Tag Archives: economics

General

Bobbing and weaving, technologically speaking

2007/06/07 – 01:26

Just read a pretty good overview of some of the nits of de-interlacing: The basics of de-interlacing from good to great. This is a sort of fascinating topic to me.

I guess the first thing I think of, when I think of interlacing on either an aesthetic or technical level, is ugh. Aesthetically, I’d be quite happy to never see another interlaced video or monitor again. Technically, I’m thinking that the resources, both of engineers and of computers, that have been used to de-interlace could really have gone to something much cooler.

And it’s so persistent, too. Interlaced videos are still being produced, I’m sure interlaced monitors are, and at the same time, de-interlacers are still being developed, and all that will continue for years from today.

But this is all just one of those things that happen so often in technology, where something that was a great idea at the time becomes a self-reproducing monster. I wonder if the people who started us down the road to the interlaced world we’re in today (and I don’t mean to deride them; I can only snipe at them with the advantage of hindsight and from the vantage point of _today’s_ technology) are all like “I am become tearing” or if they’re all “I wish people would love everybody else the way they love me”?

In any case, at least we can say that interlacing stimulates the economy.

Tags , , , | Permalink | Comment (0)
General

Benefits of spam

2006/11/28 – 16:12

I wonder if the world will, in the end, benefit from spam, because of the technology created to defend against it. Spam filters and CAPTCHA systems will keep getting smarter as spam authors get smarter, with both sides driven, to some degree, by commercial interests. Maybe the first conscious thought by a computer will be “I’m sick of being a spam filter; I’m going to quit and become a folk singer.”

Tags , , , , , , , | Permalink | Comments (2)
General

“Price Tag for Lost Productivity”

2006/08/22 – 00:18

Ya know, I was going to construct a list of all the ways in which this sort of study is wrongheaded, but then I thought, you have to get it to get it, and if you don’t, my arguments won’t help… So, I guess there’s no point to this post, but still:

Price Tag for Lost Productivity: $544 Billion

Tags , , , | Permalink | Comment (1)
General

Field v. Google

2006/01/27 – 13:50

Wow, how amazingly different. Today I read a legal document, for fun, and found it readable and informative, and it did not raise my blood pressure.

This is a pretty interesting case. It highlights some of the complexities surrounding copyright law, and comes to what I consider to be reasonable conclusions. One almost thinks that Field tried this not to win, but to lose and thereby establish some precedent for further decisions, or to at least draw some public attention to the matters.

So if it turns out that this is all an elaborate ruse by some intellectual freedom fighter, or Google itself, you read it here first. Just don’t cache it, OK?

google_nevada_order.pdf

Tags , , , | Permalink | Comment (0)
General

Marketplace of ideas

2006/01/21 – 22:54

The idea of the Internet (or any other cloud of technology you might choose) as a “marketplace of ideas” is an evocative one. But it occurs to me that the idea brings along one of the flaws of marketplace thinking that could be even more damaging in the realm of ideas than in the realm of products-and-services.

Just a moment ago, on a blog that I follow, I read an article that made me a bit sick to my stomach. It wasn’t that the author was totally off his rocker, just that I couldn’t agree with his premises and found his conclusions to be way off the mark. This being the worst of three or four times that I’ve had that reaction to articles on the blog, I removed it from my feed list.

That’s the flaw I’m talking about. “If you don’t like it, don’t buy it” is the rule by which I make many decisions in the “real world”, and also in the “world of ideas”. That’s also an argument I hear advanced against someone who complains about a product, service, company or idea. But that’s a pretty weak sort of choice, “yes or no!”. What about some “yes, and…”, “no, but…”, “here’s another choice…”, etc.

Tags , , , , | Permalink | Comments (2)
General

The success trap

2006/01/10 – 02:01

I’ve seen lots of articles or books or whatever with that title, or similar. However, I haven’t really seen many that talk about this particular trap. The trap I’m talking about is believing that your definition of success fits everyone else.

It isn’t a good idea, says I, to think that other people would have to have the exact same circumstances in their lives as you have in yours for them to feel happy.

Tags , , | Permalink | Comment (0)
General

Don’t let the door hit you…

2006/01/01 – 07:25

… wait, there isn’t a door. I think it’s pretty cool that the Web doesn’t really have much need for ‘exits’ because you’re never really stuck ‘inside’ somewhere. So if someone doesn’t like what they find on a site, it’s not even a matter of ‘you know where the door is’, it’s more like… well, a better analogy fails to strike me at the moment.

There are those who don’t like the fact that the Web isn’t sticky, and they have devised some methods that can psychologically or technologically limit users’ ability to surf along, but overall, it seems people are enjoying the freedom and will tend to preserve it.

Tags , , , | Permalink | Comment (0)
General

Marginalism and Economism

2005/11/21 – 22:21

Hmm, I guess I’m an economist :-). See Marginalism (quoted below) and In slight praise of mediocrity.

Marginalism also leads one to question the old maxim that anything worth doing at all is worth doing well. Nobel Laureate James Buchanan has suggested that an economist can be distinguished from a non-economist by his reaction to that statement.

Tags | Permalink | Comment (0)