l-dopa

From The Consumerist:

Follow along below:

We’ve been going back and forth for a century
[Keynes] I want to steer markets,
[Hayek] I want them set free
There’s a boom and bust cycle and good reason to fear it
[Hayek] Blame low interest rates.
[Keynes] No… it’s the animal spirits
[Keynes Sings:]
John Maynard Keynes, wrote the book on modern macro
The man you need when the economy’s off track, [whoa]
Depression, recession now your question’s in session
Have a seat and I’ll school you in one simple lesson
BOOM, 1929 the big crash
We didn’t bounce back—economy’s in the trash
Persistent unemployment, the result of sticky wages
Waiting for recovery? Seriously? That’s outrageous!
I had a real plan any fool can understand
The advice, real simple—boost aggregate demand!
C, I, G, all together gets to Y
Make sure the total’s growing, watch the economy fly
We’ve been going back and forth for a century
[Keynes] I want to steer markets,
[Hayek] I want them set free
There’s a boom and bust cycle and good reason to fear it
[Hayek] Blame low interest rates.
[Keynes] No… it’s the animal spirits
You see it’s all about spending, hear the register cha-ching
Circular flow, the dough is everything
So if that flow is getting low, doesn’t matter the reason
We need more government spending, now it’s stimulus season
So forget about saving, get it straight out of your head
Like I said, in the long run—we’re all dead
Savings is destruction, that’s the paradox of thrift
Don’t keep money in your pocket, or that growth will never lift…
because…
Business is driven by the animal spirits
The bull and the bear, and there’s reason to fear its
Effects on capital investment, income and growth
That’s why the state should fill the gap with stimulus both…
The monetary and the fiscal, they’re equally correct
Public works, digging ditches, war has the same effect
Even a broken window helps the glass man have some wealth
The multiplier driving higher the economy’s health
And if the Central Bank’s interest rate policy tanks
A liquidity trap, that new money’s stuck in the banks!
Deficits could be the cure, you been looking for
Let the spending soar, now that you know the score
My General Theory’s made quite an impression
[a revolution] I transformed the econ profession
You know me, modesty, still I’m taking a bow
Say it loud, say it proud, we’re all Keynesians now
We’ve been goin’ back n forth for a century
[Keynes] I want to steer markets,
[Hayek] I want them set free
There’s a boom and bust cycle and good reason to fear it
[Keynes] I made my case, Freddie H
Listen up , Can you hear it?
Hayek sings:
I’ll begin in broad strokes, just like my friend Keynes
His theory conceals the mechanics of change,
That simple equation, too much aggregation
Ignores human action and motivation
And yet it continues as a justification
For bailouts and payoffs by pols with machinations
You provide them with cover to sell us a free lunch
Then all that we’re left with is debt, and a bunch
If you’re living high on that cheap credit hog
Don’t look for cure from the hair of the dog
Real savings come first if you want to invest
The market coordinates time with interest
Your focus on spending is pushing on thread
In the long run, my friend, it’s your theory that’s dead
So sorry there, buddy, if that sounds like invective
Prepare to get schooled in my Austrian perspective
We’ve been going back and forth for a century
[Keynes] I want to steer markets,
[Hayek] I want them set free
There’s a boom and bust cycle and good reason to fear it
[Hayek] Blame low interest rates.
[Keynes] No… it’s the animal spirits
The place you should study isn’t the bust
It’s the boom that should make you feel leery, that’s the thrust
Of my theory, the capital structure is key.
Malinvestments wreck the economy
The boom gets started with an expansion of credit
The Fed sets rates low, are you starting to get it?
That new money is confused for real loanable funds
But it’s just inflation that’s driving the ones
Who invest in new projects like housing construction
The boom plants the seeds for its future destruction
The savings aren’t real, consumption’s up too
And the grasping for resources reveals there’s too few
So the boom turns to bust as the interest rates rise
With the costs of production, price signals were lies
The boom was a binge that’s a matter of fact
Now its devalued capital that makes up the slack.
Whether it’s the late twenties or two thousand and five
Booming bad investments, seems like they’d thrive
You must save to invest, don’t use the printing press
Or a bust will surely follow, an economy depressed
Your so-called “stimulus” will make things even worse
It’s just more of the same, more incentives perversed
And that credit crunch ain’t a liquidity trap
Just a broke banking system, I’m done, that’s a wrap.
We’ve been goin’ back n forth for a century
[Keynes] I want to steer markets,
[Hayek] I want them set free
There’s a boom and bust cycle and good reason to fear it
[Hayek] Blame low interest rates.
[Keynes] No it’s the animal spirits

“The ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they are right and when they are wrong, are more powerful than is commonly understood. Indeed the world is ruled by little else. Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influence, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist.”
John Maynard Keynes
The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money

“The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design.”
F A Hayek
The Fatal Conceit

Notice I did not say all Facebook users*! But some of them!

*but I was thinking it

From Freecycle:

“About a dozen of the soy sauce packets from Chinese take out; more of the hot mustard packets; and half a dozen ketchup servings.

Easy pick up from front porch in neighborhood off ### Street near #####. Preference to prompt pick up – Monday would be great.

######
Northampton”

Ok, so, this:

Slick, right? I’ve watched this video twice, because I love reading and I love magazines and I love software demos and I love hardware demos. Full disclosure: I don’t completely love sports, so maybe there’s something I’m missing here. But all this tablet hype is reminding me of something I am almost hesitant to bring up:

CD-ROMs.

Remember CD-ROMs? I do. For about a year or so, you couldn’t buy a magazine without a CD-ROM falling out the side. Then it was DVD-ROMs, full of music videos and shareware demos and to tell the truth, I don’t think I ever even put one in the computer, because by that time there was something else out there:

The Internet.

The above video obviously represents a richer experience than can be experienced on the web right now (barring those fancy-lad, full-screen Flash sites that everyone in reality hates) but I maintain that the above product, once you finally iDownloaded all 860 MB off the iTime iMagazine iStore would be very boring, mainly because all those fancy photos and videos and stuff whizzing around on that tablet? They would be so old by the time they put all that together for you that you would have watched it or read about it already.

On television, and on the Internet.

Never mind that a multimedia presentation and layout as complex as the above demo is going to require an entire new generation of digital producers skilled enough to tightly integrate video, audio, print, web, fixed layout and dynamic, non-linear page layout. There are not many of those producers out there right now; the above product represents a pretty rare intersection of skills, most parts more akin to software designer than graphic designer.

So anyway. I tend to pooh-pooh ideas at first, before I eventually embrace them and via revisionist history pretend I felt positive about them the entire time. But, seriously, ‘mythical Apple tablet computer’ as white knight, print magazine savior?

We’ll see.

Via Lindsay Robertson

Not that I am like Dr. Blog Von Bloggington over here but I can give out this one piece of advice with some certainty:

1. Do Not Post Hour-Long Videos To The Web.

OK, I’m ready for some questions now. You, sir?:

Q: Yes, I recently shot flipcam footage of a community council meeting I recently attended, and it’s an hour-and-a-half of unedited, shaky footage with unattractive people speaking off-camera in a nearly inaudible monotone. Should I post that to the web?

A: Great question. No. You should not. Because nobody cares and nobody will watch it. Next question!

Q: Hello, I have a two-hour long video of an acedemic talk I recently attended, should I post the entire unedited video to blip.tv, YouTube or Vimeo? So hard to choose!

A: Excellent question, I get that a lot. Actually you should not post it at all, because no one will ever watch it so you are really wasting your precious remaining time on Earth; time that could be better spent with loved ones, or even just staring into the middle distance. So, I think I have time for one last question.

Q: Can iMovie HD handle videos longer than three hours long? Or should I use Final Cut Pro? Because I have this recording of a marketing seminar we held last month that I really think people would enjoy big time.

A: It is doubtful that iMovie could handle that much footage without issue, but again, the problem there is not hard drive space or network bandwidth but instead the problem is that your video is longer than Francis Ford Coppola’s Godfather movies and infinitely less interesting. You do your viewer (completely hypothetical — I assure you, no one is watching) no service by dumping raw, unedited footage on them; ninety-nine times out of 100, aggressive editing is a kindness and demonstrates respect for your audience’s attention span and amount of free time.

I hope this helped some people out there today. If you have any questions about the advice above, please post it in the comments!

I’ve been seeing a lot of ‘Google Money Master’ ads on various sites. You click through and you get a page explaining how you can ‘work at home’ (the American Dream, apparently) and a pitch:

Step 1: Get Google Money Master, only pay the $1.95 for shipping.

Step 2: Follow the directions on Google Money Master that basically shows you how to and set up a Google account. Then they will give you the website links to post. Start posting those links. Google tracks everything.

You heard right. It basically shows you how to and set up a Google account. There there are some fake comments at the bottom, which you can’t add to because of ‘problems with spam’ (kudos for that).

What you should do is check Google before attempting to become a Google Money Master:

• complaintsboard.com says: “This is based out of Phillipines. It posts FAKE blogs on how people made money posting stuff on google. They initally took out $2.87 from my account and I just found out they will take out $70 something monthly. Oh and of course the 800 number stays busy so there is no way to contact them.” (and the comments agree)
• ripoffreport.com says: “A couple of weeks later I received a phone call from a Fredricka Mills from the grant center telling me I would receive 7 free days of google money profit, and 7 free days of advance benefits plus 7/24 medical to try. In return I would receive a gas card and $1,000.00 in grocery vouchers. I told her no thank you I only wanted the grant cd and had not signed up for anything else. She then informed me that I would be charged $39.95 per month to be a member. Well it sure did not say anything about that either when I ordered the grant cd … I thought it was all over until I got this package of membership cards etc. for this advance benefits plus 7/24 medical emergency stuff. I called the grant place back and they told me they were a third party (which is bull) and gave me a phone number to call. In the meantime my credit card was charged $29.95 …”

Long story short, don’t fall for it.

Also of interest the same leaderboard ad shills for a fake Rachael Ray blog at rachelrayblogs.com:

We know we spelt her name wrong, but it’s too late! Did you know most people who search Google actually type the wrong spelling in?

…you don’t say.

NOTE: “Google Money Master” is now “Google Home Income” but it still continues to be a HUGE SCAM.

~Jeff

Enjoy!

And the SEO expert says, “You guys, I’m so thirsty. Is there anything to drink?”

And the CEO says, “I just drank the last of my water 30 minutes ago.”

And the web programmer says, “I have plenty of water, a true abundance, but I won’t give any to you. Because, you are the worst. I hate you with every fiber of my being. Your very existence is an inherent refutation of the basic concept of quality workmanship and craft. Every additional second you remain on this planet is a deep, personal offense to me.”

Then the SEO expert died slowly and painfully of thirst, and over the next several days his body slumped, shriveled and shrank as his organs collapsed upon themselves with a hissing sound while the CEO and web programmer sat and stared. And the sun set, and rose, and set again.

THE END

Step 2: When you are reading about a cool album or movie that oh maybe you might be interested in, highlight the name and click the v0rtex bookmarklet.

Step 3: Prophet

~Jeff

• Takes a compressed music file from iTunes and converts whatever music file format that is into Apple Lossless.
• iTunes then discovers and connects via Bonjour mDNS autodiscovery to the IP address of the wireless router.
• iTunes streams that Apple Lossless file from the client machine to the wireless router over 802.11n via some proprietary protocol (but presumably some form of UDP traffic).
• The Airport Express takes those 1s and 0s and turns the Apple Lossless file back into music.
• That music is sent as bursts of light via fiber optic cable to my stereo.
• Those bursts of light are reassembled by the stereo and sent to the amplifier, which fluctuates between a positive charge and a negative charge on the red wire and vibrates the speaker cone.
• The speaker cone vibrations move the air and those vibrations are recieved by the cochlea in my inner ear.
• Those signals received by the cochlea then are translated into bio-electric signals which are transmitted to my brain and interpreted as music.

And I think to myself, what a wonderful world.

~Jeff