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A teacher recently gave her students the assignment of balancing the federal budget using this simulation. Some of the results are instructive. From Marginal Revolution…
Monthly Archives: April 2004
Antidepressant Use Questioned
“Pediatricians and family physicians should not prescribe antidepressants for depressed children and adolescents because the drugs barely work and their side effects are often significant, Australian researchers have concluded”, Gardiner Harris writes.
Rice Testimony Quicktime VR Scene
Chris Ramirez shot a very nice Quicktime VR scene of Condoleeza Rice’s testimony yesterday in Washington, DC. (VR scenes with lots of people are quite challenging). Very Nice
Learning to Expect the Unexpected
Former Wall Street bond trader and author of the quite useful book Fooled by Randomness pens an op-ed piece in today’s New York Times where he describes black swans (an outlier, an event that lies beyond the realm of normal expectations) with respect to 9/11 and the current investigation:
Most people expect all swans to be white because that’s what their experience tells them; a black swan is by definition a surprise. Nevertheless, people tend to concoct explanations for them after the fact, which makes them appear more predictable, and less random, than they are. Our minds are designed to retain, for efficient storage, past information that fits into a compressed narrative. This distortion, called the hindsight bias, prevents us from adequately learning from the past.
Black swans can have extreme effects: just a few explain almost everything, from the success of some ideas and religions to events in our personal lives. Moreover, their influence seems to have grown in the 20th century, while ordinary events ? the ones we study and discuss and learn about in history or from the news ? are becoming increasingly inconsequential.
Consider: How would an understanding of the world on June 27, 1914, have helped anyone guess what was to happen next? The rise of Hitler, the demise of the Soviet bloc, the spread of Islamic fundamentalism, the Internet bubble: not only were these events unpredictable, but anyone who correctly forecast any of them would have been deemed a lunatic (indeed, some were). This accusation of lunacy would have also applied to a correct prediction of the events of 9/11 ? a black swan of the vicious variety.
Fall Wisconsin Senate Race Poll
Incumbent Senator Russ Feingold is supported by 51% of Wisconsin residents in an early poll, according to Graeme Zielinski
By 51% to 29%, residents polled in March said they would like to see Feingold re-elected for his third term, with the remainder not answering the question or saying they didn’t know.
In a separate question, 47% said they had a favorable impression of Feingold, while 19% said their view was unfavorable, figures that have stayed relatively constant since fall. About a third said they didn’t know enough to have formed an impression.
Meanwhile, Feingold’s Republican rivals remained largely unknown, with neither state Sen. Bob Welch (R-Redgranite), construction executive Tim Michels or car dealer Russ Darrow registering with more than one in five residents.
Voters, Demographics & Data Mining
Ever wonder how the politicians determine who to call, mail or why they might knock on your door?
These articles on data mining with voter information, local demographics & door to door politics tell the story:
- Data Churners Try to Pinpoint Voters’ Politics
- Grass roots, door to door politics is back. I believe this is a cause/effect of declining tv & newspapers users.
- Landslide counties: Tim Noah on geographic political segregation
Wal-Mart Supercenter Turned Down – in Southern California
Sara Lin & Monte Morin write about a familiar topic – local opposition to Wal-Mart Supercenters:
A bid by the world’s largest corporation to bypass uncooperative elected officials and take its aggressive expansion plans to voters failed Tuesday, as Inglewood residents overwhelmingly rejected Wal-Mart’s proposal to build a colossal retail and grocery center without an environmental review or public hearings.
With all votes counted Tuesday evening, 4,575 Inglewood residents had voted in favor of Wal-Mart’s plan, while 7,049 had voted against it
The IBM System/360 Revolution
Speaking of Entrepreneurs, IBM launched System/360 on April 7, 1964. Many consider it the biggest business gamble of all time. At the height of IBM’s success, Thomas J. Watson, Jr. bet the company’s future on a new compatible family of computer systems that would help revolutionize modern organizations. Get a behind-the-scenes view of the tough decisions made by some of the people who made them, and learn how the System/360 helped transform the government, science and commercial landscape.
Where are the Entrepreneurs?
John Byrnes has written one of the better articles [164K pdf] I’ve read on the topic of Wisconsin’s generally poor entrepreneurial track record. He correctly points out that:
- Most attendees at recent VC & Economic Conferences were from government agencies, community development organizations, schools and universities (why? most real entrepreneurs don’t have time to sit around and talk, they’d rather make things happen)
- Byrnes further muses that perhaps our culture is to blame: “We may be dealing with the long-term effects of an overprotective social climate that discourages risk taking.”
- Too much overhead: Byrnes cites a recent study by the California-based Milken Institute which shows that Wisconsin has more economic development offices and business incubators per capita that almost every other state, including California! Byrnes calcuates that the ratio of business support people to entrepreneurs is 100 to 1; if you add educators, the ratio is 1000 to 1!
Byrnes is right on. We don’t need more state sponsored programs (that generally only benefit the largest firms). We in fact, need less paperwork (I can’t imagine how a small business keeps up with it all….), more risk taking and a more entrepreneurial financial environment (California has this in droves).
Byrnes article appeared in the April, 2004 issue of Corporate Report Wisconsin.
New Madison Air Service: Liberal Air!
David Brooks pens a too funny look at the proposed Liberal Air and it’s counterpart Right Wing Express. The faculty seating arrangements are too funny….
On a more serious note, I recently received an email from County Executive Kathleen Falk regarding non stop air service to and from our local airport. She also attached a note from Brad Livingston, our airport director regarding their current initiatives (non-stop service to and from Atlanta along with potential incentives to increase service).