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100% All Natural

It’d have been funnier to read about how Doug Bass climbed into his Toyota Prius, spurs and all.

And I honestly didn’t meet real cowboys until I was in college — those are some good stories.

Radio interviews and podcasts you may be interested in:

Scott Horton talks to Mark Thornton
Lew Rockwell’s first podcast
Lew Rockwell talks with Joseph Salerno
Joseph Salerno interviewed at CSPAN

If you’re interested, I’ve written a couple pieces in the past week or so.

One discusses free-trade agreements and Korea.

The newest one discusses the peaceful rise of China.

And you may also be interested in the “shared” posts in Google Reader. So find me on that.

Also, a shout out to Eric Garris, who fixed a number of little errors in the China piece. It’s the damndest thing, apparently I saved two different copies (a normal one, and a bad ass one) and sent LRC the normal one. It was missing a number of little corrections I’ve made that for whatever reason, never made it into the final draft.

For instance, if you read the Chinese piece, my two versions have two completely different footnotes for number 9. Here is a good nugget that never made the published copy because of my tomfoolery:

According to a recent story by the Associated Press: 130,000 PLA troops “repaired more than 14,600 kilometers, or 9,100 miles, of roads, installed 220,000 shelters and relocated more than 1.4 million people” over the course of two months.

Anyways, the moral of the story is that while it is good to store and backup copies in various places, be sure to title them differently to properly distinguish them.

Note: agh, even one more recent note didn’t make it: China & Russia recently signed a border agreement. How’s that for peacefully handling disputes?

It was one of the better sitcoms around — Joey was great. Actually all of them had great chemistry, just like That 70’s Show.

Speaking of which, here is a memorable episode (I even remember where I was when I first saw it: sitting on a couch in front of the TV). Note that it is remixed with the cartoon Superfriends:

Via Bob Murphy.

Seriously, In the Shadow of Kilimanjaro grips you with furry claws and doesn’t let go.

At least, not until pick-up trucks become more common (they are non-existent out here), or when oil prices decrease dramatically.

I wonder if there is a direct correlation between liking monster trucks and enjoying WWF style wrestling? If so, then some of my students may become gear heads in the future… because they really like that show.

Via Bob Murphy.

Seeing one of those little four-wheeler, all-terrain vehicles (the kind that only fits one person, the driver) parked along the bicycle isle outside of a large grocery store.

or

Having one of your 14 year-old kids publicly admit that they cosplay in their free-time — and he’s a dude.

Actually, to be honest, neither is really strange to me nor most of my coworkers and not because I’m some kind of elite cosmopolitan globetrotter. One of the reasons I rarely discuss the job or the country is that everything kind of blends together, especially once you get a routine going.

But man, seeing as these kids all go to school six days a week, from 8 in the morning till 10 at night, you’d think the last hobby they’d have is playing dress-up in public. At least he’s outside, right? And not in some biker gang or working for Chris Cox of the SEC.

Need something to laugh about?

How about one of the funnier entries on Yahoo Answers: Do buildings in Canada have doors you can open to get inside?

Then celebrate with some Decepticons:

See also Glenn Greenwald.

Arguably the only semi-funny portion of Talladega Nights:

In response to my post on the future of agriculture, several people emailed me a short documentary that looks at rural Japan entitled The Slow Life.

Here is the video hosted at Google:

My major complaint with the video is that it paints the farm life as some kind of magical industry that is on the verge of collapse. Nothing can be farther from the truth.

There are two big reasons why farming as a profession resides in the single digits in the developed world: 1) automation and 2) large, healthy harvests

For instance, in Japan, nearly the entire industry is automated. For instance, the RMAX is a fully-automated UAV developed by Yamaha (Discovery Channel had an episode on one of its variants used in the US for topographical mapping). It fills several roles including the delivery of pesticides and fertilizers. And there are thousands of them flying throughout the Japanese countryside.

In addition not only has the harvesting aspect of farming also been mechanized but the actual crop yields are essentially the highest in the world. Thus less land is needed to produce more crops. And GMOs will further help productive capacity over the next several years.

Back to the video, while some individuals and families may indeed flee from urban centers to live in quieter, nicer smelling regions, their marginal contribution to farming output is negligible at best.

Arguably their futile exercise provides an excellent illustration for why farms have been depopulated over the last several decades: the manual labor is literally backbreaking and subjugates participants to battle all of the environmental hazards that billions living in subsistence want to flee from. The video captures a small portion of the industry and only shows one-side of it.

Oddly enough, I am somewhat pleased by their actions in part because there are fewer hippies left in the cities. Now if only all of the Naderites would jump on that bandwagon.

[Note: the Japanese government subsidizes the industry and outlaws foreign competition -- so land use would arguably different than it is currently (what is so bad about importing a lot of food?)]

Like internet memes?

Like Futurama?

Bow down to it.

More on the episode.

I’ve mentioned Dean Kamen’s new Luke Arm a couple of times, but I think this video is the best compilation of information thus far:

Will full-contact chess be the next milestone?

While the movie may have been terrible, it turns out that the technology powering some of the CGI in Transformers was stitched together by commercial, off-the-shelf components.

According to TGDaily, the company behind some of the rendering used the power within top-end ATI GPUs from the 2X00 generation. That’s great news for consumers and developers, and not-so-good news for Intel who has invested swaths of both labor and financial resources to develop Larrabee (though according to Ars, it still has a couple tricks up its sleeves).

Based on the interview it turns out that ray-tracing high-quality video in real-time will be a reality many moons before the previous estimates I discussed a few months ago (1 2 3).

This interview was also germane because a clever code hacker was recently able to get the CUDA version of PhysX to run on ATI cards. Talk about a coup, because Nvidia just paid top dollar not only for the physics-frenetic firm, but also in transcribing it into their development language.

Oh, and before I forget, if you’re in the market for a new system including a video card, do not buy an integrated video solution from Intel, not even if it is based on their latest GMA 4500 chip. I’ll mention more later, but let’s just say that 10 shader processors is a far cry from the competition.

One of the popular obituaries currently making the rounds is that of David Caminer, who is credited with inventing the first business computer. He created it to provide accurate accounting for a large tea company in England.

The statement that stuck out for me was an old gem from the popular science publication NewScientist: “In today’s terms it would be like hearing that Pizza Hut had developed a new generation of microprocessor, or McDonald’s had invented the Internet.”

Not to minimize his inventiveness, but as Plato’s old saying goes: necessity is the mother of invention.

For instance:

- To manage its call centers and ginormous network infrastructure, AT&T developed Unix, the core operating system underneath Mac OS (BSD) and one that heavily influenced Linux as well as Windows NT… the core kernel that runs every Windows OS since 2000 (WNT was created by the guy who made VMS for DEC — and yea, Unix arguably influenced the design/structure of later variants of VMS). In fact, thirty years ago, you could purchase a terminal made by AT&T. It certainly would seem weird if they developed one today, right? (the Supreme Court essentially forced them to exit that market place).

- Nintendo has been around for over a hundred years. It started as a card maker (like Poker cards) and evolved substantially over time.

- Flickr, is known as a popular web-based photo portal. However, before its web 2.0 days the development team originally created tools for an online role-playing game. They shelved the game and a few years later made bank when they were bought by Yahoo.

In fact, everyone knows at least a handful of other inventions that took odd twists and turns before becoming common place in kitchens. I mention several of them in Urban Legends of NASA: What They Did Not Invent.

Sticky notes have a colorful history too. As do submarines and dynamite! (hint: the modern developers saw their potential fulfilling peaceful, civilian matters).

If you missed it, you can grab a demo of the Creature Creator for the upcoming game (comes out early September). I spent 5 minutes and whipped together this guy. It’s very easy to use and extremely customizable.

It actually has a long tail but it’s obscured by its super sexy chest.

Also, the last few days have been Christmas-in-the-summer for fans of Blizzard games. They finally unveiled Diablo 3. Back in the day I spent hours playing the first two. Looks great (hold your breath until next holiday season).

I’ve been thinking about feedback loops lately.

In fact, the industry I currently work in thrives on a feedback loop.

Even though English is not the most widely spoken language in the world, the industries and markets it is used in are all highly influential and strategically important.

For instance, because many, if not all web standards and Internet-based communications were designed in the English-speaking world, in order to jump into the game, you really need to learn a bit of English. The same can be said for the sciences and various fields of engineering (i.e., most of the basic and applied research in these specialties are published in English). Wikipedia has a good entry explaining the positive feedback loop and why English will probably continue to dominate and grow (yey for my livelihood!).

I mention this because I came across a recent piece from The Economist discussing political segregation and neighborhoods, here is the money quote:

“We now live in a giant feedback loop,” says Mr Bishop, “hearing our own thoughts about what’s right and wrong bounced back to us by the television shows we watch, the newspapers and books we read, the blogs we visit online, the sermons we hear and the neighbourhoods we live in.”

If there is one thing that I do not miss in my life and times in Texas it is residents that have all the tools and access to information, yet only look at certain material that they agree with. I am hardly saying I’m the picture perfect example of cosmopolitan thinking (which of course, I am), but let’s look at an easy example: Christian fundamentalists.

Many of them (at least the ones I was familiar with), only read books written by fundamentalists. Only watch movies and tv shows that are Christianized or music that is blessed by various I-Heart-Jesus groups. Many conversations are entirely unoriginal as they are merely reverberations within an echo chamber.

I should point out that there is absolutely nothing wrong with hanging out or talking to like-minded individuals. Nor am I favor of criminalizing this kind of selective or discriminatory behavior (i.e., if you don’t want to hang out with non-Fundamentalists, go for it). But as noted in that piece in The Economist, much of the mantra devolves into petty group-think.

And fundamentalists are hardly the only group that can be identified and faulted for creating self-fulfilling feedback loops. I’ve met so many hippies out here that personify all of the pot-head stereotypes and unsurprisingly, they all hang out with one another and reinforce that lifestyle.

Again, feedback loops are neither inherently good nor bad but as The Economist notes, when taken to the extreme they have the potential to become violently divisive (or in virtual-space as seen in games like World of Warcraft: the Horde versus the Alliance…). Yankees/Dodgers, Star Trek/Star Wars, Lakers/Celtics, Tyson/five-year olds.

Looking for an epic war movie that doesn’t have any brand name actors and takes place in a new setting?

Check out Mongol. While it may not be entirely accurate, the cinematography and acting are superb. Oddly enough, the time period costumes set across the scenic backdrop of the Steppes remind me of the 19th-century Prairie Wars… without the guns of course.

4 out of 5. In my mind it ranks up there with Gladiator or 300. I think the only thing that could have given it a perfect score would be one more epic battle. Still the same, definitely not cheesy and makes for some refreshing viewing.

Note: about the only redeemable part of Day Watch is the brief portrayal of contemporary conditions of the Mongols and specifically Tamerlane/Timur: resting under horses.

I think it can almost be safe to say that you live in a modern, industrialized economy when consumers become conspicuous.

Yes, there is a thin grey line there and I believe the definitive measurement is chrome hub cabs: aka rims.

I just saw three different cars driving around outside with some flashy rims (no spinners though). It could be that the drivers are all in college (I live near Kyung Hee University), as it is still impossible to guess how old azn people are. Ageless between 20 and 40.

Other things the local men typically blow their cash on: “massage” parlors, horse gambling, liters of soju.