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Compact E-Cash

2009 Aug 14, 6:20"This paper presents efficient off-line anonymous e-cash schemes where a user can withdraw a wallet containing coins each of which she can spend unlinkably."PermalinkCommentsmoney future reference research economics cryptography technical system:filetype:pdf system:media:document

Charlie Rose - A conversation with Chris Anderson of Wired Magazine

2009 Jul 29, 10:58Chris Anderson of Wired Magazine promotes and discusses the concepts in his book "Free" on the Charlie Rose show.PermalinkCommentscharlie-rose chris-anderson wired free internet web economics video interview via:bengoldacre

The Simpsons - Soviet Union - Treason season starts early - on BoreMe

2009 Jun 15, 10:06Took me a while to find this clip. Fox has been hard at work on YouTube getting videos redacted. Zombie Lenin says "Must, Crush, Capitalism!"PermalinkCommentshumor simpsons soviet-union tv video history russia lenin economics capitalism

Ceci n'est pas un Bob: The Zone of Essential Risk

2009 Jun 10, 12:17"Bruce pointed out in his return email that while the fraud pattern was a good match for escrow, the transaction size wasn't: since the item exchanged in the eBay transaction he highlighted was sold for only $500, the price of an escrow agent would have been hard to justify. He's right."PermalinkCommentsblog security economics article bruce-schneier Bob-Blakley ebay

Platonic Ideals in Anathem and The Atrocity Archives

2009 Apr 7, 11:58
The Atrocity ArchivesThe Jennifer MorgueAnathem

This past week I finished Anathem and despite the intimidating physical size of the book (difficult to take and read on the bus) I became very engrossed and was able to finish it in several orders of magnitude less time than what I spent on the Baroque Cycle. Whereas reading the Baroque Cycle you can imagine Neal Stephenson sifting through giant economic tomes (or at least that's where my mind went whenever the characters began to explain macro-economics to one another), in Anathem you can see Neal Stephenson staying up late pouring over philosophy of mathematics. When not exploring philosophy, Anathem has an appropriate amount of humor, love interests, nuclear bombs, etc. as you might hope from reading Snow Crash or Diamond Age. I thoroughly enjoyed Anathem.

On the topic of made up words: I get made up words for made up things, but there's already a name for cell-phone in English: its "cell-phone". The narrator notes that the book has been translated into English so I guess I'll blame the fictional translator. Anyway, I wasn't bothered by the made up words nearly as much as some folk. Its a good thing I'm long out of college because I can easily imagine confusing the names of actual concepts and people with those from the book, like Hemn space for Hamming distance. Towards the beginning, the description of slines and the post-post-apocalyptic setting reminded me briefly of Idiocracy.

Recently, I've been reading everything of Charles Stross that I can, including about a month ago, The Jennifer Morgue from the surprisingly awesome amalgamation genre of spy thriller and Lovecraft horror. Its the second in a series set in a universe in which magic exists as a form of mathematics and follows Bob Howard programmer/hacker, cube dweller, and begrudging spy who works for a government agency tasked to suppress this knowledge and protect the world from its use. For a taste, try a short story from the series that's freely available on Tor's website, Down on the Farm.

Coincidentally, both Anathem and the Bob Howard series take an interest in the world of Platonic ideals. In the case of Anathem (without spoiling anything) the universe of Platonic ideals, under a different name of course, is debated by the characters to be either just a concept or an actual separate universe and later becomes the underpinning of major events in the book. In the Bob Howard series, magic is applied mathematics that through particular proofs or computations awakens/disturbs/provokes unnamed horrors in the universe of Platonic ideals to produce some desired effect in Bob's universe.

PermalinkCommentsatrocity archives neal stephenson jennifer morgue plato bob howard anathem

New Dollar Sign Proposed by Congress to Reflect Economic Conditions | Typophile

2009 Apr 1, 9:32'To help stem the downward spiral of the United States economy Congress has proposed a new dollar symbol. "Updating fonts on the world's computers and devices would be a huge economic stimulus" said one representative after a late night session of the newly formed House Subcommittee - Font Economic Stimulus Technology Relief (FESTR). "The dollar is a shadow of its former self and the new design reflects this."'PermalinkCommentsart design humor font dollar-sign typography government economics

Game Theory in The Dark Knight: the opening scene (spoilers) - Mind Your Decisions by Presh Talwalkar

2009 Feb 10, 11:22Game theory analysis of the opening scene of Dark Knight.PermalinkCommentsgame-theory analysis economics movie batman

YouTube - Hans Rosling: No more boring data: TEDTalks

2008 Dec 22, 11:05Hans Rosling gives a great presenttation on world health and economy and statistics visualization.PermalinkCommentsvideo ted statistics economics visualization youtube via:swannman

New Domain Names Put Name Brands in a Bind - WSJ.com

2008 Nov 5, 9:43Proposed new arbitrary TLDs are super expensive. As it turns out large companies have to buy their name on every new TLD to avoid potential fraud.PermalinkCommentsdns tld domain economics security iana ietf

YouTube - KEATING ECONOMICS: John McCain & The Making of a Financial Crisis

2008 Oct 7, 4:52"KEATING ECONOMICS: John McCain & The Making of a Financial Crisis", Obama campaign's faux-documentary on McCain's involvement in the 80's Keating financial crisis.PermalinkCommentseconomics politics obama mccain video youtube history documentary

Bailout Satire

2008 Sep 23, 1:19The economic bailout program written as 419 spam. "I am Ministry of the Treasury of the Republic of America. My country has had crisis that has caused the need for large transfer of funds of 800 billion dollars US. If you would assist me in this transfer, it would be most profitable to you."PermalinkCommentshumor politics economics satire spam via:boingboing

This American Life

2008 Aug 18, 11:29"A special program about the housing crisis produced in a special collaboration with NPR News. We explain it all to you. What does the housing crisis have to do with the turmoil on Wall Street? Why did banks make half-million dollar loans to people without jobs or income? And why is everyone talking so much about the 1930s? It all comes back to the Giant Pool of Money."PermalinkCommentspodcast audio economics npr radio mortgage

YouTube - Principles of economics, translated

2008 May 16, 5:07'"Mankiw's 10 principles of economics, translated for the uninitiated", by Yoram Bauman'PermalinkCommentsvia:swannman economics humor video youtube

Finally finished Baroque Cycle Novels

2008 May 2, 10:20
[The cover of Cryptonomicon][The cover of Quicksilver][The cover of The Confusion][The cover of The System of the World]

I've finally finished the Baroque Cycle, a historical fiction series set in the 17th and 18th centuries by Neal Stephenson whose work I always enjoy. There were often delays where I'd forget about the books until I had to take plane somewhere, or get discouraged reading about the character's thoughts on economics, or have difficulty finding the next volume, or become more engrossed in other books, projects or video games, and leave the Baroque Cycle books untouched for many months at a time. Consequently, my reading of this series has, I'm ashamed to say, spanned years. After finishing some books which I enjoy I end up hungry for just a bit more to read. For this series I don't need a bit more to read, I'm done with that, but I do want a badge or maybe a medal. Or barring that, college credit in European History and Macro Economics. I can recommend this book to anyone who has enjoyed Neal Stephenson's other work and has a few years of free time to kill.

PermalinkCommentshistory neal stephenson baroque cycle book nontechnical

Matt Mason on The Pirate's Dilemma - Google Video

2008 Apr 9, 12:51"Matt Mason's keynote on The Pirate's Dilemma, his book on how to compete with piracy... Mason discusses why piracy can be an opportunity as well as a threat, how pirates innovate outside of the marketplace and how legitimate businesses can respond."PermalinkCommentsvideo via:boingboing matt-mason piracy economics the-pirates-dilemma

The Freenet Project - /fairshare

2008 Apr 8, 2:32Distributed patronage: "FairShare essentially democratizes this process. Anybody can "invest" in an artist, and if that artist goes on to be a success, then the person is rewarded in proportion to their investment and how early they made it."PermalinkCommentsdistributed patronage paper fairshare economics riaa stolen-thoughts

China, China's Boomtowns - National Geographic Magazine

2008 Apr 3, 2:19"How one supercharged province cranks out lightbulbs, buttons, and bra rings, as well as instant cities for the factory workers. "PermalinkCommentsvia:boingboing china economics environment politics video

frontline: secret history of the credit card: watch online | PBS

2008 Mar 3, 4:18PBS documentary on the history of the credit card. Looks interesting.PermalinkCommentsvia:mattalyst documentary credit-card credit card economics education history tv video

Better than Free - Kevin Kelly - The Technium

2008 Feb 3, 11:04On the Internet perfect copies may be made forever so what's left to pay for? Kevin Kelly describes eight such things.PermalinkCommentsinternet article blog ip technology copyright economics information kevin-kelly

Is it just me or is everything great?

2007 May 21, 10:41FTA: '... product reviews on Amazon give an average rating of 4.2 out of five.' I would've thought people would be more likely to review if they had an unhappy experience with something.PermalinkCommentsarticle review inflation economics technology
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