New World Man

Archive for May, 2005

Stronach signals move beyond farce

Wednesday, May 18th, 2005

The thing I still don’t get how Stronach believes her cosying up with Martin is going to quel separatist fires in Quebec, unless of course she doesn’t. Best quote of the day was found by Terrence Corcoran for his Financial Post commentary:

“This is a move by big money. Magna Corp., controlled by Stronach’s father, […]

Posted in general, politics | 8 Comments »

The threat is real - speech regulation in BC

Monday, May 16th, 2005

While the blogosphere has been wringing its collective hands over the potential threat to free speech if McCain-Feingold were to be applied to the letter, classifying blogs as subject to campaign finance regulation, things were already worse in BC. Here’s an excerpt from Darren Barefoot at Urban Vancouver.

I called up Elections BC this morning, […]

Posted in general, politics | 2 Comments »

Another argument for a flat tax

Tuesday, May 3rd, 2005

This is one of the sickest things I’ve read in a while.

As paradoxical and absurd as it sounds, it’s cheaper for a Hollywood studio to make a big-budget action movie than to make a shoestring art film like Sideways. Consider Paramount’s 2001 action flick Lara Croft: Tomb Raider. On paper, Tomb Raider’s budget was $94 […]

Posted in economics | No Comments »

Del.icio.us links

» Aerial Photographs of Mexico City (English)

» IdeaChannel.tv Dr. Friedman's pbs series streamed for free online.

» Open Culture: 50+ Free Courses from UC Berkeley on iTunes

» Andrew Sullivan | What We've Lost "But they didn't even bother, and surrendered at least in part because of our reputation. Our two hundred year old reputation for being fair and humane and decent." This president must never be forgiven for what he has done to the reputation of this coun

» Open University "TNR introduces a first-of-its-kind blog, featuring America's top academics on today's top stories."

» How Many Lightbulbs Does it Take to Change the World? One. And You're Looking At It. "In the next 12 months, starting with a major push this month, Wal-Mart wants to sell every one of its regular customers--100 million in all--one swirl bulb. In the process, Wal-Mart wants to change energy consumption in the United States..."

» Tony Blair's vision "Blair's tragedy is the most global in scope, because he is articulating a coherent, desperately needed vision for the post-cold-war, post-September 11 world. It is a vision deeply rooted in the liberal tradition"

» Jambands.com | Features | "Deadheads Are What Liberals Claim to Be But Aren't" An Interview with Ann Coulter Postmodern performance artist Ann Coulter is a deadhead

» Very Cool Javascript : Easily Add Sidenotes To Your Blog It only took the lazyweb a year to get me my david foster wallace side notes

» Interview with Kanan Makiya Even after the coalition had taken half the country the people remained sceptical of American intentions to see the thing through. 'Are the Americans going to let us down again? They did it to us once before,' was the prevailing mood.

» WP: Fighting Smarter In Iraq an Iraqi brigade commander, a Shiite, rolled his armored vehicles into the Sunni stronghold of Tarmiya and told local imams that his men would protect their mosques against Shiite attacks -- in return, they must control Sunni militants. "He laid down the

» OxBlog - Was it worth it? - March 17 2006 a large majority of the Iraqi population thinks that deposing Saddam was worth the turmoil they have suffered since. According to one poll, 77% say it was worth it, while 22% say it was not.This illustrates just how terrible and widely loathed his regime

» Frontpage Interview: Andrew Sullivan "I love pop culture; I love gay culture; I love sex; I enjoy movies and Shakespeare and bodybuilding and my dog. I'm conservative in politics so that I can be radical in every other human activity. To me, that makes sense. But I'm aware I'm somewhat alone

» Sunday Times: The Meaning of Milosevic David Aaronovitch recalls his own intellectual and moral evolution during the Balkan wars. And he remembers Milosevic's intellectual and moral allies - Harold Pinter and Noam Chomsky among them.

» TNR: Universal health care--now But medical care in this country is inequitable and inefficient. The United States pays more for its health care than any other nation on the planet: 16 percent of our national wealth, at last count.

» A response to Stanley Fish I wish to assure Fish, by example perhaps, that liberals can be--in the name of Kant, in the name of Jefferson, in the name of Mill--assholes.

» The End of Fukuyama - Why his latest pronouncements miss the mark. By Christopher Hitchens Fukuyama's essay betrays a secret academic wish to be living in "normal" times once more, times that will "restore the authority of foreign policy 'realists' in the tradition of Henry Kissinger." Fat chance, Francis! Kissinger is moribund, and the memory

» TNR: The problem with Joe Lieberman--and his critics "Lieberman's problem is that bloggers like Kos aren't very ideological either. Temperament defines them, too. It's just the opposite temperament. For Kos and the other Lieberman-haters, liberalism means confrontation, at least in the Bush era. In their vi

» TNR: What Summers did wrong "The truth is far shabbier: The Harvard faculty deposed Lawrence Summers because he wanted them to care about something beyond themselves."

» We Can't Force Democracy - Robert Kagan "[B]efore the names of Just and Unjust can have place, there must be some coercive power," Thomas Hobbes wrote in "Leviathan." Without something or somebody to monopolize the use of force and decide right from wrong, no man is safe from another and there

» Open Source » Blog Archive » Camille Paglia Takes On Academia "The humanities have destroyed themselves over the past 30 years…Through an obsession with European jargon and a shallow politicization of discourse, the humanities have imploded"

» After Neoconservatism - Francis Fukuyama "The problem with neoconservatism's agenda lies not in its ends, which are as American as apple pie, but rather in the overmilitarized means by which it has sought to accomplish them. What American foreign policy needs is not a return to a narrow and cyni

» It's Curtains for al-Qaida - What happens when Iraqi "insurgents" take on Zarqawi's thugs? By Christopher Hitchens "If their advice had been followed, and the coalition had pulled out in 2004, the Zarqawi forces would have tried to take the credit, and their boast might even have been believed. This would have been a calamity of a global and epochal order."

» In the Red Zone: THE NAIVE AMERICAN . "These religious parties are wrong! Look at them, their corruption, their incompetence, their stupidity! Look at the way they treat women! How can you say you cannot judge them? Why shouldn't your apply your own cultural values?"

» The social responsibility of business - Signal vs. Noise (by 37signals) "If [corporate executives] are to impose taxes and make expenditures to foster “social” objectives, then political machinery must be set up to make the assessment of taxes and to determine through a political process the objectives to be served." (tas

» Amazon.com: Books: The Pentagon's New Map Good discussion of Thomas Barnett in the reader reviews.

» RedHanded » sneaking Ruby through the system Whyd doesn't _why ever link from one of his pages to another? A blog on sneaking Ruby into the system, built on the very cool hobix weblahh platform.

» TNR: Jumble Jumble - The White Stripes "the White Stripes create the music of the IM age, the sound of tossed-off partial thoughts, blurted out and blithely replaced with more of the same, never concluding. Jack White may think of his work as a protest against the proliferation of digital tech

» C-SPAN.org: Thomas Barnett "The Pentagon's New Map" realvideo of the full presentation. This is an incredible insight into hot topics at the pentagon. I'm buying the books.

» IT Conversations: Thomas Barnett - Emerging Worldviews This is one of the most interesting presentations I've heard. I don't know who I've managed to dodge Thomas Barnett up until now since is CV seems to be all over my reading list. A must.

» The Atlantic Online | July 1945 | As We May Think | Vannevar Bush 60 years ago this month, Vannevar Bush presages the internet.

» The Hype Machine - Today's Blog Music mp3 blogs minus chaff.

» Siqueiros Image Bank bank of public domain <?> images

» ModelViewController.mp3 (audio/mpeg Object) If you need to learn the basic paradigm of rails, this is where to do it

» It's boring to scale with Ruby on Rails (Loud Thinking) Am I the only one who doesn;t find this boring?

» What Would Cory Blog? : CafePress.com What would Cory Blog? It's a question that should always be on our minds.

» Copyright and the law | Rip. Mix. Burn. | Economist.com "But the internet and new digital technologies have made the publication and distribution of works much easier and cheaper. Publishers should therefore need fewer, not more, property rights to protect their investment. Technology has tipped the balance in

» Millennium Simulation Incredible visualizations of the universe

» Looks Good Works Well: Death to Paging! - Rico LiveGrid Released How much better is a scrollable ajax table than paging? Try the demos.

» Creative Commons Deed - Developing Nations License This new license from the CC gives special rights to citizens of developing nations. Neat. Cory released his new book under this license. Neat++.

» Malls of America Photos of early era malls

» TNR: Pass the Fault (on the success of Downfall in Israeli cinema) "The Downfall is not about Hitler, human or otherwise, not about Nazism and evil. It is about letting Germany off the hook."

» TNR: Alternate Reality by Spencer Akerman "Some might contend that the burden is on advocates of the war to reconcile the costs of the invasion with its unclear benefits for U.S. national security. But Kagan's reasonable invitation merits an answer."

» Whether This War Was Worth It by Robert Kagan "What would have happened if the Bush administration had not gone to war in March 2003? That is a missing but essential piece of the current very legitimate debate."

» A New Sith, or Revenge of the Hope A nice analysis of Star Wars taht fixes up all of the discontinuities in an acceptable and fun manner.

» Todays Front Pages - Map View 439 front pages from 45 countries, scanned at a level where you can almost read the text. neat.

» How To Secure Windows 2000 / XP - Tips! A step by step guide for securing windows.

» Security Configuration Guides NSA security config guides for various operating systems / applications

» BioForge - Community for Biological Innovation Open source biology. Thsi site is modeled on sf.net

» RU Sirius interviews Jamais Cascio of worldchanging.com Good interview touches on a bunch of world changing subjects, read the whole thing.

» WorldChanging: BOP in action: Cemex's Patrimonio Hoy "The current Stanford Social Innovation Review (Summer 2005 issue) explores a BOP case in an article entitled "Block by Block" that has been in practice for several years: Cemex's Patrimonio Hoy program."

» Caravaggio - Man on the run | Economist.com "The 17th-century Italian painter was the first modern artist, a precursor both of Francis Bacon and Martin Scorsese"

» An Austrian theory of business cycles "[Contrasted with Fisher and Keynes bullishness,] Mises refused a prominent position at the Kreditanstalt Bank, telling his fiance, "A great crash is coming, and I don't want my name in any way connected with it." Kreditanstalt, Austria's largest commerci

» Adopt a Chinese blogger A push to give free blogspace to banned Chinese blogs. I would also love to see this for Iran and am sort of surprised that I haven't yet.

» GMSV: An interview with Linus Torvalds "markets mature, and as they mature and become commoditized, the kind of dominant player like MS just doesn't happen any more. You don't have another dominant player coming in and taking its place -- to find a new dominant player you actually have to star

» New York City - New taxi designs Neat slideshow of possibilities for the new standard bearer of yellow cabs. I'm not sure that Ladka would be up to servicing these ones. Also check out the cool ideas for cabbie hats (ht: SvN).

» Persona by Neal Pollack Neal Pollack is dead, long live Neal Pollack.

» Predictor@Home The generalized framework that grew out of the Seti@home idea that we were all so into in the nineties. Be part of the largest supercomputer in the world.

» The Atlantic - Wolfowitz: The Exit Interviews A must read, will blog about this later.

» TNR: Seeing Things - A reminder of the great paranoid films of the 70s [All the President's Men] was the capstone of his so-called paranoia trilogy, which included 1971's Klute and 1974's The Parallax View. Incubated during a period of tumult and disillusionment, the trilogy is the undisputed highlight of Pakula's career"

» squidfingers / patterns Good backgrounds, free for websites

» TNR: The Need for Nations "Jeremy A. Rabkin's book is a forceful defense of the virtues of national sovereignty, and of the claim that American constitutiona forceful defense of the virtues of national sovereignty, and of the claim that American constitutional government places st

» Camblaster Augmented reality, duckhunt for your phone, pretty cool.

» Real Estate, the Global Obsession - New York Times "These days, house price vertigo is more than a local or national condition. It's a worldwide phenomenon."

» Said the Gramophone: Live Wolf Parade covering Atlas Strategic Let me throw my name to the list of people excited by this band

» Uprisings - bunnys on the wave waves of bunnies. It's pretty

» Google Advanced Operators (Cheat Sheet) A few new tricks here.

» The Believer - The Conlangers’ Art Introduction to an article and flowchart (not online) on how to make your own language. As a former scrappy linguistics protege I can't get enough.

» CNN.com - The machine that can copy anything - Jun 2, 2005 An odler story, but needs archiving, the reprap device that can replicate itself

» The New Republic Online: Sin of Omission - How Assad continues to drop the ball "Washington should search for a third way between the bad option of a more effective Baathist dictatorship and the worse option of helping to empower Syria's radical Sunni Islamist militants. This will mean publicly encouraging the small, hardy band of do

» TNR: Federalist Style - Niall Ferguson on the failure of the EU consitution "The French may loathe the too-liberal Anglo-Saxons. The Dutch may fear the illiberal Muslim horde. But both nations also have fairly fresh memories of what it is like to live in a Europe dominated by the Germans."

» The New Republic Online: Help Wanted - Spencer Ackerman on US involvement in the Iraq constitution "A lot could go wrong through our involvement in the Iraqi constitution. But the truth is, we don't have a choice."

» IRAQ THE MODEL- Operation Lighting brief for Jun 07 2005 Mo of the indespensible ITM fills us in on the Iraq goverments offensive against insurgents in Baghdad. Thsi story has been missed by the MSM.

» Bush Country - The Middle East embraces democracy--and the American president. "To venture into the Arab world, as I did recently over four weeks in Qatar, Kuwait, Jordan and Iraq, is to travel into Bush Country. I was to encounter people from practically all Arab lands, to listen in on a great debate about the possibility of freedo

» 43F: Mail Act-On: Invoke Mail.app rules with custom commands I've been dreaming of this app for over a year.

» Slashdot | Building a Linux Virtual Server Interesting comments on this one.

» D*I*Y Planner Hipster PDA Edition The ulitmate in Hipster PDA mods.

» Other World Computing: OS X for Legacy Macs A friend just used this to get Tiger on an old G3 beige powermac.

» Training Miniature horses for the Blind These little horses are just too cool and fascinating, especially the little "Reebacks" that you can buy for their feet.

» One Minute Vacation Just what the doctor orrdered after a damaging evening of server administration.

» Forty-four grueling hours (or Welcome to 37s!) (Loud Thinking) The story of Basecamps upgrade a few months ago.

» Learn to Program, by Chris Pine Yet another Ruby tutorial

» Mike Tyson: 'My whole life has been a waste' ''I want to develop my life into missionary (work). I'm not going to be a Jesus freak. But that's what I'm going to give my life to. I love Jesus and I believe in Jesus, too - and I'm a Muslim. Listen, I got a imam, I got a rabbi, I got a priest, I got a

» tetris1d.org Tetris 1D - this is hilarious (hat tip: myownbiggestfan.org)

» Stacy Brooks' Perspective on Auditing I have probalby read as much scientology as any non-scnist out there, stopped reading a.r.s in 96 or so, but this is a great post from 2000

» Things That Newcomers to Ruby Should Know

» Google Sightseeing I was going to link to my favorite post here, but the whole thing is just too cool.

» Top designers. No Brands "If you've ever shopped at Japanese retailer Muji, you've probably bought products from some of the world's top designers. The fact that you don't know who they are is part of the point."

» TNR: Iraq 101 - Teaching federalism in Kurdistan ""Pluralism and diversity might be part of what make America good," he surmised, "but they are not good for Iraq." "They might be good for Iraq," he added with a slight chuckle, "if the rest of Iraq was all Kurds." "

» The New Republic Online: Democratease "The problem, he explains, is that the administration is not meeting the expectations it has created. "Support for taking risks is lagging behind the rhetoric," he says. "It's not clear that the U.S. Embassy is going to be a back-up. And, while we can pro

» gednetWiki : DebianServerOSSecurity Some basic tips for setting up a secure Debian system

» Ross Burton explains Modern X architecture Simple, short and informative

» P:ano: Brigadoon: Pitchfork Review Actually not a bad review of a great album. Considering the site the rating is pretty positive. Go buy this record.

» TNR: Equivalency Test - Gulags vs. Gitmo Amnesty International has lost an incredible amount of legitimacy by calling Gitmo the modern day Gulag. This peice from a senior editor of Foreign Policy compares the two. What an unfortunate move by AI.

» NYT > Tom Cruise going nuts on Oprah Did this guy just go screaming tone 40 or what? (apologies for ulatra-obscure scientology joke)

» NYT > Sunshine warrior, a profile on Paul Wolfowitz Lengthy profile from 2002 detailing Wolfowitz's case for war in Iraq on humanitarian grounds, clearly and forcefully

» TigerHawk - OBL's niece wants to be Arab world's Madonna The imminent dangers of our M.I.A. entranced entertainment industry.

» NYT > Woe Canada by David Frum "As countries modernize, they tend to leave brokerage parties behind. Very belatedly, that moment of maturity may now be arriving in Canada. Americans may lose their illusions about my native country; Canadians will gain true multiparty democracy and acco

» calendarlive.com: 129 'best' films: rich, risky and enduring Another mine for zip.ca/netflixing

» LinuxISOtorrent.com :: Linux ISO Torrents A site with a simple mission and decent execution.

archives...

Books

» WorldChanging: Tools, Models and Ideas for Building a Bright Green Future: Capitalism 3.0: Planning a Big Upgrade "Barnes argues that there is private wealth and then there is common wealth—in the form of nature, structures supported by the community and society (such as parks, streets, capital markets, the internet), and cultural and intellectual wealth (the wealt

» Data Crunching

» Design Patterns - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia "The book is divided into two parts, with the first giving the definition of software design patterns and the second giving a list of practical reusable design patterns. It is accompanied by examples in C++ and Smalltalk. The design patterns listed are:"

» Simply Audiobooks like netflix but for audiobooks.

» Principle-Centered Leadership by Stephen Covey [Audio] Covey's deleivery is so smooth on this recording that you literally trance out and are left with no idea what you just absorbed. Listened to twice the lessons become clear. Decent ideas, well packaged.

» The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey [Audio] Such a massive impact since 1990, that it sounds overly dated, but it's full of gold. Audio version is particularly good with workshop settings and audience participation. Interesting to me is how it complements GTD.

» Living History by Hillary Clinton [Audio abridged] Humanizes Hillary, some good insights, but ultimately I wish it was more ruthlessly abridged.

» Leadership by Rudolph Giuliani [Audio abridged] If, like me, most of your knowledge of Giuliani came from a 10 year old Le Tigre song, give this a listen. Practical advice on leadership, with inspiring examples. By the end of it you're convinced that Giuliani '08 has a nice ring.

» Write Now The Complete Program for Better Handwriting When I wanted to improve my penmanship I spent an entire night researching hand writing programs on home schooling sites. Don't go through what I had to; Getty-Dubay italic is where it's at. This is a great book, written for adults.

» Art of the Start: The Time-Tested, Battle-Hardened Guide for Anyone Starting Anything Technology star and venture capitalist Guy Kawasaki gives practical advice on starting organizations; good help on that vision thing.

» How to Win Friends and Influence People [Audio] This book really shows its age, and if you followed the advice perfectly you'd seem anachronistic. It sold so many copies you can't ignore its effect on our culture, if you read this you'll see it everywhere.

» My Life by Bill Clinton [Audio abridged] This book was criticized by many for being long. I thought the abridged audio version was easy enough to get through. Compelling personal and political history, good story, well read.

» The Now Habit: A Strategic Program for Overcoming Procrastination This was recommended on 43F and is a great companion to GTD. Original approach to the problem: good advice and psychology, not tired motivators.

» Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity David Allen's book came out in 2001 but it wasn't until late 2004 that it caught on like wildfire with the web crowd (cf. 43folders.com, also flickr for GTD). Best book on personal productivity ever.

Film

» FORA.tv - The World Is Thinking it's like youtube for smart

» Peep Shows for Poets The exquisitely crafted experimental films of Jeremy Blake are at once entirely of their moment and firmly situated within the avant-garde tradition.

» The Passion of Ayn Rand (1999) Seeing Julie Delpy and Eric Stoltz reunited in a film about Rand seems too good to be true. It is. Some interesting material, but ultimately can't escape the bounds of a schlocky Showtime production. Nice sets if you like 40s NYC.

» The Downfall: Hitler and the End of the Third Reich (2005) The last 10 days of Hitler's life. Impeccably researched, this film controversially spares nothing for the sake of historical accuracy. Puts you in the bunker and leaves the analysis for the drive home. Could be the best war movie ever made.

» 32 Short Films About Glenn Gould (1993) Glenn Gould is at once fascinating and totally annoying. Every Canadian should see this film though; details an interesting period of national culture. The film that inspired the Simpson's episode.

» Black October (2004) McKenna documentary on the October Crisis, FLQ terror in streets of Montreal. Damns the FLQ as criminally stpuid, their supporters as morally bankrupt, and Trudeau as implacably firm to a fault. Complete speech declaring war measures act included.

» Germany Year Zero (1947) Incredibly filmed on location in reconstructing West Berlin, details the devastated lives of innocent children, regretful soldiers, unreconstructed National Socialists, guilty elders. Astonishing shots of real bombed out city two years after war was over.

» Paul Simon - Graceland (The African Concert) (1987) A bit of nostalgia for me as my mother taped this off TV onto our brand-new first-ever VCR. I'm a fan of the album, but the standout performances are from Masekela, Makeba, and Mambazo. Disturbing shots of early Mugabe propaganda.

» Together (2000) Pretty fun film about a 1960's Swedish middle-class mother and her children moving into her brother's hippy squat. Pokes good fun at the naive politics and living arrangments, but ultimately just makes you feel slightly better about life.

» On the Waterfront (1954) I don't care what Elia Kazan did outside of the studio, this film is absolutely incredible. Compared to other films of the era it's in a league of it's own.

» High Noon (1952) Finally good to see a film where Gary Cooper fits the role, perfectly at that. Standout performance by Grace Kelly as well. Probably one of the best western scripts ever filmed.

» Chungking Express (1996) Feels a bit over-rated to me. Not bad, but didn't really live up to the hype. Probalby would have been amazing if I watched it in 1996.

» The Aviator (2004) A good introduction to Hughes, and the values of enterprise and free economies. If it wasn't a biography the plot would seem outlandish, great sets and fashion.

» Three Days of the Condor (1975) My favorite Robert Redford performance. 'Condor' works for the CIA reading international literature. His entire office is killed while he's out for lunch. 3 days of conspiracy laden paranoia as his world unravels. Brilliant film.

» Kinski: My Best Fiend (1999) Exploring the relationship between Werner Herzog and the utterly insane but brilliant Klaus Kinski. Some good moments, but mostly jsut makes me want to see the actual films they made.

» Persona (1967) Just totally stunning Bergman. Engrossing and challenging.

» Wild Strawberries (1959) Can Ingmar Bergman make a bad film? Is it even possible? Even when the subject matter seems so blaise as the depression of an old man I still enjoy it.

» Spartan (2004) Under-rated David Mamet film. Stars Val Kilmer as a secret service agent, very cynical political intrigue. DVD commentary with lacadaisical Kilmer is sort of wierd.

» The Decline of the American Empire (1986) The dark hedonism of academia. Well filmed, it makes it obvious how good Arcand was early on. Leaves you feeling dirty.

» The Monkees - Head (1968) Script by Jack Nicholson, direction by Bob Rafelson, cameo from Frank Zappa. This film is undervalued, a masterpiece for the genre, better than any Beatles film. Truly surreal film shwoing the Monkees to be real artists. Also thier best record in my op

» Marat / Sade (1966) The third time I have rented this movie and forced others to watch it with me. Maybe the most throught-provoking film I've seen. The story of JP Marat and the French revolution as told by clearly insane people.

» Napoleon Dynamite (2004) I liked it just as much as every one else. The classic comedy of the decade.

» What Remains of Us (2004) Incredible documentary chronicles a Canadian travelling through Tibet showing people a video of the Dalai Lama. Documents decades of oppression. We were stripped of camera phones at the theatre. Heartbreaking.

» ...And Justice For All (1979) Long and drawn out. It's worth seeing for Pacino's final courtroom scene, but the rest of the film represents some of the worst aspects of seventies film.

» Six-String Samurai (1998) America is defeated by the Soviets in a 1950s nuclear war. Elvis, the king of Free Las Vegas, dies and the best rockers converge to decide who is the new king. Follows Buddy Holly challenging "Slash".