HomePage

Add Comment 07 March 2008 - An Idea: The Rankings by Admin?

I was just talking with my co-worker Zoe about the situation with Venezuela and Ecuador at Colombia's throat, and I had an idea for an interesting only resource: The Rankings. It was inspired by our curiosity how Venezuela is actually doing since Chavez took power, relative to the situation in Colombia. The idea would be to construct a multiplicative index of various quality of life indicators compiled by existing organizations such as Oxfam, Human Rights Watch, UNESCO, and so on, which would provide a way of evaluating whether general conditions were improving or worsening in a particular country. If nothing else, I think something like this could make it a bit easier to judge whether we're being fed a line of bull about the evils of a foreign government, or whether they really are screwing with their citizens.

Add Comment 01 March 2008 - And Now A Word From Our Sponsor by David

In the interests of giving Google something to chew on, I thought I'd mention that I have a new site up and running: Pingree's Potato Patch, which is focused on the economics of Detroit. So far there isn't a huge amount of content, but I'm working on it. If it sounds interesting, drop by and take a look.

Add Comment 07 February 2008 - Back and Better Than Ever by David

The Habitrail was non-functional for the last several weeks due to a weird interaction between PmWiki and the FastCGI system our webhost is using to cope with the load imposed by the Fractal Farm. Anyway, we're back.

Add Comment 28 September 2007 - More Additions to the Food Graveyard by David

I've posted before about the various snack foods that I've loved which are no longer available. I've got a few more:

• Zotz! While you can still get strips of the little sour apple candies, the Bomb Pops, the other flavors of the strip candy, and the Zotz Bombs are all out of production.
• Rainforest Crunch, a terrific nut toffee with brazil nuts and cashews. Unfortunately, it was taken down by bad PR surrounding inaccurate claims by Ben & Jerry, the makers, about it helping the rainforest.
• The Three Cheese Crispani, a regular offering of the Panera Bread Company until about a month ago. This was the main thing I used to order when Mary and I went there.
• Fresh raisin bread at Seva restaurant in Ann Arbor, which disappeared in the early 90s, along with their frappes, if I remember correctly.

Add Comment 15 September 2007 - Sometimes I scare myself... by David

Mary and I were just getting set to watch an episode of Heroes, and the DVD player started sowing a "Loading" message, and within 5 seconds I found I was singing:

Mary giggled briefly but uncontrollably, and suggested that we'd found the new theme song to Unexploded Cow..

Add Comment 29 August 2007 - This One's For Paul by David

I was just reading a Q&A with Nathan Fillion (of Firefly fame), and it got me to thinking about the fact I've had a variety of RPG character's I'm rather proud of for some reason, so rather than bug people about them in person, I thought I'd write them up here for posterity (which also doesn't want to hear about my character, I'm sure).more...

Add Comment 29 August 2007 - CNN States the Obvious Concisely by David

CNN, by way of Yahoo, recently posted a set of 20 rules for investing which pretty much encapsulates everything that any typical person can do to maximize their success.

Add Comment 24 August 2007 - Bagels and the Freakonomics of White Collar Crime by David

This story is a few years old, but good enough I didn't want to lose track of it. The folks at the New York Times' Freakonomics Blog linked to a 2004 column looking at data collected by an economist-turned-bagel distributor that provides some remarkable insight into white collar crime. It's boss!

Add Comment 18 June 2007 - What Ever Happened to the Soviet Union? by David

Yegor Gaidar, former Acting Prime Minister of Russia, has published an extremely interesting paper which traces the collapse of the Soviet Union directly to the fall in oil prices in 1985 after Saudi Arabia abandoned the price-maintenance agreements with OPEC.

Add Comment 04 June 2007 - The Hollow Earth, West Florida, and Other Geographical Attractions by David

Strange Maps is a very cool website featuring a variety of maps depicting either unusual historical/political situations, or interesting depictions of information beyond that normally picked up by maps. Definitely worth a few hours of wandering about.