Recalcitrant Egg

failing v. forgetting

2012-02-10T08:10:00.002-05:00

I've spent a lot of time in school in my life, and it's a little bit sad to think about all the stuff I have forgotten. Like Spanish.

Here's a post from a former prof about the economic significance of failing a course v. merely forgetting what you learned.

http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2012/02/the_career_cons.html

Fooled by Randomness

2012-02-09T21:56:00.001-05:00

I've just assigned Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets

to the students who will be taking Investments with me starting in two weeks.

Taleb is amazing. I'm reading The Black Swan: Second Edition: The Impact of the Highly Improbable: With a new section: "On Robustness and Fragility" for the third time right now.

Here's a link to an interview with him on Econtalk.

The idea of randomness and how we are fooled by it is incredibly powerful, especially coupled with behavioral econ.

simple things

2012-02-06T23:46:00.002-05:00

my favorite ice cream scoop. it's a single molded piece of metal. it has a fat handle and it lets you cut into ice cream without messing around. run it under warm water for a few seconds for that extra hard frozen tub.

We've had so many ice cream scoops over the years - I don't know why it took so long for us to get one like this. the plastic ones are the worst.

I find there is a lot of kitchen stuff that is made far more complex than it needs to be. a good knife, some good pans, some wooden spoons. and a one-piece, metal ice cream scoop: what more could you ask for in life?

creamsicle cupcake

2012-02-06T21:41:00.000-05:00

I have always loved orange creamsicles. Last summer, I saw an orange creamsicle cupcake at one of those new cupcake bakeries. I was suspicious, but bought it anyway. Oh WOW was it amazing. So I've been thinking about trying to bake some myself. I'm just going to catalog a few recipes here - I plan to try them soon. If you've made creamsicle cupcakes before, let me know if you have an excellent recipe.

http://www.yourhomebasedmom.com/orange-creamsicle-cupcakes/

http://cupcakestakethecake.blogspot.com/2011/01/orange-creamsicle-cupcake-recipe.html

Nothing to cut, here

2012-02-06T21:35:00.001-05:00

Nothing to cut, here, a photo by Mark Bonica on Flickr.

Misanthropic Pig was just minding his business last night. Nothing to cut, here.

... or so one might think.

The Love Dinosaur?

2012-02-05T13:43:00.001-05:00

The Love Dinosaur?, a photo by Mark Bonica on Flickr.

When Angry Dinosaur walked into the room this morning for breakfast, a Barry White song started playing in the background.

When I said, "Angry Dinosaur, what do you want for breakfast today?"

he said, "Who is this 'Angry Dinosaur' you speak of? Call me 'The Love Dinosaur'."

Oh, jeez. Here we go.

No sign of Misanthropic Pig.

secrets of rhetoric

2012-02-05T10:20:00.002-05:00

Good TED talk on how to create an effective presentation.

http://www.ted.com/talks/nancy_duarte_the_secret_structure_of_great_talks.html

Be Yoda.

addendum:

looked up the Steve Jobs speech, founds some more lessons learned from it here that are worth thinking about.

here's a link to Jobs' speech: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6uW-E496FXg

On War

2012-02-04T22:42:00.000-05:00

A very well written piece on the fascination with war. Two excerpts:

I've spent hours taking in the world through a rifle scope, watching life unfold. Women hanging laundry on a rooftop. Men haggling over a hindquarter of lamb in the market. Children walking to school. I've watched this and hoped that someday I would see that my presence had made their lives better, a redemption of sorts. But I also peered through the scope waiting for someone to do something wrong, so I could shoot him.

and:

That men are drawn to war is no surprise. How old are boys before they turn a finger and thumb into a pistol? Long before they love girls, they love war, at least everything they imagine war to be: guns and explosions and manliness and courage.

The whole thing is worth reading. Read more: http://www.esquire.com/features/essay/ESQ0307ESSAY#ixzz1lTVSSgBK

It made me reflect. Especially that second quote. Long before they love girls. How sad, how inescapable.

10 Word Problems

2012-02-04T22:31:00.000-05:00

I just read 10 Word Problems by Jen Besemer, a short (10 poem) online chapbook. You can read it for free at White Knuckle Press's site here.

The grab for these poems is they are written as if they are word problems you would see on a math quiz. The form makes them incongruently funny!

The author describes her work thus:

These prose poems masquerade as word problems of the sort often found on standardized tests and classroom exams. The questions they ask are unanswerable, at least through the type of quantification encouraged by the genuine exam questions they satirize. I chose to mimic and exaggerate the absurdity of the word problem in this collection because I wanted to offer a critique of contemporary educational and learning-assessment practices. I also wanted to make a comment about the drifts and flurries of useless information with which we are bombarded, and how easily we are distracted, buried and suffocated by such information. What is really important to us? Are we living it?

check out the chap book - it is worth a 10 minute divergence from your regularly programmed day.

Manufacturing Production vs. Employment

2012-02-04T16:23:00.004-05:00

I had a friendly conversation with some upper-mid-level officers at the MHS conference last week about the state of the economy. One of the things I had difficulty convincing them of was the fact that while US manufacturing employment has indeed fallen dramatically over the last several decades, US manufacturing has been steadily growing.

The graph shows an index of manufacturing value vs. manufacturing employment. The blue line represents the index of manufacturing value, with 100 = 2007. The green line represents 1000's of manufacturing jobs, and that number is on the right axis.

As you can see, even though manufacturing employment has fallen by about 30% since 1972, the value of US manufacturing has increased by more than 150% in the same period.

What this means is we are using a lot more technology, like robotics, and fewer bodies. Like most Americans, these officers were convinced that the collapse in employment means America doesn't manufacture anything anymore. That's simply not true.

Planet Money recently had a good podcast on the subject. You can download it here.

Econtalk has a good podcast on how technology has replaced workers in a low skill, low value industry like potato chips.

In 1800, about 95% of Americans worked in the agricultural sector. Today, about 3% work in the agricultural sector. And yet, we are better fed and better clothed today than in any time in history. Very few people are hungry in the US. The transition was painful - look at works of literature like "The Grapes of Wrath", but we are better off because we transitioned to manufacturing. We will be better off when we complete our transition to an information economy, and we will be better off when we transition from that to something else.

quick book review: Wikinomics

2012-02-04T14:03:00.000-05:00

OK, this will be quick: it was too long. It felt like a jumble of cute anecdotes with the main link being, we're all cooperating more using the internet. It was a fun read, but isn't going to amaze you.

Amazon link here.

inspiring health web sites

2012-02-04T13:57:00.001-05:00

I saw a lot of inspiring talks at the MHS conference, but few that I think showed real institutional changing ideas.

Perhaps the most interesting speaker was Dave deBronkart from ePatientDave.com. His presentation on empowering patients I think represents a real understanding of medicine as knowledge, and the patient at the center as a key participant, rather than as simply a passive recipient. I know we’ve given this idea lip service over the years, but some of what ePatientDave talked about really made sense to me. The main problem of medicine is asymmetric knowledge, a Hayekian problem that is made worse by the rigid roles enforced by 3rd party payment systems.

I haven’t investigated his page much yet, but I think it is worth thinking about.

Also we heard from the founder of patientslikeme.com, a web site dedicated to creating communities around diseases. Patients share their experiences and recommendations concerning their disease.

For those of you who are providers, you might consider referring your patients to these sites.

Fort Belvoir Community Hospital

2012-02-04T11:52:00.002-05:00

belvoir community hospital, a photo by Mark Bonica on Flickr.

I spent the last week in DC at the annual Military Health System (MHS) conference, catching up on the latest and greatest of what is going on in the DOD health system and seeing what my old friends and acquaintances across the system are doing, as well as talking to our students who are currently in their residency year. I had a great time seeing everyone. We have so many amazingly talented and dedicated people working in the MHS.

While I was there, I was lucky to get an opportunity to get an informal tour of the new Fort Belvoir Community Hospital. I used to work at the old hospital, formerly DeWitt Army Community Hospital. It was a Korean War vintage building that was slowly falling down. The new hospital is state of the art and is simply beautiful, inside and out.

It is a testament to how much our country cares about its military members and their families, and I am very proud to see it and think I played a small part in the planning process that brought it into being.

china containers

2012-01-28T12:56:00.001-05:00

china containers, a photo by Mark Bonica on Flickr.

I was stuck at a rail crossing a couple of days ago and as I sat there watching the cars go by, I was struck by the number of "China Shipping" containers that I saw. The fact that I had time to activate my crappy cell phone cam and take a pic with 5 of them in the frame should give you an idea of just how many were going by.

I'm teaching a class on international business right now and it is interesting to think about how integrated our countries are in spite of all the rhetoric.

also note the brand of car right in front of me. it's an integrated world.

making beautiful music... together

2012-01-28T12:16:00.005-05:00

making beautiful music... together, a photo by Mark Bonica on Flickr.

Francis was playing piano for Angry Dinosaur last night, and you know what they say, music tames the savage beast.

Misanthropic Pig won't come down from his shelf, and Woodman has been sitting in a closet with the lights off since yesterday. But these two can't seem to get enough of each other.

not interested

2012-01-28T12:16:00.003-05:00

not interested, a photo by Mark Bonica on Flickr.

"Who said I was interested, anyway?" Woodman insisted to me later.

Francis was pretty hard on Woodman. She told him to "Quit following her around" and that she was "interested in someone else."

Poor guy, he may have a wood heart, but apparently it breaks just easily as any other kind.

oooooh! I'll cutchuuuuu!

2012-01-28T12:16:00.001-05:00

oooooh! I'll cutchuuuuu!, a photo by Mark Bonica on Flickr.

oh no, when Angry Dinosaur went to get a cup of chai, Francis grabbed Misanthropic Pig again!

(SOOC)

trust

2012-01-28T12:15:00.001-05:00

trust, a photo by Mark Bonica on Flickr.

"Come on, Pig. She's not going to mess with you, she's nice!"

Angry Dinosaur can't convince Misanthropic Pig.

gizmo vending machine

2012-01-27T16:23:00.001-05:00

gizmo vending machine, a photo by Mark Bonica on Flickr.

this is at the exit of my neighborhood grocery store - between the Claw and the gumball machines, a vendnig machine where you can buy iPods, digital cameras, lap tops, and more. These are apparently refurbished devices, but they are competitively priced - meaning they aren't bargains. I find it hard to believe that people really drop $300 on a used lap top as a result of the same psychology that causes you to buy a candy bar or magazine because they happen to be there in the check out aisle. There is a Walmart less than a mile away, and a Radio Shack in the same plaza as this store, so it's not like we're geographically isolated and this is the only place someone can buy these things. I just have a hard time believing consumers have the ability to indulge in this level of point of purchase marketing. Although we're not geographically isolated, Cibolo, Texas is not particularly wealthy.

Nonetheless, I love seeing these sorts of innovations. I'll never use it, but it must appeal to someone.

Public Art

2012-01-19T23:08:00.000-05:00

This is really cool. I don't get the music itself, but I love what they are doing, and that they are doing it in a Home Depot.

http://www.npr.org/event/music/144920765/mantra-post-minimalist-percussion-in-aisle-12?sc=fb&cc=fmp

I'm ignorant of so many things, but I love that these musicians are taking their rather esoteric art out into the world and challenging our ideas of art.

welcoming Francis

2012-01-19T21:56:00.001-05:00

welcoming Francis, a photo by Mark Bonica on Flickr.

Woodman met Francis today and was quite taken with her. He was going on and on. I haven't seen him like that in quite some time.

I don't think Francis knows what to make of Woodman yet. He can be excessively earnest when he gets going.

Pig, on the other hand has not been seen all day once he got free.

"I'll cutchu"

2012-01-18T22:42:00.001-05:00

"I'll cutchu", a photo by Mark Bonica on Flickr.

"I mean it!"

Isn't this woodhand awesome?!! Little K spotted it in Michael's the other day when we were there shopping for frames, and of course I had to have it. I think this is the beginning of a fruitful relationship!

50,000 hits!

2012-01-17T22:20:00.001-05:00

Fire Truck, a photo by Mark Bonica on Flickr.

I passed the 50,000 hit mark on my Flickr account yesterday!

It's a small accomplishment, but it's cool.

This pic is of an old fire truck some local furniture store once had as a marketing ploy. As you might guess, the furniture store is now an empty building and the truck has been left to rust. The picture is actually a blending of 3 separate photos using a technique called "HDR". Depending on how you work with the processing, you can do make some interesting effects.

Now on to 75,000!

Federal Debt vs. Nominal GDP

2012-01-16T23:46:00.000-05:00

I'm continuing to play around with the new FRED add in for Excel and having some fun with it.

Here's a depressing graph - gross federal debt compared to nominal GDP.

One might be tempted to brush this off, since the lines kind of mirror each other, and hey, we're in a crisis and all that. Why worry?

So using the same data, here is debt as a percent of GDP.

The last time debt as a percent of GDP was as high as it is now was just after WWII in 1949. Even at the height of the Great Society and Vietnam War we saw the Debt to GDP ratio fall.

From 2001 to 2007, the percent only increases from 56% to 63% - this in spite of simultaneously fighting two wars, and in spite of the Bush tax cuts. What really crushes us is the $4 Trillion in additional debt we acquire from 2008 to 2010. (the data series I was using ends 9/30/2010 - it's worse now)

The data I used to make these charts is here: https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B_i6n1cpkLYwY2Y3Y2RkOWQtOTExOS00YmJlLWE2ODUtMGUzMGY2ZmE1NDVl

Potential

2012-01-13T19:04:00.001-05:00

Potential, a photo by Mark Bonica on Flickr.

made these paper mache balls with my daughter a couple of weeks ago. eventually I'll get around to painting them. I'm not much of a painter, but I get a kick out of the idea of a spherical canvas. Usually I paint faces on them, and call them "head-balls". I'll post a shot if I like how they come out.

innovative business concepts

2012-01-12T11:23:00.004-05:00

a mall built from shipping containers:

http://www.springwise.com/retail/temporary-shipping-container-mall-stimulate-economic-recovery-christchurch/

Popuphood - revitalizing Oakland retail

http://www.popuphood.com/

POPUPHOOD from Eva Kolenko on Vimeo.

I love both of these concepts - and they really aren't that complicated or capital intensive. The question then becomes, why aren't they happening? Zoning laws, licensing requirements, permits, liability laws...

2011 in Pictures

2012-01-10T10:15:00.000-05:00

If you click on the link below, it will take you to a slide show collection of some of my favorite pictures from 2011.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/23119666@N03/sets/72157628809414673/show/

It will take 4-5 minutes to watch the whole show.

These are all my pictures taken during 2011.

Ritz & Fluff

2012-01-09T19:55:00.001-05:00

Ritz & Fluff, a photo by Mark Bonica on Flickr.

I always feel bad for the people who say, "What's Fluff?" because they have missed out on so much of life.

Fluff is marshmallow spread. You can buy it in a jar. In the unwashed parts of the country it's just called "marshmallow" and comes in a smallish jar in the baking aisle.

In the enlightened parts of the country, it's sold under the proper name "Fluff", in big plastic buckets - you know, so you can have enough of it.

Fluff an peanut butter sandwiches are excellent. Fluff and jelly are a little too decadent and may be illegal in states where they try to prohibit dancing and Elvis.

My favorite thing to do with fluff, tho, is simply eat it out of the bucket by dipping Ritz crackers in to it. The combination of sweet and salty is out of this world.

Coconut chicken with apricot sauce

2012-01-08T14:39:00.001-05:00

Recently discovered the cooking blog "Pennies on a Platter". Heavy emphasis on comfort food, but some clever and easy recipes on there too. Today I tried out her coconut chicken with apricot sauce - came out very nice. Was very easy.

http://penniesonaplatter.com/2011/03/09/coconut-chicken-with-apricot-sauce/

This is the only cooking blog I'm following right now, but might have to add a few more. We're always struggling to find recipes that are quick and easy and a little different.

We served the chicken with broccoli and brown rice. I found the apricot sauce went well with broccoli, which I despise plain. Funny - K. is ok with broccoli, but hates green beans. I'm the opposite. It's not just the taste, but the crumbly mouth-feel I dislike. But that aside, it was a good lunch. Cooking the rice was the hardest part.

innovation through repurposing - XBOX 360 version

2012-01-03T16:24:00.002-05:00

Entrepreneurs are already converting the Kinect technology into an opportunity to gather retail data about customer behavior.

http://vimeo.com/33087996

We bought one of these for our kids for Christmas. It’s amazing technology – if you haven’t experienced it yet, you should – if only just to see what it can do.

This is a great example of innovation through repurposing. We see this in medicine all the time – a drug gets approved for one purpose, and then doctors start prescribing it for other purposes.

Can you harness this sort of innovation within an organization? If not, why not?

why black market entrepreneurs matter

2012-01-03T16:23:00.002-05:00

As you know, I have a fondness for grey market entrepreneurs (grey market means the goods are legal, but the channels are not), so I thought I would share this article from Wired:

“System D merchants are the ones figuring out what people need. As I said, it’s these merchants who go to China and place the orders. Chinese manufacturers didn’t figure out that a dual-SIM-card phone would be a really good thing. Some folks from Africa and elsewhere said, “Hey, this would be a popular product. We want it.” And the Chinese were happy to make it.”

article here: http://www.wired.com/magazine/2011/12/mf_neuwirth_qa/all/1

He uses the euphemism “system D” to refer to black and grey market participants.

I found this passage interesting because the emphasis is on where the innovation actually comes from. It’s not the Chinese manufacturers, it’s the dealers in-country.

advice from W.S. Merwin, on learning to write

2012-01-01T17:05:00.002-05:00

I wish someone had told me this when I was a young man. You have a lot to say when you are young, but little of it is worth listening to. Instead, find someone who has said something worthwhile in another language and try to capture the meaning in English (or your native language) through the exercise of translation. This advice doesn't just apply to poetry, and doesn't just apply to languages. We are imitative animals, and learn by copying. We innovate by adding on to, not creating from nothing.

from an interview with W.S. Merwin in the Paris Review:

INTERVIEWER

Would you talk about your visit, which you have called a pilgrimage, to see Pound at St. Elizabeths in the 1940s?

MERWIN

I was staying with friends in Washington, at Easter vacation, when I went over to see him. He received me in this open ward, with people wandering around, flushing imaginary toilets. He sat in a deep chair and held forth. I was eighteen—I didn’t have much to say to Pound—and he told me all about how, when the hundredth canto was finished, the whole thing was all going to fall into place and so on. It would be like putting the keystone in the arch, or the lintel on the doorposts. He was also wonderfully generous and wrote me postcards afterwards. “Read seeds, not twigs E.P.,” he wrote. And he gave me a bit of advice about translating, about taking translating seriously as a kind of practice, about learning languages and trying to get as close as possible to the sense and the form of the original. I didn’t know what he meant about a lot of those things until I had been practicing for a while, until I had been trying to do it.

INTERVIEWER

What initially attracted you to translation?

MERWIN

At eighteen it’s very hard to find something to write about. I was writing a lot but it was perfectly clear to me that what I was writing wasn’t about very much. You have what you think of as your feelings when you’re seventeen and eighteen, and they are your feelings, but they’re very far from your words, you know, and the words are a mess. With translation, it was possible to actually work on something—and pay attention just to the writing, to the writing of something—and getting the words right, coming at it from the other end, from the “how” side.

a life's agenda

2011-12-20T10:51:00.000-05:00

Nothing like the holidays to make you reflect on your life's agenda. This period is a unique combination of consumerism, religion, and relationships to cast all of the highs and lows of our lives with respect to all the things we pursue into high contrast.

A life's agenda - this may not be the best term for it - but I mean the things we pursue, consciously or unconsciously - with the energies we actually expend. We can say we are pursuing a wide variety of goals, but what we actually do with our resources reveals our true preferences. We are complex enough creatures that we probably don't completely understand the agenda we are pursuing.

Meeting up with family, especially for those of us whose families are scattered geographically and only come together for the holidays, is an interesting process of reviewing a quasi-natural experiment. With roughly the same raw materials, how do we come to have such different outcomes? Some of it is chance and luck, of course, but much of it is driven by a life agenda that drives the day to day choices of the individuals.

The First Family

2011-12-17T19:38:00.005-05:00

I just finished reading The First Family by Mike Dash, a history of the birth of the mafia in the US. The book seems to be a solid, non-sensationalized early history of the mafia. The emphasis is on the period leading up to the better known Luciano/Capone era.

One of the most interesting aspects that I am interested in is the transition from the period where the mafia was principally concerned with extorting the Italian community to the period when it reached across ethnic lines and began pursuing crime outside of the Italian community. I think there may be lessons learned there to explain the explosion of CEO pay in the last 20 years.

come to the Dark Side

2011-12-17T12:21:00.001-05:00

Inspired by Snow White or maybe Anakin Skywalker, a photo by Mark Bonica on Flickr.

I'm pretty convinced all teenagers are drawn to the Dark Side at this point. But will they come back?

broken

2011-12-17T12:19:00.001-05:00

broken, a photo by Mark Bonica on Flickr.

for the weekly photo challenge theme "broken".

It was just sitting there on the counter, and I liked how it looked on top of the letter it was on top of.

institutional view on Greek crisis

2011-12-08T12:02:00.001-05:00

Nice article in Vanity Fair on the Greek crisis. The narrative shows that economics is about more than just accounting and transactions.

http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2010/10/michael-lewis-greece-201010

Social capital is a necessary part of making a modern society work. Greek social capital went down the drain long before their financial capital did.

biscuits

2011-11-26T12:41:00.001-05:00

biscuits, a photo by Mark Bonica on Flickr.

I've discovered the power of buttermilk. for years I avoided using it because it's like fat in a carton. but used it the other day for a cake recipe, and ever since I've found it necessary to keep a carton in the fridge. it's clear that adding buttermilk to anything makes it better. an important life lesson best learned early, but better learned late than not at all.

happy fun ball

2011-11-10T08:59:00.001-05:00

happy fun ball, a photo by Mark Bonica on Flickr.

K. reminded me I have photographed this thing before, but how can you not shoot it when you see it lying on the counter, it's colorful pointyness staring up at you like some sort of plastic lionfish? it says, "I'm soft but dangerous - if you put me on, who will be wearing whom?

morning coffee

2011-11-10T08:43:00.000-05:00

As it seems perhaps every year, things have suddenly cooled off here.

Today it's cool and clear, and stepping out on to the deck with my coffee, it put me in the mood to shoot some HDR.

which do you like better? the color version, or

the black and white?

I kind of liked how the sun rise reflected in the trees shows up just above the mug in the color version, but I like the tones in the black and white.

listening to Adele

2011-11-05T23:30:00.000-04:00

I did something the other day I rarely do or have done in years - I bought an album. Since K. gave me my first iPod about six years ago, I pretty quickly stopped buying CDs and shifted to buying single songs on iTunes. Even with artists I really like, I rarely like more than 2, maybe 3 songs on an album, yet I had to pay $16 for a CD with 8-10 songs 70-80% of which gave me zero value. But breaking with my recent habits, I broke down and bought the Adele album "21" - which features "Rolling in the Deep" and "Someone Like You."

There's something about Adele - her voice, her attitude - that made me willing to drop that extra cash unseen.

"Rolling in the Deep" has an old sound to it - my youngest daughter thought it was one of my "old songs" the first few times it came on the radio. It's that old sound that is her magic, I think. "Rolling" is timeless. It feels like something you might have heard walking into a bar in the 30's, late at night, after respectable citizens were long in bed. But it would be a 30's as it might have been if the denizens in the bar knew that The Great War was only a prelude to what was to come; that penicillin would be discovered; that a man would indeed walk on the moon; and that the Red Sox would not win the World Series for many decades. "Rolling" and to a lesser extent some of her other songs are gifted with this in time/but in a time other than as it should be/dream time feel. It is a distillation drank much later - that was a very good year - time.

celebrity and identity

2011-10-28T13:10:00.001-04:00

Apparently there's a new movie out that tries to make a claim that Shakespeare was really someone else. It's riling up the literary critics quite a bit (and probably not interesting anyone else, as I'm gathering it's a really bad movie). I remember when I was in college the discussions of whether Shakespeare was a real person, a single person, or someone writing with W.S. as a pen name. Yes, that's how some English majors spent their time. I wasn't that big a Shakespeare fan when I was in college, and have come to appreciate his writing more now that I am older and more patient. So needless to say, I didn't spend much time thinking about it because I didn't care that much. I've just read this commentary in the NYT on the issue, and I have to say he articulates exactly how I feel on the matter:

I’ve never really paid the sort of attention I suppose I should have to arguments about Shakespeare’s identity. If someone were to come up with conclusive proof that his plays were the product of an underground cell of Carmelite nuns, I would be, for a moment at least, open-mouthed, awestruck and titillated. But nothing could change the way I already feel about my Will.

Interestingly, the author and I agree on the entire quest for celebrity identity that so many people are infatuated with. K. and I have talked about this many times - and we completely disagree. I would not particularly like to meet any of the artists I am fans of. K. would. We've talked about some of the musicians and performers we like, and she has expressed she would enjoy meeting them in person. I on the other hand have a conviction that they would almost certainly disappoint me, if not completely turn me off. Art is an abstraction, one person's vision of perfection and order (even when it is to show how imperfect and disordered the world is), and the physical, real human being who creates it - through a rock concert, a poem, a novel, a painting, a performance in a movie, or even by writing a play - can never achieve the same level of perfection as the abstraction he/she creates.

Or as the author says:

“Wouldn’t you like to have met Anton Chekhov?” a friend of mine, a wonderful fiction writer herself, often asks me. No, I wouldn’t have, particularly. The few times I’ve met literary idols of mine I’ve been – not disappointed – but slightly stunned by how little these flesh-and-blood individuals matched the work that had such a profound impact on me. I might like them or not. But they were one thing; and what they had written was something else altogether, much greater than they could every possibly be in their day-to-day existence with others.

For me, that’s the most profound miracle of great art: It is created by mortals and it is immortal.

OWS not exempt from Opportunism

2011-10-27T13:32:00.000-04:00

So it turns out the OWS, "Why can't we all just sit around a campfire and sing songs like a big family" crowd is subject to some of the same opportunism that they are objecting to by Wall Street banks.

The Occupy Wall Street volunteer kitchen staff launched a “counter” revolution yesterday -- because they’re angry about working 18-hour days to provide food for “professional homeless” people and ex-cons masquerading as protesters.

For three days beginning tomorrow, the cooks will serve only brown rice and other spartan grub instead of the usual menu of organic chicken and vegetables, spaghetti bolognese, and roasted beet and sheep’s-milk-cheese salad.

They will also provide directions to local soup kitchens for the vagrants, criminals and other freeloaders who have been descending on Zuccotti Park in increasing numbers every day.

Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/manhattan/zuccotti_hell_kitchen_i5biNyYYhpa8MSYIL9xSDL#ixzz1c0IfXJQ3

Setting aside the inherent hypocrisy of their refusing to feed the homeless, who most surely are the bottom 1% (whether they are professional or not), when you put free goodies out on the table, whether that's roasted beet and sheep’s-milk-cheese salad or bail-outs, surprise surprise, people are going to come looking for some. Even people you don't like or want in your club. Take the free goodies off the table is the only answer. In the bigger picture, that means de-politicizing the financial sector. Somehow I don't think the OWS crowd is going to get it. We're not a big family. We're mostly strangers trying to get along without killing each other.

"Bootleggers and Baptists" - Beer brewers oppose

2011-10-26T23:34:00.001-04:00

Surprise, surprise - beer brewers oppose liberalization of retail sales of hard liquor.

"Cash pours into booze brawl"

Analysis of "Occupy Wall Street"

2011-10-25T19:03:00.000-04:00

I think this is a fair and generous response to the Occupy Wall Street movement/drumming circle/"I really wish I were alive in the 60's so I could have been at Woodstock" party.

"Occupy Wall Street's diagnosis of a parasitic symbiosis between Wall Street and Washington is correct. The coddling of Wall Street let borrowing get out of control, unnaturally enlarged the banks, and helped justify and fund bonuses that otherwise would have been much smaller."

More here.

revolutions

2011-10-23T15:03:00.000-04:00

Thomas Friedman has an interesting op-ed in the NYT today called "One Country, Two Revolutions".

I completely agree with him that government subsidies to the financial sector created huge distortions in the labor market, drawing an unsustainable share of the best and brightest from math and science into finance over the last decade.

Too bad he doesn't put the blame squarely on the government the way I do.

But I think his blind spot for government policy also ultimately leaves his conclusion off target. It isn't cool new technology like cloud storage and social networking sites that are a source of competitive advantage for the US. Ultimately it is the ease of doing business - of creating businesses, raising capital, going bankrupt, and starting all over again - that makes the US more competitive and creative than virtually every other country in the world. The cool technology helps, but anyone can get the technology. Getting the policies right is much harder.

$1Million Taxi

2011-10-21T14:43:00.001-04:00

how much does it cost to get into the taxi business in NYC?

$25,000 for a nice new sedan, $1,000,000 for the taxi license.

Does anyone else perceive this licensing scheme has gone well beyond protecting the public?

read more here.

pasta

2011-10-20T23:19:00.001-04:00

pasta, a photo by Mark Bonica on Flickr.

olive oil and sauteed garlic, peas, and shredded parm. simple and good. physical fitness test tomorrow - a few carbs for energy tonight.

guitar

2011-10-20T23:17:00.001-04:00

guitar, a photo by Mark Bonica on Flickr.

we bought Little K a guitar for her birthday. It was a very inexpensive guitar, but a real guitar none the less.

she really wanted one, but she's kind of noncommittal on lessons. we've always wanted the girls to have music in their lives, and we figure even if she doesn't pursue it right now, it's not like they go bad.

concentrated benefit, diffuse costs - sugar subsidy edition

2011-10-20T10:18:00.001-04:00

"The sugar program benefits about 4,700 growers of sugar cane and sugar beets nationwide. But it hurts more than 600,000 people working in sugar-using industries nationwide — from candy makers to bakers."

Congressional Pay and Benefits

2011-10-15T10:45:00.001-04:00

There's always a lot of populist garbage about the pay and benefits for members of congress.

Here's a link that describes their actual pay:

http://www.senate.gov/CRSReports/crs-publish.cfm?pid='0E%2C*PL%5B%3D%23P%20%20%0A

Here's a link to their actual retirement benefits:

http://www.senate.gov/CRSReports/crs-publish.cfm?pid=%270E%2C*PLC8%22%40%20%20%0A

As usual, the stories tend to be more robust than the truth. For example, pensions don't vest until after a minimum of 5 years of service, and then they can't be collected until the congressman reaches retirement age.

After you've read these reports, you still might think they are overpaid, but at least you'll know the truth.

morning shots

2011-10-14T22:09:00.000-04:00

I guess I had a certain pressure building in me - I hadn't shot anything in days after the last 365 fell apart.

But this morning I had a little free time, and there was something about the way my jeans were lying over the rack that I knew I wanted to try to photograph them. It's a funny thing with art for me - there are moments - scenes, words, phrases, thoughts - that just jump up and grab me, and I know I have to do something about them. Sometimes it's writing, these days more often it is photography.

This actually turned out more challenging than I thought. I had to work at it some - I saw there was something there, but getting the right composition was not easy.

A few different treatments as well to try to bring it out.

Kandie will say that one is not really a picture anymore because I tweaked it too much.

This one is SOOC - straight out of the camera - no treatment, no cropping, natural light (I didn't use a flash).

Color-wise, the posterized version was closest to what I saw. Low light is hard to shoot in because everything turns yellow if you don't do any post-processing to rebalance the colors.

I'd like to get another 365 going - but I need to make some headway on other projects first.

bidding for classes

2011-10-13T10:32:00.000-04:00

At business schools, classes go to highest bidder

We don't have a shortage issue - but I've been at schools where they do.

It's a great example of how to eliminate shortages and internalize prices.

Could you imagine using this inside of a corporation, for example to gather a project team? I'm sure these mechanisms exist somewhere in some company. It would be interesting to learn how effective and sustainable they are. Bid prices would yield a lot of information about the quality of leaders and employees. Bad project managers would have to pay significantly higher rates to get people to work for them. Bad employees would not get bids.

wal-mart

2011-10-09T17:11:00.001-04:00

wal-mart, a photo by Mark Bonica on Flickr.

I just left Wal-Mart. Some people hate Wal-Mart. I love Wal-Mart. I walk through the aisles and aisles of stuff that has been gathered for me to browse from all over the world and I am constantly amazed. And even though I live near one of the largest cities in the US, I don't live in it. This cornucopia of capitalism is located 5 minutes from my house.

So today I spent approximately the equivalent of 17 hours of minimum wage labor and acquired:

a new fishing pole
a role of duct tape
three types of bread
organic milk
Belgian style wheat ale
fresh bananas
fresh strawberries (fresh fruit and vegetables especially amaze me - in Wal-Mart or anywhere else)
a head lamp for camping
a couple of cans of fuel for my camping stove and light
two types of cereal
some funky ice cream treats
triple decker Oreos
graham crackers
two kinds of cheese
fresh meat
candy
tomato sauce
chips
fishing tackle
limes
flour
spices

and some other stuff - you get the idea.

How could you not be amazed by this collection of things, all readily available in one store at the cost of two days of unskilled labor?

If you look at European history in the 15th and 16th century, the little packets of spices alone would have been worth weeks if not months of unskilled labor. I bought them for about an hour's worth of labor.

I was telling my macroecon class the other day that my daughter had to do an experiment when she was in fourth grade on feeding her family for less than $3. Do you know how easy that was? She bought dried beans, dried rice, some bananas, and some salt and pepper. Once we prorated the quantities, she fed a family of five well for about $2.50. In other words, you could feed a family of five for a day on about an hour's worth of unskilled laborer's wages.

Perhaps you don't want what is at Wal-Mart. That's fine. The beautiful thing is that you are so wealthy, you have a choice.

yet another political solution from Buffett

2011-10-09T17:10:00.000-04:00

here is another political solution coming out of Omaha that I received from a friend by e-mail this morning (BTW, I've seen variations on this before, so I wasn't really responding just to my friend, but to everyone who has seen and forwarded these sort of messages):

Sounds good to me!!! Pass it on

            Warren Buffett, in a recent interview with CNBC, offers one of the best quotes I've heard in all this drama about the debt ceiling:

            "I could end the deficit in 5 minutes," he told CNBC. "You just pass a law that says that anytime there is a deficit of more than 3% of GDP, all sitting members of Congress are ineligible for re-election


Congressional Reform Act of 2011
            1. No Tenure / No Pension.
            A Congressman collects a salary while in office and receives no pay when they are out of office.
            2. Congress (past, present & future) participates in Social Security. All funds in the Congressional retirement fund move to the Social Security system immediately. All future funds flow into the Social Security system, and Congress participates with the American people.
            3. Congress can purchase their own retirement plan, just as all Americans do.

            4. Congress will no longer vote themselves a pay raise.
            Congressional pay will rise by the lower of CPI or 3%.

            5. Congress loses their current health care system and participates in the same health care system as the American people.
            6. Congress must equally abide by all laws they impose on the American people.

            7. All contracts with past and present Congressmen are void effective 1/1/12. The American people did not make this contract with Congressmen. Congressmen made all these contracts for themselves. Serving in Congress is an honor, not a career. The Founding Fathers envisioned citizen legislators, so ours should serve their term(s), then go home and back to work.

            If each person contacts a minimum of twenty people then it will only take three days for most people (in the U.S.) to receive the message. Maybe it is time.


            THIS IS HOW YOU FIX CONGRESS!!!!!

            If you agree with the above, pass it on. If not, just delete. Please keep it going.

**

so I don't actually agree with this, but I've passed it on to my students to consider.

Here was my response to my friends:

This appeals to me, too, on an emotional level. Why should congress people get such rich pensions after serving only a few years? I think if you think it through, it will become apparent that we may actually under pay them.

Let me propose this analogy:

Imagine the referees for your favorite professional sport (let's say soccer) were elected by the public. The job pays a reasonable salary and the refs get to be out there on the field with the players (who are the real source of value from the game) and act important - so the job is inherently rewarding. But because it is inherently rewarding, there is a fair amount of competition from other would-be refs. So to get elected, a prospective ref has to invest a lot of time, energy, and money to get people to vote for him. People who care about the sport might give him money to help him with his campaign. People who believe he will favor certain types of play that favor their favorite teams will be eager to give him more money. And people who believe he will favor their favorite team will be especially eager to give him money.

Now let's say once he's elected, he holds the position for life unless he does something blatantly illegal, like taking a pay off from a team owner or a bookie trying to fix a match (and he gets caught). If he holds the position for life, he has a lot to lose. He may not be a good ref, but he'll try not to get mixed up in anything that could risk his lifetime appointment. This might include not following through on some of the promises he made to the people who helped him get elected in the first place. This is not good for them, but good for the game. This behavior is similar to what we see from Federal and Supreme Court judges. Some of them are good, some not so good, but most of them tend to avoid extremes that might get them into trouble. They tend to be conservative in their decisions - not in their politics - because they have a good thing and they know it, and they don't want to blow it.

Now let's say the ref has to be re-elected every five seasons or so. He's going to have an incentive to maybe make a few calls at the beginning of his time to pay back his constituents, but then he's likely to settle in to a conservative routine so as to avoid getting into trouble. Toward the end of his term, he knows he's going to have to be re-elected again, so he will be starting to make promises again, and he might have to demonstrate his commitment to live up to those promises in the future by acting on a few of them now. This would be especially true as election season draws near. So here we would expect some unfair calls at the beginning and end of the term, but in the middle we'd see some generally ok ref'ing.

Now let's say we establish "term limits" for the ref. If elected, he can only serve one term of say 5 seasons. This initially appears good because we won't have this cycle of bad calls - good calls - bad calls like we do when he has to keep running for his position. We'll have some bad calls at the beginning, but at the end, he won't have to respond to special interests anymore and he will just keep on making good calls, right? But let's look harder at the ref's incentives. As he approaches the end of his fixed term, he has less and less to lose. When he's approached with a bribe by a gambler who wants him to make sure a game comes out a certain way, and the gambler promises him a big sum of money, the risk associated with taking the bribe vs. the benefits of staying on as ref diminish. Especially as he approaches his last game. At his last game, he has almost nothing to lose, so even a small bribe might get him to make a call in someone's favor. Or he might begin to exercise his own preferences (let's say he likes team A over team B - with nothing to lose, he might make all calls in favor of Team A). In a sense, term limits remove a major check against self-interested behavior.

Now let's say we create a "term limit" policy, but once you've been a ref, you have the right to walk around wearing yellow and black and everyone still calls you "ref" even though you don't ref anymore, and you're allowed to go into the player's locker rooms and the ref bar, and, oh by the way, you also get a pension and health care for life. All as long as you don't get fired during your tenure as a ref. Incentives shift back against self-interested behavior during the time you are acting as ref. Or, I should say, your self-interest aligns with the making good calls. It becomes much more costly for you to take a bribe and throw a game - because that bribe would have to compensate you for all those benefits you stand to lose.

This same logic of pensions and benefits could be applied (and is applied) to members of congress who serve just brief periods and then get benefits for life. In some sense, we are trying to bribe them to keep their interests aligned with our interests. The lower bound of their behavior is very low - it takes a lot for them to be kicked out - but just the risk of losing those benefits gives them an incentive not to misbehave too badly. We are also bribing them a bit to leave. If we offer them pensions after just a few years, it increases the cost of them staying because they could leave and get money and perks without doing anything. But leaving with the perks is contingent on them not getting caught doing something bad.

So when I hear that congress has voted themselves another pay raise or increased their health benefits at my expense and it pisses me off. But then I try to think rationally about the incentives, and I realize that the greater the transparent benefits are, the less likely congressmen are to turn to illicit benefits which in the long run are far more costly to me (e.g., ethanol subsidies which even Gore admits are pork of the highest degree, bridges to nowhere, or fighter jets the Air Force doesn't want).

I over simplify the calculus in my examples, and there are certainly benefits to term limits and so forth, but the proposal Buffett and others make is also oversimplified and fails to reflect the second order consequences of taking away these perks. Instead of paying them less, perhaps we should pay them more.

I could also suggest some other incentives - like reducing their pay for every law they pass. That would make them more careful about the laws they pass. Or decrease their pay for every suggested increase in spending. Then they would be less likely to endorse bridges to nowhere, or fighter jets the Air Force doesn't want. But those things are never simple, and they are fraught with other second order consequences. Better to just pay them well enough that they fear losing their benefits and be done with it.

morning

2011-10-09T10:24:00.001-04:00

morning, a photo by Mark Bonica on Flickr.

Saw K putting nail polish on in the morning light and thought "I've got to shoot this."

SOOC

(except converting from RAW to JPG)

thinking about an SOOC 365 attempt.

the model T as a metaphor

2011-10-08T09:19:00.000-04:00

Microsoft : Model T :: Apple : ?

I like what Smith says here:

I think Felix Salmon is right about what really happened. The Gates strategy of a Model T in every garage was correct when the tech was new an expensive. You cut corners in every way possible, you do anything to push the price down. Send it out half baked, full of holes and ugly as hell, but just send it out cheap.

but

However, the price of hardware collapsed so fast that Jobs-esque hardware could be produced at prices people could easily afford. You could cut $40 off the price of the Ipad by just settling for something a bit uglier, but that wouldn’t really improve sales.

A little more here.

Yelp killing chains?

2011-10-04T15:31:00.001-04:00

belonging to a chain provides a relative degree of certainty about quality - and it is particularly useful when you are otherwise unaware of restaurant reputation. That makes a franchise fee worth paying. But when you can get that same reputation transmission directly through social networks, do you need to pay to be a member of a franchise system? This is fascinating. The future may not be big-box stores and chain restaurants after all.

article here.

Denmark introduces fat tax

2011-10-04T15:23:00.001-04:00

Positively Pigovian! Denmark has introduced a fat tax to "curb unhealthy habits, improve life expectency" (see article here).

A tax is Pigovian when it is introduced to reduce an externality. We can certainly make an argument that obesity has externalities, but are they really greater than the harm done by this tax? And is my living shorter really an externality? Seems pretty internalized to me.

pirating your own work

2011-09-29T11:34:00.001-04:00

I've been hearing about artists - musicians, writers - whose work is easily reproduced and distributed in electronic media - starting to simply give it away.

"A publishing industry that is being transformed by all things digital could learn some things from Paulo Coelho, the 64-year-old Brazilian novelist. Years ago he upended conventional wisdom in the book business by pirating his own work, making it available online in countries where it was not easily found, using the argument that ideas should be disseminated free. More recently he has proved that authors can successfully build their audiences by reaching out to readers directly through social media. He ignites conversations about his work by discussing it with his fans while he is writing."

more here

I've heard Tyler Cowen talk about the fact that he makes a lot of money as a result of the exposure he gets for writing his blog. He gets paid well to write op-eds and speak because of his notoriety as a blogger. I understand big performers make more money from concerts than record sales, so why shouldn't they just give away their recorded music?

The price of a thing with zero marginal cost will naturally settle towards zero - which means that it is very difficult to sell it for anything more than zero. Ideas want to be free - and you can interpret the emphasis in that phrase in multiple ways. But the time and attention of Coelho or Cowen, or Lady Gaga for that matter, is not provided at zero marginal cost, and it cannot be reproduced costlessly.

It's a fascinating new way of marketing.

the Market for Blackmail

2011-09-29T10:16:00.002-04:00

Interesting article in the NYT about people squealing for profit in S. Korea.

This was one of the debates we had last semester - is blackmail good or bad? I particularly like the line:

"To those who call us snitches, I say, ‘Why don’t you obey the law?’"

Indeed. The government creates a market for snitches, and snitches appear. It's probably a much cheaper method of law enforcement than hiring police. Privatized law enforcement isn't necessarily a bad thing in and of itself. We have varying degrees of private law enforcement. When you lock your door to your house or car, that is to some degree law enforcement.

But is there a "too far"?

The Hakwon example is actually unfortunate from my perspective. The government uses this private enforcement mechanism to maintain anti-competitive policies. There would be fewer crimes if fewer things were made illegal. Why shouldn't private education services be able to charge any amount they want for their services?

Kindling a Fire?

2011-09-28T12:57:00.001-04:00

OK - couldn't resist.

Fast Company has a review of Amazon's new "Kindle Fire" tablet here. It sounds enticing to me. I'm already pretty locked in to Amazon's services and have been for years, so I don't have that much resistance left - I've already been assimilated.

Clearly we have an issue of a bundle product - and Amazon planned it that way. But it makes it hard for competitors without a service to bundle to charge more for "just" a tablet. Good for consumers to have downward price pressure.

NX Graphic

2011-09-28T11:03:00.001-04:00

Cool graphic of import/export flows, focusing on US/China relationship.

Web site here. I wouldn't bother with the video - it just made me dizzy. I had to increase the size to read most of it.

welcoming

2011-09-11T21:37:00.001-04:00

welcoming, a photo by Mark Bonica on Flickr.

Little K welcoming the cool wet. The temperatures were back up over a hundred today. We had a few days last week when the temp only went up to about 95, and I was walking around saying how nice it felt. Amazing how that additional ten degrees really brings the misery index straight up to unbearable.

I learned last week that in Texas, if it doesn't rain often enough, you have to water your house. That is, you have to poor water around the edge of your foundation because if the ground dries out too much, it can shift under your foundation and your foundation can crack. We've got some cracks in my patio that I'm pretty sure weren't there before the summer - and I'm pretty sure it's because I haven't been watering my house.

I'm glad to have ordinary things to complain about today. Ten years ago was anything but ordinary.

121/365

Quick Book Review: Among the Thugs by Bill Buford

2011-09-06T09:26:00.000-04:00

I read about Bill Buford's book, "Among the Thugs" on someone's blog after the riots in England recently. It sounded intriguing, so I ordered a used copy from Amazon. Now bearing in mind I have an academic interest in violence, I can use this as an excuse for undertaking the voyeuristic journey Buford promises and delivers on.

I had heard of violence in soccer matches in Europe before, but never understood why. The mechanics of the stadiums as Buford explains them - the architecture as well as the management of the spaces - help create an ideal ground for crowd behavior. Buford illuminates through his narrative experience how a crowd is formed - the common physical experience, the crossing of lines of privacy and control. But most fascinating is his account of how a crowd moves up notches on the scale of violence, and how that experience is exactly what creates the addiction to crowd violence (he describes it as an addiction). The crowd gives us as individuals permission to break social norms, and that experience is exhilarating in its freeing. Buford's narrative is full of examples of tipping points where individuals in the crowd are looking for one person to take the first step over a social line, and then this act creates a puncture in the thin membrane between civility and barbarity. Once the puncture happens, the rest of the crowd pours through. One level of civility is broken after another.

It was interesting to read him talking about crowd violence as an addiction. I could see that. Even given the certainty of eventual physical harm.

The democratic nature of the participation in the crowd violence was also illuminating. The crowds Buford described were not all angry underclass people without opportunity. Membership in the crowd was universal - people from all walks of life and wealth were addicted to this behavior - not unlike most illicit behaviors in society.

I confess, in the wake of the recent riots in England my response was based on the same mistake Buford went into his research believing - that the rioters were all over-privileged ungrateful products of the social welfare system. While that was probably partly true, I am sure there were plenty of people who caught tubes in to join in the madness. Violent crowds are very much an expression of our desires to be freed of our social restrictions, at least as much as they are about any cause. I remember riots in Denver following one of the sports teams from the city winning (yes, winning, not losing) one of the season trophies. And I remember thinking to myself, are they down there madly breaking the windows of their Land Rovers and Volvos? Probably.

I couldn't help placing myself in these situations as I read the book and trying to imagine myself doing the right thing and walking away. It's certainly a madness. I can only say I hope I would - but I know I have been caught up in the thrill of the antisocial behavior of crowds in the past, so I could identify at least in part with what Buford documents. It's a frightening thing to be human.

The book is excellent - for me it was a page turner. I read it in a couple of evenings - could not put it down.

mmm, bacon...

2011-09-05T21:47:00.000-04:00

Took a shot of bacon for today's photo, which was lame, I know, but I spent most of the day in the office working on a project. I had to get up and take care of something while I was working on the shot, and when I came back, Angry Dinosaur and Misanthropic Pig were looking at it.I heard Angry Dinosaur asking, "Are you sure that's your Uncle Bob?"

You are the light of the world.

2011-09-04T22:20:00.001-04:00

You are the light of the world., a photo by Mark Bonica on Flickr.

Matthew 5:14.

I have spent most of the day reading Father Greg Boyle's "Tattoos on the Heart" ( www.amazon.com/Tattoos-Heart-Power-Boundless-Compassion/d... ). When I went to pick up my daughter from youth group this evening, I was walking around the church grounds and saw this cross. I was planning on shooting the live oaks and the moss against the sunset - whcih I have done before - but I stumbled on this.

A lot more to say about this - but not today.

It is a worthy read if you are looking to reignite your compassion.

114/365

about Homeboy Industries

2011-09-03T10:55:00.001-04:00

A speech at Google by Father Greg Boyle, founder of Homeboy Industries.

(in case the embed fails: http://youtu.be/iE-jYXqaL58 )

This is a powerful talk. Father Boyle works to rehabilitate gang members in Los Angeles.

"‘Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of Mine, even the least of them, you did it to Me.’" - Matthew 25:40

bouquet

2011-08-29T20:45:00.001-04:00

bouquet, a photo by Mark Bonica on Flickr.

so used to writing "bokeh" I had to think about how to spell that.

this was a foam flower cut out bouquet made by Little K for K and I.

She's getting bigger - it's hard to believe there won't be many more of these. Her sisters are well past that now. I'm lucky if they grunt at me. Everyone always said when they got to be teenagers, I'd wish they were little again. Some days, it's true.

107/365

vegan peppers

2011-08-28T20:55:00.002-04:00

vegan peppers, a photo by Mark Bonica on Flickr.

not sure the color is well captured, but this was my adventure at lunch today.

it was one of those, "What do you want for lunch?" "I don't know, what do you want?" "I don't know, what do we have?" "I don't know..." You know, those painful conversatoins when no one really wants to cook. Well we had 5 peppers in the crisper, so I decided I would try to make some stuffed peppers. One had already started to go - never a good idea to have 5 peppers on hand and no plan - so we were down to four - which was just about perfect. Of course we didn't have any burger, so I googled vegetarian recipes.

this was a bit of a variation on what I found - mostly because as usual, if you don't have a plan, you don't have all the ingredients.

nonetheless, stuffing:

2 carrots, diced
1/2 an onion that has been in the fridge a few days, diced
fry in olive oil until softened
1/2 can fire roasted tomatoes
oregano, basil, and garlic powder
simmer for a while

add 1/4 c peas
1/4 c crushed walnuts
1 c brown rice
1 c vegetarian spaghetti sauce that's also been hanging around for a few days
heat thru

gut the peppers, then nuke them on medium for about 4 minutes

put the rest of the can of tomatoes as well as some more sauce in the bottom of the pan with some more olive oil

place the gutted peppers in the pan, fill with stuffing

bake covered for 30 min at 375
uncover 10 min more

serve, wicked hot with some of the sauce from the pan added on top

106/365

eminent domain, fair value

2011-08-28T11:26:00.000-04:00

read this post by Gary Becker this morning, and his references to eminent domain got me thinking about fair value compensation for property.

In the past I have thought about eminent domain takings as distasteful primarily from a government abuse perspective, but at least if fair market value was given for the property - and that fair market value was fairly determined - the people being displaced shouldn't be able to pitch that much of a fit. Especially if they are given some reasonable premium for their inconvenience.

But it occurs to me as I reflect on what I know about poor communities is that the citizens of these communities have much of their wealth tied up in relationships and mutual obligations. An old person may not have much financial or physical wealth, but s/he may have accumulated significant social capital in terms of favors done in the past - baby sitting, lending money or food, overwatch of young people, etc. - as well as significant obligations from favors done for him/her - that reside in the ongoing and unchanging relationships in the community. Gossip, as is discussed in some of the literature on this, helps reinforce the obligations between people and keeps public tallies on what is owed.

Thus, when a person is evicted from his/her community, especially an old person, if s/he is paid the market value of the property s/he loses, it may only be a fraction of the present value of what is lost. The cost of housing is what is seen - but the value of the social capital is what is not seen - and not compensated for. If I have lived my life in a poor community, just barely getting by, norms have most likely required me to give up much of my financial surplus for the good of the community, rather than save it for myself (listen to this podcast on micro finance and how it helps break this cycle). My wealth then resides in the relationships in my community, not in a bank. Disrupt the community, and all of that wealth disappears.

Disruption would also come in the form of wealthy individuals buying up housing and "redeveloping" it - even without exercise of eminent domain. Any change to the dynamics of the community puts at risk the accumulation of social capital.

Anyway, just some musings this morning.

tax policy

2011-08-27T21:57:00.000-04:00

One of the perrenial debates people who declare loyalty to the parties argue over is tax policy. Republicans want to cut taxes, Democrats say the rich don't pay enough taxes.

I had a group of my students debate the merrits of the inheritance tax last week (they were assigned which side of the issue to argue). The students who argued for the inheritance tax presented the argument that the inheritance tax only represented 1.4% of all taxes the Federal Government collects, but that it amounted to $1 Trillion. I'm not sure about the first number - a quick internet search didn't turn up a % I am confident in, but I do know the second number is not right.

After the debate was over, I asked if they knew how much the Federal Government collected in taxes last year. They didn't. I polled the class. No one answered (or was willing to take a guess). I even offered "give or take a couple hundred billion". Chuckles, but still no takers (and I'm generally not too scary in the classroom).

So the fact is, the US Federal Government collected about $2.2 Trillion in tax revenue last year (2010), and spent about $3.5 Trillion (see the Tax Policy Center at Brookings here for details).

If the government collected $1T in inheritance taxes, and that represented 1.4% of receipts, then the government would have collected about $72T in taxes in total. Since the US GDP is only about $15T, that would be impossible.

The point isn't that my students are fools - quite the opposite - compared to the average American, they are probably in the top 5% - they are well educated and intelligent and generally interested in policy issues. Instead the take away is that even well educated non-economists have no idea what they are arguing about when they say taxes are too high or too low. Mostly those arguments are just meaningless noise - party supporters might as well be shouting "Tastes Great/Less Filling".

Knowing how much is collected in tax receipts of course is still a long way from knowing how much is the optimal amount - but if you can't get within a few hundred billion - never mind being off by a factor of 35 or so - you don't have even the barest amount of information necessary to be a responsible citizen when you go to the polls.

learning as an emergent phenomenon

2011-08-27T16:30:00.001-04:00

Dr. John Martin of Baylor University shared this video with a group of us who teach in Baylor's EMBA program, encouraging us to think about the future of education. It's a remarkable video, as are most TED Talks.

(in case the embed fails: http://www.ted.com/talks/view/lang/eng//id/949 )

What really startled me was the conclusion, that "education is a self organizing system where learning is an emergent phenomenon." As a relatively new teacher, I continue to struggle with moving away from being the conduit of learning and toward being a coach and cheerleader. At this point I know I lean too much toward being "the sage on the stage" rather than the "guide on the side".

Being a Smith/Hayek fan, and a person who has always believed in the power of emergent order even before I knew what it was called, it never ceases to amaze me how emergent order can be applied. Almost everything in life is emergent in some way. You could argue, nothing is not - it's just a matter of your time frame (just like all costs are variable given a long enough time frame).

The challenge to systems like this, I think, are evaluations. How do you measure success in a truly self-organizing system? Not only of the students, but of the "guides on the side"?

To quote Lao Tz, "A leader is best when people barely know he exists, when his work is done, his aim fulfilled, they will say: we did it ourselves."

If the students walk away saying "we did it ourselves" - what is the role of a formal organization like a university? I think this is what John was actually getting at when he presented this to us. What does it mean to be a "teacher"?

This video does inspire me. It is the bright side of technology - that it can unleash human potential where once it would have been encumbered by stagnant orders and oppression. An Arab Spring of the mind.

small requests

2011-08-26T00:00:00.001-04:00

small requests, a photo by Mark Bonica on Flickr.

beware seemingly small requests.

if you put twice the number of grains of rice on each square, you would need 9,223,372,036,854,780,000 for the last square. I was running out around 50,000, so I gave up.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wheat_and_chessboard_problem

104/365

Roberts comments on corporate strategy & Steve Jobs

2011-08-25T17:57:00.000-04:00

good post from Russ Roberts (of Econ Talk fame)

http://cafehayek.com/2011/08/thank-you-steve.html

"His success illustrates the sterility of the mainstream approach in economics to corporate strategy and the theory of the firm. The theory of the firm in neoclassical theory focuses on how much the firm should produce and optimal capacity. Game theory looks at strategic issues arising under various payoffs. Neither approach captures the nature of innovation, the trial and error risk-taking of the visionary entrepreneur or the power of creative destruction to enrich our lives."

So, you might ask, why learn about something that is regarded as worthless? Well, because it isn't worthless on all fronts - just on the cutting edge of creativity and real entrepreneurship. And you can't critique what you don't understand.

"Best Ever Death Metal Band out of Denton"

2011-08-25T14:04:00.002-04:00

Yesterday K. heard Rainbow's "Since you've been gone" on the radio and it reminded her of tooling around with my buddy A. This morning on the way to work I had my iPod on random play, and "The Best Ever Death Metal Band out of Denton"came up, which I had downloaded on a whim, but hadn't listened to in a while. I guess since I was already thinking about metal music and my friend A., this song just got me in a wistful and pensive mood. It's about a pair of boys who have a silly and completely fantastic dream of being a "death metal" band. My friend A., along with some of my other friends, had a similar dream. I never really got involved in that dream directly - I had my own - to be a writer - but I hung out with them as they made their plans about all the glory they would have when they made it big. They were going to be called "Nightshade" if I remember correctly.

The Mountain Goats do a great job capturing all the angst and anger of being a young man who feels sidelined by society in "Best Ever Death Metal Band out of Denton". Of course you grow up and you come to realize you haven't really been sidelined, you just aren't ready yet, but those last lines:

when you punish a person for dreaming his dream,
don't expect him to thank or forgive you.
the best ever death metal band out of denton
will in time both outpace and outlive you.

So powerful. Reminds me of Pink Floyd's "The Wall." I think the greatest gift we can give to a young person, or perhaps any person, is to support their dreams, even if they're a bit silly and highly unlikely. The world is very good at providing realistic feedback and doesn't need a whole lot of help.

Our story is still ongoing, so I won't say it has a "happy ending" - but we're all doing some of what we wanted to do, and that's pretty good. A. performs sometimes and is involved in community theater, and I'm doing this. And I've been blessed with the opportunity to be a teacher, which is all about helping other people pursue their dreams, and that is pretty darn good, too.

"the situation is evolving rapidly"

2011-08-23T23:33:00.001-04:00

"the situation is evolving rapidly", a photo by Mark Bonica on Flickr.

"We've located him - the situation is evolving rapidly - more soon"

that was the cryptic message we got from R2 today, finally - after weeks without contact.

You may recall we received this photo some time back: www.flickr.com/photos/23119666@N03/5966067174/ without explanation.

No photo this time - just the message. Woodman is not sure what to make of it. It was obviously from R2 because it was written as "Beep-tweep, woo. Beep-beep-beep." Which translates to:
"We've located him - the situation is evolving rapidly - more soon" (or, if you put the emphasis on the second "beep", "I've fallen, and I can't get up. Please get me some prune juice." It's all in the inflection. we're pretty sure it's the first, tho).

Adam Smith quote of the day

2011-08-20T16:31:00.002-04:00

"If a nation could not prosper without the enjoyment of perfect liberty and perfect justice, there is not in the world a nation which could ever have prospered. In the political body, however, the wisdom of nature has fortunately made ample provision for remedying many of the bad effects of the folly and injustice of man; in the same manner as it has done in the natural body, for remedying those of his sloth and intemperance."

- Adam Smith, "An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations", 1776

worthy of this moment in American politics. I guess worthy of pretty much every moment of American politics, and pretty much any other country's politics as well.

labor value

2011-08-17T12:49:00.001-04:00

Great 3 minute video from Steve Horwitz on how the goods that the average American can buy have become cheaper over time in terms of the most important measure - how many hours of labor they have to trade to buy them.

if embed fails: http://youtu.be/W8SLIt7xZxU

prank calling

2011-08-13T22:04:00.001-04:00

prank calling, a photo by Mark Bonica on Flickr.

Yeah, so I had to go up to Waco on Thursday for a meeting at Baylor on Friday. Low and behold, Pig and Dinosaur hitched a ride with me. When I came back from grabbing dinner, I found the two of them giggling around the phone. I was suspicious, of course, but eventually they just went and watched Jerry Springer re-runs together, so I kind of forgot about it.

Until in the morning when I went to talk to the front desk clerks about a billing issue.

"Um, Mr. Bonica, were you calling other guests' rooms last night?"

"What? No? Why would I do that?"

"Well, we had a number of complaints that someone in room 123 was calling other guest rooms and saying, 'I'll cut chu!'"

I'm not sure what to make of this friendship.

90/365

an anti-war argument

2011-08-11T23:30:00.000-04:00

this is the best anti-war argument I can think of.

I recently had a guest speaker to our class who asked if we really see people when we look around us, or do we see objects. when you are rushing through an airport or a train station, are those people you are rushing past human beings with families, and dreams, and amazingly beautiful voices, or are the objects in your way?

do you really see people when you look out at the ranks of service members?

this kind of beauty should not be wasted lightly.

(in case the embed fails, go here: http://youtu.be/eBaskRZDbNA )

anger management

2011-08-11T09:12:00.001-04:00

anger management, a photo by Mark Bonica on Flickr.

I just found out Pig and Dinosaur have been going to anger management counseling together.

"Marhsmallows make me feel... not angry, Pig."

It's a step.

89/365

(oh, and got my rocket blower - I think my sensor is mostly clean - still one smudgy spot - will try some more tonight)

misc links

2011-08-07T22:41:00.000-04:00

Garlic Parmesan Pull-Apart Bread - OMG - gonna have to make this

this is your life

Leprechaun's Delight

Ask Me, by William Stafford

who's your fry daddy?

2011-08-04T22:21:00.000-04:00

K went out tonight with a friend, and you know what comes out when K isn't around...

the fry daddy!

some fine home-made onion rings and french fries for dinner tonight. The onion rings were excellent, if I do say so myself. And since the kids think they're "yucky", I am the only one who knows. So I say, yes! the were most excellent!

dark

2011-08-02T01:01:00.001-04:00

dark, a photo by Mark Bonica on Flickr.

My first relatively creative shot in a while. This started out life as an image I was totally disappointed with, but after 10 minutes of messing about in PS, I think I was able to manufacture something close to what I had envisioned. Though B&W wasn't the original intent.

80/365

oh no!

2011-07-28T23:29:00.001-04:00

oh no!, a photo by Mark Bonica on Flickr.

Mr. Orleans finished with the marshmallow and went right for the Life Savers!

He's got a sweet tooth, that Mr. Orleans.

76/365

PS - meanwhile, still no further word about Sidekick! and no one knows where R2 has gone.

NAACP falls in behind ending drug war

2011-07-27T08:29:00.000-04:00

“These flawed drug policies that have been mostly enforced in African American communities must be stopped and replaced with evidenced-based practices that address the root causes of drug use and abuse in America.”

more here.

(HT Mark Perry's totally awesome blog, Carpe Diem")

Faulkner recordings

2011-07-27T08:26:00.000-04:00

Just found this:

William Faulkner arrived at the University of Virginia’s Charlottesville campus in 1957 and served two terms as UVa’s first writer-in-residence. Many of his classes, readings, addresses, and Q&A sessions were recorded, and a treasure trove—28 hours of tape—survived. Every invaluable minute is now available online.

You’ll hear Faulkner read (from The Town, The Sound and the Fury, and other works), answer any number of questions (about Brown v. Board of Education, among other matters), and speak at length about his works and ideas. Some of the recordings are hard to make out, but UVa’s website includes transcriptions—which are a tremendous help, and fascinating in and of themselves. You'll also find a wealth of essays, newspaper articles, and personal recollections.

Link here to article, and here to UVA.

Information that is becoming available to the common person in the age of the internet never ceases to amaze me. Once upon a time, I would have had to travel to UVA to have access to this. Now anyone in the world can, from their living room (or kitchen table, as I happen to be doing this minute).

raising girls

2011-07-25T22:47:00.001-04:00

raising girls, a photo by Mark Bonica on Flickr.

so being a guy, girls continue to baffle me. even after being married to one for a long time, and had several of them running around my ankles, knees, and now acting like they are almost adults.

so this is an actual collection of stuff on my dinner table at this moment - most belonging to the Little Chef who is a tween. the collection perhaps demonstrates the nature of tween-ness - of being in two worlds at once. Of trying to leap to adulthood, but still holding on to childhood. As a parent, I am torn as well. It is nice to have the freedom of their growing independence, but I want them to keep playing with the legos and Littlest Pet Shops. I mean, where will I get all my subjects for my photography if Angry Dinosaur and Minathropic Pig go away?

73/365

the nature of tragedy

2011-07-23T15:25:00.002-04:00

I've been pondering the nature of tragedy, in particular lately because I've heard about several deaths - some closer to me than others.

For example, yesterday a madman went on a murderous rampage in Norway killing innocent children at a day camp. Today I heard about the death of singer Amy Winehouse.

But every day people die. Old people, young people, people who hold positions of influence, and people whose passing will be hardly noticed by anyone. Some of them are close to us, but most of them we will never hear about. Some will be quiet and peaceful, others will be horrific (like the victims in Norway), or the little boy in NYC a few weeks ago.

The thing I have been considering is, what makes a death tragic? What is it about one death that leaves us with a sense of, to use a that well worn expression, "the circle of life" (queue Elton John), while another makes us rage at the lack of justice in the world?

more to follow - but I'd be interested in your thoughts.

mysterious

2011-07-23T00:01:00.001-04:00

mysterious, a photo by Mark Bonica on Flickr.

Woodboy says he was out on the front porch and Billy Bob the Sandperson (or it might have been Billy Joe or Billy Boy or Billy Tom - they're all named "Billy-something" and you really can't tell them apart) handed him a sealed envelope and gestured that it was for Woodman.

All that was inside was this grainy shot of Sidekick! behind some bars. At least we're pretty sure it's Sidekick!, but we have no idea where he might be. All we know is that he left Japan some time ago, after helping to try to stop the reactor leaks after the tsunami, but since then we've had no idea where he went. But this doesn't look good.

(previously www.flickr.com/photos/23119666@N03/5952711745/ )

70/365

Borders bad strategy

2011-07-21T22:21:00.001-04:00

nice article from Slate on Borders' bad business strategy. Practically textbook in how not to operate a business in a changing environment.

http://www.slate.com/id/2299642/

one minute peanut butter cake

2011-07-21T21:06:00.001-04:00

one minute peanut butter cake, a photo by Mark Bonica on Flickr.

got this recipe from a blog called "back to her roots" which I "stumbled" upon using stumbleupon.com . You can see the recipe here:

backtoherroots.com/2011/07/09/sweet-saturday-one-minute-p...

we followed the recipe except I nuked it 1 minute instead of 30 seconds - which appears to have been about 15 seconds too long because it was a tad dry - and some of the comments address exactly that - with the suggestion to cook just slightly less if it's too dry.

It tasted pretty good - better than one might expect. It struck me as great late night snack food when you don't have anything else laying around. In other words, like graduate student food.

I might try it again with chocolate chips.

Anyway - this is a busy week, so I think this will also have to be my submission for the weekly challenge "food porn".

unexpected

2011-07-20T22:38:00.001-04:00

unexpected, a photo by Mark Bonica on Flickr.

ok, so some things in life you just don't expect.

Angry Dinosaur and Misanthropic Pig sitting together? I just backed away quietly. I was afraid we were close to one of those "crossing the streams" moments (out of Ghost Busters, you know).

68/365

pissed off pig

2011-07-20T11:05:00.001-04:00

pissed off pig, a photo by Mark Bonica on Flickr.

Pig apparently heard me quote that old adage about who was more committed to breakfast - the chicken or the pig - and didn't appreciate it.

Woodboy, being a good boy scout, climbed up into the cabinet to try to help Pig down.

As usual, Pig was his pleasant self. ( www.flickr.com/photos/23119666@N03/5945877957/ )

67/365

closing Borders

2011-07-18T22:50:00.000-04:00

I just saw the stunning, though I have to say unsurprising, news that Borders will be closing all of its stores by September. (WSJ article here)

Borders was a category killer, not unlike Blockbuster, so there are a good many people who won't shed a tear when they see the last store close its doors. I think unlike Blockbuster some people actually liked Borders, because unlike Blockbuster, you didn't always feel like you were being raked over the coals by Borders.

I used to love going to Borders or Barnes and Noble when they first started. I had grown up visiting little mom & pop book stores as a kid, and when I was in college I might spend several hours on a Saturday visiting the 4 or 5 book stores down the street. But none of them had the selection of one Borders.

Over the last several years I have become progressively more reliant on Amazon. Over the last few months I've visited Borders a few times when I received deep discount (30-40% off) coupons, and found that I was just as well off from a price perspective shopping at home on Amazon - even after the shipping cost. So I had pretty much abandoned Borders. It also didn't help that I no longer have the leisure to browse book stores now that I have a family.

But cost and convenience aside, browsing the shelves isn't the way I shop for books anymore. These days I mostly rely on recommendations from the bloggers I follow and my Facebook friends' recommendations. Amazon complements this kind of shopping far better than a physical bookstore.

Nonetheless, bookstores have a certain degree of goodness to them for me. The closing of a bookstore almost always makes me a little sad.

But the closing of Borders represents a tide change in the nature of book marketing. I wonder if the fact that the scale of Borders is no longer sustainable, will that mean that the mom & pop bookstore might make a come back?

or does it mean that books as we know them will shift into luxury goods, with e-books being the main way readers consume books?

This is the beauty of creative destruction - the loss of Borders is a huge opportunity for lots of other people to try something.

I'll cut chu.

2011-07-17T22:32:00.001-04:00

I'll cut chu., a photo by Mark Bonica on Flickr.

I literally jumped out of bed last night at 11:30 when I realized I hadn't taken my picture for the day.

We went to the Magic Time Machine ( www.magictimemachine.com/ ) for dinner, and I had hoped to get a pic of the kids with some of the characters, but it didn't work out. Then we got home and got busy, and I forgot to get a pic.

So when I came banging down the stairs in my PJs, Pig looked at me with disdain. So I decided to shoot him.

And you know what he said, as usual. ( www.flickr.com/photos/23119666@N03/5831031885/ )

64/365

Muhammad Ali on Aging

2011-07-17T15:56:00.000-04:00

"The man who views the world at 50 the same as he did at 20 has wasted 30 years of his life."

It might be apocryphal, and it's certainly not startling original, but it strikes me as profoundly true, especially as I mosey ever closer to the latter number.

children as a store of wealth

2011-07-17T15:41:00.001-04:00

There's a well known and shown correlation between the wealth of a society and the average birth rate.

There are many possible inputs to any function that would show why as people become wealthier they have fewer children. For example, raising children are costly, so as you get wealthier and fewer of them die from malnutrition and disease, you would have fewer.

Today I was thinking about the idea of children as a form of savings. In particular the spark came from reflecting on Cowen and Boudreaux's article on microcredit (article is here but gated, here is Cowen blogging about the article). They argue, among other things, that microcredit allows people to buy large assets that are not easily divided and taken by others for consumption. It's hard to take a part of your goat without killing it, but if you have a few dollars, your husband might take it and spend it on booze and entertaining his friends so that he can increase his social status.

Combine this with the well known trend in some marginalized but successful communities that have always believed in investments in human capital because that is the hardest form of capital to steal, and you can easily reach the idea that poor people would have children as a form of savings, even low human capital children. Of course there are horrific things done to children that essentially amount to taking a part of the goat, but on average human society frowns on such behavior. Having children also gives you a claim on other's benevolence, rather than the other way around. It is a way to both shield against the social claims of others and impose your own claims on them - something particularly important in a close-knit community where social norms of sharing are powerful. As Cowen and Boudreaux point out:

A cash hoard kept at home can be lost, stolen, taken by the taxman, damaged by floods, or even eaten by rats. It creates other kinds of problems as well. Needy friends and relatives knock on the door and ask for aid. In small communities it is often very hard, even impossible, to say no, especially if you have the cash on hand.

I was thinking that the strongest incentive to have more children might come from the lack of property rights enforcement. With weak property rights, even investments in more difficult to divide assets are risky. Someone will simply come claim/steal your goat. It doesn't matter that they couldn't get just a piece of it's value. They can take the whole thing.

I might rather have an ox than two sons to plow my fields, but if I have an ox, when I plow my fields and have greater yield, my poor neighbors will ask me for some of my grain. Or the local strongman and his goons might steal my ox and have a BBQ. Or my jealous neighbors might poison it.

If I have sons, I can keep all the additional yield because I need to feed my sons (neighbor protection) - and oh, by the way, can we have some of your grain? I do have a bigger family than you after all. The strongman and his goons are unlikely to want to BBQ my kids. And the neighbors are unlikely to poison them out of jealousy. The sons are a suboptimal means of saving, even more suboptimal than the ox, but better than the alternative of trying to keep cash or the fuits of last years harvest in an environment with poorly protected property rights.

post #1,000!

2011-07-17T15:15:00.000-04:00

This is it - post number 1,000 here at the Recacalcitrant Egg.

Thanks to all of you who comment - usually privately or through the linked posts on Facebook.

Essayons!