The title conscious blog

Pickens who?

2008-08-06T23:45:00.004-05:00

Once a Texas oil man, always a Texas oil man.

Update: Something for those who like to read.

2007-11-28T08:37:00.000-06:00

I see your updated maxims, and raise you a diatribe. Which leaves me wondering why this used to be so hard not too long ago...

2007-09-05T14:11:00.000-05:00

Haha

This is a phone I could buy now that it will work on T-Mobile and 3rd-party apps are popping up like well, they should. Oh, that and the phone is actually Competitive with other smart phones (atleast as far as the T-Mobile network goes).

The media has an Apple bias!

2007-06-29T19:57:00.000-05:00

It does, and you cannot convince me otherwise!

Now, on to the disturbing part:
The media has a conservative bias too,
and I dislike conservatives,
ergo, I dislike Apple as well.

2007-04-24T13:42:00.000-05:00

It isn't enough that the food supply has been reduced to this (the whole NYT article is worth a read):

"So how is it that today the people with the least amount of money to spend on food are the ones most likely to be overweight? ... Drewnowski gave himself a hypothetical dollar to spend ... [he] found that a dollar could buy 1,200 calories of cookies or potato chips but only 250 calories of carrots. Looking for something to wash down those chips, he discovered that his dollar bought 875 calories of soda but only 170 calories of orange juice."

Now they have to go after chocolate!, apparently, the demand for chocolate isn't enough for a profitable and satisfied Hersheys:

"The US Food and Drug Administration is considering redefining 'chocolate' to allow substitution of vegetable oil ($0.70/lb.) for cocoa butter ($2.30/lb.), and whey protein for dry whole milk"

You can submit a comment to the FDA by tomorrow, this website has everything you need.

Pirates and Emporers

2006-09-17T17:04:00.000-05:00

"pageinistas"

2006-08-02T13:57:00.000-05:00

Wikiality can't seem to get it's own page on Wikipedia or Wikitionary (My account or my IP are banned from the latter from further editing), and for what reason?

1) There is no verifiable printed source which used the term.
2) The term won't be remembered.

I like the wikipedia editors as much as the next guy, but they need to take a more "if it doesn't hurt anything else, we'll allow it" view of this. The word is describing some sort of consensus reality (the idealist kind) prevalent on wikipedia because of it's anyone-can-edit nature and as I said, adding a Wikipedia page on it isn't going to hurt anything. In fact, there is nothing in the general rules laid out that says it can't be allowed. If the best place they can put it in is the Vandalism of Wikipedia in popular culture section of Wikipedia in popular culture, the term is being misunderstood.

Consensus will probably happen once someone uses it in print to describe the uniqueness of creating/changing/getting formal or informal information from Wikipedia. I'm not flaming, and I don't really care that much. :)

The Euston Manifesto

2006-07-20T03:24:00.000-05:00

They're for open source! Where do I sign up?

"14) Open source.As part of the free exchange of ideas and in the interests of encouraging joint intellectual endeavour, we support the open development of software and other creative works and oppose the patenting of genes, algorithms and facts of nature. We oppose the retrospective extension of intellectual property laws in the financial interests of corporate copyright holders. The open source model is collective and competitive, collaborative and meritocratic. It is not a theoretical ideal, but a tested reality that has created common goods whose power and robustness have been proved over decades. Indeed, the best collegiate ideals of the scientific research community that gave rise to open source collaboration have served human progress for centuries."

Set it, and forget it...

2006-06-29T23:12:00.000-05:00

This is why the The Daily Show wins Peabody's and Emmy's. Showing the ridiculous parts of the debate like no news show has. It's beyond irony. It may be because the show doesn't have a pretense like news shows do to be unbiased towards individuals or the story...

Slateiness is next to Googliness

2006-06-19T05:08:00.000-05:00

Put simply, reading Slate clarifies things in a way I have yet to see a newspaper do. Starting with good writers (Daniel Gross, Fred Kaplan, even Hitchens), great guest writers (Henry Blodget), great conversations, great cartoons, and with little things like using hyperlinks. It's fascinating to me how online newspapers still get away without linking to obvious online sources, government websites, research papers, other news websites (for those stories about a single scandalous quote). Slate is different in a lot of ways, and what says it perfectly to me is: A Slate writer never wastes a readers time. I don't know if I can say that for any other news source, apart from very few blogs, and one monthly news magazine (Harpers).

After The Washington Post Company bought Slate from Microsoft (1 out of 1.5 good things the company has started), and sqished the Business and Technology section into one, it's hasn't changed much editorially, which is good. The website sadly still looks the same since I regularly started reading Slate in 97-98 maybe. The search function could use some Googleiness. I have no complaints otherwise.

2006-06-17T23:31:00.000-05:00

Prototype racing is good for you, especially on the radio.

2006-06-15T04:04:00.000-05:00

I just drove my bike 90 miles, 30 and 60 miles continuously, and I've re-discovered something I already knew... I'm a weakling. Fuck, I'm tired! My knees are about fall off, but not nearly as fast as my two shoulders and elbows will. That's right, one arm - two pieces. Hitting cold-fronts and warm-fronts going 70 MPH is no good either. Eh... first time, it'll get better.

It's funny because it's true

2006-06-12T02:14:00.000-05:00

Here's a page (208) from America: The book:

Here's an article from Armed Forces Journal, Before:

and After:

Bonus: Here's an article from Coming Anarchy about Central Asia:

Memorize This...

2006-06-01T04:02:00.000-05:00

Thanks to the Economist's View for the nice example:

...assume taxes on the Poor are 10% and taxes on the Rich are 30%.

Scenario A: GDP is 1000. Rich (a small number of people) receive 600, Poor (a large number of people) receive 400.

Taxes: Rich pay 180, poor pay 40, total is 220, Rich share is 180/220 = 82%

Now do nothing more than redistribute income from Poor to Rich:

Scenario B: GDP is 1000. Rich (a small number of people) receive 800, Poor (a large number of people) receive 200.

Taxes: Rich pay 240, Poor pay 20, total is 260, Rich share is 240/260 = 92%

Some people have found a way to argue that because the share of taxes paid by the wealthy is higher under B, 92% instead of 82%, and because the Rich pay more, 240 instead of 180, the burden on the Rich has risen. I'll take that burden if they don't want it.

It's also possible to cut taxes. Starting from scenario A once again, let taxes fall to 25% for the Rich and 5% for the Poor, and redistribute income in the same way as in B:

Scenario C: GDP is 1000. Rich (a small number of people) receive 800, Poor (a large number of people) receive 200.

Taxes: Rich pay 200, Poor pay 10, total is 210, Rich share is 200/210 = 95%

That's the rich paying 95%, up from 92% in the same economy, after a flat tax cut. I'm very soon going to start calling our tax system regressive, I am. So... the Democrats can't explain this in english because... I'm sure Krugman has eluded to the GDP as the bigger factor, construing the taxes, but an example just makes things so much clearer.

Robert Reich goes to the core of the problem, growing the economy "progressively", through a progressive tax system, which automatically leads to better social mobility if I understand him correctly.

broken windows

2006-05-12T12:42:00.000-05:00

This article on a new Rudy Guliani-bashing (Guliani Time) documentary begs the question: How many of our our politicians are civilized?

It's a very good read, because it doesn't do the sort character assassination usually associated with politics, but is still, unusually personal. Here's an excerpt that has little to do with the rest of the article:

Now, to me, the word civilized has always conjured up a certain urbane coolness. Being civilized is a condition, not a destiny; it's no more endemic to a people than fanaticism or terrorism. As a state of self-imposed and self-policed grace on the part of the very lucky, it is both very artificial and very fragile. A total freedom from hysteria might be another way of putting it.

I have to agree with the author's definition of civilized, sipping coffee and typing on a laptop, nothing -absolutely nothing- could make me realize just how fragile my reality really is, yet, how fast could hysteria creep in? I don't want to guess, but I'm sure surprising me and making me act uncivilized wouldn't take a lot.

Now that I've beat that point to death, are politicans any better at handling hysteria? Let me re-phrase that, are politicians capable of merely not causing hysteria, given their positions in society? When they can't even seem to respect empirical facts, which is the main point of the article...

Combine broken windows , with straussian politics (A stretch, and repulsive in it's own right, but I'm sticking to it), and throw in some policy doo-doo (not my words, but I will gladly lift them) with occasional Orwellian naming, and not only do you start to understand why there are movies like Thank You for Smoking, and why satire can't compete with our obscene reality, but also explain the reason why I find conservative ideology genuinely repulsive. While liberalism may not be much better (fat chance), at least it isn't blatantly disregarding of reality, and well, repulsive.

2006-05-03T22:38:00.000-05:00

Drive it like you stole it!

There's just no other way to say it :)

Net Neutrality

2006-04-29T19:46:00.000-05:00

This is important, now that the internet is a widely used medium, and has increased it's value exponentially, the telecom's want more control over it. No thank you. If the telecoms want QoS for Video, they can overbuild the networks first, and provide service (45 Mb/S, Synchronous, over fiber) worth the alleged $200 billion stolen from tax-payers.

…an unfettered open road is directly at odds with the broadband business plans of AT&T (formerly SBC), Comcast, Time Warner, and Verizon. The cable and telephone industry see enormous revenues as operators of a private Internet toll-road.

Save the internet has everything you need, including a list of the congress members who aren't acting right. It is a coalition which includes Vint Cerf, and Bob Kahn after all... that's the father of the Internet and the main engineer behind it for the rest of us.

CryptoKids™ America's Future Codemakers & Codebreakers

2006-04-29T16:43:00.000-05:00

Ok, so maybe the NSA isn't all that bad.

All you need to know...

2006-04-29T16:01:00.000-05:00

Truthiness hurts.

And as far as presidential approval rating polls go with the glass is half empty analogy: "the last 1/3 is usually backwash." You can thank Stephen Colbert too.

I think it's safe to say that the biggest challenge for Stephen Colbert after his show started was, could he distinguish himself from Jon Stewart and The Daily Show? I've watched almost all episodes of The Report so far (and TDS :)), and there are times where he comes off as a parody of Chris Matthews more than O'Reilly, because he does take certain arguments to exhaustion, but the rest of the show is unique and has loads of comedic value (Go fightin' Pacifists! of non-violence preaching Universities). I saw more of that at this dinner (even if some of the material was old :)).

The Washington Post has wide coverage.

2006-04-28T17:44:00.000-05:00

A couple of good Slate articles about the whole, forget taxing the oil companies, let's give them tax breaks instead logic. It really is an obscene world we live in.

If 150 million barrels could be extracted a year ago for $46 a barrel, it shouldn't cost much more than that to extract another 150 million barrels in 2006.
...
The oil industry refers to this as "production," but a more accurate term would be "extraction." Nature produced the oil and charges nothing for it.
...
Let's round off a bit and say that American oil extractors are getting an extra $25 a barrel. For 150 million barrels a month, that's $45 billion a year. And that's just for the oil that's extracted. The oil that remains in the ground is also about $25 a barrel more valuable. And other energy resources—used and unused—are more valuable by a similar amount.
...
Ordinarily, we shouldn't want the government to decide when profits become "excess." But the case of huge profits from the run-up in oil prices is different for two reasons. First, it is unusually clear that these profits have nothing to do with productivity. Diverting them to the U.S. Treasury would have no effect on the incentive to extract more oil from American ground. Second, some or all of these profits are directly related to a situation that is imposing huge sacrifices—financial and otherwise—from others; that is, the Iraq war.

and...

What none can acknowledge is that higher gas prices in the United States are a good thing. To be sure, oil at $70 a barrel causes hardships for working people and delights some of the world's worst dictators. But cheap gasoline imposes its own costs on society: greenhouse gas emissions, air pollution and its attendant health risks, traffic congestion, and accidents. The ideal way to cope with these externalities would be with higher gas taxes or a carbon tax. But these are politically impossible ideas at the moment—Democrats lost control of Congress in part because they passed a 4-cent-per-gallon tax increase in 1993. The next best solution is the one that has arrived on its own: a high market price for oil, which spurs conservation and substitution. Sustained high prices will bring about behavioral and political changes: energy conservation, public transportation, less exurban sprawl, and eventually the economic viability of alternative fuel sources such as biomass, fuel cells, wind, and solar power, which may one day undermine the power of the oil oligarchs. Are politicians too stupid to understand this, or just smart enough not to say it aloud?

2006-04-28T01:17:00.000-05:00

Haha, it was only a matter of time.

2006-04-20T08:27:00.000-05:00

From the autoextremist (Everything except the next two lines)...

What's the difference between a redneck and a NASCAR fan?
None :)

So, I think it's about f^%-ing time...

It has come to our attention that serious discussions are taking place for the first time in the conference rooms of one domestic manufacturer in particular on a subject heretofore unthinkable in Detroit. The subject? Pulling out of NASCAR. Yes, it has been mentioned before, and I have predicted it for months now - ever since the announcement was made that Toyota would be buying its way into the France family circus - but we have confirmation that not only are the discussions taking place, they're so far down the road that a timetable for a pullout has been created, taking into account the end dates of existing contracts with individual racing teams currently aligned with this particular manufacturer.

This can't be overstated: Considering how NAFTA is effectively off the table even while discussing immigration and other trade reform, Adam Smith argued for movement of free labor, not just free movement of capital. Without trade agreements reflecting this, immigration is as simple as osmosis, people will go where the jobs are. Also, tax breaks on the order of hundreds of millions to a foreign company so they can setup a manufacturing plant, doesn't happen in other countries a lot.

PMD: The Saturn Aura has the design presence, the content, the tasteful interior packaging and the overall value equation necessary to make a real impact in the market. In short, it has "hit" written all over it. The Aura's problem? It can be encapsulated in one eye-opening number - $175 million. Why is that number significant? $175 million is the amount of money Toyota is going to spend to launch the new Camry. If Saturn is lucky, they might get $50 million to launch the Aura - that is, if they're lucky. The number will probably be closer to between $32 - $40 million. The Aura is a perfectly competitive car in every respect, with the added bonus of an authentic, on-the-road presence - and it's in danger of getting launched in such a way that the majority of the car-buying consumers out there will barely even notice it exists.
...
we're now dealing with a global economic world that cares little about "free" trade or doing business the way we as a country think it should be done. Every import auto manufacturer has exploited our way of doing things here. Build plants? Sure, we'll do that - if you guarantee a big enough incentive package that would make it worth our while. But if a Detroit manufacturer were to ask for some relief to do business the answer would be: "We're not bailing your asses out, what have you done for us lately?" It's as if the U.S. government is dismissing the 100+ years that the automobile industry has thrived here, and the role it has played in powering the economic engine that made America's economy the envy of the world.
...
Consider this: If each and every vehicle sourced from an offshore-based automobile company (whether they're built here or not) had a $1,500 tariff slapped on it that would be paid for by the manufacturer and would go directly to a fund that would underwrite the pensions and health care costs of our own automobile industry and its workers, then we'd be a lot better off.

They ruined it!

2006-04-20T08:01:00.000-05:00

It looks like a Miata or an Acura TSX from the front

...and a bangled BMW from the back, and the side is just ugh... I won't even bother with pictures. Give me the original TT, which is still in the Gugenheim, with the V6 and a DSG anyday. It has been, and will continue to be the perfect car in my mind. I would take a Turbo 1.8T + a DSG swap or a Turbo V6 mod :)

Acura vs. Porsche in LMP2 should be good to watch, I must say the ALMS and endurance racing in general is getting to be racing like it should be. F1 has gotten it's act together as well, but I don't do performance racing.

"Nuclear Hypocrisy"

2006-03-13T07:58:00.000-06:00

Now that there is an op-ed in a major newspaper by someone from the administration about the Nuclear deal with India (It actually said "More Indians study in our universities than students from any other nation."), Here's what Arudhati Roy said, on Democracy Now:

...you have these hundreds of thousands of people protesting, and you have -- we have a government that’s been so obsequious that it makes your skin crawl...
...
the impact of these [nuclear] policies is what the Congress pretended to be against when it was campaigning in the elections. And then, as soon as they won the elections, they just resorted to, you know, the usual corporate policies and privatization..

So,.. that’s that it’s a double-pronged thing, and that's why I think it's very important for us to understand that this nuclear deal that's being talked about is not just that.. it's really the umbrella for a million different other kinds of deals that are going on,.. the Indian government is negotiating India into a corner where,.. you're not going to be able to -- you're trying to pretend that you're making some equal deal, but actually, you’re officially signing a deal with an alligator.
...
since the so-called economic reform regime began, the number of farmers that have committed suicide is in the tens of thousands in India and in Andhra Pradesh, one of the states worst hit by that. So Bush nor the Indian government is talking about the fact that Andhra Pradesh is overrun by a radical armed struggle, Maoist armed struggle, you know?
...
My position, when India conducted the nuclear test was that, you know, that now that you’ve done this, you're going to have to play by their rules, so it's not actually that you're freeing yourself, but you're selling yourself into kind of nuclear bondage, and this is exactly what is happening, that you’re no longer able to make an independent decision because you’re just going -- it's just like an orchestra.

and

TONY BENN: Well, you see, the United States and Britain are in total breach of the Non-Proliferation Treaty. The Non-Proliferation Treaty says three things. One, the nuclear powers will agree to disarm collectively. Secondly, that other countries can develop nuclear technology. And thirdly, that nuclear powers will give absolute assurances they will never use nuclear weapons against a non-nuclear state. And both the United States and Britain have now said that if their security was at stake, they would use nuclear weapons.. and when he went to India the other day, which isn’t a signatory to the Non-Proliferation Treaty, he signed an agreement. So, I mean, the thing is total hypocrisy.
...
You see, the funny thing about this, looking back at my life, because I was born in an empire, twenty percent of the population of the world was governed from London, and we locked people up. I met Mr. Gandhi; he was locked up. I met Nehru; he was locked up, Mandela was locked up, Kwame Nkrumah was locked up, and then they all ended up having tea with the queen as head of Commonwealth countries, and I suppose you could argue, though it might be unacceptable to your audience, George Washington was a terrorist. He raised an army against the King of England who was a legitimate king of the colonies. And so, the whole thing is completely fraudulent. It has nothing to do with morality. It has to do with power, and when Bush said the United States was addicted to oil – which I've been saying for years -- but he said it, addicts have a way of killing to get what they need, and I think the thing – I think the important thing for us now is to understand what's happening.

Well put by the longest serving MP for the labour party in Britian on Democracy Now, with emphasis added and edited as I saw fit. Here is the more mainstream view about the NPT and the deal with India. This and a couple more articles on Slate had, and still have me convinced the deal actually won't go through, unless maybe the Republicans steamroll some legislation through like they did CAFTA. Then there is still the Nuclear Suppliers Group left to be convinced. The CTBT and the NPT are not universally enforced. Universal is the key word there. India's stand has been quite clear for the last 30+ years. It's even justified by the Bhagvad Gita, as the end of the policy statement says.

Some cartoons from Slate:

I still don't know how much media attention this got, I saw a couple of e-mails read by Lou Dobbs on CNN. Regardless, I'll see the mango thing, and raise you the wiskey thing. Whiskey for Mangoes sounds decent, The Indian niche can be mango flavored whiskey maybe? On second thought, here are three things to know about Indians, or just me: Yes, our parents drive us nuts about marriage (arranged marriage for those of us who are socially inept thanks to PCM, I'm kidding :)), We love Cricket in all it's glory, and our love of mangoes ranks second to only the aforementioned two things for being distinguished as a desi (Indian), and definately above nyo-kyo-ler technology. So, Bush is going for Indian votes here when giving the 2 million Indians who live in the US the chance to eat Indian Mangoes. It's quite clear.

Australia lost!

2006-03-13T07:18:00.000-06:00

Over the last 10 years or so, The Australian cricket team has come to be like the Yankees in baseball. They've lost only three series in that time by my count, against India, England (Ashes?), and now South Africa. And won two Word Cups. I'll be downloading the South Africa vs. Australia match, maybe thanks to some pro-piracy swedes.

Oh.. and India won. Patel was praied a lot...