No Jekyll & All Hyde

10·9·08
Ooo, this debate is far more annoying than the previous ones. Both candidates are beginning to appear more clearly typical politicians, more petty, more interested solely on their election rather than their issues. And they just hit a point I find important (!), paraphrasing "should we fund a Manhattan-like project that developed the nuclear bomb, to deal with global energy, and alternative energy, or should we fund 100,000 garages across america, the kind of industry and innovation that developed silicon valley?". This is a question for scientists. First a little background: the Manhattan project was an enormous undertaking to solve a theoretically plausibly solvable problem. That is, the physical theory that explains the operation of a nuclear bomb was beginning to emerge, and be validated through experiment, and it was understood to such a degree that the theoretical construction of a bomb was appearing to be a valid construction. We then spent lots of money to accelerate that research, the development of that theory, and the technical side to really push that. Silicon Valley on the other hand is largely a result of many unforeseen innovations which were realized through an enormous number of tinkering minds, motivated minds, curious minds, and capitalist minds. The two achievements were very different, one was exact, and predictable, the other was nebulous, and despite conveying a vague sense of importance, was completely unimaginable preceding it's actual emergence, and remains quite unpredictable. Alternative energy falls somewhere between the two. There is no good solution. We chose the best fuel first, and though the best alternatives are decent, and will surely improve with increased adoption, they will still all fall short of oil. As a result, there is no theoretical silver bullet, as there was with the Manhattan project. Alternative energy also tends to be a capital intensive problem. While early hackers could do interesting things with early computers with relatively inexpensive equipment, development of alternative energy is not a garage sort of activity. Does that exclude the idea that garage tinker-ers might produce grand contributions to the field? Of course not. In my expert (am I allowed to say that?) opinion, we need to spend a lot of money on middle sized projects. Maybe the best approach would be to provide incentives, or subsidization, since the cost of such research tends to not be profitable yet. If we want to encourage the garage tinkers, the best place might be finding more novel solutions to certain hurdles within the alternative energy industry, perhaps with some sort of award-challenge deal.


10·10·08
I think this is the problem: I am a big company with money. You are a person with bad credit who wants a home. So I say, I'll buy you that house there for 300k dollars, and you agree to pay me back over the next thirty years, 500k dollars. Then it turns out you can't pay your mortgage, so you stop. And I kick you out and take the house. But it turns out the house I thought was worth 300k isn't worth anything now, because the prices were all inflated. Then on top of that, I took what I thought was my 500k dollars over the next thirty years, and gave it to some other guy as a Mortgage-backed security (MBS: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mortgage-backed_security) (A security is a fungible, negotiable instrument representing financial value. Securities are broadly categorized into debt securities (such as banknotes, bonds and debentures), and equity securities, e.g., common stocks.)

properties with foreclosure activity: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Foreclosure_Trend_-_2007.png

See:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/1/13/Subprime_Crisis_Diagram_-_X1.png
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subprime_crisis_background_information
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/b/ba/Financial_Leverage_Profit_Engine.png
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/4/49/Money_market_fund.png
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/7/70/TED_Spread_Chart_-_Data_to_9_26_08.png
and
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Security_(finance)

It's weird that the conservatives vs. the liberals always boils down to simple absolutes in principle, like free market vs. government regulation. It should be clear by now, (as evidenced by history), that neither extreme works fully: the U.S.S.R. collapsed on the one hand, and the great depression is an example of the market crushing itself. FDIC is an institution that certainly all but the most adamant libertarian would agree with. And what is FDIC really? It's the government preventing banks from taking huge risks with the money WE give them. It's a way to prevent consumers from unknowingly risking everything, (even though the risk is very unlikely). UPDATE: It appears that this simple model is incorrect, and that the banks don't actually have any money, nor do we.

Play the victim.

X-rays and lightning
The production of X-rays by a bolt of lightning was theoretically predicted as early as 1925 but no evidence was found until 2001/2002, when researchers at the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology, detected x-ray emissions from an induced lightning strike along a wire trailed behind a rocket shot into a storm cloud. In the same year University of Florida and Florida Tech researchers used an array of electric field and X-ray detectors at a lightning research facility in North Florida to confirm that natural lightning makes X-rays in large quantities. The cause of the X-ray emissions is still a matter for research. The temperature of lightning is too cold to account for the X-rays observed.
Interesting?

Sink or swim.
Thats a real punch in the crotch.


Own your demons.


Do I not actually have any beliefs? Or at least I try not to?


10·10·08
Where do you think we are?
I'm a crazy person.
In the spirit of taking things too far.
I need to add Justnowism and Dystheism to my religious beliefs.


10·13·08
Sometimes I know you're not with me.

If I were to give you two statements: "OJ Simpson was acquitted because the glove did not fit. But the glove actually did fit."
Then I asked you, "Do the preceding statements declare OJ Simpson to be guilty? And is it an explicit or implicit statement of guilt?" I would expect that by definitions, the majority response would be "Yes, guilty, and implicit, but not explicit."
Likewise, if I were replace the first two statements with "OJ Simpson was the murderer." I would expect most people to check off the 'explicit' box.
Arbitrary means 'based on random choice or personal whim'. The statement that I judge the validity of statements based on whether or not a study has been done to support or refute said statement is the exact opposite of arbitrary measures. If I had said I use the first letter of a statement to judge it's validity, or the time of day I read it, or the day of the week, or the astrological sign, or my intuition, or my personal experiences, those would ALL be arbitrary.


10·14·08
Count the swans through a telescope
Toxic debt.
All Jekyll and no Hyde.


10·16·08
I am sorry if this seems rude or mean, but creationists have absolutely no place in biology debate, no more so than they have a place in particle physics debates.

Oooh, MHC proteins...!


10·17·08
Be careful, you probably won't be able to tell I like you, let alone am completely crazy for you.

Science: the process or result of a process by which information is validated. The more rigorous the method of validation, the more easily and/or more well established the information becomes.

Monetary reform & electoral reform. Chicken or egg?

Economics is King.
The two things I would have liked to see mentioned, that were left out: first, when he mentioned that banks need to keep some amount related to what they've loaned out, along with the mentions of the central bank, is that the government plays with the loan rate of the central bank loaning money to banks to make up for that reserve difference, and that by playing with that rate they influence the bank's willingness to loan money (by influencing their willingness to borrow the difference from the government, through the interest rate). It's in the 2nd video, about 6:24 in, mentioning that the banks must have 10% more in deposit than they have on loan.
The second thing I wish they had mentioned was that when you sign your home/car whatever over as collateral for your loan, and the bank counts that as actual money, that depends on the market value of that item. And if the market for that item disappears, then so does it's value. Houses can be worthless just like everything else.

All we ever wanted was everything.