Daily Links From Glimpse From a Height
- The Bad Guys Get Smarter…
Iran’s developing smarter Internet censoring software: For the moment, Iran deals with the nuisance of social networking largely by blocking the sites. Facebook and Twitter, for example, are completely banned. As such, many savvier Iranians are turning to VPNs, and the hope seems to be that limited social networking would bring them back into the […]
- ST:TNG NG
5 Ways Star Trek: TNG would be different if they made it now: Semantic search is the great goal in the world of search: making computers understand not just what humans say, but what we’re really asking. And anyone who’s used Google daily over the past 15 years (meaning most of us) knows that semantic […]
- Roll Over Beethoven: Four Famous Musical Notes
The history Beethoven’s Fifth in performance and in popular imagination: One key to the Fifth’s own cultural malleability—or ambiguity—is found in those first four measures, a masterstroke of misdirection. We tend to remember the four notes as severe and brooding, with a ponderousness that sits at extreme odds with the allegro con brio marking. That […]
- Majority Rules and the Filibuster
Over at the Liberty Law Blog, Mike Rappaport argues that the Senate must be able to change the filibuster rule with a majority vote: The main reason why a majority of the Senate needs to be able to change the filibuster rule is that otherwise a simple majority of the Senate could effectively amend the […]
- The Student Loan Bubble
It’s the financial portion of the higher ed bubble, and it’s about to get ugly. Either defaults will begin in earnest, or you and I will be forced to subsidize them through a bailout. Of course, since student loans are now exclusively financed through the government, anyway, we’re holding the bag, either way. Which is […]
- Pythagorean Theorem
H/T Chart Porn:
- 1.8 million LEGOs Used to Create Map of Japan
Celebrating the 50th anniversary of the LEGO equivalent of Commodore Perry’s Black Ships: Dubbed “Build Up Japan,” the event – rather than recreating existing landmarks – encouraged kids to picture what they want Japan to look like, and to create imaginary structures. The future of Japan was, quite literally, in their hands. And the kids […]
- The British Navy and the Slave Trade
Via Lawfare: In the early 19th century the British government, responding to strong domestic pressure, undertook to suppress the transatlantic slave trade. Although the Royal Navy dominated ocean travel, Britain faced important legal obstacles. The slave trade was conducted on the high seas by vessels sailing under the protection of other sovereigns and was not […]
- The Founders and Finance
Definitely on the reading list, Michael Greve reviews. Among other points: To build a financial system meant building institutions (foremost, the Bank), and that in turn meant constitutional construction. Everyone on all sides eagerly mobilized the “original public meaning” of the Constitution, only to discover that it would carry only so far. Those arguments, moreover, were part […]
- Nanny State Goes To College
Via Overlawyered: According to the U.S. Department of Justice, Lesley University in Cambridge, Mass. was in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act because it failed to * Continually provide ready-made hot and cold gluten- and allergen-free food options in its dining hall food lines; * Develop individualized meal plans for students with food allergies, and […]
- Manufacturing Slipping?
The Journal of Commerce is reporting that steel imports were up slightly month-to-month in November, but up 25% year-over-year. This tracks with manufacturing, reports of the death of which have been greatly exaggerated. But it’s not a good sign for the upcoming year. Even as economic activity has rebounded, manufacturing has levelled off below its […]
- The Best Infographics Of 2012
Still not too late to look back at the year’s greatest hits. Data viz has to be considered one of the fastest growing segments of design today, and thankfully, it’s growing in some exciting new ways. Where the Internet infographic was defined, for a period, by the dense, super-long column of facts and figures, we’ve […]
- FRED Excel Add-In
I love the St. Louis Fed’s FRED database. They now have an Excel plug-in, to let you import their data directly, without having to go to the site and save it as as Excel file first. This is incredibly useful if you use the same series over and over, and don’t want to have to […]
