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Repeater
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Friday, 6 February 2009
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A recording of communications between air traffic controllers and a pilot of a plane which ditched in a New York river is released.
I've only just finished listening to these recordings. The striking thing for me is the air of calm as highly competent people deal with an emergency. I would feel entirely safe in the hands of that pilot and those air traffic controllers.
[BBC News | News Front Page | UK Edition]
7:30:48 AM 
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Wednesday, 4 February 2009
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I now understand the financial crisis much better. Back in September when the credit freeze was first becoming a matter of public discourse, I listened to a fantastic episode of This American Life that explained in layman's terms, what the crisis was about. This was followed up by a great FreshAir interview with NY Times financial reporter Gretchen Morgenson. Both highly recommended.
After those two shows I thought I understood, but the other day I had a flash of insight that brought it home in a much more personal way.
I'm lucky in many ways, one of those is that I have a good savings account that basically allowed me to retire at a very young age. Managing this nest egg is super important for me, it's what I live off. So in January I got the willies about the stock market and sold everything, moved it into cash. I did eventually start buying stocks again, slowly, but let's keep it simple and assume everything I own now is either in government bonds or the most conservative money market fund possible.
 Turns out I was early, I saved a lot of value by selling in January, because later in 2008 a lot of other people did the same, causing the market to crash. At that point I never once entertained the thought of buying bonds or stocks of any kind. Never mind the explanation of not knowing which banks had a dishonest balance sheet or toxic assets, I was basically keeping my assets in a shoebox under the bed. I was and still am totally risk averse. I won't lend my money to anyone, I'm keeping it all for myself. I don't care if I earn zero interest, or even negative interest. I want to hold, hold, hold. As close as possible. I'm scared, freaked out even by what I see in the financial world.
There you have it. I'm not lending money to anyone. Same with everyone else. That's exactly why the economy is stuck.
You want to go first? I don't. 
That smiley is there just so you know that there's still something worth laughing at in this crazy mess we call an economy.
BTW, what made me think of writing this up was an email I got from Citibank this morning offering unprecedented rates on a CD to which I said out loud "Fat chance buddy."
Dave is, of course, spot on. Banks don't even trust each other enough to lend to each other. It hasn't quite got that bad here in Australia.
Yet.
Dave's right about another thing too. The link he suggests is an excellent explanation of what's been happening.
In fact, This American Life has had several excellent specials about the crisis which explain the full horror very well.
As well, National Public Radio (US) has a daily podcast which has been following economic developments in an interesting and revealing way.
Check it out.
[Scripting News]
7:26:42 PM
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Tuesday, 3 February 2009
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John Cleese sweated every word[~]to the point of exhausting collaborators like Eric Idle. In other places, I've heard Cleese himself talk about his work ethic within the Pythons, mentioning how Graham Chapman might slip out early to start drinking, while Cleese would stick around and revise a sketch for another half-hour or longer. Over time, he felt the extra effort was what made the difference in the enduring appeal of his material. It also helps explain why a classic like the Cheese Shop still delights a word nerd like me. Specificity What I've always said; there is no talent really; there is interest, desire, and hours and hours of practice and hard work.
[Note: This post originally appeared on our daughter site, "43 Folders Clips," and we liked it enough to republish it here.]
[43 Folders]
12:46:06 AM
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Charts: 3.
(Charles Platt is a guest blogger)
To what extent do we feel overcrowded, as a species? I[base ']m not talking about resources; just psychological factors.
To create this chart I turned to the CIA Factbook, where I looked up the populations of various nations and then divided this number into their land area (excluding lakes and rivers) to get the number of square feet available per person. I represented the results in squares that are all drawn to the same scale.
Of course if you are in Australia, where each resident has almost 4 million square feet to play with, you won[base ']t make full use of your land ration, if only because most of it is desert. On the other hand, when I was in Australia I did feel intuitively aware that the country was, so to speak, empty. As soon as I drove out of an urban area, the emptiness was right there. Conversely, in Hong Kong, where citizens have barely more than 1,600 square feet each, everyone is intensely aware of being crammed into a very crowded place.
Personally I enjoy wilderness areas, but I wouldn[base ']t claim that open spaces are essential for my mental health. I do, after all, still have an apartment in New York City containing just 350 square feet. The apartment next to mine, identical in size, used to be a home not only to a married couple, but also their young child.
I suspect that our romantic yearnings for [base "]freedom to roam[per thou] may be just that: Romantic yearnings.
I remember reading studies of queues in which it was found that people in Europe (maybe it was just Britain, because who else queues in Europe?) stand closer together than people in Australia. Don't know about Americans. I suspect they don't queue, but I have definitely seen Americans line up. Which is the same thing. Seriously, here in Oz, there is definitely a feeling of space. And it's scarey.
 [Boing Boing]
12:28:36 AM
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Monday, 2 February 2009
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Best Mac Ever? Duh. SE/30.. 
The best Mac ever | Editors[base '] Notes | Macworl I knew what the near-consensus would be before the page opened. Everybody knows. The SE/30 (with a hard drive) was, pound for pound, the best Mac ever made. Not only was it when the Mac arrived as a serious tool for normal (albeit deep-pocketed) people, but it felt faster than homemade snot, and still had the awesome old-school form factor. I liked using Ci[base ']s and Cx[base ']s and Fx[base ']s and Quadras and whatnot, but no Mac ever brought the total package like the SE/30. In 1991, I laid the shit out of some PageMaker on my SE/30 and a big-ass Radius monitor. Good times. If I could get away with it, I[base ']d probably still be writing on one right now. [via Daring Fireball Linked List: The Best Mac Ever] This is the first computer I ever bought. My parents bought an SE; two in fact, the first one upgraded in a matter of months. My brother had a IIcx which was colour and cool and fast, but the SE/30 was a IIcx in the carriable form factor of the original Mac. Sex on legs.
After years of service, giving me pleasure and making me money writing music for computer games and multimedia products, I replaced it with a Umax Mac clone (remember them?). I continued to use the SE/30 even then, but, alas it eventually failed. I could probably have had it fixed, but the cost would have been prohibitive. So I bought a new board for $25 sand tried that out. Couldn't get it to work. If I had I still would use it, because there is software that I would like to run (Music Publisher, Orlando Poon's Toxic Ravine) that won't run on anything I have now. Sigh.
Shit it started up fast.
[43 Folders]
11:55:12 PM
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© Copyright 2009 Peter Nixon.
Last update: 13/4/09; 4:55:39 PM.
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