighbors

12:14 – Hungry, tired, thirsty, and not wanting to trek up all those flights of stairs immediately, head off to Wawa with Chuck

12:15 – Grow excited that the Hoagiefest deal should have switched at midnight from cheesesteak to turkey

12:17 – Meet Penn grad student who lives in building also going to Wawa, exchange pleasantries and conspiracy theories about the night’s events

12:20 – Get to Wawa. Hoagiefest switch did not happen at midnight. Employees useless and unhelpful. Had to settle for hot dog and metabolism-boosting pomegranate tea (needed for trek back up the stairs).

12:35 – Arrive back at apartment, only to be told the door to the stairwell only opens from inside as security measure; elevators still operational; dozens of people stranded in lobby

12:45 – Crowd gets sick of waiting, calls someone for help

1:00 – Chuck gets sick of waiting for the person called to actually come down, calls Miniyee for help

1:01 – Miniyee goes searching for some company since it’s dark and scary

1:15 – First person called arrives, opens door

1:15 and 5 seconds – Miniyee arrives, with two neighbors. Receives many thanks from Chuck and myself. Her words and smile are gracious, but her eyes hate us and our very existence. Faced with climbing up 18 flights of stairs, I agree with her eyes.

1:16 – Second Lord of the Rings reference made (by me), though at Chuck’s prompting. LED lamp is like the Light of Elendil.

1:17 – Third Lord of the Rings reference made (also by me). Some joke about heading back into Mordor. Stupid stairs.

1:18 – Someone in the group mentions that at least there’s no 13th floor. Trying not to be a Goapy Gus, I decline to point out that the first few floors are extra tall, and the ground floor is at least two stories. I do, however, make a clever joke about Ms. Zarves living on the 13th floor. No one laughs. Exercise must make people humorless.

1:19 – I observe, out loud, that there’s this thing called a “Stairmaster,” and I wonder why on Earth (or Middle Earth) anyone would pay money for it

1:20 – Miniyee makes joke about this stair-climbing being the most exercise she’s ever seen me do. Too winded at this point for snappy comeback.

1:21 – Walk Miniyee and other 10th floor neighbors to their doors and chat for a bit, make sure they’re OK—ostensibly to be gentlemanly (but really to procrastinate imminent stair-climbing)

1:29 – Resume intrepid trek, despite overwhelming urge to set up a base camp and make for the summit in the morning

1:32 – Return to apartment. Thighs hurt.

1:33 – Exchange pleasantries and commiseration with Chuck. Borrow an LED lamp for the evening so as not to injure myself getting to bed.

1:40 – Get ready for bed. Wish shower was operational.

1 minute later at 2:00+ AM – Finally look at clock. Night’s events took longer than thought. Exhausted. Barely remember to make sure cell phone alarm will wake me up, as normal alarm is inoperable. Toss and turn for a bit (no A/C, hot and humid night, just climbed up all those stairs). Finally fall asleep.

6:30 – Alarm goes off. Power back on. Only 84 hours until the weekend.

I would play this game.

My Census Question

OK, so the Census is coming up next year. Hypothetical situation: I think my state is great. By and large, I love the Congressmen it elects, and I love the presidential candidates for whom it casts its electoral votes. Furthermore, I think when federal money comes its way, it spends it more responsibly in ways that create more jobs and help more people than most other states.

In this situation, I have one heck of an incentive to lie when the Census people come a-knocking or a-calling or a-mailing or, G-d forbid, a-Tweeting or a-Facebook poking, or however they do it these days. Because if I say I live with my roommate, his girlfriend, both of my girlfriends, and a family of 14 recently arrived (but perfectly legal!) immigrants, I'm doing my part to help my state, and through its superior voting and fiscal responsibility, the country. After all, Congressional representation and allotted electoral votes are directly related to the population of a state as calculated by the decannual (if that's not a word it is now) US Census. Furthermore, federal funding that gets divided up among states will sometimes be at least in part allocated according to relative population figures.

So if I want to have increased influence in steering my country in the right direction (not to mention preventing more Department of Education funds from finding their way to Kansas high schools where they'll be used to purchase periodic tables beginning with Jesus, Oxygen, and Abstinence and biology and history textbooks which both begin exactly 6,000 years ago), shouldn't I do my patriotic duty and generously round up the number of free persons residing in my domicile?

Innovation like this could very well be what saves the economy, and the planet.

This may be my very first Not Safe For Work (NSFW) link, but if this isn't an economic indicator, I don't know what is. Again, it's NSFW.

Costco Reviews

So apparently a while ago, as a spoof, I came up with these "true testimonials" of Costco shoppers. Having found them over a year later, I think they're pretty funny, and though I have no memory of writing them, I'm going to repost them here.

Actual Testimonials of Costco Shoppers

"The sales got me so hot, I had to pour McDonald's coffee in my lap to cool off!" -Anna Q. Pendleton

"Finally, we have an answer to the question: Where Would Jesus Shop?" -Mike Huckabee

"Costco is SO great that not recognizing it would make Santa Claus himself vomit in rage" -Hershel Bartlet

"It was always my dream to create a fantastic play, and with Costco's help, I'm making it happen! Who knew you could buy monkeys AND typewriters in 4,000-packs at the same store?" -Arthur D. Miller

"As a smoking hot woman, I found this store to be so impressive I'd seriously consider making out with any guy I saw shopping there" -Jessica Peterson

"I was lonely, so I started hanging out at Costco hoping to find a wife--and wouldn't you know it, I found three! That's Costco for you..." -Mitt Romney

"Costco and the Dalai Lama can combine to form the perfect store...and the Dalai Lama." -Chuck Norris

"You go to a neighbor when you need a cup of something. You go to the corner when you need a pint of something. You go to the grocery store for a gallon of something. But Costco...Costco is where you go when you need a crate full of boxes full of 3-packs of something. And for me, today, that something was vacuum cleaners. Thanks, Costco!" -Samantha Hirsch

My BurgerMap

www.awesomeopolis.com/burgermap

BurgerMap Philly is here! Around 40 Philadelphia burger-serving locations rated and reviewed by yours truly on a color-coded Google map. This is an idea I've had for a while, but only recently got to work on. Right now it's a Beta version in the sense that I'm still playing around with it, and also in the sense that I don't have nearly enough burgers rated.

Comments? Suggestions? Suggestions for future burgers to rate? Disagreements? Post them here.

I have the feeling I'd be MUCH better at meeting women if this technology existed. Largely because my competition would plummet, but also because I think I'd get reasonably favorable reviews.

Does anyone else find strange humor in the fact that, to save money, the University of Washington Communications Department has eliminated individual telephone land-lines for faculty members?

This is a pretty cool picture.

My Neighbors

In lieu of hearing my opinions, read this (Too Poor to Make the News), or even just part of it. If you're too lazy, it's a New York Times guest piece written about how invisible the poorest Americans have become.

The media is flushed with stories of rich and middle class people who have fallen from grace, but the working poor are losing their jobs and homes in disproportionately greater numbers as they crowd into trailers and tiny apartments and sleep on the streets. They're hard to count, hard to see, and are becoming invisible, but there's almost 40 million of them, more than 1 out of every 10 Americans, and when designing policy or making donations or arguing around the watercooler, it's important not to forget them. The gap between the middle class and the uber-rich may be shrinking a bit, but the gap between the middle class and the poorest certainly isn't as their standard of living falls to third-world levels. Unharnessed economic potential and millions of families hang in the balance as we argue about Main Street and Wall Street...but the streets aren't just places of business. They're homes and beds to far too many.

[Incidentally, this kind of makes me mad at John Edwards...he was in a prime position to help these people and do something about it--more than just handouts and stopgaps--and he had great ideas and energy, and then he screwed it all up...it's not just his own life and marriage on his shoulders. Am I crazy, or do others feel like he let a lot of people down too?]

This guy is a great FML waiting to happen, and so is the next guy who breaks into the first guy's car.

Lilly, on the subject of children, before she started learning how to drive: “So cute!”

Lilly, on the subject of children, while taking driving lessons: “they are darting, dashing, short and completely oblivious fractions of people.”

HoagieFest

I'm really excited for HoagieFest 2009. In fact, I am immediately endorsing this Fest. Read about it here at Awesomeopolis.

This comic has a rather xkcd quality to it.

This one, from the same series, is something I've always thought but never had the time or courage to put into comic form.

The Safer Side of Bonds?

I had an idea today, and the logic goes as follows:
America's massive debt to China makes us safer. Why? There's reasonably high correlation between the following: really evil people, people who hate America, people who rely on China's economic engagement and/or tacit political support.

During the Korean War, China got involved solidly on the side of North Korea. Since then, a lot of our problems with North Korea are compounded by China's lack of willingness to play ball. But now that we owe China hundreds of billions of dollars, they can't really take sides against us in an armed conflict, and today, the Wall Street Journal reported that China may be willing to consider sanctions as North Korea pursues nuclear weapons. I think China is waking up to their new incentive structure, and we'll be seeing them take steps, if necessary, to safeguard what is essentially their investment in our future.

Alexander Hamilton said "a national debt is a national blessing," and I think we're going to start seeing it in action.

(That said, this huge debt burden may prove crippling, lead to high interest rates, rampant inflation, increased rates of corporate bankruptcy, and rollbacks in services and government programs. But at least China will help keep the nukes away.)

Most Badass TV Character

Calling all Firefly fans! River Tam, a 10-seed in Awesomeopolis's Most Badass TV Character bracket poll, has made it all the way to the finals! After a huge upset by this spunky little badass over a strong 2nd-seeded Jack Bauer, she now faces off in the battle of the brains against Dr. Gregory House. Her opponent uses his brain to fight diseases, and River, well, she can kill you with her brain.

I'm not sure how many Firefly fans I have left reading this blog (I know I used to have a lot more...say hi if you're still out there), but I'd like to endorse River Tam over Dr. House in this match. She has a special place in my heart for a number of reasons (such as this one, this one, a memory or two, and the fact that I nominated her for this contest).

For those of you wondering how these two made it to the finals, Dr. House was supported by a huge community of Hungarian fans of House, MD, and River was catapulted past Jack by a collection of Sci-Fi nerds, Joss Whedon devotees, and lonely guys who think she's cute--all of whom spend way too much time surfing the internet.

More Credit Card Law Analysis

So I did a little more research, here's an update on a few specific provisions relating to students:

PROVISION: Students may not be offered gifts in exchange for completing credit card applications.
RATING: Don't like it, but probably a net gain.
ANALYSIS: This seems like it hurts the responsible people and helps the irresponsible people. There are probably a lot more irresponsible students than knowledgeable and fiscally responsible students, so I think it might be a net societal gain by making it harder to get the irresponsible students addicted to debt, as they say. That said, I don't like the idea of punishing the responsible at the expense of the irresponsible. Just as it's easier for a credit card company to take advantage of a student, it's also easier for a responsible and cunning student to take advantage of credit card companies--by getting free stuff in exchange for what they were going to do anyway (that is, get a credit card and be responsible about it). It also restricts freedom and limits consumer choice. So from a philosophical standpoint I'm opposed to it, and it does hurt people like me, but I think I have to admit that even I expect this provision to produce some slight net benefit for the country.

PROVISION: Universities will now be required to disclose marketing agreements made with credit card issuers. Credit card companies will likewise be required to report donations and other financial transactions with universities and alumni associations.
RATING: Good
ANALYSIS: If a student's school is in a business relationship with the company offering credit cards on campus, disclosing that may take away what a student sees as an implicit endorsement. It reveals conflicts of interest, does nothing to restrict freedom or choice, and provides information to consumers. I think there are great principles involved here, and the only reason I didn't rate it higher than "Good" is because I'm not sure how big a difference this will make. But there's no downside, so it's worth a shot.

PROVISION: "Calls on" the Government Accountability Office to conduct a review of the impact of university/credit card company business relationships on student credit card debt.
RATING: Good
ANALYSIS: No "thou shalt not..." regulation in this part. It just asks the GAO to look into how big a factor these currently unseen deals are when it comes to helping and hurting students with credit, credit cards and debt. The disclosure requirements should make the studies easier to do, and it might provide some insights that make future regulation and legislation better. I'll upgrade this to a "Great" if we also use the opportunity to learn about financial education needs and how to improve that education in this country.

My Credit Card Law Analysis

So Congress is passing new credit card legislation. Some of the ideas in it are good, and some of them are bad. Some of them will help lots of people. Some won't. A few provisions will help some poor people and hurt some rich people. Other provisions will protect some poor people and hurt some other poor people. Here's PiFry's Guide to Congress's Credit Card Legislation Rush Job. Whether you're trying to form your own opinions or sound impressive at the watercooler, this primer of a few salient points should help. Feel free to add your own ideas in the comments.

PROVISION: Banks must send out credit card bills no later than 21 days before payment is due.
RATING: Pretty Good
ANALYSIS: This prevents the old trick of mailing a bill late in the hopes of being able to charge late fee. That trick is unethical and abusive, and 21 days builds in enough time to account for two envelopes making their way through the postal system, plus ample time for the bill payer to get the money together to pay it. Ideally Congress would just outlaw the unethical tactics, but intent is so hard to prove and even harder to monitor, so a day count is the best way to go. I'm not crazy about such a stiff and inflexible regulation, but I honestly can't think of a better way to do it.

PROVISION: Banks generally must wait until a payment is 60 days late before charging the higher penalty rate on outstanding balances.
RATING: Unnecessary, annoying, and too restrictive
ANALYSIS: Why 60 days? Why not 2 months, which would be anywhere from 59 to 62 days? Why not 59 days? Why not 49 days? This is an arbitrary and unnecessary cutoff. If a payment is late, the previous provision kind of ensures the person is actually delinquent and not caught in some trick. I understand allowing some grace period for something like a medical emergency or being stuck in an airport someplace, but 60 days seems excessive. A 30 day limit might help people who need it, but a long 60 limit just lends a helping hand not to the poor, but to the irresponsible. Credit card companies may try to make up the profits elsewhere at the expense of more creditworthy customers, which violates a fairness principle I think most Americans hold when it comes to markets. (As an aside, this regulation could also be bypassed by a penalty scheme that's still legal and yet more complicated and esoteric--kind of the exact opposite of the direction in which this bill is trying to push things.)

PROVISION: 45 days mandatory notice for an interest rate change
RATING: Often good, sometimes annoying
ANALYSIS: It makes sense to require enough notice of changing rates to allow them to plan accordingly. This prevents some abuse. That said, it also rules out cards for consumers who might WANT a frequently-changing rate. If a bank wants to issue a card with a fluctuating but lower-on-average variable rate (or a consumer is willing to trade a fluctuating rate for something more important to them about the card), this will restrict consumer choice. I don't like that, and it potentially costs society some real value. I think there should be some exceptions in the final draft of the bill (I'm not sure if they're talking about it or not).

PROVISION: If a consumer's payment is received by 5PM on the due date, the payment is on time.
RATING: Awesome
ANALYSIS: The only thing this does is prevent a company from screwing with customers by putting a mid-day or early-morning deadline in the fine print. No more charging late fees for having a payment arrive with an afternoon mail delivery, and no more late fees for the postman getting caught in traffic.

PROVISION: Banks will now require customer permission before charging that customer a fee for exceeding their credit limit.
RATING: Very good
ANALYSIS: Currently, a bank can automatically charge a high fee every time a consumer goes over his or her limit (accepting the new charge). From now on, the default will be for limits to be actual limits, and charges will be declined unless the customer gives the bank permission to charge an outrageous fee for a temporary bump of the credit limit. Only downside is for the consumers who don't know they're at their limit, haven't authorized such a fee, and really really really need to charge whatever they're trying to put on their card. But you can't have your cake and eat it too.

PROVISION: When carrying multiple types of balances on the same card (with different rates), banks must apply payments to the highest interest portion of the balance first.
RATING: Very good
ANALYSIS: It was an old trick to say "0% interest for balance transfers!" and let someone put $6,000 on a new card that had a 24.99% rate for everything else. Then even if the customer was responsible and spent $100 the first month while paying $200 on the bill, the credit card company would say "OK, you now have $5,800 outstanding on the balance transfer and $100 outstanding on which you owe 24.99% interest." It was basically a trap to roll all the new spending into a very high interest loan until they paid for the balance transfer. There were tons of these tricks, and now they'll be illegal. Good for consumers--especially less savvy ones--and bad for credit card companies (who will probably take it out on customers like me who always pay off everything). The downside to this comes up when a consumer would want to pay the lower-rate balance off first, though such situations are hard to think of outside of contrived examples.

PROVISION: Promotional rates must last at least 6 months.
RATING: Terrible
ANALYSIS: Promotional rates are marketing. As long as the duration of the promotional rate is made clear from the beginning, we shouldn't force companies into using specific types of marketing offers. This kind of invasive micromanaging helps very little and bans (or makes more difficult to provide) all sorts of offers which could, if used correctly, be very beneficial to consumers. A plain-English disclosure requirement would work much better here.

PROVISION: Issuers can't raise the base (non-promotional non-penalty rate) for a year after issuance.
RATING: Meh, whatever
ANALYSIS: This one probably isn't a big deal in the long run; it does offer some protection; and the above regulation allows the effective rate to change once (promotional to non-promotional), but seriously, let the market decide this kind of thing. If we're requiring 45 days written notice for a rate change, how necessary is this? On the other hand, it could prevent someone from having to change credit cards a lot, which would reflect negatively on their credit rating...in analyzing this I reach an indifference point.

PROVISION: Certain pieces of information will have to be disclosed in plain English and written in 10-point font or bigger.
RATING: Awesome
ANALYSIS: Disclosure regulations are good. Disclosure regulations which mandate important information be presented in a legible and understandable format are even better. These kinds of information include everything from expiration dates on gift cards (and similar devices) to how much it would cost to pay off a balance making the minimum payments. Useful information for consumers presented clearly. Fantastic. Nine thumbs up.

Finally:
PROVISIONS: Young people and students are going to see a very different landscape in a lot of ways. I'm getting conflicting information on what this will entail.
RATING: Hard to say right now, but it's looking worriesome
ANALYSIS: I've heard a lot of reports floating around, but generally it seems like the little ideas are good and the big ideas are bad. Little ideas include more disclosure on relationships between colleges and card issuers and banning certain marketing practices like a university-endorsed booth offering frat boys a free slice of pizza if they sign up for a credit card. Big ideas include forcing parental cosigners for young people, and parental consent for increases in credit limit. My big problem with this: how are young people supposed to develop good credit on their own? Having a credit card was very helpful to me in college in developing a credit history, and it's saved me a lot of money over the years. Those who have their own income can apply for a waiver, but the cutoff age being talked about is 21. This means for 3 years a full American citizen who isn't a minor will be treated like a second class citizen. 21 is a rare age limit, and we use it for things like drinking due to all the extra drunk driving deaths. Is a credit card really that dangerous? Some would argue yes, but they'd be equivocating, and this doesn't sit right with me. This could help protect some, but also hurt and inconvenience a lot of people.

That's the end of my primer; I have to go do other things now. Hope it helped. One last note: I'm hearing a lot of talk about how the credit card companies will jack up fees and cut benefits for responsible card holders to make up the difference...I'm not sure how true that is though. I'm sure we'll see a little bit of that, but at the same time, if credit card companies have to make more money on regular business and less on fees, they may be competing even more vigorously for the big-spenders (after all, the companies do get a percentage of EVERY TRANSACTION that takes place on the credit card as well). I think the effects may cancel each other out, by and large.

My Dramatic Readings

This editorial from today’s New York Times talks about what we have lost by no longer reading aloud to one another (and no longer playing music for one another). I know many who would agree with this piece, and I too agree with the author that such activities had and have great value, ranging from a different kind of literacy and literary understanding to a lost form of familial intimacy. That said, I think that by and large this author is completely wrong.

The first logical fault lies in claiming that aside from convenience, we gain nothing from hearing books on tape instead of read aloud at an in-person gathering and from hearing music recorded by professionals instead of played in a cozy living-room recital. I say that even if it were NOT as convenient, these things could still be considered massive improvements. Audiobooks are often read by professional actors or voice actors, and even the less-professionally done volumes still get the benefit of editing and redoing portions. We are getting a higher quality product. When I read aloud, I stammer sometimes. I don’t always read far enough ahead with my eyes to begin a sentence with the inflection or tone intended by the author. I may be quite deficient compared with the average bookworm of a century or two ago, but even they can’t compete with trained pros who get do-overs and editing equipment. My audiobook is of a higher quality.

And that argument goes double for music. Sure it’d be nice to hear a waltz played on the family harpsichord by my neighbor’s daughter, but does she take requests? She can’t possibly have the 5,000 song repertoire my iPod has, and even if she did, my iPod can learn a new song faster. A collection of friends can’t master all the techniques, songs, instruments, styles, and vocal impressions required to recreate my favorite compositions, and I don’t even think I have enough friends to replicate the London Symphony Orchestra. Which brings me to my next point: the London Symphony Orchestra is BETTER than my friends. Apologies to any musically inclined readers, but there’s no way a social network can match quality recordings of the best the world has ever seen. Metropolitan orchestras, original cast recordings from musicals, historical recordings of bands long gone, and nearly instant access to the best of modern innovation…all these things are at our fingertips now.

Now, I’ll still read to my children. And I’ll play my audiobooks as I drift off to sleep because it’s convenient. But I’ll also play music for my children even when I’m capable of singing to them instead—because I suck at it. And audiobooks read by the author will always have a place in my home, because that out-loud version is guaranteed to better represent the author’s intended inflections, tones and more ineffable qualities. Technology doesn’t stop us from doing these things, but the fact that we frequently choose not to may be telling. Convenience is huge, but so is quality.

We can lament the decline of human interaction brought on by computers, cell phones and iPods, but when it comes to the recitation and recreation of pre-composed prose and music, I’ll accept modernity’s technological embrace over Jane Austen’s contemporary parlors, because not only is it more convenient, it’s better.

Question: Can any of my readers who have taken the GRE tell me how well these practice problems approximate what I'm likely to see on the test? As an incentive, the sooner I ace this test, the more time I'll have for creating quality content on this blog! Also I'll owe you one.

This political cartoon comes from Max Power. It does beg an interesting question: how much difference does there have to be between a successful government program and a ponzi scheme?

My Bag Tax?

The City Council in Philadelphia is proposing a 25 cent charge per-plastic-bag used at a store...small businesses would get to keep the revenue for themselves, larger ones would have to give some of it back to the city as taxes. I'm not sure how I feel about it, but I've been asked by a few readers to share some thoughts, so here's my first-cut analysis.

Some people are asking "why not just ban it?" On principle, government should intervene and ban really harmful stuff, but there's a whole category of other things which provide value, but which people tend to over-consume due to a market failure (a negative externality). This occurs when someone gets most or all of the benefit of an action, but only incurs a small portion (or none) of the cost of that action. The government doesn't want to ban a helpful activity altogether, but it needs a way to keep it in check, lest people hurt society for their own benefit. Governments cap emissions on cars, for example (if cars could pollute more, they'd be cheaper, and drivers would get all the benefit while passing most of the cost onto everyone else who has an equal stake in having clean air). Taxation is a powerful market-adjusting tool if applied correctly...one of the greatest public health measures of the century in this country has been the cigarette tax.

A tax also makes sense because it helps generate money that can be used to help offset the harm caused by the thing being taxed...helping to negate the initial wrongdoing. If Philadelphia put the revenue towards city beautification, cleanup projects, and creating green jobs, it may be better than a ban, which would eliminate consumer choice. I'd rather have the option of bringing my own bag or paying 25 cents for one as opposed to being forced to bring my own bag. A tax is no WORSE than a ban from an individual consumer's perspective...unless a store under a ban would switch to free paper bags and under the tax will just charge for the bags...and now I'll get into the real problem I have with the tax:

It's extremely regressive. Poor people will end up paying a higher percentage of their income, and generally be more shafted, for several reasons. One, they'll be less well prepared for the switch, as they don't read my blog (and other factors). Two, avoiding the charge is an expense and hassle more easily managed by wealthier people: buying good reusable bags would be a substantial one-time expense, and it's a lot easier to use such bags once acquired if you have a car and don't have to take a bus (they'll be bulkier, and must be carried both ways). Third, and most importantly, it's a flat fee tax, that is, everyone pays the same. It won't rise or fall with income or even the value of the items purchased, making it more regressive than even a sales tax, which at least goes down as you buy cheaper stuff. This tax is proportional to the amount of stuff bought, and when it comes to groceries, poor people buy cheaper, but they still need to eat the same amount of food as anyone else. If passed, this may be one of the most necessarily regressive taxes in history. (I say "necessarily regressive" because there are more regressive taxes that target products preferred by poor people, like the cigarette tax actually. But poor people at least have a choice not to smoke; they don't have a choice not to buy groceries, making it necessary to choose between paying the charge or paying to avoid it.)

(OK, now that I've made some good points, I'll go back to being wishy-washy.) The only thing I can think of to mitigate the regressive problem is to require that any place offering plastic bags also offer paper ones, which won't be subject to a city-mandated charge. It's not a perfect solution, and I generally hate the idea of government micromanaging business like that. The whole thing doesn't sit right with me...that said, it is a step in the right direction environmentally speaking and people will adapt to it. On a macro-level, though, I think a national gasoline tax would be a lot better than widespread plastic bag bans or taxes, and I do love my Wawa bags.

Now I want a Wawa sandwich. Who's surprised?

I wish this song could play for me every morning when I get into work...

My New Blog's Shoutout

So this new blogging project with which I may or may not be involved is running a bracket competition to determine the most badass TV character. This competition, primarily conceived and executed by the most badass roommate I've ever had the pleasure of living with, just got a shoutout in a blog on USA Today (7th from the bottom in the post called "Early buzz: Shins, Krasinski, Wanderlust and more").

I'd also like to endorse the Doctor from Dr. Who as the most badass TV character. As a fourth seed, this Time Lord wiped out two whole species, including his own, to save the entire universe. If that's not stone-cold badass, I don't know what is. Further examples of the Doctor's badassery as the competition continues.

While I'm on my Death Star kick, this awesome jack-o-lantern comes courtesy of Lilly.

Death Star Manual: The Missing Page. Explains a lot. Also, funny.

I would watch this movie.

Also, does anyone know a good way to get a really high GRE score without studying? I don't think my old SAT I/II tricks are gonna work, and I don't want to break my streak of never studying for standardized tests.

Want to feel better about your own drunk or otherwise ill-conceived text messages?

http://www.textsfromlastnight.com/

How fair is a coin flip? Use this article to beat your friends slightly more than 50% of the time!

Just posted on my new blogging project. Though it might appeal to readers here as well. It has graphs!

Scroll down and read the second and third customer reviews. Notice anything hilarious?

A new song to learn your state capitals. Any views expressed about Harrisburg Pennsylvania in this video that appear to correspond with my own are purely coincidental.

My New Blog

So I'm involved in a new blogging project: Life in Awesomeopolis. It's a collaborative blog dedicated to all things awesome. Since I pass along a fair number of awesome things to my readers here, I figured I'd share the wealth. Other writers include Chuck, Rhyno, Lord Henry, Lucy, and Barkeep (plus one person for whom I have no current pseudonym, I should fix that). I've summarized the mission statement for the new blog here.

It just launched a couple days ago, and the site is something of a beta version. Expect lots of new things there, and feel free to leave feedback and "thumbs up" on the stuff you like.

This blog will still continue, though I'll probably move some of my random link posting to Awesomeopolis. Hope you like it.

If any of you are building a time machine, don't forget this:

http://www.topatoco.com/graphics/qw-cheatsheet-print-zoom.jpg

Happy Passover! More on that later.

Mazal Tov

Congratulations to Sheba, my youngest brother, who was just accepted to my own alma mater, the University of Pennsylvania! I'd like to open the comments section to unsolicited and potentially hilarious advice for a new pre-Freshman.

Not sure what to make of this, but I can't say I disagree with the sentiment one bit.

Lilly isn't much of a numbers person, or much of a finance person, or much of an accountant, but she managed to stumble onto this particular gem of the tax code: rules for claiming a kidnapped child as a dependent. Apparently if your child gets kidnapped over the course of a tax year, you can only claim the exemption under certain conditions.

O, wonder!
How many crazy websites are there here!
How beauteous bureaucracy is! O brave new world wide web,
That has such pages in it!

I've never seen a 140 second trailer for a TV special that's going to be 42 minutes plus 18 of commercials, but I am super psyched about the upcoming Jim Gaffigan special.

After you're done watching it (it's worth it), read the post below. I seem a lot smarter in that one.

My Bonus Policy

Companies are currently coming under fire for giving out bonuses while laying people off, and the ones who are giving out big bonuses while laying people off and accepting public money to stay afloat are downright reviled. In most cases, rightfully so, but I want to make a brief argument IN FAVOR of giving out bonuses to certain kinds of people, and those people are the ones who helped company performance by predicting the downturn, the bursting of the real estate bubble, and the credit crunch and the people who took steps to mitigate the risk. If companies don’t reward those people, or aren’t allowed to, then it creates a massive disincentive in the future for people to tell the truth, especially when it’s bad news. People already don’t like making bad predictions or giving bad news to superiors, but we’re on the verge of creating an incentive structure in which people ONLY make money by predicting good things and then having them happen.

•If an analyst predicts good things and he’s wrong, low compensation, less job security.

•If an analyst predicts bad things and he’s wrong, low compensation, seen as a pessimist/downer/disloyal.

•If an analyst predicts good things and he’s right, big bonus for being right and helping the company prepare.

•If an analyst predicts bad things and he’s right…low compensation and less job security? Really?

OK, now pretend you’re an analyst and the CEO says “Hey, we’ve got all these subprime mortgage loans on the books. Do you think we should buy more?” If you say yes, your fortunes are tied to those loans. But if you say no, even if you’re right you’re screwed because the company’s so heavily exposed to them anyway, the bad year causes you to get a crappy bonus anyway! So less risk for you means more risk for the financial system.

We should find a way to reward those most prescient, and send a message to future generations of economists, bankers, financiers and analysts that good work will be rewarded, because the difference between getting good analysis and having people game the system for their own benefit is exponentially greater than the hit companies and taxpayers take giving out bonuses even in the worst of times.

I’m not saying we should be paying for multi-million dollar office redecorations, but some people actually deserve bonuses, and for the sake of our future economy, they should get them.

My Scary Pope

OK, so I've been saying the current Pope is kind of a scary dude for a while now. Before it was just because he looked like someone out to get Harry Potter (pun intended...wait for it...). But now he's taken being scary to a whole new level, a real one.

According to MSNBC.com and CNN the channel, while in Africa the Pope had this to say about AIDS: "You can't resolve it with the distribution of condoms." OK, that's true. I can see how an anti-condom kind of guy would spin it that way, maybe in his own defense, saying that his views aren't killing Africans so lay off. A little bit of a cop-out since condoms would save countless lives over there, but hey, he's not paid to care about that.

What's really frightening is that the Pope went ON to say that the distribution of condoms "increases the problem" of AIDS.

Some of you may remember previous instances of Catholic official denouncing the usage of condoms and saying that they cause AIDS. In fact, I blogged about it once. But this takes it to a whole new level.

We're talking about the most powerful religious figure in the world, head of a church representing roughly one-sixth the entire planet's population, and he's out there telling people that the distribution and use of condoms makes the AIDS epidemic WORSE.

I don't even know what to say about such an unconscionable action, a statement that will, in all likelihood, kill more people than I even know. It was one thing for him not to discipline the archbishop who said that condoms cause AIDS, but it's quite another to publicly agree that condoms are part of the problem.

Not knowing what to say, I turned to Jon Stewart for some wisdom:
"The Pope went on to say that smoking cures cancer, and if you're looking for a quick morning pick-me-up, try heroin." Sadly, the mock advice would actually have been LESS harmful (for a variety of reasons) than what the Pope actually said.

[Editor's Addendum: Barkeep, loyal Catholic, has brought up the only conceivable defense to the Pope's statement: more condoms means more casual sex means more AIDS. It's actually the first thing I thought of too. But after thinking about it, I'm 99.9% convinced it doesn't hold up to scrutiny. Think of it this way:
A = Instances of Unprotected Sex Between Infected Individual and Non-Infected Individual
B = Probability of AIDS Infection From Unprotected Sex with Infected Individual
X = Instances of Protected Sex Between Infected Individual and Non-Infected Individual
Y = Probability of AIDS Infection From Protected Sex with Infected Individual

New Cases = A*B + X*Y

The argument is based on the fact that X will increase faster than A will decrease if condoms are distributed. I agree. But for the argument to work, however, the magnitude has to be such that it overcomes how much lower Y is than B. Plug any reasonable assumptions into the equation and do your own tests, it doesn't work at all. Especially in Africa, where poor education leads to VERY little hesitation to have casual sex with or without protection, and where women often have little ability to refuse to have sex with a husband who cheats on her regularly, meaning a smaller |dX/dA| than in America, where it's still surprisingly and depressingly low.]

Courtesy of Chuck, a 60 second tutorial on credit scores (in video form, otherwise, how would I know it's 60 seconds? That said the video is longer than 60 seconds because there's an intro).

Sorry about the paucity of posting of late, I'm working on a new blogging project with a few friends. I'll be sure to let my loyal readership know about it as soon as it's up and running.

Happy Pi Day: Part II

Happy Pi Day again, readers! I just had to add one more link to this year's Pi Day Link Library:

CNN.com: American Pi, by Elizabeth Landau (not to be confused with the essay of the same title)

Some of you familiar with boring epic saga that is my life may know the author better as "Pi Girl," who has earned her nickname once again with this pi-inspired version of Don McLean's classic hit.

Thanks, Pi Girl, for brightening our Pi Day and proving that while the news never takes a day off, sometimes the people who write about it can still have fun.

Happy Pi Day

Happy Pi Day, readers! This year I've assembled an assortment of Pi related links for your viewing pleasure.

An old favorite put on a t-shirt.

I have absolutely no idea what to make of this penguin.

Another t-shirt, this one with a pi joke in a pie chart...lots of bonus points for this one.

Courtesy of Chuck, an item that will help you liven up your next Pi Day Party.

Here's a link to the official Pi Day website (though I really don't know how "official" it can possibly be).

Also...awwww. (The little pi gets a 4-W "aw" for those of you keeping score at home.)

And just to prove I'm not the only one excited, see the woot blog describe the 9 ways in which they'll celebrate Pi Day.

(If it were warmer out, I'd totally wear this shirt that Lilly got for me.)

Yeah, I suck at posting this month. I work too much. Sorry, readers.

My lunches this week have been:
Monday - Two cheesesteaks (one regular, one chicken...why are food carts so cheap?)
Tuesday - Two-pound burrito (love that guac)
Wednesday - Half of a large double-pepperoni triple cheese pizza (w/extra cheese)
Thursday - Coated, battered and fried Chinese food. Delicious.

What will tomorrow have in store? Besides a defibrillator I mean.

Oh, yeah, and Monday for dinner I had 14 hamantaschen. Delicious!

Courtesy of Groucho: Scanwiches! Scans of sandwiches (cross-sectionally speaking)!

Pop Quiz: Did this website make me hungry? If you answered no, you're probably new here. Welcome, new reader!

My "Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Idiot"

So a big deal has been made about Rush Limbaugh lately. I never really paid the guy much attention--there hasn't been anything I could get from him that I don't already get from at least one of the three homeless people I pass on my way to work (the religious nut, the mean lady, and the crazy bird-man). Together those three beggars really are like listening to Rush on a drive to work...except I get to walk.

But lately he's been getting a lot of press, mostly about the Democrats painting him as the new face of the Republican party and his being stupid enough to accept that (or smart enough if he doesn't actually care about his party and just wants to cash in). So I thought I'd listen to a few of his comments from that famous speech he gave recently.

I didn't last very long.

At one point in his diatribe against President Obama, he decried our intrepid leader and attacked him for the TARP (Troubled Asset Relief Program), which he unequivocally described as unconstitutional.

OK, now I'm no historian, but wasn't the TARP plan created, enacted, and pushed through Congress by George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, and Henry Paulson? Wasn't half the TARP money spent or committed before Obama's inauguration?

Heckuva job with that speech, Rushie.

Gambling Addicts and Economic Theory

With a headline like this, everyone probably can guess where I'm going. Why play games with a negative expected return? Over the long run, you're almost guaranteed to lose money. A rational consumer wouldn't repeatedly do something like that. But I've found another defiance of economic theory, even when you look at gambling as a valuable good (consumed by gamblers).

Temporarily look at gambling as an entertainment expense. Sure, it costs money, but so does a movie, and people enjoy gambling a lot. Even if you do it too much, a little bit still makes sense in your life if you enjoy the activity enough (just like shopaholics need to stop impulse buying, but don't need to stop purchasing things from stores entirely).

OK, now let's switch gears for a minute. A fundamental tenant of financial and economic theory is that optionality has value. It's always better to have the option to do something than to not have the option, because if you DO have the option, you're never worse off, and in some potential future states of the world, you are demonstrably better off. Higher expected value, higher present value. It's why stock options are valuable (very valuable in this high-volatility market), and part of the explanation why an American call on a stock is worth the same as a European call on a stock (if you don't know what that means, don't worry about it).

Now combine those two points with this report from the Philadelphia Inquirer: New Jersey, home of Atlantic City, just added their one-thousandth (1,000th) name to a special list of persons banned from entering casinos. What makes this list so special is that it's voluntary. 1,000 individuals have gone out of their way to ask to have the option to enter a casino and gamble taken away from them.

At the core, I do very much understand and appreciate the impulse. It's the same logic that causes many people to avoid being in the presence of unhealthful foods. Remove the temptation, remove the possibility, and you can assist your better self in a mind-over-matter struggle for identity and self determination. Sure the option to have a donut has value, just as the option to gamble, since both goods are capable of producing great joy. But they're both bad for people in excess, and some people can't even trust themselves not to over-consume the good until their marginal return is negative.

What can we infer from this? Are there any lessons, or is it just an interesting oddity? I have a few thoughts:

When markets become inefficient, when the decisions of one person can impact the outcome of a system, or when human psychology--even financial psychology--is a major factor...don't count on rationality. This may be obvious, but what most people don't consider is that if you're counting on irrationality, it may be easy to predict what type of irrationality you're dealing with. The way I see it, there are two types of overriding irrationality: Overreaction and Inflated Discount Rates.

Overreaction is fairly easy to understand. People need to cut back on gambling, so they slam on the breaks and ban themselves from casinos (in some cases it may be the only way to avoid under-reacting, which carries with it worse consequences, but in some cases it may be to the forfeiture of consumer surplus, or value). We see it in less dire straights. My brother wants to be healthy, so he now eats nothing but egg-white omelets, steamed chicken, and vegetables. A little bit of bad economic news comes out, so the markets crash 4% only to bounce back 3% the next day.

Inflating a discount rate is a little harder to understand and see in every day life, but basically what it means is that people increase the impact time has on diminishing the value or detriment associated with a future gain or loss. A dollar today is worth more than a dollar a year from now (because even if you don't want to spend the dollar for a year, you could still put it in the bank and wind up with more than you started--also you have the option of spending it now or later, while the dollar a year from now only lets you spend it later, and optionality has value). But a dollar today is only worth maybe a dollar and a penny a year from now, or a dollar and four cents...certainly not more than a dollar and a quarter. But when people are being irrational, they place immediate value disproportionately above future value, and make bad decisions. A donut now tastes good, and diabetes is a long way off, even if the pain it causes is thousands of times greater than the enjoyment reaped from the donuts (people also inflate discount rates when the connection isn't abundantly clear). But when people are scared or are being irrational, they often focus on the present at the expense of the future. In my experience, recognizing this tendancy can help to understand irrational behavior (such as the gambling addiction itself).

Ideally a person aware of these tendancies can balance them out, and the business student inside me suggests playing poker with people who can't.

Well, it's March, which means March Madness, and I can't think of anything more maddening than encountering something I can't eat, but I'm pretty sure this would drive me, or make me, mad (maybe both).

Leela: I'm afraid Fry is suffering from ocean madness.
Fry: Every time something good happens to me you say it's some kind of madness, or I'm drunk, or I ate too much candy. Well I saw a real mermaid and I wish for once my friends would have decency and kindness to believe me.
Leela [whispering]: Ocean madness.

My February 2009

You know what I really liked about this month? It was a 28-day February that started on a Sunday. That meant all my calendars had lots of space on them, be it my Outlook calendars at work, or the Google calendars I use in my personal life. Four rows of days taking up the same amount of space usually allocated to five and sometimes even six rows. It's going to be quite a few years before this happens again, so I'm trying to appreciate it. A spacious screen-filling calendar where each day stands full one-quarter-height (relative to the whole calendar). No 20% or 1/6th for February 2009 days!

OK, I'm making a big deal out of nothing, but it's still mildly cool, not to mention helpful when it comes to calendar reading.

My Workout

It's rare for my mother to get a shout-out on this blog, but this link comes straight from her @aol.com e-mail address: The Jedi Training Workout. It turns out you can lose weight and get in shape by practicing your lightsaber skills. Apparently I exercised regularly all through high school, and I didn't even know it!

My Takeaways (from Obama's non-State of the Union)

There are a few things I think are important to take away from Obama's speech last night. I think he did a good job, and was generally pleased with what I heard. I wanted to extricate a couple of points from the rhetoric and applause breaks as being particularly poignant.

1) Obama clearly stated that a cause of our economic problems was the placement of short-term rewards over long-term prosperity. I think even he doesn't know how right he is. This is an important distinction not because recognition will fix things, but because it means they're looking at things the right way when it comes to patching up the system and putting in place safeguards to ward off similar types of market failures, market crashes, and economic implosions (and a bit of market psychology may also come into play, as the mere feeling that our leadership is doing things right will restore confidence needed to bolster credit markets and investment).

2) Obama made a great point with his already much-quoted insistence that dropping out of school isn't just quitting on yourself, but quitting on the country. He followed it up by saying America needs all of its human resources working to as close to their potential as we can get them, and he's right. Combine that with other parts of his speech in which he implored Americans to invest in themselves through college or trade school or apprenticeships or graduate school, plus the part in which he insisted that research, invention, innovation and discovery will help lead us out of our economic hardship, and we have the beginning of a clear vision, a realistic look at ourselves and what we need to do. I think he couldn't be more right, and his challenge to restore America's place as having the highest proportion of college gruadates by 2020 attests to his long-term thinking, which is exactly what we need (note that 2020 is even after his second term would end, a horizon to which not many politicians often look).

3) Healthcare, energy, and education. These were his three priorities, and they should be three of the five places we invest our public money (the other two being resurrecting our financial services industry and investing in scientific research, discovery and innovation--at least that's the PiFry Plan). We can get better healthcare for less money; most other industrialized nations get similar healthcare for less money, and we have better resources to work with here. We can lead the world again in green energy technology, and we should. Green technology is going to revolutionize the way we generate, transport, and even use electricity, and it will likely open the doors to all sorts of new frontiers we can't even imagine now. China and Denmark shouldn't be given global leadership by our complacence, and there's huge returns on investment to be had. Education can be silver bullet, and it's the way we bring up a workforce able to compete in a globalized economy, able to hold the jobs we create in healthcare and green energy, able to invent the next solar panel, the next iPod, the next microprocessor, start the next Google or Intel or Microsoft. Obama, being as clear and correct as a president ever was, pointed out that those who out-teach today will out-compete tomorrow.

And finally, I'd just like to laugh about one more thing. That thing being how Bobby shot himself in the political foot afterwards by failing to adequately deliver a largely well-written speech, and also by invoking the federal government's disastrous response to Hurricane Katrina as a reason to espouse Republican philosophies (touting how well leaving people to fend for themselves in a disaster works...I guess there wasn't THAT much looting, so who needs a stimulus package).

My Banking System

I think policy makers are currently making the same mistakes about banking that the bankers who got us into this mess made.

No, I don't think Rahm and Larry are writing bad mortgages, but I DO think they're getting so deep in theory and math, nuance and ideology, that they're missing the fundamentals. Here's how I see it:

1) Many big banks are currently being called "Zombie banks" accurately. As awesome as a Zombie Bank would be to blog about, what the term means is that they're still standing--albeit on crutches--but lack the capital to extend credit very far into the economy. They're big, but they can't act like a big bank.

2) Any recapitalization of the banks that would allow them to achieve their former prowess (And I'm thinking of banks like Citi and Bank of America right now) would not only be so large as to be impossible without public assistance for the time being, but the sum of money would also be larger than the net worth of the banks themselves, a net worth which, mind you, is being pushed up right now (talking about market capitalization, the price per share times outstanding shares) by some probability that the government will give a huge gift to the current shareholders, bringing me to point three:

3) Any rescue plan that allows the banks to lubricate our economy the way they once did and facilitate a recovery would either (A) have to come with SOME public ownership of a bank or (B) give a HUGE gift to shareholders and allow them to enjoy most of the upside potential while the taxpayers are left with most of the downside risk.

So I see three options: (1) Don't help the banks (2) Give a huge gift to shareholders and in the process mess up economic incentive structures even more or (3) Have some public ownership of banks.

People are fighting against #1 saying we need to do something, that we're capitalists and we need our banks. People are fighting against #2 saying in capitalism, the losers die out and it is SUPREMELY unfair to lay what might be a ticking time bomb at the taxpayer's feet when any good capitalist would allow for "creative destruction" right about now. And people are fighting against #3 by saying that amounts to communism and nationalization, which isn't very capitalist and any red blooded American should be against it.

Well, they're all right, but they're all wrong. Capitalism screwed up. Ask about the causes and you get everything from poor regulation and greed to messed up incentive structures and lack of understanding of man-made systems and devices. We're going to have to do something that appears at least a little "uncapitalistic" (I'm coining the phrase).

Personally I think from a political fairness principle, Option 3 is the best, though every criticism against it is pretty accurate. But we can't do nothing, and we can't take the risk associated with Option 2. The question should be how to manage public ownership and get it back to private as soon as possible, but we need our banks. To fund innovation, new businesses, infrastructure investment, and put investors and creators together. Without our banks, recovery will be a lot slower, so instead of coming up with half-measures that won't work (odd and sophisticated loan structures, caps on pay which will just send the smartest people fleeing to other industries, "bad banks" and "stress tests"...to name a few), let's start thinking about how to fix the big problems. Let's focus on using taxpayer money and the money we borrow from our children to invest in their future; let's figure out an exit strategy for public bank ownership (there are plenty of good ones); let's figure out how to let the people who take on the risk share in the rewards; and let's stop with the small-potatoes finger pointing, half-measures and PhD level minutiae that's standing in our way.

My Burgers

I'm on a mission to find the best burger in Philadelphia. Any nominations?

Chuck and I are still thinking about our food blog, and I think it'd be neat to have a Burger Map of Philadelphia included, rating them on taste alone, then taking into account value and plotting an efficient frontier.

So far my front runners are Misconduct Tavern, Happy Rooster and in the cheap-eats category, Five Guys (ironically, all within a few blocks of each other). Honorable mentions go to Loie, Smith's, and ofcourse, Copa Banana on Half Priced Burger Wednesdays. This is all so far. I still have a lot of research to do.

I think today's shirt.woot will appeal to many readers. Especially SuperKing.

My Streaming Netflix

An old high school buddy just informed me that for 2009, Netflix is on pace to have streamed more instant-watch movies than mailed DVDs. I'm wondering: what does this tell us? Obviously the landscape of the business is changing, but what else?

A non-obvious possible conclusion I came up with: we're watching more movies alone. It used to be one would rent a movie and snuggle up with a sweetheart or the family, now it's sitting in front of a computer in a way we never used to before. Convenience can change the whole movie experience.

I'm still thinking about this, but any other ideas?

[Editor's Addendum: I fired off this post pretty quickly, full of incomplete information and first impressions. Rick Blaine just schooled me in the comments, and it's worth reading. If I were a smarter PR person, I'd just delete the whole thing and start over, but this is going to be the character-building part of my blog where I get to be the bigger man (or at least a man). The great part about having a blog, though, is that you don't HAVE to do any research if you don't want to. Thank YOU, Internet.]

My Advice To Facebook Users

OK, there's been a lot of stuff in the news about Facebook, information and privacy, especially as the latter two pertain to the internet. In the midst of a great and important national debate of issues that will soon define what historians think of modern US Supreme Courts, let me offer some specific advice to those Facebook users caught in middle of the storm, wondering what to do and what they think:

Don't put any information in your Facebook profile unless you don't care if anyone or everyone knows or ever will know it.

It's that simple. Deal with it.

I've been looking for an anecdote I can share that would relate some feelings I've been having about work lately. This one does a pretty good job.

My Smoke Detector

I just recently learned something that I'm amazed I didn't know before about how smoke detectors work. I expect most of my readers don't know it either, so this post is my very first PSA (Public Service Announcement).

There are two kinds of smoke detectors: ion alarms and photoelectric alarms. Most smoke detectors manufactured and installed to date are ion alarms, because for a long time they were much cheaper, more efficient, portable and could operate on batteries (photoelectric alarms only recently became as flexible). Photoelectric alarms, however, are much better.

Ion detectors are essentially electric currents that are easily interrupted by smoke particles. When the current gets interrupted, the alarm goes off. Photoelectric detectors use an optical technique that involves bouncing light off of smoke particles and catching reflections in photo-detectors.

Ion alarms are more prevalent, but worse. Ion alarms more readily sound false alarms (such as in response to cooking steam). This often causes people to turn them off and forget to turn them back on again (or just disable them permanently around areas like the kitchen). But the worst part about ion alarms lies in the difference in response times between detectors depending on the type of fire. In a large blaze, an ion alarm will respond about thirty seconds faster than its photoelectric counterpart. But in a smoldering fire, photoelectric alarms can respond up to thirty MINUTES faster. This has to do with the types of particles created and how they're hurled into the air.

This difference was brought to my attention when an ion alarm's failure to activate in a smoldering fire resulted in the deaths of three Philadelphians. The article on philly.com contains the information I posted here, and is my primary source on the subject.

This concludes my first PSA.

Happy Valentine's Day, readers, and Happy Sports New Years as well.

Also, hello to whoever from the Dominican Republic started reading this blog (I don't get a lot of data, but I get a rough location of readers). With your added readership, I've now been visited by people from 48 countries and 48 states. I've always wondered which list would hit 50 first (I obviously have the most appeal to US residents, but getting all the states vs. less than a third of countries makes it a fair fight). So I'm eager to see what will happen first, hits from two more countries, or hits from Iowa and Wyoming.

In the spirit of throwing more Futurama references in for my adoring readers:
"Valentine's Day is coming? Crap...I forgot to get a girlfriend again."

My Fourth New Years

Rosh HaShannah. January 1st. Chinese New Years. And now, Sports New Year's Day.

Barkeep is proposing that Valentine's Day serve a double purpose: a renewal of the Sporting Year. Superbowl's over, baseball spring training is about to start, hockey, basketball, and college basketball games haven't mattered yet, but are about to start to as everyone has a shot at the playoffs or the March Madness tournament. The major golf tournaments are coming up (the long awaited return of Tiger this year), and with everything going on, it may be a good time to reflect on our rabid allegiances and reflect on the sports year recently ended as we look forward to the next baseball season. This new holiday falls neatly in the off-season of both American national pastimes (baseball and football), and nothing else major is going on...yet. We stand on the brink, but we can take a day to renew our commitments, update our expectations, make a few resolutions, and mock each other.

And as I look back on the past sporting year, I only have one thing to say:
WORLD CHAMPIONS.

My Sandwich, and an Economics Question

I want to eat this (scroll down for the double, the true object of my desire).

Also, does anyone think that tax cuts are going to be as government effective as spending in an economy where people are frightened, confused, uncertain, and facing next-to-zero interest rates which cripples the fed's ability to close the gap between capacity and output?

(Usually lowering interest rates incentivizes investment today over investment tomorrow, and in any reasonably normal credit market companies start requiring more services/goods/materials from each other...but the fed controlled rate is now in a band between 0 and 0.25%, and credit spreads, or risk premiums, are only now starting to come down from apocalyptic to huge.)

My Credit Card

I don't get any free stuff with my credit card. I know it's sub-optimal, but I haven't had the time to do a good job researching all my options, making sure I'm not getting scammed or about to get slammed with some hidden fees (a herculean task in and of itself), and selecting, applying for, and getting a new credit card. I am giving more money to the credit card industry than I should be, essentially rewarding their establishment of what Scott Adams once called a "confusopoly" (that is, an industry that makes money off the confusion of its customers--airlines and their frequent flyer programs, cell phone service providers, and most of the insurance industry works this way as well).

I suspect others may be in the same boat I am. So I suggest we pool our resources. I'm opening the comment thread on this post for discussion on credit cards we're considering, credit cards we're using and are happy or unhappy with, and complaints about companies and banks whose credit card divisions will surely be among the first up against the wall when the revolution comes.

Right now I'm looking at a simple Capital One MasterCard that gives 1% cash back on everything. It's not a ton, but it's flexible in case my lifestyle or consumption habits ever change. It also comes with no yearly fee (which, until I'm making and spending a lot more money than I currently am, would all but negate, if not wipe out and then some, the benefits). I personally don't care about the interest rate, because I'm a big fan of "Don't Buy Stuff You Can't Afford" (I know some others, Groucho in particular, are with me on that). And it's a good fallback, if they accept my application, because I know for sure I'd be about 1% better than I am now.

That's currently winning out over the Wawa Credit Card (in case the only Wawa near me closes and all my accumulated rewards become useless), the Hilton Credit Card (I could leverage my Harrisburg trips, but I don't know how much use I'm going to have for Hilton points), and the Amazon.com card (might be good, but in the limited time I've had to look at it, I've yet to be able to understand the rewards policy well enough to do simple breakeven analysis, even with the help of my good friend Excel). I still may wind up being sub-optimal, but at least I'll be getting something, and 1% cash back is easy enough to understand (though I'm sure it'll come in the form of 25 dollar pre-loaded gift/debit cards every 2500 dollars I spend or something like that).