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April 29, 2005
China floats the yuan
China Floats the Yuan, if only for 20 minutes.
The Yuan doesn't go from 8.270 per dollar to 8.276 "by accident." This is a big event. I think it was a test of the government's ability to manage small currency shifts.
Posted by sam at 06:34 PM
April 27, 2005
Bush signs the "Family Entertainment and Copyright Act"
From Chris, "This is crap and should be placed on your blog": Bush signs DVD filtering measure:
President Bush on Wednesday signed legislation aimed at helping parents keep their children from seeing sex scenes, violence and foul language in movie DVDs.
The bill gives legal protections to the fledgling filtering technology that helps parents automatically skip or mute sections of commercial movie DVDs. Bush signed it privately and without comment, White House press secretary Scott McClellan said.
Posted by sam at 09:59 PM
April 25, 2005
The disappearing wall b/w church and state
From the NYT, The Disappearing Wall:
Apart from confirming an unwholesome disrespect for traditional American values like checks and balances, the assault on judges is part of a wide-ranging and successful Republican campaign to breach the wall between church and state to advance a particular brand of religion. No theoretical exercise, the program is having a corrosive effect on policymaking and the lives of Americans.
...
Offices in the White House and federal departments pump public money to religious groups, but provide scant oversight or accountability to make sure that the money is spent on real services, not preaching. Indeed, Mr. Bush's goal is to finance programs that are explicitly religious.
Posted by sam at 03:42 PM
April 24, 2005
UC Berkeley identity theft
UC Berkeley I.D. Alert:
A laptop computer was stolen from UC Berkeley on March 11, 2005. The stolen computer contained information on
- individuals who applied to graduate programs at UC Berkeley between fall 2001 and spring 2004 (except law school students in the JD, LLM, and JSD programs);
- graduate students who were registered at UC Berkeley between fall 1989 and fall 2003 (including law school students in the JD, LLM, and JSD programs);
- recipients of doctoral degrees from 1976 through 1999 (excluding law school students in the JD program); and
- other small groups of individuals.
That first group happens to include me, and yes, my personal info including name, ssn and salary was on the stolen laptop. Thanks UCB!
Posted by sam at 08:10 PM
Will The Simpsons Ever Age? (no)
The NYT asks, "Will 'The Simpsons' Ever Age?
IF a person were to, for the sake of art or science, sit down and watch every episode of "The Simpsons" ever made, it would take him more than a week of no-sleep, back-to-back viewing in 350 half-hour increments. In that marathon the viewer would learn that life on a street called Evergreen Terrace never really changes, that Bart, Lisa and Maggie, along with their creator, Matt Groening, will not grow up, and that the Simpsons, once viewed as the shock troops of cultural mortification, are a shining exemplar of family stability in the come and go world of television.
Posted by sam at 10:52 AM
April 23, 2005
CS majors declining
Interest in CS as a Major Drops Among Incoming Freshmen, from Computing Research News [via /.]:
The percentage of incoming undergraduates indicating that they would major in CS declined by over 60 percent between the Fall of 2000 and 2004, and is now 70 percent lower than its peak in the early 1980s (Figure 1).Where do they come up with this stuff? China and India produce several millions more engineering graduates than the US every year, almost all willing to work for far less than any US graduate. There's no job security in the industry any more and from where I'm standing it's difficult to see any shortage of (global) supply of IT workers. Why would a rational college student head into an industry defined by globalization and price pressure?
...
With a fall in degree production looming, it is difficult to see how CS can match expected future demand for IT workers without raising women's participation at the undergraduate level.
Posted by sam at 04:23 PM
April 20, 2005
Paul Rusesabagina
Paul Rusesabagina
Originally uploaded by smooth.
We saw Paul Rusesabagina speak at Cornell tonight. He's the real-life hotel manager from the movie Hotel Rwanda. His English is not perfect by any means but he's a great speaker and clearly a very remarkable man.
Posted by sam at 09:24 PM
Which personality disorders?
"...Belinda Board and Katarina Fritzon of Surrey University decided to test whether there was any overlap between the personalities of business managers, psychiatric patients and hospitalised criminals (psychopathic and psychiatrically ill). Their results, published last month, make startling reading.
Board and Fritzon found that three of 11 personality disorders (PDs) were actually commoner in managers than in disturbed criminals."
Like you expected otherwise.
Posted by sam at 01:12 PM
Gas close to $3 per gallon
So gas prices in socal are hitting $3 per. Penni, you must be feeling pretty good right now.
At what point does public transportation finally make sense?
Posted by sam at 12:47 PM
Wesley Clark at Cornell Commencement
Just heard on the radio that Wesley Clark will be speaking at the Cornell Commencement this year.
Posted by sam at 05:46 AM
April 17, 2005
Snoop coming to Cornell for Slope Day
Slope Day is an annual spring concert at Cornell, much like Sun God at UCSD. The undergrads get drunk and crazy and graduate students pretend to be undergraduates. Everybody has a good time.
This year Snoop is coming! So for anybody looking to visit (i.e., Chris), May 6th would be a great time. Guest tickets go on sale on April 20 at 8 am.
Posted by sam at 10:27 AM
Destination Johnson 2005
This weekend was Destination Johnson, the annual weekend where we bring in admitted students and do our best to show them a good time. We hosted somebody last year and must have scared him away, because he decided not to come to Johnson.
It may have been a mistake to host somebody again this year, because it's rather difficult now not to be a cynical second-year. So I did my best to let our guy party with first-years both nights while I came home at the reasonable hour of 1 am. It was like having a teen-ager living with us.
I hope we did a better job this year. He seemed more enthusiastic about the school this morning but was still not ready to sign on the dotted line.
Posted by sam at 10:22 AM
April 13, 2005
Failing value of the dollar
From my favorite financial column, the New Yorker Financial Page: In Yuan We Trust [from scripting news]
Of course, the Chinese and the Japanese could decide that the costs of the falling dollar are too great, and suddenly stop (or, at least, cut back sharply) their lending to the United States. This would lead to a so-called “hard landing” for the U.S. economy: high inflation, punitive interest rates, collapsing stock prices and housing prices.Good overview of the dollar's financial situation.
It would also lead to bedlam for China and Japan. Their best customers would effectively be unable to afford their wares. To paraphrase John Paul Getty: If you owe the bank a hundred dollars, you’ve got a problem. If you owe the bank three trillion dollars, the bank’s got a problem.
Posted by sam at 02:46 PM
April 11, 2005
B-school applications down
Business Schools are Struggling: Will Some Go Broke?
Applications to BusinessWeek's Top 30 MBA programs have dropped almost 30% overall since 1998, with some schools seeing declines of 50% or more. And with the job market improving, more prospective applicants may find themselves with opportunities that will, if history is any indicator, pull them away from B-school.That's a great leading indicator of an improving job market. We have a record number of admits at Destination Johnson this weekend, I wonder what our applications look like.
Posted by sam at 03:01 PM
April 10, 2005
And it's a good thing too
Surprise: Attractive People Earn More
Posted by sam at 08:01 PM
April 08, 2005
The return of Wal-Mart news
How to Not Analyse Econ, pt 19294:
Because of these distorted incentives, workers' largest short-term payoff comes from working in sweatshops, rather than investing in education, technical skills, or other things which ultimately boost capital stock, productivity and total welfare across China and the US. So everyone is worse off than they would be without Wal-Mart.
Posted by sam at 12:37 PM
The courts have "run amok"
Tom DeLay says the judiciary has "run amok" and demands that Congress "assert authority over the courts." Forgive me for my innocence as fifth grade was a long time ago, but don't we have the whole three branches of government thing to protect the courts from Congress and vice versa?
Posted by sam at 12:08 PM
Inflated frog (?)
inflated_animal
Originally uploaded by smooth.
Ah, spring in Ithaca.
Posted by sam at 12:06 PM
GWB's 45% approval rating
I heard on NPR this morning that Bush has the lowest approval rating of any president since WWII.
On closer look, it seems to be the lowest ever for a 2nd-term president. Would be interesting to see a geographic/demographic breakdown of the data.
Posted by sam at 08:44 AM
April 07, 2005
The smart money in real estate
It seems that the smart money (just private, local real-estate investors) "were the biggest net sellers of property last year, selling off about $4.5 billion more than they purchased."
Good news for those of us with dreams of actually owning a house in California some day.
Posted by sam at 01:21 PM
April 03, 2005
A Lot Like Love (2005)
Ashton Kutcher and Amanda Peet in the same movie? That sounds like a real classic.
Posted by sam at 08:26 PM
Parade for Santa Cruz basketball
Parade in works for state champion Cardinals:
Its season ended nearly two weeks ago, but the Santa Cruz High boys basketball team is still feeling the love from the community.
Plans are well under way for a parade to honor the team, with city permits secured Thursday for the event, which will take place Saturday, April 9, starting at 10:30 a.m. The route will travel down Pacific Avenue from Cathcart and end with a reception "meet-and-greet" at Abbott Square in front of the Museum of Art and History on the corner of Cooper and Front streets.
Posted by sam at 03:47 PM
No strings attached
Ever wonder about the origins of that phrase?
Posted by sam at 12:01 PM
April 01, 2005
Vanity Fair...
Is the name of a magazine, a movie and an apparel company. But where did the phrase come from? And what does it mean? Am I the only ignorant one?
Posted by sam at 05:18 PM