Quotulatiousness

September 24, 2012

Warren Ellis: the fun in politics is gone, gone, gone

Filed under: Britain, Media, Politics, USA — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 10:29

In his weekly column at Vice, Warren Ellis finds it in his flinty heart to mourn the passing of fun in politics:

There has long been a notion abroad that positions of authority should be given to the best-qualified people who don’t want them, as the job of “ruler”, like “censor”, does not necessarily attract the best kind of human being. That would, of course, kill the inherent black comedy in politics-watching. The creatures who fight and kick and bite for the right to fuck with our lives tend to be grotesques, and serve as warnings. Warnings we never heed, of course, because we end up voting something in from that shallow pool of eels every time.

But, every now and then, there comes a period where that pool gets drained, and we find ourselves dealing with the dregs.

I actually find myself weirdly nostalgic for the authentic monsters of politics. Even the sly, hollow hustling of Tony Blair would be preferable to the callow bafflement of Nick Clegg, the unnaturally shiny forehead and beta-male posturing of David Cameron, and the… well, whatever Ed Miliband is. There’s Vince Cable, whom lots of people seem to like the idea of, but his presence, unfortunately, is that of Gravedigger #2 in one of the less successful Hammer Horror films.

Over the water, Mitt Romney doesn’t even have the facility to be slippery. He just staggers down the corridor of ideology like a cheap drunk, bumping into the walls. And President Obama isn’t even a tragic hero in the mode of Jimmy Carter, who struggled mightily (with himself, as much as anything else) and fell before the eerie charm of Ronald Reagan. I can admire the man’s intellect and general beliefs (or “values”, which is the season’s buzzword) while recognising that his main mode of operation is as a chilly functionary unwilling to take the big fights all the way.

Flying cars are still (mostly) future-tech, but amphibious cars are almost here

Filed under: Technology, USA — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 10:23

Except for the WW2-era Schwimmwagen, no other amphibious car has gone into mass production. That might change soon, if Gibbs Technologies can square the circle between US highway regulations and US Coast Guard regulations:

Gibbs Technologies, based in Nuneaton, England, is the only major company now making a serious push into the amphibious car. Its Gibbs Amphibians Inc. division, in Auburn Hills, Mich., has developed the Aquada, a sports car that can hit speeds of more than 100 miles per hour on the road and then, with a press of a button, turn into a boat that can do more than 30 mph.

[. . .]

The reason it is still in dry dock, he says, is a conflict between U.S. government regulations for vehicles on land and on water.

For example, air-bag sensors must be set according to National Highway Traffic Safety Administration standards for the car to be approved for the open road. But on the water, the settings are too sensitive. Waves that crash on the vehicle deploy the air bags. Another problem: An Environmental Protection Agency rule requires a catalyst to control emissions which can heat up several hundred degrees. The Coast Guard bars anything even half that hot operating in the engine compartment.

The Aquada is on the sidelines for now, but Gibbs is moving ahead with a drivable jet ski it calls the Quadski that will be on the market by year-end. With wheels that fold out horizontally when it is afloat, the Quadski can travel as fast as 45 mph on water and on land. And it has fewer regulations to meet because it is classified as a personal watercraft.

Flying cars have shown up closer to the showroom in recent years, but they’re still not available to the general public.

US Navy works with Chinese Navy ship for anti-piracy exercise

Filed under: Africa, China, Military, USA — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 09:07

This is an unusual arrangement, but it makes sense in the larger picture:

The U.S. Navy and the Chinese Navy conducted their first joint anti-piracy drill. A Chinese frigate (the 4,000 ton Type 54A Yiyang) and an American destroyer (the 8,200 ton Burke class Churchill) carried out several training operations over five hours. This included joint use of communications as well as boarding and onboard search procedures. This was done in the Gulf of Aden, off Somalia.

While there was some PR angle to this, the crews of the two ships did get a useful look at how the other side operates. More to the point, it was a useful drill in the event that Chinese and American warships found themselves dealing with the same bunch of Somali pirates. Both sides will distribute what was learned throughout their respective fleets.

All this is part of a trend. China is becoming more inclined to work with ships from other nations patrolling the pirate infested waters off Somalia. Earlier this year, for example, China, India, and Japan agreed to have their warships off the Somali coast coordinate operations to more efficiently protect civilian ships in the area. Chinese and Indian warships have been operating independently off Somalia, while Japanese ships have been operating with Task Force 151. Most warships on anti-piracy duty belong to TF 151. Most of the remainder work with EUNFS (European Union Naval Force Somalia). But some nations continue to operate independently, more or less. In these cases there is always some communication, coordination, and sharing of information with TF 151 and EUNFS.

Vikings upset San Francisco 49ers in Minnesota

Filed under: Football — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 00:01

Lots of bookies are unhappy with the result of Sunday’s game in Minnesota, as the underdog Vikings played a complete game and came out with a big win over the heavily favoured San Francisco 49ers. Tight End Kyle Rudolph came down with two touchdown passes from Christian Ponder, and Ponder scrambled for another TD. Rookie Kicker Blair Walsh set a team record with another 50+ yard field goal to extend his career-opening streak to three games. 1500ESPN’s Tom Pelissero and Judd Zulgad wrap up the game from the Metrodome:

Update: Ted Glover at the Daily Norseman:

God damn it, it may be cheap, and it may be cliche, but this was as solid a team victory as this organization has had in a long, long time. When the offense needed to make a long drive and score, they did. When the defense absolutely, positively, had to get off the field, they did. When the special teams needed a big play, they got one. When Leslie Frazier and the coaching staff needed to dial something up, they did. Honestly, if you can’t get on board after this win, or get pumped up after a victory this convincing, you need to go cheer for another team. I can’t help you. If this was college, and I was handing out helmet stickers, everyone would get one, because this was a great win for this franchise. The Vikings just didn’t beat the 49ers, they flat out kicked their ass.

Kicked. Their. Ass.

September 23, 2012

Plagiarism in the Globe and Mail

Filed under: Cancon, Media — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 10:21

Writing at Maclean’s, Colby Cosh outlines the case against Globe and Mail columnist Margaret Wente and the Globe‘s public editor Sylvia Stead:

Journalistic plagiarism is ordinarily regarded as what a lawyer would call a strict-liability offence. It may not be deserving of a career death penalty in any particular case, but the evidence of plagiarism usually suffices to establish the crime. Stead’s procedure as a public editor appears to involve looking into the soul of the accused and searching therein for gremlins. Does she, one wonders, believe in the objective existence of plagiarism at all? Again, she does not use the term, and she will not believe that Wente had heard even a rumour, even a whisper, of Gardner’s prior work for the Citizen.

Well, it is not likely there will ever be a case in which Stead is presented with close-up video footage of Wente using her mouse to highlight someone else’s words and pressing Control-C and Control-V. That is why the strict-liability standard is usual. If Stead will not apply it — if she is willing to accept any denial from a fellow Globe lifer, however preposterous — then how can she ever, as an impartial judge of journalism ethics, deliver a conviction? Can it be that the whole point is to have the appearance of accountability without the actual possibility of it?

Update, 24 September: Chris Selley in the National Post:

I think I’ve narrowed down my top two discreditable aspects, though: One, Stead’s reference to the fact that Wente “writes three times a week,” which could only pertain to a defence of overwork; and two, this astonishing sentence: “There appears to be some truth to the concerns but not on every count.”

Here’s the thing. I have some experience cornering plagiarists, and these are two of their standard defences: “Most of the allegations aren’t that bad,” which of course says nothing about the worst of them; and “I’m so busy,” which isn’t a defence at all but rather an appeal for clemency. And yet here is Sylvia Stead, Public Editor of The Globe and Mail, effectively raising these arguments on Wente’s behalf. This isn’t public editing; it’s public relations, and inept public relations at that.

Canada is open for (shady) business

Filed under: Business, Cancon, Law — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 10:03

The Economist looks at the relative level of difficulty in setting up a shell corporation in various jurisdictions and how easy it is to create an untraceable shell:

Shell companies — which exist on paper only, with no real employees or offices — have legitimate uses. But the untraceable shell also happens to be the vehicle of choice for money launderers, bribe givers and takers, sanctions busters, tax evaders and financiers of terrorism. The trail has gone cold in many a criminal probe because law enforcers were unable to pierce a shell’s corporate veil.

The international standard governing shells, set by the inter-governmental Financial Action Task Force (FATF), is clear-cut. It says countries should take all necessary measures to prevent their misuse, such as ensuring that accurate information on the real (or “beneficial”) owner is available to “competent authorities”. More than 180 countries have pledged to follow it. A study* scrutinises the level of compliance worldwide. The results are depressing.

Posing as consultants, the authors asked 3,700 incorporation agents in 182 countries to form companies for them. Overall, 48% of the agents who replied failed to ask for proper identification; almost half of these did not want any documents at all. Contrary to conventional wisdom, providers in tax havens, such as Jersey and the Cayman Islands, were much more likely to comply with the standards than those from the OECD, a club of mostly rich countries. Even poor countries had a better compliance rate, suggesting the problem in the rich world is not cost but unwillingness to follow the rules (see chart). Only ten out of 1,722 providers in America required notarised documents in line with the FATF standard.

Are we really smarter than our great-grandparents?

Filed under: History, Science — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 09:48

An interesting article in the Wall Street Journal looks at the documented phenomenon of rapidly rising IQ in modern humans:

Advanced nations like the U.S. have experienced massive IQ gains over time (a phenomenon that I first noted in a 1984 study and is now known as the “Flynn Effect”). From the early 1900s to today, Americans have gained three IQ points per decade on both the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scales and the Wechsler Intelligence Scales. These tests have been around since the early 20th century in some form, though they have been updated over time. Another test, Raven’s Progressive Matrices, was invented in 1938, but there are scores for people whose birth dates go back to 1872. It shows gains of five points per decade.

In 1910, scored against today’s norms, our ancestors would have had an average IQ of 70 (or 50 if we tested with Raven’s). By comparison, our mean IQ today is 130 to 150, depending on the test. Are we geniuses or were they just dense?

[. . .]

Modern people do so well on these tests because we are new and peculiar. We are the first of our species to live in a world dominated by categories, hypotheticals, nonverbal symbols and visual images that paint alternative realities. We have evolved to deal with a world that would have been alien to previous generations.

A century ago, people mostly used their minds to manipulate the concrete world for advantage. They wore what I call “utilitarian spectacles.” Our minds now tend toward logical analysis of abstract symbols — what I call “scientific spectacles.” Today we tend to classify things rather than to be obsessed with their differences. We take the hypothetical seriously and easily discern symbolic relationships.

September 22, 2012

The spectre of Ayn Rand is haunting America

Filed under: Books, Economics, Media, Politics, USA — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 10:45

Terence Corcoran on “the most dangerous woman in America”:

Weird, I thought. Why would a world-famous economist, followed by millions, advisor to UN officials and presidents, launch into a personal attack on a novelist who’s been dead more than 30 years by citing one of her novels and paraphrasing the words of one of her characters? How many people have even heard of Ayn Rand? And who the hell cares what one of her characters said in a novel published 60 years ago?

Lots of people, it appears. Ayn Rand may be long dead, but she seems to have been resurrected as the most dangerous woman in America. Judging by the barrage of attacks and references in the media, one can only conclude that Ayn Rand is a pervasive and increasingly powerful force in U.S. politics, possibly on the brink of toppling the prevailing orthodoxies of modern American liberalism.

Media references to Ayn Rand have skyrocketed over the last year, many of them elaborate putdowns. Her name is dropped like a hand grenade into articles and commentaries, as if readers will instantly recognize the menace. Her name has become an explosive device — like Karl Marx’s or Chairman Mao’s — apparently enough to rankle and send shivers down spines.

[. . .]

Rand’s supporters appear to be moving in on Washington’s Cato Institute, a libertarian bastion long headed by Ed Crane but now presided over by John Allison, the Ayn Rand Institute board member. Allison, a former banker from North Carolina, with funding from the billionaire Koch brothers, themselves characters out of Occupy/liberal nightmares, has said he aims to reshape Cato along Randian lines.

This is war. Rand condemned liberals and conservatives, but had even stronger views about libertarians. In a 2009 biography of Rand, author Jennifer Burns records that during Rand’s public speeches, she called libertarians “scum,” “intellectual cranks” and “plagiarists.”

It’s hard to tell today who has more to gain or lose from the seeming resurrection of Ayn Rand as an ideological enemy of the statists. She had no time for most other worldviews, right, left or libertarian. She would have fought the Cato Institute, she would have rejected the Tea Party movement, and she would have sought to demolish the Jeffrey Sachs of the world.

Mismeasuring inequality

Filed under: Economics, Media, Politics, USA — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 10:20

If you haven’t encountered a journalist or an activist going on about the Gini Coefficient, you certainly will soon, as it’s become a common tool to promote certain kinds of political or economic action. It is also useful for pushing certain agendas because while the numbers appear to show one thing clearly (the relative income inequality of a population), it hides nearly as much as it reveals:

The figures they use for a comparison are here. Looking at those you might think, well, if the US is at 0.475, Sweden is at 0.23 (yes, the number of 23.0 for Sweden is the same as 0.23 in this sense) then given that a lower number indicates less inequality then Sweden is a less unequal place than the US. You would of course be correct in your assumption: but not because of these numbers.

For the US number is before taxes and before benefits. The Swedish number is after all taxes and all benefits. So, the US number is what we call “market income”, or before all the things we do to shift money around from rich to poor and the Swedish number (in, fact, the numbers for all other countries) are after all the things we do to reduce inequality.

[. . .]

The US is reporting market inequality, before the effects of taxes and benefits, the Europeans are reporting the inequality after the effect of taxes and benefits.

[. . .]

Which brings us to the 300 million people in the US. Is it really fair to be comparing income inequality among 300 million people with inequality among the 9 million of Sweden? Quite possibly a more interesting comparison would be between the 300 million of the US and the 500 million of the European Union. Or the smaller number in the EU 15, thus leaving out the ex-communist states with their own special problems. Not that it matters all that much as the two numbers for the Gini are the same: 0.3*. Note again that this is post tax and post benefit. On this measure the US is at 0.38. So, yes, the US is indeed more unequal than Europe. But by a lot smaller margin than people generally recognise: or than by he numbers that are generally bandied about.

Which brings us to the second point. Even here the US number is (marginally) over-stated. For even in the post-tax and post-benefit numbers the US is still an outlier in the statistical methods used. In looking at inequality, poverty, in the US we include the cash that poor people are given to alleviate their poverty. But we do not include the things that people are given in kind: the Medicaid, SNAP, Section 8 and so on. It’s possible (I’m not sure I’m afraid) that we don’t include the EITC either. We certainly don’t in the poverty statistics but might in the inequality. All of the other countries do include the effects of such policies. Largely because they don’t offer benefits in kind they just give the poor more money and tell them to buy it themselves. This obviously turns up in figures of how much money the poor have.

Charles Stross on the diminishing marginal utility of just about everything

Filed under: Economics — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 10:08

A post at his blog looks at an economic concept that is becoming familiar to more of us than ever before (even in the middle of a long-term economic crisis):

There’s a concept in economics called the diminishing marginal utility of money. Loosely put: if you give a £20 bill to a homeless dude, it will make his day — it’s worth a bunch of hot meals or a hostel bed for a few nights. If you give £20 to an average wage earner, it’s nice but not a game-changer: it’s worth a couple of cinema tickets or a round of drinks at the pub. And if you give £20 to a billionaire they probably won’t know what to do with it — they have employees to carry the money around for them, and anyway, they earn more in the time it takes to open their wallet and stash the bill than the £20 note is worth. They’re losing money by taking it!

Money. The more of it you’ve got, the less useful any additional increment becomes. And you don’t have to be a millionaire to get a handle for this.

These days, I’m in the weird position where almost all the stuff I would want to buy with any additional income is either stuff I can simply buy right now … or it isn’t available at any price.

“I can no longer shock [conservatives] when I tell them I’m gay – but I can shock gay people when I tell them I’m Conservative”

Filed under: Cancon, Politics — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 10:00

Of all the political changes you might have expected to see in Canada, having Stephen Harper’s Conservatives become pro-LGBT must be one of the least likely:

A mere seven years ago, the Tories were famously the opponents of same sex marriage. Now, the Harper Conservatives freely push gay rights abroad and even host an annual gathering of gay Tories. While they remain the favourite punching bag for Canadian LGBT activists, have the Harper Tories become unlikely warriors for gay rights?

“I can no longer shock people in the conservative movement when I tell them I’m gay – but I can shock gay people when I tell them I’m Conservative,” said Fred Litwin, and former vice-president of the Ottawa Centre Conservatives.

In June, Mr. Litwin was one of the organizers of the Fabulous Blue Tent Party, a gathering of approximately 800 gay Conservatives at Ottawa’s Westin Hotel that went until 3 a.m.

[. . .]

“It’s no secret that the Conservative Party hasn’t always been the biggest champion of gay rights, but public pressure, and quite frankly, society evolving has changed their views,” said Jamie Ellerton, an openly gay former staffer for Mr. Kenney.

“The Conservative Party, like the rest of society, has moved to be more supportive of gay rights in recent years, and I see that trend continuing,” he said.

[. . .]

After the 2011 suicide of gay Ottawa teen Jamie Hubley, Mr. Baird told the House that homophobia has no place in Canadian schools, and then appeared with other Tory MPs in a video for the “It Gets Better Project,” an online campaign looking to curb the disproportionately high suicide rates among LGBT youth.

In June, members of the Tory caucus even came to the rescue of a transgendered rights bill put forward by NDP MP Randall Garrison. Promising to protect transgender people under the Canadian Human Rights Act and make anti-transgender violence a hate crime, the bill passed second reading thanks to the support of 15 Conservative MPs, including Jim Flaherty and Lisa Raitt.

The “joy” of data-capped, throttled internet access

Filed under: Business, Cancon, Technology — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 09:13

Welcome to Canada:

Blogger Stephanie Morrow has complained about data caps in Canada for a while now. The details of her situation show just how hard it can be to get faster internet even if you are willing to pay for it:

    My monthly data cap at the moment is 80 gigs. I pay just over $100 CA for 80 gigs a month, and $2 CA per gig over my cap. Understandably, 80 gigs is not that much, especially if you play multiple games or download a lot of games on Steam, watch Netflix, have a PlayStation 3, Xbox, 3DS, iPad or iPhone like we do. Sadly, there are not a lot of other options. We have two major ISP companies in the city that work this way (there’s no such thing as unlimited here in Canada from these two ISPs), and then there are a handful of smaller ISPs that do offer unlimited but at a greatly reduced speed.

    So, I had to make the sacrifice. Did I want an unlimited cap when I’d barely able to download anything because it would take weeks and weeks, or did I want a cap and be able to download at the speed of light? The cap is a harsh mistress, not to mention that everything peer-to-peer gets throttled. That means no free-to-play games for me because they typically download via a peer-to-peer method that gets throttled. I was unable to do my job while using internet from Rogers, one of the major companies here. I had no choice but to switch to a smaller company or give up my job. I wrote to the companies about this situation but didn’t hear anything back.

That’s a pretty amazing story. I remember the speeds I got when I used another cable company, and I remember just how bad it felt to have to set a game to download overnight. Stephanie goes on to update the situation on her Google + blog, noting that the company she is with is one of the worst throttlers in the country. She quotes TechVibes:

    In 2010, Shaw throttled 14% of users and Bell throttled 16% of users. Rogers? The Toronto-based telco throttled a startling 78% of users, and this number has surpassed 90% during some quarters since 2008.

Again, it can be hard for many of us to imagine having such a limited connection, but I hear from players all the time who have such issues. Is internet access a human right, as declared by the United Nations? Do players have a right to the internet, even if they are using the connection mainly for gaming? I’d have to say yes simply because there are so many common advantages that come with internet access, access that provides information not only about one’s social network but local weather problems, health issues… the list goes on and on. The internet is now so much a part of our lives that we forget just how much we need it.

It’s a very rare month that I don’t get a bandwidth warning from Rogers…

September 21, 2012

Rick Mercer’s first rant

Filed under: Cancon, Humour — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 13:15

No, not his own … the first one he remembers:

One of my earliest life-defining memories as a kid was being dragged against my will to the bank because Mom had a meeting.

I can remember sitting in a chair next to my mother while she had an excruciatingly dull conversation with a banker. I remember wondering what I had done to be forced to sit through this and if it were actually possible to die from boredom. And then everything changed. I will never forget the moment. The banker leaned forward and said, “Now Mrs. Mercer, do you have your husband’s permission to do this? Perhaps we should give him a call.”

From my point of view the day just got a whole lot better; for the man behind the desk the opposite was true. He had no idea what he had done. He had unleashed a hell storm that he had absolutely no chance of surviving. The poor, hapless man.

To say the oxygen was immediately sucked out of the room would be an exaggeration. To say that the blistering rant my mother delivered to the dumb creature made his ears bleed would not be. Needless to say very soon we were no longer in a cubicle but in a much nicer office upstairs, with a different banker who was doing everything he could to stop my mother from closing every account and going across the street. The dude who suggested Mom get her husband’s permission to open a chequing account was sent to “get the lad a fudge stick.”

Go Mom!

Everyone should rant. Ranting not only makes you feel better but occasionally, as my mother proved to me many times, you might get results—justice, satisfaction or a fudge stick.

This week in Guild Wars 2

Filed under: Gaming — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 12:37

My regular community round-up at GuildMag has been posted. In addition to the usual assortment of articles, videos and podcasts, there is the Mac OS X announcement, a flurry of whining over YouTube monetization, and good information on password security for players.

Gary Johnson polling at 6% in latest Reason-Rupe poll

Filed under: Politics, USA — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 11:37

The headline most media outlets would run includes just President Obama and Mitt Romney. If you allow more than two choices, however, Libertarian Party candidate Gary Johnson changes the numbers a fair bit:

A new national Reason-Rupe poll of likely voters finds President Barack Obama leading Republican Mitt Romney 48 percent to 43 percent in the presidential race. When undecided voters are asked which way they are leaning Obama’s lead over Romney grows to 52-45.

President Obama holds large advantages among women (53-37), African-Americans (92-2) and Hispanics (71-18). Fifty-two percent of likely voters view Obama favorably, while 45 view him unfavorably. In contrast, 49 percent of likely voters have an unfavorable view of Mitt Romney and 41 percent have a favorable view of him.

In a three-way presidential race, Obama drops to 49 percent among likely voters and Romney falls to 42 percent as the Libertarian Party’s Gary Johnson gets six percent of support. Johnson is already on the presidential ballot in 47 states.

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