美金

I just learned that the Chinese phrase for US Dollars (above, pinyin Měi Jīn) literally translates to "beautiful gold."

What are the chances that explains Chinese over-investment in the currency?

Dollhouse

Three problems:

1) Dollhouse's premise is ridiculous, and further, the creators knew it was ridiculous, as the skeptical FBI agents discuss how ridiculous it is in the first episode.

2) The scifi tropes are heavily recycled. Confused protagonist being mindfucked by a super secret organization? We're mining material from The Pretender here, maybe My Own Worst Enemy. That's a really bad sign.

3) The line, "Why don't you ask Echo? Oh, that's right, she can't remember!"

Is there any reason not to beg FOX to kill this?

UPDATE: I linked the title of the post to a solid L A Times review, which adds some other gripes, like the fact Dushku is not up to playing multiple personalities, if any.

Google and Microsoft and Domain Names

This was only a matter of time, and Google's apparently been offering domains for a while now. The major flaw plaguing the domain name business was lack of reputability of a large, well-known company. GoDaddy was clawing it's way up that chain, but can't compete with the visibility of MS or Google. Up til now, Google hasn't really pushed GoDaddy or the smaller players out of the spotlight here, but MS might change that.

If Google has one limitation, it's in pushing services on those who aren't looking for them. Meanwhile, MS's core competency may be putting products in the hands of unwitting consumers. If MS puts any effort in this area at all, it might encourage a little more aggressive marketing of domain names all around.

On the other hand, the major block to profitability for large companies, and the major reason small domain name registrars stay in the game is because of the lax rules on cybersquatting. If you are sitting on the right politician's surname in the right election cycle, you could walk away with thousands of dollars for almost no investment. If we had some way to free up unused domains, we might see a far greater utilization of the domain space.

A Peak Oil Observation

Peak Oil is the theory that the world is quickly running out of oil, such that oil prices are likely to begin rising, never to lower again. You might suspect this is a hot topic when oil prices are very high, or at least when gas prices are very high, and that I'm bucking some trend.

But grabbing data on the number of searches on peak oil (Google Trends), the historical price of gasoline (DoE), and the historical price of oil (DoE), I noticed a few things:

* Searches for "peak oil" are not correlated with oil price.
* Searches for "peak oil" are not correlated with gas price.
* Searches for "peak oil" are somewhat correlated with recent rises in oil prices. (r = .144, p = .02).
* Searches for "peak oil" are very strongly correlated with recent rises in gas prices. (r = .278, p < .001).

This suggests peak oil searches may actually be a rough estimate of US anxiety about gas prices, but further:
1) The American public lacks the capacity to care about actual gas prices, because we have a very short term memory. We might easily handle $5-10/gal as long as we got there a few cents at a time. Perhaps a gas tax could be phased in slowly enough no one would notice. Maybe OPEC could start ratcheting up gas prices by very gradual adjustments in oil supply (rather than the more radical adjustments they seem to prefer).
2) Americans think sudden rises in gas prices are a sign we are running out of oil, even though gas prices have fluctuated throughout modern history, and so likely signify no such thing.
3) As gas prices now show signs of rising (even while oil prices are falling), this post on peak oil might be quite timely. Come ye frightened hordes!

The Myth of Bipartisanship

The blogos is afire with discussions of bipartisanship, so I'd like to take a moment to point out the obvious:

Bipartisan politics are a myth. They do not exist. The term holds zero meaning.

When two parties disagree, how do you tell which one was disagreeing for partisan reasons? (Usually it's the party you disagree with.) And when two parties agree, isn't everyone being equally bipartisan?

Don't misread me, political compromise is virtuous. Some of our history's greatest politicians kept coming back to the Congress with new solutions that attempted to bridge the party gap and address everyone's concerns. Political compromise is not embodied by a simple insistence that the other party should break ranks more often. Political compromise is best captured in plans that split the dilemma between different agendas. Political compromise is about understanding those who disagree with you, not about casting them as villains for it.

On TARP, the current political dilemma is rooted deeply in economic theory. Some, like Paul Krugman, believe that urgency is imperative, and that the deadweight loss of tax-financed government spending and the inefficiency of government is zero or negative. Others, like Kevin Murphy*, believe that urgent action heightens the inefficiency of any program to a degree where any government action will be more harmful than no government action whatsoever. The dilemma is intractable, urgency is either helpful and necessary or damaging and harmful. Anyone waving the flag of bipartisanship right now either does not understand the core of the disagreement, or simply feels slander would be faster than an open discussion of ideas.

If there is such a thing as bipartisanship, these politicians are a long way from it.

*I cannot recommend Murphy's analysis highly enough, it includes more variables beyond those mentioned here, and helps shed light on the economic assumptions of everyone involved in this discussion, regardless of which side they are on.

Wikifights: Tranquilliser gun

Tranquilliser darts are not generally included in military or police less-than-lethal arsenals because no drug is yet known that would be quickly and reliably effective on humans without the risks of side effects or an overdose. Several police forces, including the Mexican police force, have used darts on humans.

-Tranquilliser gun, from Feb. 5, 2009

Why aren't all books free? (Or why are they?)

The Baen Free Library is another example of a publisher trying to release some books in a free format, then seeing sales on those works increase. Cory Doctorow performed the same experiment years ago, and Tor publishing has entertained a similar experiment.

Many of these experiments have had lead to success stories and increased sales.

So why aren't all books free online yet?

And if there are good reasons not to allow people to read books for free, then why do publishers allow libraries to buy their works?