Does Everything Have a Meta

Today I'm going to see Ricky Lee Jones at Stern Grove. (south of Golden Gate Park on 19th) It's grey this morning, but that's nothing unusual and the reports predict sunny soon. The first link excoriates professional economists. Fairly easy prey, pampered folks with their own language, used to assuring each other how above-the-herd their teapot tempest really is. As politicians talk about the Economy, they mean the activity of their contributer's stock. Personally, I think it's time to re-examine the idea of money as an object that can be bought and sold, the velocity of money through a system as an indicator of health, and our plethora of value added boys. If a rating agency adds value to a trache by giving it an AAA, what real value was added if they didn't take the time to pop it open.(pace: when the banks first started to fail, Bush, and the then campaigning Obama, agreed that it was too complicated to lay blame, despite billable signatures all over the place) If an open market is desirable, why does a small coterie of insiders get responsibility-free first crack at IPO's, hedges, et al. Economists like to say they're big picture people, charting the ebb and flow of value between nations according to scientifical precepts. (scientifical means you can't test it until you've bought it, but it sounds so..numerical) In fact, economists work for banks and large institutions, and their employment and income is directly related to the profit they bring in. If you crash the economy, but profit afore said small coterie, the big car stays in the McMansion's driveway. You could view them as sales managers or advertising managers, rather than disinterested researchers, and get a more realistic view of their work. And please don't quote van Mises or Marx or the Austrian-Chicago school until you've worked at least one day at a job that involved your hands. (dang, that first cup of expresso was good)

• Economists and the Real World: The problem, however, is that the same 90% of all economists also missed the last crises, and the one before that as well, and before that, and so on. In fact, their record of being able to diagnose and treat economic problems is about zero. And their prescriptions always seem to be counterproductive: the recommendations to limit government always make it grow, their advice on limiting taxation always makes it more, their prescriptions on growing the economy only leads to the illusory growth of bubbles, etc. Put it this way: If your doctor had this same track record of diagnosing and treating disease, you’d be dead by now.

Next are some computer related updates. On HTML 5: The cross platform problems, ie mobile vs. fixed, world-wide vs. insular, are becoming a thicket. I don't much feel like learning a new set of commands, but it is time.

• HTML 5: But many of the sophisticated features of these sites depend on connections that developers create between different Web technologies, such as HTML, javascript, and cascading style sheets (CSS)--connections that don't always work perfectly. As a result, websites can be sluggish, may work differently from browser to browser, and can be vulnerable to security holes.
• A whole passel of dumb: In late February 2008, Scott Graham shelled out US$115 for a spyware program called SpyAgent and sent it to the woman, according to a plea agreement filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northeastern District of Ohio. (my own opinion: The boyfriend was an idiot, the girlfriend had to initiate the install, busted, and the hospital's tech squad was asleep at the wheel. Goes to show you that your communications are not private; no way, no how)
• The Myspace Set: Ross wrote a great post on how our endlessly connected lives make it so hard to sit down and read a book, and its implications on class and access to culture, quoting a very touching post by our own Ayjay on Clay Shirky’s techno-optimist vision and his own upbringing.
• Peter Winiwarter: A quick introductory abstract to general systems theory. (pdf)

A bit of science. I don't know about you, but the links about regrowing joints (knees) interest me in a very personal way. I rather like the idea of being able to get up in the morning without making all sorts of creaking and popping noises.

• Helping Joints Regrow Themselves: Today's titanium replacement joints work very well for 10 to 15 years, but replacing them after they've worn out is a challenge for both patient and surgeon. A team of researchers from Columbia University proposes a way around that problem: by implanting a scaffold that encourages the patient's own stem cells to regrow the joint.
• The Bio-Printer: Clearly, it would be better if some of this organization could be generated prior to implantation. This would also be essential for cases where the tissue being repaired is so severely damaged that there's little intact structure for the implanted cells to integrate with. To generate these preformed functional tissues, a number of researchers are turning to a technique called bioprinting that takes advantage of a ubiquitous piece of technology: the inkjet printer.
• A Non-Math Look at Math Objects: I found out something neat about three-dimensional shapes. Many strange mathematical solids are constructed by rotating the plane of a two-dimensional shape around an imaginary axis. Think of the flat holiday decorations you fold out around its spine/axis. Once I understood what is called a “surface of revolution” in my mind, the construction of many odd mathematical shapes began to make sense.

And finally, a bit about what some term "the culture of fear".

• Life and Death in the Obedience Culture: Many, and perhaps even most, political commentators and bloggers today agree that the United States is an increasingly authoritarian State.
• The end of Military history: Yet from start to finish, military might had determined that competition’s course as much as ideology. Throughout much of the twentieth century, great powers had vied with one another to create new, or more effective, instruments of coercion. Military innovation assumed many forms.