PicoBusiness

Rotten Tomatoes gives Wall E a 96% “fresh” rating, which is a stellar achievement. I love looking at the negative reviews for a movie this well-rated, because the contrary opinions are so amusing.

When I came across this review, however, I am left befuddled. Specifically:

That poses a threat to the corporation that is generating so much profit from its captive audience on the space station.

You know the recent wisdom – stupid, incompetent people don’t realize that they’re stupid and incompetent, because they’re too stupid and incompetent to make the connections. So they sail through a world where things fail because of other people’s mistakes, not theirs, and if they can’t figure out how to do something, then it clearly just can’t be done.

Based on this one line of his review, I feel safe in declaring that Kyle Smith is both stupid and incompetent. He utterly failed to understand the meaning behind protocol A113, he fails to understand the difference between the “corporation” and the “autopilot” and, last but not least, he appears to have a child-like inability to understand how markets, corporations and profits work. 10 year olds can understand easily that there are no profits to be made on a group of people who don’t do anything other than eat, sleep, chat and play computer games. There’s no “evil corporation” here. The Axiom is the welfare state concept bubbled down to its core, and left to percolate for 30 generations. Instead of governments and taxpayers paying the bill, its robots, who dutifully care for the humans, with no interest or desire for profit – because there is none to be had.

On the hand, I am eager to find out if Kyle Smith was a fan of The Happening. If he was, I may be able to use him as an excellent anti-reviewer – stay away from everything he likes, and expect to enjoy everything he doesn’t.

From the BBC, an interview with the man who claims to have been in charge of the prison camp where John McCain was held during the Vietnam war. The money quote:

“But I can confirm to you that we never tortured him. We never tortured any prisoners.”

And then from the expository ‘graf on Digg:

.More McCain lies! His ethics or lack of should be a main focus of the elections

I’m not a fan of John McCain, and I don’t plan on voting for him. (Not that I’m going to vote for Obama either, and I’m rather lukewarm on Bob Barr). But this is an example of very bad thinking. Tran Trong Duyet is a communist, self-admitted leader of the Hoa Lo prison camp, that is well-cited for engaging in torture.

When Mr Duyet says “we didn’t torture”, it doesn’t make it true. The fact that some people (like the person who posted this on Digg) believe him, because believing him is convenient to their political objectives, diminishes the poster, and the causes he or she fights for.

Very amusing video. NSFW

Story.

Comment:

IN UR DRINKING WATER,
WETTING MAH BIG BLACK BALLZ

The latest meme in the econ-o-sphere is “would I have viable skills in 1000 AD/1500 AD/1700 AD”. Generally, the assessment is dour.

Without saying that they’re wrong, I will point out a couple of interesting things:
1. We all know how to read. That was a privilege for much of the past, and would be in our favor.
2. We all know fantastic things about the cosmos, physics, matter, electricity, chemicals and mathematics that were incredibly arcane to our forebearers. They all seem commonplace now, of course, which is why we discount them.
3. Even with a modest understanding of warfare, we have the opportunity to be quite effective in updating the tactics and strategy of our government-of-choice.
4. A modest amount of cryptological sophistication goes an incredibly long way. One-Time Pads, anyone?
5. Our understanding of health and human anatomy is tremendously advanced, even at a casual level. Germs, viruses, exercise, healthy eating, vaccines – you can explain all of this to people of the past, and improve their lives immeasurably.
6. You know which composers and authors and artists are successful, and you can arbitrage that knowledge for certain kinds of work.

Of course there’s a lot of “ifs” in this – if you meet the right people, if you have some early successes, you’ll go on to tremendous later success.

But the idea that someone who is educated and literate ending up doing manual labor seems wrong to me. Anyone who could read well automatically had a huge leg up for most of history.

Lots of discussion on Cap & Trade vs. a Carbon Tax. Latest is here

I prefer a carbon tax, for a lot of reasons: a) No one will be sad if it goes away. b) It is hard to create exemptions.

But, given what I know of politics, politicians and modern life, Cap and Trade will win. why?

a) Because it allows corrupt politicians to take advantage of it to hand out favors.
b) Because it creates a permanent new bureaucracy.
c) Because it lets the companies with “pull” get carbon credits cheaply and make massive piles of money selling them to companies without pull
d) Because it gives lobbyists something else to advocate for and against with their customers

Bleah

http://www.jacksonpollock.org/

click and move your mouse, and create award-winning modern art!