Arthur Frommer Answers All Your Travel Questions, and Then Some - Freakonomics - Opinion - New York Times Blog
I haven't been a fan of Freakonomics moving to the NYT Blog roll because the feeds are only partially syndicated so I read the first few lines via Google Reader and then have to go to another page to finish. Few posts make that cut, but this one is good and insightful on tourism from someone who wrote the book.
Saturday, September 29, 2007
Saturday, September 22, 2007
Book: A Short History of Nearly Everything
A Short History of Nearly Everything, Bill Bryson
9/20/07
If you needed a refresher from middle school earth science and wanted to know what happened since then, Bill Bryson has got you covered; this time with a bit more depth and insight than would be appreciated by a 12 year old. Via his witty style of prose Bryson takes us back to the creation of the universe and brings us right up to how we got to today, and how amazingly lucky the journey was and at the same time how modern science really has no clue at all as to how it all happened or what happens next. There is a great deal of theory though, and a review of it is both astounding and at times discomforting.
The simple outline of the book proceeds though the following topics explaining what we know, who figured it out, how they figured it out, and many times, what’s more to figure out:
The Creation and history of the Universe
The size of the Earth
Atoms and stuff
The forces that make the Earth go
Life
Human history
Throughout the book Bryson does an amazing job of quantifying the unquantifiable. Starting with the creation of the universe and then into the size and nature of the earth. It is safe to say that the universe is bigger that you can understand and older than you can imagine. While I knew there were tons of microbes all over and in me, I didn’t really appreciate that there are more of them on me than cells in me. The book is full of these relational facts. In one case Bryson breaks the history of the earth down to what it would have looked like in one day’s time; humans don’t show up until the last instant of the day. Then the discussion of how we figured out chemistry is shocking, but fairly expected, folks just tried stuff out to see what was what, sometimes it killed them, and sometimes it didn’t. “All life is one” is the theme of DNA. We are 99.9% similar to everyone else and share many traits via DNA with plants and the like. We all come from this lifeless substance that we are all ultimately a slave too.
On the topic of our existence, it is amazing that we, humans, are not the point of it all, as many easily imagine. We’re awfully lucky to be here and we might not stick around forever. Bryson takes us through all the possibilities of how we as humans managed to get here. It seems the only thing that can be agreed upon is that we are awfully lucky to have made it. Throughout the book descriptions of what could have happened along the way are shocking.
Here are some of the ways that we could all go away, tomorrow. An asteroid could hit the planet. Apparently there are several close calls a week, but we can’t see them, the dark roids just sail right by. Think about it, there isn’t a telescope pointed in every direction, we are bound to miss a great deal of this. And if a big one hit, we’re gone. If not an asteroid, a huge volcanic eruption could take us all out. It is well argued that we are overdue for that. It is also well argued that either the asteroid or the volcano did the dinosaurs in, so, safe to say, it could happen. How about a big solar flare frying us with some radiation, certainly a possibility? And then on a small scale, a bacteria or virus could quite easily bring us to our knees, if you think about it, and what you recall about various plagues over history, we might be overdue there too.
What drives science today is thought provoking: we know so much, but at the same time, know so little. Where do you start? Where do you get the money? Do drug companies want to fight life long illness where you have to take a pill a day for life, or flu where you take a pill for a couple of weeks? How do you standardize everything? How can you look at all parts of the sky? How do you catch up, all the mosses are still in paper record, not electronic (mosses while trivial are used as an example that could be applied to a great many things that need categorizing)? Now that we have mapped a human genome, what can we do with it? Science, in my mind, expands as fast as we can figure a small part of it out. Indeed, there is so much to figure out, let’s hope another ice age or asteroid doesn’t ruin the search.
9/20/07
If you needed a refresher from middle school earth science and wanted to know what happened since then, Bill Bryson has got you covered; this time with a bit more depth and insight than would be appreciated by a 12 year old. Via his witty style of prose Bryson takes us back to the creation of the universe and brings us right up to how we got to today, and how amazingly lucky the journey was and at the same time how modern science really has no clue at all as to how it all happened or what happens next. There is a great deal of theory though, and a review of it is both astounding and at times discomforting.
The simple outline of the book proceeds though the following topics explaining what we know, who figured it out, how they figured it out, and many times, what’s more to figure out:
The Creation and history of the Universe
The size of the Earth
Atoms and stuff
The forces that make the Earth go
Life
Human history
Throughout the book Bryson does an amazing job of quantifying the unquantifiable. Starting with the creation of the universe and then into the size and nature of the earth. It is safe to say that the universe is bigger that you can understand and older than you can imagine. While I knew there were tons of microbes all over and in me, I didn’t really appreciate that there are more of them on me than cells in me. The book is full of these relational facts. In one case Bryson breaks the history of the earth down to what it would have looked like in one day’s time; humans don’t show up until the last instant of the day. Then the discussion of how we figured out chemistry is shocking, but fairly expected, folks just tried stuff out to see what was what, sometimes it killed them, and sometimes it didn’t. “All life is one” is the theme of DNA. We are 99.9% similar to everyone else and share many traits via DNA with plants and the like. We all come from this lifeless substance that we are all ultimately a slave too.
On the topic of our existence, it is amazing that we, humans, are not the point of it all, as many easily imagine. We’re awfully lucky to be here and we might not stick around forever. Bryson takes us through all the possibilities of how we as humans managed to get here. It seems the only thing that can be agreed upon is that we are awfully lucky to have made it. Throughout the book descriptions of what could have happened along the way are shocking.
Here are some of the ways that we could all go away, tomorrow. An asteroid could hit the planet. Apparently there are several close calls a week, but we can’t see them, the dark roids just sail right by. Think about it, there isn’t a telescope pointed in every direction, we are bound to miss a great deal of this. And if a big one hit, we’re gone. If not an asteroid, a huge volcanic eruption could take us all out. It is well argued that we are overdue for that. It is also well argued that either the asteroid or the volcano did the dinosaurs in, so, safe to say, it could happen. How about a big solar flare frying us with some radiation, certainly a possibility? And then on a small scale, a bacteria or virus could quite easily bring us to our knees, if you think about it, and what you recall about various plagues over history, we might be overdue there too.
What drives science today is thought provoking: we know so much, but at the same time, know so little. Where do you start? Where do you get the money? Do drug companies want to fight life long illness where you have to take a pill a day for life, or flu where you take a pill for a couple of weeks? How do you standardize everything? How can you look at all parts of the sky? How do you catch up, all the mosses are still in paper record, not electronic (mosses while trivial are used as an example that could be applied to a great many things that need categorizing)? Now that we have mapped a human genome, what can we do with it? Science, in my mind, expands as fast as we can figure a small part of it out. Indeed, there is so much to figure out, let’s hope another ice age or asteroid doesn’t ruin the search.
Friday, September 14, 2007
Follow Up: "The War as We Saw It"
I wrote about an op-ed written by some soldiers in Iraq here titled "The War as We Saw It." The NYT had a follow up article:
2 G.I.’s, Skeptical but Loyal, Die in a Truck Crash in Iraq - New York Times
2 G.I.’s, Skeptical but Loyal, Die in a Truck Crash in Iraq - New York Times
Two of the soldiers who wrote of their pessimism about the war in an Op-Ed article that appeared in The New York Times on Aug. 19 were killed in Baghdad on Monday. They were not killed in combat, nor on a daring mission.
They died when the five-ton cargo truck in which they were riding overturned.The victims, Staff Sgt. Yance T. Gray, 26, and Sgt. Omar Mora, 28, were among the authors of “The War as We Saw It,” in which they expressed doubts about reports of progress.
Wednesday, September 12, 2007
Article: China isn't focused on Iraq
Iraq Through China’s Lens - New York Times
Today's Friedman piece covers China's growth and notes that they are largely able to focus inward as they are not hugely involved in the shaping of global politics... yet. In the end, his point is how Iraq is "distracting" the U.S. from some self improvement. Worth consideration.
From the piece:
The president of Dalian University of Technology, Jinping Ou, told me his new focus now is on energy research and that he has 100 doctoral students dealing with different energy problems — where five years ago he barely had any — and that the Chinese government has just decided to open its national energy innovation research center here.
Listening to him, my mind drifted back to Iraq, where I was two weeks ago and where I heard a U.S. officer in Baghdad tell this story:
His unit was on a patrol in a Sunni neighborhood when it got hit by an I.E.D. Fortunately, the bomb exploded too soon and no one was hurt. His men jumped out and followed the detonation wire, which led 1,500 feet into the neighborhood. A U.S. Black Hawk helicopter was in the area and alerted the U.S. soldiers that a man was fleeing the scene on a bicycle. The soldiers asked the Black Hawk for help, and it swooped down and used its rotor blades to blow the insurgent off his bicycle, with a giant “whoosh,” and the U.S. soldiers captured him.
That image of a $6 million high-tech U.S. helicopter with a highly trained pilot blowing an insurgent off his bicycle captures the absurdity of our situation in Iraq. The great Lebanese historian Kamal Salibi said it best: “Great powers should never get involved in the politics of small tribes.”
That is where we are in Iraq. We’re wasting our brains. We’re wasting our people. We’re wasting our future. China is not.
Today's Friedman piece covers China's growth and notes that they are largely able to focus inward as they are not hugely involved in the shaping of global politics... yet. In the end, his point is how Iraq is "distracting" the U.S. from some self improvement. Worth consideration.
From the piece:
The president of Dalian University of Technology, Jinping Ou, told me his new focus now is on energy research and that he has 100 doctoral students dealing with different energy problems — where five years ago he barely had any — and that the Chinese government has just decided to open its national energy innovation research center here.
Listening to him, my mind drifted back to Iraq, where I was two weeks ago and where I heard a U.S. officer in Baghdad tell this story:
His unit was on a patrol in a Sunni neighborhood when it got hit by an I.E.D. Fortunately, the bomb exploded too soon and no one was hurt. His men jumped out and followed the detonation wire, which led 1,500 feet into the neighborhood. A U.S. Black Hawk helicopter was in the area and alerted the U.S. soldiers that a man was fleeing the scene on a bicycle. The soldiers asked the Black Hawk for help, and it swooped down and used its rotor blades to blow the insurgent off his bicycle, with a giant “whoosh,” and the U.S. soldiers captured him.
That image of a $6 million high-tech U.S. helicopter with a highly trained pilot blowing an insurgent off his bicycle captures the absurdity of our situation in Iraq. The great Lebanese historian Kamal Salibi said it best: “Great powers should never get involved in the politics of small tribes.”
That is where we are in Iraq. We’re wasting our brains. We’re wasting our people. We’re wasting our future. China is not.
Sunday, September 9, 2007
Blogs
I've moved the workout posts to another blog because I wanted a whole set of tags dedicated to workout performance. While I have been recording workouts and have a fancy watch that spits out a myriad of data I found I wasn't really capturing progress very well. So, new blog for such things:
http://noltpasfitness.blogspot.com/
http://noltpasfitness.blogspot.com/
Slide Show: Working on a Cruise Ship
The New York Times > Key Magazine > Slide Show > Water World
Fun slide show that gives you a taste of working on a cruise ship. Interesting life.
Fun slide show that gives you a taste of working on a cruise ship. Interesting life.
Articles: Iraq Assessment
As we prepare to hear reports from General Petraus and Ambassador Crocker this week the NYT has done some of its own reporting. These interactive NYT pages show the progress made, or not, in Baghdad over the last few years and are excellently assembled. The majority of the troop surge was focused on Baghdad and how things changed in the capital city are worth long consideration. From reading though the various stories from the different neighborhoods in Baghdad it seems to me that while the city as a whole is better off, but the surge had little to do with it. Frankly, the squashing of the sunni resistance throughout the city went on last summer, so the Shia's lived out a decent year.
Then a long one that reports on the "view from the ground." Worth considering. What more can the U.S. do for Iraq? Perhaps we'll hear tomorrow.
Then a long one that reports on the "view from the ground." Worth considering. What more can the U.S. do for Iraq? Perhaps we'll hear tomorrow.
Friday, September 7, 2007
Blog: Loans
If you're really really interested in how home loans work, are originated, sold on the secondary market, etc., there is a great post here.
Consequently, looks like mortgage rates, for folks with decent credit, are falling back down to reasonable levels. Quite the summer spike up around 6.75% and now back down to 6.00%, but yeah, don't even think about ARM's, they are priced not to sell with rates the same as the fixed.
Consequently, looks like mortgage rates, for folks with decent credit, are falling back down to reasonable levels. Quite the summer spike up around 6.75% and now back down to 6.00%, but yeah, don't even think about ARM's, they are priced not to sell with rates the same as the fixed.
Thursday, September 6, 2007
Article: Bremer Says it Wasn't His Fault
How I Didn’t Dismantle Iraq’s Army - New York Times
Contribution from Paul Bremer in the Times today and he explains how he didn't just make the call to dismantle the Iraqi Army, rather, it was a consensus that it ought to be done. Easy to look back and criticize his actions, but my issue with Bremer all along has been that he had no Middle Eastern experience, heck, they guy didn't speak Arabic. Given his background in European affairs, he probably did his best, but a bit too much finger pointing in this piece, but worth noting.
Contribution from Paul Bremer in the Times today and he explains how he didn't just make the call to dismantle the Iraqi Army, rather, it was a consensus that it ought to be done. Easy to look back and criticize his actions, but my issue with Bremer all along has been that he had no Middle Eastern experience, heck, they guy didn't speak Arabic. Given his background in European affairs, he probably did his best, but a bit too much finger pointing in this piece, but worth noting.
Tuesday, September 4, 2007
Article: U.S. Partner's with Militia Groups
Iraq - Insurgency - Sunni Muslims - United States Military - Terrorism - Counterinsurgency - New York Times
Taking the time to understand this article will allow you to peer into the near term future of Iraq. Regardless of what Bush or Petraus say this month, the U.S. Army is partnering and operating with Sunni Militia groups. Right or wrong, it is innovative and new for American policy in Iraq and it is showing signs of progress. Only time will tell what price will be payed, indeed this action could work to well solidify the fracturing country, but none the same, it is happening and the next year will be full of the results of these partnerships.
Taking the time to understand this article will allow you to peer into the near term future of Iraq. Regardless of what Bush or Petraus say this month, the U.S. Army is partnering and operating with Sunni Militia groups. Right or wrong, it is innovative and new for American policy in Iraq and it is showing signs of progress. Only time will tell what price will be payed, indeed this action could work to well solidify the fracturing country, but none the same, it is happening and the next year will be full of the results of these partnerships.
Monday, September 3, 2007
Book: The End of Medicine
The End of Medicine, Andy Kessler
9/3/07
Kessler, of Wall Street Meat and Running Money, puts technology to the side for a bit and takes a long look at how medicine might scale. And by scale, he implies, getting cheaper and therefore selling more. It is a fascinating question; think about the money that is spent on health care in the US alone: 1.8 trillion dollars, 15% of American GDP. That is a whole chunk of our economy. That is $5,400 for every American, the highest in the world. The book sights the Swiss paying $3,300, and $2,700 in Canada. The paradoxes are plentiful, however.
The book is a journey though these paradoxes and ultimately results in showing that one day, preventative scanning/detection will revolutionize medicine and end the way we currently think about medicine. The problems are many. False positives in testing result in more tests and treatments, a whole lot of heart ache, that are all unnecessary. False negatives are recipes for litigation. And if you are the one paying the bill, and it is likely that you aren’t, because you have insurance, and it is determined you do have a condition that means we have to fix you, and that costs money. To run the best tests medicine has to offer right now on the entire population is shown to be cost prohibitive, at least for now. And that is what will change.
So be on the lookout for imaging solutions, or other types of preventative detection that will scale, it is coming and it isn’t driven by passion for money, it is driven by the passion of survivors and memories of those who didn’t.
9/3/07
Kessler, of Wall Street Meat and Running Money, puts technology to the side for a bit and takes a long look at how medicine might scale. And by scale, he implies, getting cheaper and therefore selling more. It is a fascinating question; think about the money that is spent on health care in the US alone: 1.8 trillion dollars, 15% of American GDP. That is a whole chunk of our economy. That is $5,400 for every American, the highest in the world. The book sights the Swiss paying $3,300, and $2,700 in Canada. The paradoxes are plentiful, however.
The book is a journey though these paradoxes and ultimately results in showing that one day, preventative scanning/detection will revolutionize medicine and end the way we currently think about medicine. The problems are many. False positives in testing result in more tests and treatments, a whole lot of heart ache, that are all unnecessary. False negatives are recipes for litigation. And if you are the one paying the bill, and it is likely that you aren’t, because you have insurance, and it is determined you do have a condition that means we have to fix you, and that costs money. To run the best tests medicine has to offer right now on the entire population is shown to be cost prohibitive, at least for now. And that is what will change.
So be on the lookout for imaging solutions, or other types of preventative detection that will scale, it is coming and it isn’t driven by passion for money, it is driven by the passion of survivors and memories of those who didn’t.
Sunday, September 2, 2007
Eating in Alexandria, VA
A Town Takes Its Place at the Culinary Table - New York Times
Bunch of new-ish restaurants in Alexandria, VA as Old Town has become a bit of a foodie venue.
Bunch of new-ish restaurants in Alexandria, VA as Old Town has become a bit of a foodie venue.
Articles: Subprime, Credit Crunch, etc.
So many developments, so fast, and so much more data needed, but today presents the first few articles that takes stock of everything going on.
First Ignatius of the WaPo does a nice job summarizing the subprime situation and throwing a bit of caution out there.
Then some through analysis from the Economist Magazine that paints probabilities of the road ahead. 60% chance this can be contained by monetary policy, 30% chance recession, 10% drastic global recession.
And finally the NYT takes it local looking at the subprime and housing bubble impact on home owners. Long one, I just skimmed it, but got the gist, house don't sell, price going down, ARM resets, can't move, can't sell.
First Ignatius of the WaPo does a nice job summarizing the subprime situation and throwing a bit of caution out there.
Then some through analysis from the Economist Magazine that paints probabilities of the road ahead. 60% chance this can be contained by monetary policy, 30% chance recession, 10% drastic global recession.
And finally the NYT takes it local looking at the subprime and housing bubble impact on home owners. Long one, I just skimmed it, but got the gist, house don't sell, price going down, ARM resets, can't move, can't sell.
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