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I’m not getting one of those today. I’ll wait. But at lunchtime today, I went to two local malls and took these photos of the phenomenon. Need I mention that Woz himself was there? I snapped a few pics of him at the Valley Fair mall in San Jose.
Nope. Not gonna do it. I’m not standing in line for one of these. But I’ll read about it, experiencing the Apple fan-boy excitement through surrogates.
(Yes, I see the irony of this post coming on the heals of one on global poverty.)
I’ve mentioned before that I have no training in economics, and any time I read something that requires a knowledge of that field, I’m reminded of my ignorance. So I do what most people do — try to make reasoned judgments based on common sense and a smattering of material aimed at the general reader. Some of that material now comes to me directly from two economists at Harvard, via their respective web logs. I like hearing their opinions on various topics, which, in the case of Prof. Dani Rodrik, often involves discussion of poverty and economic development. This post of his on the “two schools of thought” (natch) on global poverty solutions was illuminating intriguing.
In one school are people with “names like Bono, Angelina Jolie, Bob Geldof, Bill Gates, John Edwards, and Jeffrey Sachs.” The second group includes people with “names like Abhijit Banerjee, Tim Besley, Francesco Caselli, Esther Duflo, Lant Pritchett, and Mark Rosenzweig.”
While giving credit to “Bono and company” for raising awareness of poverty worldwide, Rodrik concludes:
[I]t is a pity that the general public sees hears [sic] so little from the second group. Mention global poverty, and most people start thinking of debt relief, foreign aid, and (perhaps) cheap pharmaceuticals. Never mind that most development economists do not think these are where the real action is. Hey, Bono makes for much better copy.
Make sure to read the comments attached to Rodrik’s post.
So much to learn, so little time….
Over at the Gypsy Scholar blog, Prof. H. J. Hodges has some thoughts on a recent fashion faux pas perpetrated by Cameron Diaz in Peru, and comes to the conclusion that ethics trumps aesthetics. It’s a sensible position, although seldom articulated. As a bonus, the famous San Francisco ferral parrots fittingly make another appearance on the web. (A mouthful, isn’t it?)
Here are a few things that have caught my attention and entertained me on the web recently.
There you have it. Scatological history, immigration, war, politics, and academic gossip all in one fell swoop.
If Mel Brooks or the Marx Brothers were funny and, perhaps, therapeutic in their send-ups of National Socialist Germany, I suppose it could be healthy to make fun of life under the East German Stasi, which seems to be the point of the Ostel in Berlin. David at Cronaca wonders whether the rooms have hidden cameras and microphones.
Me? I’m not sure I’d want to stay there. Would you?
(Oh, and I hate to think of the keyword searches on the web that will bring people to this post.)
A few days ago I said that I enjoy reading Jeff Sypeck, and his post comparing Tony Soprano to Charlemagne gives me another reminder to check Quid plura regularly. I especially like the film ideas at the end of the post and in the comments section. Very funny!
I grew up less than an hour’s drive from Yellow Springs, Ohio, home of Antioch College. My friends and I frequented the Glen Helen nature preserve near the town. I was in high school at the time, and I recall driving past the campus and wondering what life would be like in college. Once, a friend and I helped with the layout of one issue of a student publication, back when “cut and paste” retained its literal meaning. (The phrase “Red China” leaps to mind when I recall that stint, too, although I can’t remember exactly why.)
A year from now Antioch College will close, Ralph Luker notes at Cliopatria. Other than sentimental memories, I don’t have any ties to the college, and never considered attending it. But, as I said above, Antioch help shape some of my romantic ideas about what college might be like (and the reality was far from the romanticism).
Until reading Ralph Luker’s note, I wasn’t aware that Antioch’s graduates included such luminaries as Clifford Geertz, Stephen Jay Gould, Corretta Scott King, and Rod Serling.
Here’s a fun place, Sightseeing with Google Satellite Maps, that lists over 11,000 shortcuts to interesting places in Google maps. Sure, you could find these sights yourself, if you know what to look for at Google, but you can save a little time by consulting this list. I enjoyed seeing some spots in Spain, including Madinat al-Zahra near Córdoba, a tenth-century complex built by the Umayyad ruler ‘Abd al-Rahman III and destroyed in the eleventh century in a Berber rebellion.
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I’m attending WWDC this week in San Francisco. Went to the keynote yesterday and heard The Steve talk about some of the new features in the next version of Mac OS X. Most of us heard about Leopard last year, but Apple was holding back some of the details. Now all is known, or nearly all. Besides all that, we heard about technical details that I can’t mention now, but it’s this techie stuff that will be the theme for the rest of the week.
We also heard about Apple’s plans to release their web browser, Safari, in versions for Windows XP and Vista, available now as an early Beta release. But I would caution you to think about installing pre-release software. It might not be as useful as you hope, as some people have discovered.