Roger C. Altman, in Foreign Affairs:

The financial crisis has called into serious question the credibility of western governments and may precipitate an eastward shift of power.

Chinese households save an astonishing 40 percent of their incomes.

Recently:

There used to be a time if you didn't have money to buy something, you just didn't buy it.

We're all losers now. There's no pleasure to it.

From 2006:

As states recede and the new mediaevalism advances, the outside world is destined to move increasingly beyond the control -- and even the understanding -- of the new Rome. The globe's variegated informal and quasi-informal statelike activities will continue to expand, as will the power and reach of those who live by them. The new Romans, like the old, might not enjoy the consequences.

The Great Crash, 2008

Robert Skidelsky, in The New York Review of Books:

Money, according to Niall Ferguson, is not a thing but a relationship -- above all, a relationship between creditor and debtor.

From the Economist, earlier this year:

Financial progress is about learning to deal with strangers in more complex ways.

Niall Ferguson, in early 2006:

If history is any guide, our present golden age of globalization is unlikely to endure.

Niall Ferguson, in late 2008:

This crisis is about much more than just the stock market. It needs to be understood as a fundamental breakdown of the entire financial system.

Roger Altman:

The United States will remain the most powerful nation on earth for a while longer. Its military strength alone ensures this. But the crash of 2008 has inflicted profound damage on its financial system, its economy, and its standing in the world; the crisis is an important geopolitical setback.

Can You Spare a Dime?

George Orwell, in an essay which appears in the new collection, Facing Unpleasant Facts:

Gazelles are almost the only animals that look good to eat when they are still alive, in fact, one can hardly look at their hindquarters without thinking of mint sauce.

From the archive, about a Ron Paul supporter:

He wore a crisp dress shirt the color of mint ice cream and a color-coordinated tie, which made him look like an insurance claims adjustor.

From an online chat between Bernd-Jürgen Brandes (cator99) and Armin Meiwes (antrophagus):

cator99: I’m in telecommunications

antrophagus: Oh, that sounds interesting

cator99: I believe you

...

antrophagus: It’s only a few days until March 9

cator99: Still, I would have rather met you yesterday and felt your teeth

antrophagus: One can’t have everything. There’s still some time before you really feel my teeth.

Nathan Myhrvold:

I was describing this to a friend over lunch in Palo Alto. As I was describing this the waiter came up behind me to take our order. I was in the middle of saying "it's very hard to enter the rectum, but once you do things move much faster", only to hear the waiter gasp.

Whoops.

I tried to explain saying "well, this is about" but with a horrified look he said "I do NOT want to know what this is about!" Some people are just not interested in natural history, I guess.

Marrakech

From the abstract of a recent Microsoft patent application:

A computer with scalable performance level components and selectable software and service options has a user interface that allows individual performance levels to be selected ... To support a pay-per-use business model, each selectable item may have a cost associated with it, allowing a user to pay for the services actually selected and that presumably correspond to the task or tasks being performed. An administrator may use a similar user interface to set performance levels for each computer in a network, allowing performance and cost to be set according to a user's requirements.

Acidus wrote:

... uhhhhh time sharing as prior art?

Oh, but you are neglecting this part:

All this is possible because the metering agents and specific elements of the security module 202 allow an underwriter in the supply chain to confidently supply a computer at little or no upfront cost to a user or business, aware that their investment is protected and that the scalable performance capabilities generate revenue commensurate with actual performance level settings and usage.

And, as Bill Joy recently explained to Malcolm Gladwell about his experiences on the time sharing system at the University of Michigan:

"The challenge was that they gave all the students an account with a fixed amount of money, so your time would run out. When you signed on, you would put in how long you wanted to spend on the computer. They gave you, like, an hour of time. That's all you'd get. But someone figured out that if you put in 'time equals' and then a letter, like t equals k, they wouldn't charge you," he said, laughing at the memory. "It was a bug in the software. You could put in t equals k and sit there forever."

RE: Metered Pay-as-you-go Computing Experience USPTO 0080319910

My annual review is now complete. Obviously I think it's all good, but here's my take on the best of the best:

It's good to have a plan, but if something extraordinary comes your way, you should go for it.

The question to ask is not, Are we safer? The question to ask is, Are we better off?

There are great benefits to connectedness, but we haven't wrapped our minds around the costs.

I'm not saying we should stop, but I think we should at least examine which lies we tell and why.

It's not about left or right, it's about right and wrong.

Being "always on" is being always off, to something.

In our unending search for panaceas, we believe that happiness and "success" -- which, loosely translated, means money -- are the things to strive for. People are constantly surprised that, even though they have acquired material things, discontent still gnaws.

If you are contemplating a voyage and you have the means, abandon the venture until your fortunes change. Only then will you know what the sea is all about.

In all his speeches, John McCain urges Americans to make sacrifices for a country that is both "an idea and a cause". He is not asking them to suffer anything he would not suffer himself. But many voters would rather not suffer at all.

Every now and then I meet someone in Manhattan who has never driven a car. I used to wonder at such people, but more and more I wonder at myself.

A Noteworthy Year

For the vast majority of books that I mention here, there is apparently very little interest. But each year a few titles rise above the rest. Here are the recommended titles that drew the most interest in 2008, based on click-throughs:

I Could Tell You But Then You Would Have to be Destroyed by Me: Emblems from the Pentagon's Black World

... strangely hinting at a world about which little is known ...

The New School of Information Security

Why is information security so dysfunctional?

Anathem

I had the idea that there would be people who voluntarily stay inside those walls, as a way of getting away from the distractions of everyday life, of doing something in a serious way that took a long time.

Security Data Visualization: Graphical Techniques for Network Analysis

Time is of the essence.

The Culture of the New Capitalism

It takes 10,000 hours of practice to become a skilled carpenter or musician - but what makes a true master?

Visualizing Data: Exploring and Explaining Data with the Processing Environment

Teaches you how.

Ghost: Confessions of a Counterterrorism Agent

Threats lurk unseen.

Outliers: The Story of Success

An amazingly hopeful and uplifting idea.

Who's Your City?: How the Creative Economy Is Making Where to Live the Most Important Decision of Your Life... [ Read More (0.1k in body) ]

Congrats to Rattle and his lovely new bride!!:) Many Best wishes!!

CONGRATS NICK AND YUN!!!!!

Until the late 18th century, parents took for granted their right to arrange their children's marriages and even, in many regions, to dissolve a marriage made without their permission.

Human beings do not like to think of themselves as animals.

Are We Giving Robots Too Much Power?

Scientists say that is very unlikely -- though they have done some checking just to make sure.

Theo Jansen is the Dutch creator of what he calls "Kinetic Sculptures," where nature and technology meet. Essentially these sculptures are robots powered by the wind only.

Fewer Americans now than at any time in the past half century believe they're moving forward in life.

We are the last generation, a culmination of all previous things, destroyed by the vapidity that surrounds us. The hipster represents the end of Western civilization - a culture so detached and disconnected that it has stopped giving birth to anything new.

Every now and then I meet someone in Manhattan who has never driven a car. I used to wonder at such people, but more and more I wonder at myself.

My existence, in short, costs the planet more than it can afford. This is not some handed-down moral stricture, nor any sort of guilty self-flagellation, but a simple recognition of fact. The consequences are obvious, and near enough now to see the warts on their noses. For my own future, as well as my children's, I must change.

Multitasking is dumbing us down and driving us crazy.

Sudo make me a sandwich.

Any technology that is going to have significant impact over the next 10 years is already at least 10 years old.

Sustainable growth is not the consequence of an unsustainable consumption boom but of the progress and diffusion of science, technology and innovation.

Just as surely as the SUV will yield to the hybrid, the half-pound-a-day ... [ Read More (0.3k in body) ]

Technology and Progress | Another Noteworthy Year

Hillary's Downfall

Obama's favorite TV show is "The Wire."

"We don't subscribe to a marketplace of ideas."

First of all, we have said that whatever we do ... will be legal.

Over the last 20 years, every president has been a graduate of Yale.

In America we are currently living in a Kindergarchy, under rule by children.

Don't think I don't I tolerate gay people because I do. I tolerate them with all my heart.

This is the road to despotism. This is the fevered dream of theocracy. This is America.

"Never get into a wrestling match with a pig," Senator John McCain said. "You both get dirty, and the pig likes it."

In all his speeches, John McCain urges Americans to make sacrifices for a country that is both "an idea and a cause".

He is not asking them to suffer anything he would not suffer himself. But many voters would rather not suffer at all.

The Fathers hoped to create not a system of party government under a constitution but rather a constitutional government that would check and control parties.

He certainly had no choice but to resign (as he did on March 12th) if, as it seems, he broke the law. But that still leaves the bigger question of whether the law is an ass.

"In other words, you found that your view of the world, your ideology, was not right, it was not working," Mr. Waxman said. "Absolutely, precisely," Mr. Greenspan replied.

Politics and Government | Another Noteworthy Year

The dot-com crash of the early 2000s should have been followed by decades of soul-searching; instead, even before the old bubble had fully deflated, a new mania began to take hold on the foundation of our long-standing American faith that the wide expansion of home ownership can produce social harmony and national economic well-being.

American authorities may be deluding themselves into believing they can forestall the endgame of post-bubble adjustments. A more effective strategy would be to try to tilt the economy away from consumption and toward exports and long-needed investments in infrastructure.

To be truly challenging, a voyage, like a life, must rest on a firm foundation of financial unrest. If you are contemplating a voyage and you have the means, abandon the venture until your fortunes change. Only then will you know what the sea is all about.

The inflation may be severe, implying massive unjust redistributions and at least a temporary grave degradation in the price system's capacity to guide resource allocation. But even this is almost surely better than a depression.

Behind the recent bad news lurks a much deeper concern: The world economy is now being driven by a vast, secretive web of investments that might be out of anyone's control.

Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said falling U.S. home prices are "nowhere near the bottom" and the resulting market turmoil isn't showing signs of abating.

In the 2009 budget, the White House wants to cut about $200 billion from the government's medical programs for seniors and the poor. The longer-term picture is darker.

The rescue operation brings to mind John Kenneth Galbraith's dictum that in the United States, the only respectable form of socialism is socialism for the rich.

This was the largest two-day advance since 1987, and, more importantly, the rest of the entire list is populated by the Great Depression.

It was so obvious it was going to fall apart eventually. What is so amazing is how long it took to actually happen.

We need a serious recession in this country, and the government needs to get out of the way, and let it happen.

Watch the Case/Shiller HPI continue to plummet as delinquencies ... [ Read More (0.2k in body) ]

Economics and Crisis | Another Noteworthy Year