Monthly Archives: July 2010

WTF journalism

Internet blah blah blah killing newspapers blah blah blah standards of journalism blah blah decline of democracy. Seriously, I read this NYT article on the defeat of the Small-business bill by Senate Republicans via filibuster twice, and I’m still trying to figure it out. Republicans filibustered it because they weren’t allowed to offer as many […]

taking up room on the dance floor

Ok, this is some pretty good looking stuff. Loving the dude with the white shirt. (via J Kottke.

love it

Things I love today, or at least appreciate today. I’m feeling a little out of place and time, a common feature of my wife’s being out of town. Suddenly I’m working at 1am, up until 3am. So I’m looking for a little groundedness and goodness: A good story, well told. You should read Patrick Rothfuss’ […]

'Prudent' pricing, the Pain Caucus, and the Protestant Ethic

In his book Talking Prices, Olav Velthuis points out that the collapse of the art market in the early 1990s resulted in a widespread shift away from the ‘superstar’ pricing of the go-go 80s, and towards a ‘prudent’ pricing in the 1990s. Art dealers saw the watershed collapse of fantastic(al) prices as a moment not […]

Mucking about with themes

For most people this means nothing. And for the small number of people who actually come to the site, it will probably look funny for a while. That magazine theme was becoming insufferable.

Financial planning

Just in case you haven’t had the experience, there is nothing quite like a conversation with a financial planner to remind you just how inadequate your financial habits are. If Americans retain a bit of ‘I dunno, I kinda hope so, everything’ll probably work out ok’ about retirement, who can blame us? I mean we […]

Performativ…stupidity, ATP Oil & Gas edition

From Felix Salmon (whose blog is so good it makes me not want to write anything, just point a big finger at him) comes a story that pops up from time to time. Usually it is some kind of technical snafu, when a trader sits on the keyboard or accidentally keys in a sell rather […]

August news

So, when August comes around, I try to spend a month on a news diet. No politics, no news, nothing. A couple years ago, I came back to find that Russia invaded Georgia. Usually, I just miss the Olympics. This year, I suspect I’ll just miss out on a ton of freaked out Democrats, outraged […]

Capitalist capture, objectivity, and blogs

I would suggest that ‘objective journalism’ has always been something of an overstatement, an aspiration rather than a set of workable practices. Like ‘objective science’, there are – at minimum – choices of what to study and how to study them. Objective journalism has become something of a farce in the 21st century death-by-a-thousand-cuts age […]

HSX

Since they’ve fired the staff (after having box office futures nixed by legislation), I just want to note that I am currently ranked 21,743rd in the Box Office rankings, putting me in the 84% percentile. If I were a hedge fund manager, I’d be telling you this from my big yacht in Barbados. I thought […]