Furthermore: February 2004 part 2

February 23, 2004

After the New Economy - Doug Henwood

(New Press, ISBN 1-56584-770-9)

This is a fairly compact study of the US economy that takes a sceptical look at the claims for a “new economy” that took off in the late 90’s with the dotcom boom. Henwood puts things into historical context, and also manages to explain (to a layman such as myself at any rate) the meanings behind the statistics on wealth, productivity, profits.

The chapters on Income and Finance are probably worth the price of the book on their own, but there are also chapters on Novelty, Work and Globalisation that bring a fresh look at those subjects too. Henwood is writing from a left perspective, but it’s an intelligent, hard-headed, original viewpoint. Even if you disagree with him, by taking a different look at topics that are worn smooth on the news, it makes you think again.

Okay, I’m too tired to write a proper review: I enjoyed the book and I learned a lot from it. I read it because the Crooked Timber people were talking about it, so if you want learned analysis that’s probably the place to go.

Running Yesterday

Back to my “default” circuit for a change. One slight detour round the Coleridge Rec Ground - I wondered if there was an entrance on the far side from Radegund Road - looks like there is but I didn’t feel up to running down there to see where it comes out. Too cold. Total time about 57 minutes.

February 22, 2004

Political Links

A couple of interesting political links that have been languishing in my inbox for weeks:

• NY Books — interesting piece about the problems in Afghanistan including some worrying stuff about the resurgence of the Taleban.


• Dan Drezner — links to news pieces about a possible US operation in Pakistan to pick up Osama. The comments are generally thoughtful - to be taken with a grain of salt though.

Random Links

Just a few things of interest I’ve seen over the last week or so:

• The Register — BBC plans to release archives via P2P networks



• via Language Log — pretty funny cartoon about the difficulties of working out other people’s thoughts.


• Slashdot — actually quite interesting piece on the Indian perspective of the IT market, tech culture etc.


• WikiTravel — looks like a good project. Hope it can work as well as Wikipedia.

My CV

I figure there’s no point having an online CV if I don’t keep it up to date, so here it is in HTML and PDF. Reply to this post if you want to contact me via the web.

February 18, 2004

Craunching the Marmoset

I came out with this phrase the other day and then couldn’t remember where I’d got it from - I knew I hadn’t made it up. Turns out it’s from Stephen Pile’s The Book of Heroic Failures

The phrase is from the entry for the worst phrasebook, which is online here.

(from “For to ride a horse”) Here is a horse who have bad looks. Give me another. I will not that. He not sall know to march, he is pursy, he is foundered. Don’t you are ashamed to give me a jade as like? he is unshoed, he is with nails up.

WebDav

Just saw the Webdav site which looks like a really interesting extension to http to support distributed authoring and versioning.

February 17, 2004

Guantanamo and Blunkett

Ok, last one before bed. I wrote to my MP Anne Campbell last night (using FaxYourMP.com of course) to protest about the continuing detention of Britons in Guantanamo. I’m not too happy about anyone being there, but I figure it’s better to start with the cases we have some vague influence over.

I also registered my unhappiness about Home Office proposals for secret terrorist trials and the possible lowering of the standard of proof in such cases. To my mind you can’t win a fight against terrorism by giving up the liberties that make this a civilised country in the first place.

I doubt it will do much good - Mrs Campbell is good at responding to her mail, but in my experience the responses don’t necessarily have much to do with the questions asked. Still, I figure I may as well use my democratic rights while I still have them :-)

Update on ID Cards

I posted back in November about the Government’s ID cards consultation. I did eventually get a response (after about 2 months) which reproduced a lot of bumph about why ID cards were a good idea and didn’t answer my questions about how responses to the consultation had been counted.

I’ve written again, but I’m not all that hopeful for a more sensible response. Meanwhile Stand has an update on the Home Affairs Select Committee’s hearings on the ID card proposals.

Update - 04.02.18 — I got a letter back from the lovely Aamna Saeed of the ID cards unit this morning. To be fair, this one does address the question I asked. I don’t agree with the answer but at least it’s not just nonsense. I think it’s time to let this one go - I’ve made my point at least.

Meme of the Day

Just saw this via BoingBoing:

Life Hacks - Danny O’Brien’s talk at the O’Reilly Emerging Tech Conference. Lots of it is sort of obvious, and sort of the thing I try to do at work - or here - but it’s interesting to see it put together. I particularly liked the comment:

Edd Dumbill: Ideas rot if you don’t do something with them.

Don’t hoard them. I blog them or otherwise tell people.

This is a way to look organized, “That guy has lots of ideas,

what a genius.”

You only have to be right once — people google for some idea and

find your ramble about it and are impressed.