2009 June - The Emergent Fool

Posted by plektix in Uncategorized on 06 28th, 2009 | 5 Comments

On Tuesday, my Erdos number dropped from infinity to four. That’s right: after four years of grad school, I am now officially published! The article, “A New Phylogenetic Diversity Measure Generlizing the Shannon Index and Its Application to Phyllostomid Bats,” by Ben Allen, Mark Kon, Yaneer...

Save the Madagascar Rain Forest...

Posted by kevindick in Climate, Scarcity / Abundance, Socio-technical systems, Superorganism on 06 26th, 2009 | No Comments

Last night, I was lucky enough to get a personal tour of the California Academy of Sciences from Dr. Brian Fisher, a taxonomist specializing in ants. He’s doing some amazing work trying to help Madagascar prioritize and save the 10% of native rainforest they have left. It’s reminiscent of...

Specifying a Climate Bet...

Posted by kevindick in Climate, Markets on 06 24th, 2009 | 3 Comments

As I mentioned in the comments on this post, I am currently in the process of negotiating a bet on Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) with another blogger. The challenges are interesting, so I thought I’d give you a peek inside the sausage factory. ...

Splitting the Difference...

Posted by acebailey in Homelessness, Memes, Philanthropy, Poker on 06 24th, 2009 | 4 Comments

Rafe Furst and I were discussing my predisposition for staying in the cheapest hotel within walking distance of the hotel I actually play poker in despite having the resources to pay for the more expensive properties. The money I save just stays in a fungible heap of other money and isn’t really...

Posted by danielhorowitz in Cooperation, Economics, Incentives on 06 23rd, 2009 | 5 Comments

Who wants to pay for email? You just might. Many people have suggested that adding a nominal cost to e-mail would serve to fight spam by rendering it largely unprofitable. With Centmail, some Yahoo researchers propose adding a penny postage stamp to each e-mail, representing a penny donation to charity....

Robin Hood Foreclosure Fund, part II...

Posted by Rafe Furst in Economics, Interventions, Philanthropy on 06 20th, 2009 | 3 Comments

Pursuant to my earlier post, it turns out there already is such a group: Foreclosure Angel Foundation Thanks to Marissa Chien who found it and pointed me to it. She also suggests that people who are having trouble with their mortgage should seek advise from HUD. Information is power and many people...

Is Hunger Really a Problem in U.S.?...

Posted by Rafe Furst in Health, Homelessness, Interventions, Nutrition, Obesity, Philanthropy, Poverty, Scarcity / Abundance on 06 18th, 2009 | 5 Comments

Given everything I hear about obesity stats in the U.S. and malnutrition in the developing world, the last thing I was expecting to find in my inbox this morning was a plea to join a Facebook cause to help end hunger in America. Really? I’m usually not skeptical in this way, and I’m loath to...

Posted by acebailey in Climate, Technology on 06 17th, 2009 | 2 Comments

Stephen Salter wants to build a fleet of ships that will churn up seawater to create whiter, fluffier clouds that will reflect more sunlight away from the sea surface. The cost for the first 300 ships that should turn the clock back: $600 million. Other ideas include spraying sulfur dioxide 65,000 feet up...

Cool Solar Power...

Posted by acebailey in Technology on 06 16th, 2009 | No Comments

On a recent trip to the CalExpo site I was impressed to see rows and rows of solar panels supported over the parking lot. Instead of taking up valuable real estate it shades your car and generates 540kW. Check out this even more interesting way of generating solar power at Cool Earth Solar. It is massively...

Wall Street Wizards? Not so Much....

Posted by kevindick in Economics on 06 11th, 2009 | 2 Comments

Here’s a nice post on how little old Amherst Holdings of Austin, TX got the best of J.P. Morgan Chase, Royal Bank of Scotland, and Bank of America. Amherst sold them all Credit Default Swaps (CDSs) against mortgages that were already under water. CDSs pay out if the underlying mortgages default. ...

Posted by plektix in Complex Links, Education, Games on 06 11th, 2009 | 6 Comments

A new school is opening in New York for grades 6-12 that completely blows my mind. The Quest to Learn school combines games and complex systems in a way that pretty much would have made my life as a teenager. Hell, I wouldn’t mind going back to high school now if I got to go here. I’ll let...

Paying Women to Not Get Pregnant...

Posted by Rafe Furst in Government, Incentives, Interventions, Poverty, Psychology, Society on 06 9th, 2009 | 9 Comments

What’s fascinating to me about this is not that it works so well and or that there might actually be support in the Obama administration for doing it on a national scale, but rather that there has not been a backlash against it yet. What are the odds that something like this will actually get...

Posted by kevindick in Government, Psychology on 06 9th, 2009 | 1 Comment

Thanks to a pointer from Sandeep Baliga over at Cheap Talk, I recently Kindled Matthew Alexander’s How to Break a Terrorist. If this were a novel, it would be in the top 10% of thrillers I’ve read in the last 5 years. But it’s a true story. ...

IIASA...

Posted by plektix in Uncategorized on 06 4th, 2009 | 1 Comment

This is just a brief note to let everyone know I’m spending the summer at IIASA, a scientific policy research institute located just outside of Vienna. IIASA focus on systems analysis of global problems such as climate change, land use, demographic changes, public health, ecology, and energy. They...

Posted by danielhorowitz in Common Knowledge, Crowdsourcing, Economics, Markets, Mutual Knowledge, Science, Technology, Uncategorized on 06 3rd, 2009 | 4 Comments

Everyone seems to have an opinion on the future prospects of Facebook and Twitter. Some of us even feel strongly enough to want to bet on it. Unfortunately, the companies are privately held, and unavailable to be bet on in the traditional way, via the stock market. It is not just household names like...

Reinventing Liberal Arts Education...

Posted by Rafe Furst in Alternative Institutions, Education, TED on 06 1st, 2009 | No Comments

This was one of the most important and encouraging talks of this year’s TED...