The day Pops talked politics

Fifty years ago this week, all eyes were on Little Rock, Ark., where nine black students were trying, for the first time, to desegregate a major Southern high school. With fewer than 150 blacks, the town of Grand Forks, N.D., hardly figured to be a key front in that battle — until, that is, Larry Lubenow talked to Louis Armstrong...

...“It’s getting almost so bad a colored man hasn’t got any country,” a furious Mr. Armstrong told him. President Eisenhower, he charged, was “two faced,” and had “no guts.” For Governor Faubus, he used a double-barreled hyphenated expletive, utterly unfit for print. The two settled on something safer: “uneducated plow boy.” The euphemism, Mr. Lubenow says, was far more his than Mr. Armstrong’s.

Mr. Armstrong bitterly recounted some of his experiences touring in the Jim Crow South. He then sang the opening bar of “The Star-Spangled Banner,” inserting obscenities into the lyrics and prompting Velma Middleton, the vocalist who toured with Mr. Armstrong and who had joined them in the room, to hush him up.

The Day Louis Armstrong Made Some Noise (New York Times, 23 September 2007)

Thanks, FASB!

Marc Andreesen: "I'd just like everyone to whom I owe money to know that you're never going to get it back. And I plan on booking the dollar value of your outrage as revenue in my current quarter."

social graphs = social networks

There's a lot of buzz now about business strategies revolving around "social graphs."

If you've ever tried to figure out what a "social graph" really is as a term of art (it has to do with a branch of mathematics called graph theory) and how it's actually different from what we've all been calling "social networks," Dave Winer helpfully explains this for you:

Graphs are useful for modeling stuff that goes on in computers. They are also part of a field of math called combinatorics that's related to statistics, and also related to a highly theoretical area of math called topology...

...[B]efore we talked about social graphs we called them social networks, and you know what -- they're exactly the same thing, and social network is a much less confusing term, so why don't we just stick with it? (Answer: we should, imho.) So if you don't want to sound like an idiot, call a social graph a social network and stand up for your right to understand technology, and make the techies actually do some useful stuff instead of making simple stuff sound complicated.

If you're a specialist in any field of endeavor, you can probably come up with many examples of how a "term of art" in your field has a subtly--or radically--different meaning as a word in common English usage.

If you're trying to communicate with people, here's a big hint: Use the word--or the meaning--that they're likely to understand.

How to avoid sounding like a monkey (Dave Winer, Scripting News, 21 September 2007)

Kindly revert for furtherance

At the end of a very polite letter to gauge my interest (none, as it happens) in leasing office space near Delhi (India, not New York), my correspondent advises me:

>> You may kindly revert for furtherance.

This is absolutely the way I am going to start closing all my business letters, as soon as somebody explains to me what the hell it means.

(In context, it seems to mean "please contact me if you want to talk about this.")

I don't think it's the kind of phrase that would be terribly useful in conversation, but if so, I think the tone of voice in which one said it would have a lot to do with whether one got kissed or punched immediately thereafter.

Mango - online language learning

Carrie and I are big fans of the commercial software package Rosetta Stone for foreign-language acquisition... but we're definitely checking out Mango, a brand new online training site.

Eleven courses are currently available, with more to come.

Try Mango!

President Lincoln, at last report, is still alive

Now that the TimesSelect paywall is down for good, kottke's been having a blast in the New York Times online archives.

See Off This Mountain

"Tell about the South. What's it like there? What do they do there?" - Quentin Compson, being interrogated by Shreve, his college roommate, in William Faulkner's Absalom, Absalom!

When a Southerner wants to explain something to you, he tells you a story. We are a culture of involuntary and automatic raconteurs.

Go visit Doc, who is on a roll with the personal narrative over at They Rode On:

• See Off This Mountain, Part 1
  
• See Off This Mountain, Part 2

Hayek, in cartoon form

The Road to Serfdom rendered in comic-book form.

(via)

...so 2nite we're going to party like it's 1929

moral hazard: "A situation in which someone insured against risks will purposely engage in risky behavior, knowing that any costs incurred will be compensated by the insurer. A financial system which offers "rescue packages" may encourage borrowers and lenders to undertake low-quality or high-risk investments, thus increasing the likelihood of a crisis."

Related: Markets Soar After Fed Cuts Key Rate By Half A Point (New York Times, 18 September 2007)

Speech codes on campus

The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) just introduced a novel way to publicize the restrictions on free speech and free thought that many schools impose on students.

You may already be familiar with the concept of speech codes, but you may not know about FIRE’s system for classifying the severity of those speech codes. Schools receive a “red light” rating if they have regulations that “substantially restrict” speech. Yellow light schools have regulations on the books that could be abused by administrators to restrict speech. And schools that do not restrict speech at all get “green light” ratings.

It’s a sad commentary on the state of affairs in academia that fewer than 10% of all schools surveyed by FIRE have green light ratings. This means that over 90% of those schools have some administrative mechanism for restricting speech.

Brain Terminal: FIRE’s Web Widgets Highlight Students’ Limited Rights

Related: Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE)

Bourdain's take on trendy menu items

This one is hard to recognize as parody until you get to this item:

Cayenne Pepper-Infused, Freeze-Dried Chocolate Nuggets
Bathed in Marshmallow Star Anise Foam

And even then, it could happen.

Radar Online: Anthony Bourdain's Overrated Menu (via Eater)

A failed experiment

The New York Times will stop charging for access to parts of its Web site, effective at midnight Tuesday night.

The move comes two years to the day after The Times began the subscription program, TimesSelect, which has charged $49.95 a year, or $7.95 a month, for online access to the work of its columnists and to the newspaper’s archives. TimesSelect has been free to print subscribers to The Times and to some students and educators.

In addition to opening the entire site to all readers, The Times will also make available its archives from 1987 to the present without charge, as well as those from 1851 to 1922, which are in the public domain. There will be charges for some material from the period 1923 to 1986, and some will be free.

Times to stop charging for parts of its website (New York Times, 18 September 2007)

Techdirt: Microsoft's tough night

Just about 24 hours after [EU regulators] continued to insist that Microsoft is a monopoly that needs to be restricted, three major tech companies demonstrated why that might not be the case. First up, Google rolled out their long awaited presentations capabilities to Google Docs. Google continues to insist that this is merely a "feature" added to the Google Docs offering, but obviously, this is a light version of PowerPoint...

[...]

While the Google announcement may be more important long-term, it's also worth noting IBM's decision to offer a free downloadable office suite...

IBM is going to offer a commerically supported flavor of OpenOffice called "Lotus Symphony."

TechDirt: Microsoft's Tough Night: Google And IBM Both Launch Free Office Products

Carnival of the Cats #182

Carnival of the Cats #182 is up over at The House of the (Mostly) Black Cats.

This could get expensive

Best Ask Metafilter thread in a long time:

"What single book is the best introduction to your field (or specialization within your field) to laypeople?"

Good God, y'all. I just ordered a dozen books and saved two dozen more for later.

P.S. My answer was:

Selling IT services...

In person: The New Solution Selling

In writing: Persuasive Business Proposals

This has all happened before

Ganked directly from Marc Andreesen's blog:

He words it rather more politely than I would:

Advice to portfolio managers around the globe: please stop referring to "7-standard deviation events" when describing performance.

Whether it's the decline in home prices in real terms, a sudden widening of credit spreads, the impact of too much leverage on previously uncorrelated hedge fund strategies, a sudden shift in liquidity, a selloff in riskier emerging market stocks and bonds despite no change in fundamentals, unexpected outflows from fund investors, problems with credit derivatives or declines in bank credit lines, this has all happened before.

The smartest managers had prepared for volatility.

The good ones will learn from what's happened and make adjustments.

Those that spend too much time explaining why it wasn't likely in the first place fall into the bottom category.

From Michael Cembalest, Chief Investment Officer of JP Morgan Private Bank (not online).

blog.pmarca.com: Quote of the week: Michael Cembalest of JP Morgan

The valet is pressing your clothes, sir

His techniques are a little unorthodox, perhaps.

See more bloggers' pets at The Modulator's Friday Ark; this Sunday, the Carnival of the Cats is hosted by The House of Mostly Black Cats.

What are our objectives? What are theirs?

We have created in Iraq the exact type of scenario Bin Laden was hoping (but failed) to lure us into in Afghanistan—an unwinnable war where we're isolated from the world, our troops are walking targets for guerilla terrorists, and our only options are bad (pull out and hope for minimal carnage) and worse (stay in, where our troops will continue to die, and where there's no prospect for stability in the near future).

A loosely-connected, (relatively) poorly funded, backward-thinking organization like Al-Qaeda could never inflict significant harm on the United States, at least not in a straightforward war. Their best hope is to scare us into rash, ill-considered actions like overextending our military, alienating our allies, and doing away with the open society and civil liberties that define who we are.

Six years have passed since Sept. 11. That's enough time and distance for us to take a couple of steps back, look at that horrible day with some perspective, and reevaluate if the course we've charted is the correct one. We should bear in mind that Al-Qaeda could never defeat us on its own. It can only frighten and trap us into defeating ourselves.

Six Years Later: Bin Laden Still Free, U.S. Mired in Iraq (Radley Balko, September 12, 2o07, FoxNews.com)

Wonder how long Radley's going to be able to keep that commentary gig at Fox. (I've been reading him in Reason and at The Agitator for quite some time now.)

Welcome to Energyville

How do we meet growing global energy demand? What new kinds of fuels and power sources should be developed? These are the sorts of questions facing us all.

To help encourage greater understanding and dialogue, Chevron and The Economist Group have created Energyville, an online, interactive game that puts you in charge of meeting the energy demands of your city. It's a chance to put your theories into practice. Choose from a portfolio of available energy sources to power your city today, and through 2030. Every decision you make will affect the environment, the economy, and even your city’s security. So, give each move some real thought.

In appreciation of your participation, we’re sending all participants* a gift voucher for a six-month subscription to Economist.com. This will give you access to The Economist’s full content, plus our archive of over 30,000 articles. You can keep the voucher for yourself, or give it as a gift. Just follow the link after you finish the game and claim yours today.

Energyville

OpenID: The solution to online identity theft?

In March, Dubner and Levitt tackled the realities of identity theft. Now, with phishing scams getting ever cleverer, state government databases leaving sensitive private information accessible to the world, and identity thieves expanding their schemes into Web giants like Facebook, it’s worth asking: how will the problem of identity theft be solved?

Technology innovators have been plugging away, of course, to develop programs that safeguard sensitive information from prowling hackers. One product touted as a possible solution is OpenID, an online protocol that manages a user’s web identity by offering single sign-on for any participating Web site. Surfers never have to enter a username or password to access sites that demand registration, and can navigate between different sites without logging in or out — the equivalent of an online driver’s license. While the program has yet to hit the mainstream, reports estimate that it and similar products are “two to five years away from mainstream adoption.”

Freakonomics blog: Is OpenID the Solution to Online Identity Theft?

• More on OpenID here.
  
  
• Get your very own OpenID here (among many other places.)