If mankind minus one were of one opinion, then mankind is no more justified in silencing the one than the one – if he had the power – would be justified in silencing mankind.
— John Stuart Mill
I seem to have skipped posting on my site for the past month–which means my goal of posting once a week this year was stopped shy of the finish line. This is a tragedy that I will never live down. Perhaps it was my unwillingness to put aside my lazy desires, buckle down and push some content out that encouraged my neglect; perhaps it is as simple as a lack of having anything interesting to say.
Whatever the case, here is my lazy attempt to put something up.
Thanksgiving was grand, the food was not bland–I joined a band (no, just wanted to keep rhyming…and).
Why did the U.S. economy do so well in the years following World War II given how badly it had done in the years preceding America’s entry into the war? The answer, in a nutshell, is that dramatically reducing government spending and deregulating an economy can take that economy from sickness to health. In short, one of the main things a government can do to help a weak economy recover is to step aside.
I for one am not entirely convinced by the premise.
This is certainly one reason in a string of reasons why the United States recovered so well after the war, but what seems to be more important was a combination of these policies and a reduced industrial base in the rest of Europe. Our industrial base was fresh and thriving and ready to fill the gaping void in Europe and Japan (this is one reason why I think we’ll never see a return to this sort of manufacturing primacy in the US). While I support the policies this paper discusses, it’s difficult for me to say that this is a primary factor following the war. Despite this flaw, in my view it is nevertheless an interesting piece.
I woke up an hour early, but there was no need to do so because I could have done this at any time. Regardless, I decided to head in to the polling place as early as possible. I was pleasantly surprised to see the lot was nearly full. At 7:00 AM.
People are out voting because they either approve of the way things are going or hope for a change in philosophy; either way, they’re there and doing the one thing average folks can do to participate in government: vote.
Personally, I didn’t vote for Change™ last time, though I wanted it in some form. And now that we’ve got it, I can’t help but wonder why anyone would want this particular brand. In some ways I understand the desire for social justice/equality. These are noble concepts, but the problem is, these concepts are used to justify things that are inherently bad for people in the long term. Sure, there are immediate benefits to be had, but these are fleeting.
Do not interpret this as approval of the record of Republicans either. They are as guilty as any Democrat of spending and approving intrusive regulations1. It is not the Bush agenda that I am seeking, but something entirely different.
This morning, I voted for divided government. A roadblock to the progressive/conservative agenda. I want the republic to do nothing over the next few years; maybe roll something back, keep expenditures down. Perhaps something classically liberal could take the place of the status quo.
In reality,we’ve got to start talking about reforming the social insurance framework we have in this country, because it is broken, and it will bankrupt us. This is worse for us than people think. I guess we could always inflate the dollar to pay down the debt right?
I think we have to take note of the dire situation we’re in fiscally speaking. So much debt that it’s barely serviceable. We’re adding much more than we’re paying down.
- In general, regulations that improve safety are often good in working environments, but when it comes to personal choice, I am responsible for that.
Earlier this year I sought to get involved in local politics by getting elected as a precinct delegate for the Republican party in Berrien County. Shortly after the primary election we met at the county convention in order to discuss some party business and vote on which delegates would be attending the state convention in Lansing at the end of that month.
I did not put my name up for consideration, however I had a great desire to assist others in their campaigns. I put my name out there to a few candidates and expressed great interest in volunteering in any way that I could for their campaigns. The election in Michigan is tomorrow and I have yet to hear from any of them.
I went to the Berrien County Youth Fair with my wife and stopped by the Republican tent to see who was there and grab a little literature and see what I could do to help out. I entered the tent and was soundly ignored and dismissed by the folks running everything.
Additionally, I was informed that delegates in my county have had many different evens they’ve been involved in over the past few months. Apparently I should have been receiving information about all of this, but have been mostly left off of whatever mailing/emailing lists they have.
The one candidate I received anything from, however, was Mr. Troy Rolling running for Berrien County Commissioner, and so I will fully support and vote for him and urge you to do the same. He’s a great, hard working individual, the kind of person we would want involved in the workings of the county.
I must express my utter disappointment with the process…I would like to be more involved, but what more can I do beyond just giving my contact information and expressing an interest in doing the work I signed up for?
It is indeed that time of year again. Political ads are all over the place (sadly my television programming comes from a different state, so none of my candidates are represented there). They’re all rotten, rotten lies. One says they support American jobs and the other supports sending jobs to China; at the same time the other candidate is making the exact same claim. Who is right?
Let’s take a look at a few of the claims and see what makes sense.
We’re working hard to create jobs here at home. On it’s face this sounds fucking awesome if you’re unemployed. Yes, hell yes bring me that job–so long as I don’t have to work too hard. Look, don’t believe this lie. Politicians can’t create private sector jobs. They can help to foster an environment that might produce an incentive to start or expand a business, but it’s not like they’ve done anything other than deliberate a policy and vote on a bill. No job creation here. Hell, the new law they just created might not even bring business into the state, and most of the time their incentives amount to subsidies that pervert the true cost of doing business until it’s too late. Verdict: complete and utter nonsense.
My opponent (maliciously) supports taking jobs away from constituents and giving them to workers in China. What an evil thing to do! We need jobs here at home. The thing is, they’ll be there but they won’t be the same types of jobs we’ve relied on in the past. The fact is, after the two great wars our manufacturing base was left largely in tact, while the rest of the world was in tatters so to speak. As a result, we enjoyed a golden age of manufacturing for the better part of the 20th century. We won’t return to that time. The world caught up.
Plus, manufacturing is a global process now. Companies spread costs around to maximize profits, and that means making parts here, in China, in Japan, etc. and assembling said product wherever. This keeps consumer costs low and makes determining actual origin a little tough. Keep this in mind: many of those foreign cars we buy are assembled here. Some parts are even made here. And we still have manufacturing, it’s just so much more efficient that it requires less workers to keep production up. Verdict: who cares, the economy is global.
My opponent is in the pocket of big business/special interests and I’m a champion of the people, never swayed! Liar. You’re both in the pockets of special interests, and especially big business. Why? Because that’s where the money is. Don’t get the impression that they pass business regulations to keep consumers safe, because it’s mostly to protect the livelihood of a competing interest. Believe at your own peril!
My opponent is un-American/communist/socialist/racist etc. Meh. This doesn’t say a whole lot. These charges are designed to be difficult to defend against and frankly the person leveling them rarely ever provides evidence to suggest they’re true. Ignore these charges.
Is it just me, or do all of these bums seem like dirty liars?
New, shiny icon to the left, old to the right.
I’m not sure if I’m the first to notice this or not, or if I’m even right, but it looks like Gmail has a brand new favicon. It looks to me like they’ve added a little depth and polish to the icon, as well as a one pixel drop shadow.
It’s an improvement over the previous one. There isn’t much to say about it, but way to go giant company.
It’s entirely possible that this favicon has been around for a while, and my cache has finally cleared allowing me to see the new one, but it’s new to me. The fact that I have to say that is testament to the speed with which I expect information to spread, so I’m not embarrassed by my possible old news.
Update: 10/25/2010 2:08pm EST – It appears the icon has reverted back? I’m a little confused by this. Old cached favicon making a showing perhaps? But why, if the new one was showing up before, why the change back? Well, proof that it existed is my image to the left.
I’ve seen this linked to in several places now, and I’ve got to say this is a pretty ingenious way to deliver economics lessons. Seinfeld will start to get a little long in the tooth for younger students pretty soon, but for the time being they will most certainly be familiar with it and its premise making it useful for something like this.
Seinfeld ran for nine seasons on NBC and became famous as a “show about nothing.” Basically, the show allows viewers to follow the antics of Jerry, George, Elaine, and Kramer as they move through their daily lives, often encountering interesting people or dealing with special circumstances. It is the simplicity of Seinfeld that makes it so appropriate for use in economics courses.
There is much utility in these videos.
If you guys were the inventors of Facebook, you’d have invented Facebook.
— Fictional Zuckerberg
As a web designer, it’s easy to forget that I’m unlike over 90% of internet users out there. I’m an oddball. Strange. Unusually unusual. I look at and use the web in a way that most people don’t, won’t, and never will. Nor do they care about the details: how it was built, innovation in techniques, typography and design considerations, etc. Those are the things I care about, the things I’m impressed by. The rest of the web’s residents just want to get where they’re going.
When I build something I’m always striving to create a lasting design; something to impress…maybe just myself. The fact is, the difficulty that goes into designing and building a website neither matters to the user who will use the site nor the client directing it be built. Ideas about what works and what doesn’t will be right only when you understand the audience you’re after. I often get stuck designing for an audience I understand–web designers–and this is a problem.
We’re dirty narcissists, the lot of us! Too bad we shouldn’t be. I repent of these sins.
As a community, designers love to experiment and create ground breaking work; I don’t think I’m one of those breaking ground on that sort of scale, but from a personal perspective I’ve evolved immensely over the years. In the end, though, that evolution doesn’t necessarily matter. No one cares what technique you used, they just want to complete a task and move on. It’s better if they don’t notice that technique as it is. Why? Because the real reason a person is at any given website is to view whatever content it contains. Your work just tries to make it easier to browse.
Create experiences that aid in this process and you’ve gone a long way towards guaranteeing people won’t even notice what you’ve done–which seems tough to accept as an individual. We want and crave recognition for our efforts when we’ve tackled a particularly difficult problem, or perhaps I’m just projecting my own desires, but we’ve got understand that what we intuitively understand as novel solutions won’t necessarily be obvious for most people. Again, we’re an odd bunch, us web designers.
Moving forward, my goal is to create work that caters to something other than my perceptions on what makes for great design and to create something that is more appropriate to whatever given context I’m designing for. If you’re a designer, that’s an obvious truth–but sometimes it’s hard to remember.