<Life>

<Snippets_of_life>
Sep 24
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My faith in capitalism is shaken.

squashed:

So, I talked to an actual economist. It turns out some of the things I had assumed were good ideas might not actually be good ideas. For example, I assumed the accumulation of wealth was a good idea. It turns out the studies don’t back this one up. Specifically, having a sufficient amount of money will make people happier, but beyond a relatively minimal amount, additional increases seem to have no effect on happiness whatsoever. Now, “money can’t buy happiness” is an old saying. It turns out that poverty can cause unhappiness—but once you have a certain amount of money, adding to it won’t make you happier.

Additionally, we have way more than enough wealth in the country to eliminate poverty. This would lead to a happier country. Now, some of you might object that this radical redistribution of wealth amounts to socialism. It does. But it has a worthwhile goal and a fighting chance of accomplishing it.

For the rigorous capitalists reading this, could you explain to me why expanding the pie, in itself, is a valuable national priority? It seems like wealth could be a useful tool toward some worthwhile end—but it isn’t an end in itself. What’s that end, and how do you plan to get there?

Part of the problem here is the actual ‘amount’ past which adding more money doesn’t make you happier. You see that amount isn’t actually nailed down - (Its not like saying give me One Million Dollars, and that’s as happy as Money can make me). More practically speaking its relative to what the peer group has.

To quote an NY Times article, which is quoting one of the studies that sides with this theory : “Relative income — how much you make compared with others around you — mattered far more than absolute income, Mr. Easterlin wrote.”

Hence - the redistribution of wealth has a very small chance of eliminating unhappiness - but it does have a chance at eliminating poverty. However, who gets to decide which of those goals is a loftier one to aspire towards? So - from the above post by squashed (who I read diligently, and concur with often) is the following -

“Additionally, we have way more than enough wealth in the country to eliminate poverty. This would lead to a happier country”

Sadly - thats not true. Our happiness is much more rooted in how we’re performing compared to everyone else. To simplify the issue greatly - if you make everyone equal - you’re making everyone equally unhappy.

Incidentally - for equality - the rest of the article linked to above is about an alternate theory to the “Easterlin Paradox” which says that Absolute Income does matter.
Sep 23
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Other people’s thoughts and feelings have to be communicated to you somehow, but your own are so immediate, urgent, real.

David Foster Wallace - Commencement Speech at Kenyon College

I’ve shared this speech with a number of people over the years, and everytime I’ve talked to them afterwards, they’ve all taken different things away from it.

As I read it now, it seems completely new to me again.

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Only in new york&#8230; A cat perched on his head.
Only in new york… A cat perched on his head.
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Coca Cola Machine&#8230;.selling&#8230;. PEPSI?!?!?!
Coca Cola Machine….selling…. PEPSI?!?!?!
Sep 18
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didyouevernotice:

A beautifully simple, but intellectually giant spot for IBM.

IBM “Prodigy”

I enjoyed this ad. It reminded me of an old TV series called ‘The Pretender’
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What I&#8217;m currently doing for fun.

Setlist
Unnatural High - a1 (-4ish)
Feel Like I want to be inside You - a1
Depeche Mode - Precious - Disc 1, Side 1, Track 2
Trevor Loveys - Leg Warmer 45 RPM (+2ish)
Ultra Records - Track A Without You Near (-4+)

What I’m currently doing for fun.

Setlist
Unnatural High - a1 (-4ish)
Feel Like I want to be inside You - a1
Depeche Mode - Precious - Disc 1, Side 1, Track 2
Trevor Loveys - Leg Warmer 45 RPM (+2ish)
Ultra Records - Track A Without You Near (-4+)

Sep 12
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fred-wilson:
the markets have moved to reflect the polls and are now in a dead heat

I cureld up in the fetal position and cried for a few minutes after seeing the Y! dashboard this morning. WTF?

fred-wilson:

the markets have moved to reflect the polls and are now in a dead heat

I cureld up in the fetal position and cried for a few minutes after seeing the Y! dashboard this morning. WTF?

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Many were the times we seethed with anger because the world refused to perform a certain sexual act upon us.

UNREMITTING FAILURE: Our 10,000th Post

Ha! Go read the entire post.

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Sep 09
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10:52AM One thing about Jack Johnson, he doesn’t mind being a corporate shill.

Live from Apple’s ‘Let’s Rock’ event in San Francisco - Engadget

This was the year of Jack Johnosn. He was in every festival, and almost every lineup that I saw that had more than one artist on the bill.

Not that I mind - but really - if I ever got into the music business, I want his manager.

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First of all, you don’t even get to read them their rights until you catch ‘em,” Obama said

Obama to Palin: ‘Don’t Mock the Constitution’ | The Trail | washingtonpost.com

Listening to a lot of policatical speeches (ti’s the season and all). Obama’s style - even though much has been written about it, rarely does much for me. However the content that he delivers is almost always impressive.

Sep 08
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maniacalrage:
Amazing shot by Marco Guerra (via implodr)

maniacalrage:

Amazing shot by Marco Guerra (via implodr)
Sep 05
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Morning sugar dose
Morning sugar dose
Aug 27
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Where the Urban Dream Life Is Going Cheap

rach:

[New York will always offer you the singular opportunity of testing yourself against the best, of sharpening yourself against the city’s fabled grindstone. Hopeful people will always scrape together their savings to come here, to split a one-bedroom apartment with five other people, whether that’s in Greenwich Village (then) or Bushwick (now). But New York, for all its mythology, is no longer a frontier. Buffalo is a frontier. And when you think of the actual frontier, you’ll recall that no one ever packed up and moved West to a gold-rush town because they heard it had really good local theater. They moved looking for opportunities. They moved for the chance to build a new life for themselves.]

Ah, Sternbergh! Rock me like a hurricane. I loved this latest addition to the “Goodbye to All That” genre, with a focus on moving to Buffalo. It is hard, being from the wild west myself, to accept the fact that NYC, for the most part, has reached a point where it has stabilized (and will simply become a more expensive version of the present) until something really drastic happens and we will have no choice but to rebuild (knock on wood). There is something to be said for pioneering and creating the new and inventing wheels from scratch—in a recession that’s not going to happen in this city. Still, I think it is a good place to take the knocks that you need to take to ford new waters later on—for me, these years of living in the city have made me bold and hopeful and jittery and ready to someday go to a new place and do my part to create it in the image of the great metropolis. And I know the energy to do it will come from having lived here.

**Also, you don’t have to go to Buffalo!…homes in Albuquerque (where I grew up) are just as affordable now, and with desert sunsets and crystals and roasted hatch and air so clean it cures disease. Not that I’m going back yet.