recently, in or near London

Mostly in Kew Gardens or Hampstead Heath.

walked yesterday at Great Meadows

Here are a few photos:

Turtle, Mound (nest), Snake (look closely), Frog, and can anyone tell us if those are Grebes in the last picture?   [Update: Thanks to an alert commenter those aren't Grebes, but are American Coots.  Here is the Wikipedia entry to further confirm: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Coot - Thanks AlanB]

why progress is hard

This insightful blog post by Julian Sanchez  demonstrates, here in the context of climate change debates, why making ratonal progress in the public sphere can be so hard.

see: http://www.juliansanchez.com/2009/04/06/climate-change-and-argumentative-fallacies/

Money snippet:

Actually, I have a possible advantage here as a peddler of horseshit: I need only worry about what sounds plausible. If my opponent is trying to explain what’s true, he may be constrained to introduce concepts that take a while to explain and are hard to follow, trying the patience (and perhaps wounding the ego) of the audience.

challenges

found this (more or less) on the web:

"View all problems as challenges.
Look upon negativities that arise as opportunities to learn and to grow.
Don't run from them, condemn yourself, or bury your burden in saintly silence.
You have a problem? Great.
More grist for the mill. Rejoice, dive in, and investigate."

2009 panic and the future

From Seed, Bruce Sterling on Panic and 2009.  http://www.seedmagazine.com/news/2009/01/2009_will_be_a_year_of_panic.php

Seems to me that however we come out of this, things will be different for a time - new, lower benchmarks for consumer spending levels will be adopted, and some familiar brands never returning are just two examples.  For a time we will close the gap with the rest of the world in standard of living by stepping back towards the mean.  New models for heath care, particulary for long term care for the elderly will have to be identified because the current models are not sustainable.   However over time human nature being what it is new economic growth patters will emerge and the lessons of thie period will fade.

enhancing cognition

This Nature article, Towards responsible use of cognitive-enhancing drugs by the healthy, argues that society should look favorably, and responsibly of course, on the prospects of pharmacological enhancement of cognition.  I see no credible arguments to the contrary.   Seems to me this society does not suffer from an IQ surplus.

Providing a classic real-life example of William Gibson's famous quote: "The future is already here – it's just not evenly distributed." in action, here is the MicroNutrient Initiative:

dedicated to ensuring that the world's most vulnerable - especially women and children - in developing countries get the vitamins and minerals they need to survive and thrive. 

The irony - Some of us may struggle with the choices facing us regarding deciding to use supplements to enhance our cognitive function, while others in this world suffer undue hardship due to nutritional issues.   This NYT Op-Ed piece, Raising the World’s I.Q., sheds more light on cognitive deficits resulting from nutritional deficits.

from NYT: "In Hard Times, Fear Can Impair Decision-Making"

from Gregory Berns: see: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/07/jobs/07pre.html?_r=1&ref=todayspaper

in particular, the conclusion:

"...And right now there are incredible opportunities to do something differently. Yes, they’re risky, and some will fail. But while others wait for the storm to pass, I’m busy expanding into new areas. If I wait for money to start flowing again, the opportunities will have passed."

banana republic 2.0

Its been my thought for some time that our national economic, social, and military policy choices have increased the likelihood that we'll turn the USA into the world's biggest banana republic.   Certainly the current economic apocalypse might be a big step in that direction.  More on this topic, I'm sure.  For now, various outlets in the blogosphere have picked up this, I believe it originated with Barry Ritholtz.   Barry blogs at http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/

"In doing the research for the "Bailout Nation" book, I needed a way to put the dollar amounts into proper historical perspective. If we add in the Citi bailout, the total cost now exceeds $4.6165 trillion dollars.

People have a hard time conceptualizing very large numbers, so let’s give this some context. The current Credit Crisis bailout is now the largest outlay In American history.  Crunching the inflation adjusted numbers, we find the bailout has cost more than all of these big budget government expenditures – combined:

• Marshall Plan: Cost: $12.7 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $115.3 billion
• Louisiana Purchase: Cost: $15 million, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $217 billion
• Race to the Moon: Cost: $36.4 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $237 billion
• S&L Crisis: Cost: $153 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $256 billion
• Korean War: Cost: $54 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $454 billion
• The New Deal: Cost: $32 billion (Est), Inflation Adjusted Cost: $500 billion (Est)
• Invasion of Iraq: Cost: $551b, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $597 billion
• Vietnam War: Cost: $111 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $698 billion
• NASA: Cost: $416.7 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $851.2 billion

TOTAL: $3.92 trillion"

UPDATE: here is another accounting: http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/11/what_were_doing_--_and_spendin.php

wow - a new president-elect

I, for one, welcome our new overlords.

Watched Obama's victory speech upon winning the election.  Now the hard part begins, of course, but the historic nature of this election may give me an opportunity (for a time) to dial-back my customary cynicism - maybe we can make some needed progress.

It is about the future of course, and I hope this election opens the door to addressing problems in a forward-looking and effective way, not in ideological terms related to political or cultural wars of the past that seem to live on in the mental frames of most of our political leaders.   The world is changing, in many ways, and prescriptions based on the model of "pick your favorite previous decade" won't cut it.  We have to identify new approaches.

Anyway, most of the prediction markets and/or related polling site have been pretty accurate for some time.  Interestingly most news outlets seemed to consistenly position the race as closer than it really ever was.  

oops - funny McCain photo

 

from Yahoo! News