Sunday, April 27, 2008

Thinking about Pi-Calculus and corporations as automata
Hat-tip Berkan. A great article on cyclic crises etc.

Money quote :
the real growth of the world economy sets long term limits on what kind of return is, on average, feasible. I cannot help feeling that the periodic asset bubbles that we have experienced in various forms reflect an unreasonable pressure in the financial sector to promise returns that in the aggregate cannot be achieved. These promises keep being made, however, and the assets bubbles keep being
encouraged, because the incentive structures that exist inside the financial sector are asymmetric. Managers reap great personal benefits from short term-profits but pay very little personal penalty when the bubble bursts. Moreover because asset bubble bursts affect the entire economy, there is always irresistible political pressure to socialize the losses when they become too threatening.

Thursday, April 17, 2008

There's a new Portishead album. Haven't heard it yet, but the obviously cool thing for them to do would be to get lots of dubstep remix action going on, invite Kode9, Space Ape etc. Maybe the way Massive Attack had the Mad Professor do a remix album back in the day.

Update: Got it (or some alleged preview, thanks SoulSeek) Not much sign of dubstep, sadly. Some quite radical sounds and musical arrangements which nevertheless soon become "normal" given the context. Not sure this is Portishead's fault. As Radiohead proved, being a megastar makes whatever you do mainstream.

Quite post-rock, howly in places. Interesting, but totally lost the souly / hip-hop aspect of the first album. Folk-rock-blues wins.

Update 2 : Dead Can Dance, Cocteaus in there too.

Sunday, April 13, 2008

Further warnings that increase in food prices will cause mass hunger.

What are *you* doing to help produce more food and avert this?

Wednesday, April 09, 2008

Tuesday, April 08, 2008

William Lind flirts with Bush == Hitler thinking. But seems to reject it.

Update : Just noticed this piece is from 2005 ... still interesting but not so much news. ( He ... that's Seitz's fault ;-)

Monday, April 07, 2008

IMF selling some of its gold reserve.
More on Ward Cunningham's Bacteria inspired computing

Update : compare roBlocks
Tempting as it is, Stowe Boyd's "edgelings" is an example of the kind of utopianism that netocracy-theory wants to steer you away from.