The Filter^

D Tym Dey a-Changin'

JSUK, accordN 2 Engadget:

[Young Koreans] rarely or never use email and [are] starting to think of email as something overly formal that you use only for business purposes or to communicate with your less tech savvy parents or grandparents who are still stuck in the Nineties (when email was king). For them it’s all about text and instant messaging, and by comparison, even email seems like an incredibly slow way to communicate.

1dafl.

Enough pretending to be hip and write in shorthands! Youth cultures always appear ridiculous to grown-ups - there's a long list stretching from rock n' roll to computer games - and some of these activities evolve and break into the mainstream.

I used Text.it and Transl8it websites to compile this post.

Becker-Posner Blog

If you follow Marginal Revolution, you can stop reading. If not then allow me to direct you to the highly dubious Becker - Posner blog. They are two of the most phenomenal "exporters" of economic methodology, each applying rational choice models to previously non-economic fields.
Posner has blogged on Larry Lessig's site (see here), and it was by lending me Becker's The Economics of Life that Steve pushed me into applying to postgraduate study. I couldn't finish the book: "The Economics of Life" is grandiose masterbatory irrelevency - what about the "Life of Economics"????
Mr Sperlinger once asked me for an accessible, relevant treatise on "good economics".
That's what i'm trying to do now.

If this is true, we're all in for a real treat. If not, I told you so.

Addendum: I am a cock! I notice that the trackback for the blog is using Lessig's own URL, which convinces me of the genuine bona fide nature of this endeavour. Brits should be excited: these two are at the pinnacle of the profession.

Carpe Diem

It's always a fun endeavour to speculate on how life can be experienced more richly, and the New Scientist has canvassed the opinion of well-known scientist's to compile a new book: 100 Things To Do Before You Die.

A selection:

• see Galileo's middle finger (preserved in Florence)
• joining the 300 Club at the South Pole (they take a sauna to 200 degrees Fahrenheit, then run naked to the pole in minus 100 F)
• learn Choctaw, a language with two past tenses - one for giving information which is definitely true, the other for passing on material taken without checking from someone else
• swim in a bioluminescent lake
• achieve multiple orgasm
• assisting at the birth of an animal
• solve a mathematical puzzle
  
• boil an egg with a mobile phone
• measure the speed of light with chocolate in a microwave
• visit Shark Bay in Western Australia
• scour the night sky for comets
• let a dung beetle roll away your faeces
• inhale helium and start singing

and after you've gone, let your legacy remain:

• leaving your body for use in car crash research
• become a diamond - a company in Chicago will converted your ashes into a one carat gem
• rot in a field and let forensic scientists practice on you

          (most of those have come from The Guardian)

and i'll recommend:

• go to a Merseyside Derby
• top Uluru
• complete a voluntary transaction in a Communist regime
• appear in a Shakespeare play on the London stage...
  

Orange Ribbon

I've just performed a quick search around the net to see just who wear orange ribbons, and whether this corresponds to liberalism. Previously, the only ribbon campaigns I was aware of were RED (AIDS), PINK (Breast Cancer), BLUE (Internet Free Speech)... well the following have all got ORANGE ribbon campaigns:

Stop Global Warming
Conneticut Coalition to Stop Underage Drinking
Democracy USA
Florida Vote
Youth Mobilizing Youth-Labrador (YMY) (a disabled group)
Fight the Fingerprint
Some vague protest
Anti-Racism
Freedom to Own Guns

Here's a list of 173 ribbon movements in a variety of causes/shades. There's even (ahem) an anti-ribbon ribbon. Maybe we need some government intervention!

I'd be interested if any Filter^ readers have come across other examples: they do seem to be broadly in favour of civil liberties, anti-state and anti-war.

An Orange Revolution in Ukraine

The process of scientific discovery:

1. Observation: many of my (classical) liberal books have orange covers

2. Hmm: let's all have a think about it

3. Theory: The Liberal Whigs supported William of Orange, in his battle with James IIs Catholic insurgency. (Liberal values vs the authoritarian
Catholic Church)

4. Hypothesis: Orange is the colour of Liberalism

5. Test:

Ukraine's disputed election is forcing everyone here to choose sides. Kiev is opposition land. Everywhere you look there is orange.

The huge crowds who have taken to the streets have orange flags, orange clothes.
The receptionists at my hotel are in orange. Some people even have their cats and dogs in orange.

By the end of the week, Kiev's streets were a shifting sea of orange.

from BBC News

                                i.e.  The Orange Revolution

6. Confirmation: Opposition candidate Viktor Yushchenko is pro-Western, pro-markets and Orange is the color of his party.

Also, Pravda says:

We have not yet found out the author of Yushchenko's main and most brilliant political technology --- the orange colour of his election campaign. Igor Gryniv, one of Yushchenko's main PR-specialists, says it to be the colour of the political party "Reforms and Order", and it originally symbolized honey and bees, which are known as the PRO symbols.

Just when we had the theory licked: honey and bees?......Anyway i'm off to find an Orange ribbon on eBay.

Buy something from a Sweatshop!

Taking things one step further, why not spend Saturday (buy nothing day) shopping for some good old fashioned swetshop goods? A very useful website, Sweat Shop Watch is kind enough to list products 'Made in Myanmar'.

Working conditions shouldn't be compared to "the west", they should be compared to the reality of life in developing countries. They should be seen as a stage of development, and not as an end in itself. We should also treat workers as humans, and believe that they choose what's best for themselves. If the choice is between working without lunchbreaks, or not having a job.... they're better off for having that choice. I sleep well at night having bought "foreign" goods, since I think that I'm helping people make steps in the right direction. It's not doing a lot, but it's better than doing nothing.

As Alan Partridge once said:

Thank you very much for coming along, just to let you know these t-shirts are available in the lobby, they're a lot of fun - they've got a-ha written on them!
Pop one of those on, stops you having to shout it out.
Now there has been some concern that the t-shirts are being manufactured in Taiwanese sweatshops by small children. I've made some enquiries and I've been assured the t-shirts will be top quality! The children know exactly what they're doing, they've got a very intensive training program. I hope that'll erase your fears. That's all from me, goodnight and a-ha!

For a serious, accurate and intelligent discussion of these issues, read In Defense of Globalization by Jagdish Bhagwati.

Dreams

Of course, in America they talk a lot about the American Dream. They revel in the ability of someone born in a log cabin to make it to the whole way to the White House. As it happens, this is the exception, not the rule in America.

But in Britain it actually does happen. There are countless examples of people from relatively humble beginnings that make it to the top: people who live the British Dream.

In a speech given by Michael Howard today, he tried to dismiss the so-called "American Dream" while building up his brand of "British Dream". I'm not sure whether there have been many Americans "born in a log cabin" who have made it to the whole way to the top, but I am sure we all know this man who was born in a trailer park and is now one of the most influential people in the world. Much more influential than Mr Howard, ever.

And I am still not sure what the Tories mean by the British Dream. Is that what Prince Charles had a go at last week?

Nuts in May

After reading Steve's previous post, I thought I'd do some shopping, so clicked on the 'Amazon Associate' button at the bottom of The Filter^ and had a look for 'Nuts in May'.

Surprisingly, I can't find a DVD on amazon.co.uk, but there's plenty of availability on amazon.com. I assume that the DVDs aren't cross-compatable, so I can't give this as a Christmas present as intended.

On the British Film Institute website you can view some scenes (providing you're at a UK educational institute), and read the synopsis

Tempers fray as Finger and Honky disturb Keith and Candice Marie's sleep by making too much noise. But it is when Finger starts to light a fire, flouting the campsite rules, that Keith takes matters into his own hands and threatens to make a citizen's arrest.

For those who've seen the play, there's also an essay on Director Mike Leigh that analyses things a little too far:

In their resistance to processed food, Keith and Candice-Marie have unconsciously swallowed all manner of processed thinking, canned feeling, and shrink-wrapped selfhood.

Whatever. It's a superb film, and American's should take advantage of it's availability over here, and buy it on Saturday! .

The Evils of Capitalism

Saturday, November 27th 2004 is Buy Nothing Day (UK), the self proclaimed festival of frugal living and culture jammers jamboree. It's a day where you challenge yourself, your family and friends to switch off from shopping and tune into life. Celebrated as a holiday by some, a street party by others - anyone can take part provided they spend a day without spending!

There you have it: let's hang around in our developed world partying away and not buy anything for one day, especially the new Band Aid single. Make sure you don't switch on any electrical appliance at home, because one "buys" electricity. And tap water, which one pays for, is of course, forbidden.

Read Buy Nothing Day's FAQ if you want to know more.

Tale from New York

Faith and I went to New York last weekend. The Economist, recently asked How Anglo is America?, but we encountered some unexpected acrimony. I've updated my photos page with New York and the leaving do, and have also written a short essay, 1999-2004: From Liverpool to New York.

We loved New York, but New York didn't seem to like "our sort".