Vox Clamantis

Political clouds

Here is an interesting use of tag clouds to summarize the main content of political speeches by looking at politicians 50 most used words, form the first set of Presidential debates. Sort of an automated content analysis. Via Junk Charts (recommended).

Classical music

Apparently classical music is bigger than ever but would you recognize a great modern musician?

Thanks to Chris for the pointer.

Easterly on Development

Economist William Easterly has been at Mason this semester teaching a short seminar on economic development and I've made it to a few lectures, which are quite entertaining.

In the WSJ he's just snarky (Greg Mankiw has a copy of the article here):

The press release describing the findings of the 2006 World Bank report "Challenges of African Growth" announces: the "single most important reason" for Africa's "lagging position in eradicating poverty," finally "has been identified." It is "Africa's slow and erratic growth." The next World Bank report may reveal that half a dozen beers has been identified as the single most important reason for a six-pack.

Mii

Fabjectory makes 3 and 5 inch Mii statuettes.
Mii Station will make a mii based on your picture if you are not graphically inclined. Here is their gallery.
Mii Plaza has collections of user designed miis, including President Clinton and Batman. Their links page.
Mii Ware shirts, mousepads, beer steins and such, with your mii.
Lost Miis How-to on YouTube and here is their myspace page.
Flash Mii (not the real name, but none was given) a flash emulator in case you do not yet have a wii but want to make a mii anyway, just to see what all the fuss is about. Highly recommended.
Stephen Colbert's mii
A quick search will reveal so much more.

Muhammad Yunus

Muhammad Yunus, the Nobel Peace Prize recipient who turned small-scale lending to village women into a powerful force against poverty in his native Bangladesh and other low-income countries, was busy breaking other barriers yesterday.

From the Washington Post. He makes a good candidate and this is interesting timing because Tyler Cowen, another economist, recently stated (see this also) that he doesn't believe he could do a better job as a ruler in Latin America. I wonder if he thinks an economist could do better in Bangledesh? Keep in mind that GDP growth is already 6-7% or so, despite some political problems. At any rate, it doesn't sound like Yunus has much shot, so maybe this is idle speculation.

Lost References

If you don't like the show Lost, or don't know what it is, this post will really bore you so don't bother reading.

Unless I'm mistaken it looked like Sawyer was reading The Fountainhead last night (it was definitely Rand - further proof I need a plasma tv). Is this further evidence that Sawyer (real name James Ford) represents capitalism? See here for more on the economics of Lost. Here is a running list of the books that are referenced in the show, or that influence the show. I know what I'll be reading this summer.

Finally, EW has good coverage of the show and this little tidbit offers another literary reference:

A purple sky is a clue suggesting that spiritual forces with possibly sinister agendas are at work on the island.
HUH? ''Purple sky'' is clearly a reference to the Jimi Hendrix song ''Purple Haze.'' Reportedly, Hendrix said that he got the title of the tune from Night of Light, a science fiction novel by Philip Jose Farmer set on a planet called Dante's Joy where ''spiritual forces are made manifest in the material world,'' according to Wikipedia.
[...]
BY THE WAY You guys should really check out Farmer's Riverworld series, because it's loaded with Lost resonances. Does reincarnation explain it all? Do ''the Others'' = ''The Ethicals''? Does ''The Mysterious Stranger'' = ''Ben''? Is it just coincidence that Mikhail Bakunin is a character in the third season of Lost AND the third Riverworld book The Dark Design? And how WEIRDLY COINCIDENTAL is it that the recent Jack episode ''Stranger in a Strange Land'' is also the name of a sci-fi book by Robert Heinlein, which was dedicated to... Philip Jose Farmer! C'MON, PEOPLE! There MUST be a CONNECTION!

See here for more, and here is EW's page on Lost. They have weekly coverage of each show. Here is their coverage from last night's show. Enjoy.

Britney Breakdown Package

Normally I would have the good taste to ignore something like this, but not today, obviously. Here's a report about the package in Fodor's, and here's the site.

Carsharing

Today, carsharing has grown to include approximately 600 cities around the world in 18 nations and on four continents (4). These include Austria, Belgium,Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland in Europe; the United Kingdom (Scotland, England, and Wales); Canada and the United States in North America; Japan and Singapore in Asia; and Australia. Carsharing is currently in a pilot phase in Malaysia with a scheduled launch in late-2006. At present, there are an estimated 348,000 carsharing members worldwide who share nearly 11,700 vehicles.

This isn't the time series data I'm looking for, but it's interesting nonetheless. From a paper by Susan Shaheen and Adam Cohen.

Carsharing

Via an email from Susan Shaheen we learn:

• As of January 2007, 18 U.S. carsharing programs claimed 134,094 members sharing 3,637 vehicles, and


• As of January 2007, 21,817 members shared 994 vehicles among 13 carsharing organizations in Canada.

Dr. Shaheen is the Project Leader at Innovative Mobility Research, UCB. It would be nice to see time series data to have a better sense of this trend, but anecdotally carsharing has increased rapidly. When I became interested in 2000 there were fewer than 5 carsharing organizations, and I think it was closer to 1 or 2. At any rate, there's been considerable growth. See IMR's website for more info on carsharing.

iPod

Does this mark the beginning of the end of the iPod era? This link will probably be visible today only (and the preview screen doesn't seem to be accurate either.)

Update: here's a better and perhaps more permanent picture.

Experiments about guilt honesty and goodness

If people see good, they'll be good. Via Steven Levitt (Freakonomics).

That's Sir James to You

The economist has a racy title for an article about vacuum cleaners. This part caught my interest:

These days Dysons are no longer made in Wiltshire but in Malaysia. Production was shifted because there were no longer any suppliers near the original factory, the wage bill per person had doubled and the local authority had refused planning permission to expand.

The decision to move abroad caused a storm, yet things have turned out just as globalisation advocates would have hoped. Three factories in Malaysia now make 4m vacuum cleaners a year, with all the suppliers within a ten-mile radius, at one-third of the cost in Britain. The Wiltshire factory has become a research and design centre; Dyson employs more people than before, and in more highly skilled jobs.

These stories are far more common than people realize, we just don't hear about them often enough.