Posts from — March 2004

Today is International Women's Day. “The young women of today, free to study, to speak, to write, to choose their occupation, should remember that every inch of this freedom was bought for them at a great price. It is for them to show their gratitude by helping onward the reforms of their own times, by spreading the light of freedom and of truth still wider. The debt that each generation owes to the past it must pay to the future.”

–Abigail Scott Duniway, suffrage organiser [Purse Lip Square Jaw]

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International Women's Day…. A day worth nothing.

and now they want the woman to pay them for the merchandise they illegally bought. why can't the police just go in and seize the merchandise and btw they should audit the company for past occurances of this. how much do you want to bet they've been selling stolen stuff before? i wouldn't bet much…

this calls for action, i suggest a general boycott of electronic boutique .

Commodities. David Stutz writes a nice essay thinking about the nature of a commodity, the standards that frame them, and the bursts of innovation that seem to happen when new commodities emerge. He obviously is starting to see the ying/yang way that firms and public goods are interleaved to make markets. I've been wondering recently if there is almost a guiding principle that a firm must embrace as inevitable the commoditization of it's markets. Christensen tries to make a case like this in his new book. I didn't find it sufficent; but clearly it's an idea that's in the air. I should probably see if I can take a stab at stating my model. A company stands on a foundation of suppliers that are preferably mostly comoditized. It then adds value that creates a sufficently uncomoditized output so that there is a profit to be made. If the firm stands… [Ascription is an anathema to any enthusiasm]

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this links to a really good essay, well worth reading.

Lecture versus Discussion. In the comments to “We could hire God this year,” David Salmanson asserts that lecturing is not teaching: For those of you taping a lecture as an example of your teaching, don't bother. Lecturing is reading in a less interactive… [Invisible Adjunct]

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Lectures aren't teaching…. I agree. They do foster a certain kind of learning and certain kinds of learners though. They are great ways of demonstrating knowledge and its relationships in ways that allow people to grasp and understand it, but that the student learns it from listening is no different from the student learning it from reading a book. so if reading a book is teaching, then so are lectures, but i don't see either as actively 'teaching' they are just active 'learning' .

remember the the simpsons episode with the 3 eyed fish? eh eh, and the frogs? well welcome to our world.

theoretically they should know that this could be highly problembatic. to make a virtual earth on which to model virtual conflict will over time add so many levels of uncertainty that they should as well be worrying about virtual mars.

Which Famous Homosexual are you?
Brought to you by Rum and Monkey

Which Colossal Death Robot Are You?

Holy Prime Directive, you're Robocop!

Well, you're neither colossal, nor technically a robot, but your arthritic lurching and dubious morals have found their way into the hearts of futuristic rebels and children everywhere. You walk through fire, catch bullets from the air, and you never, ever smile. Combine this with an abstract, almost random concept of duty and honour, and you have a police officer one cannot fail to adore.

Thank you, Robocop.

the ny post has a nice story about martha…. martha the liar. martha the fraud. martha the false idol of millions….. i've always been anti-martha, she epitomizes and ideology of submission to norms that is entirely unreal bordering on surreal.

30 million/year and then i think L.A. should call itself Cuervo Nation…