3D TV FAQ
CNET experts answers questions about 3D TV display technology, and 3D LCD and plasma TVs from Samsung, LG, Panasonic, Sony, Toshiba, Vizio and more. Read this blog post by David Katzmaier on Crave.
Categories: computer Tags: document-has, here, moved, moved-here-, moved-permanently
University Administration Jobs and Hiring Practices
This morning, UNC students and faculty awoke to an email from UNC Chancellor Holden Thorp notifying the university community that Dr. Bruce Carney , Samuel Baron Professor of Physics and Astronomy and the interim Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost at UNC, has been appointed the permanent Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost. I have absolutely no doubt that Dr. Carney deserves the job, will serve the university proudly and competently and will prove to be a very good hire in the years to come. Dr. Carney has been at UNC since 1980, starting off as a lowly assistant professor and working all the way up to his current endowed chair and serving as chair of the Physics department and both Senior Associate Dean and Interim Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences along the way. What was interesting to me when I read the email from Chancellor Thorp was that the university held a national search, brought in three external candidates for interviews, lectures and Q&A, and then hired the internal, interim position-holder that was not a candidate for the position.
Categories: climate Tags: climate, college, document-has, miscellany, moved-here-, moved-permanently, permanently
Connecting Government and Academia
Yesterday, I spent the day in Washington, DC attending an all-day panel on political violence that brought together an array of academics from various fields including political science, criminology, sociology, public policy, statistics, mathematics and psychology, private sector analysts and researchers, and government practitioners from various departments and agencies. The panel was put together by the Institute for Homeland Security Solutions , a collaborative effort between Research Triangle Institute International , the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Duke University, and the Human Factors and Behavioral Sciences Division (HFD) of the Department of Homeland Security’s Science and Technology Directorate, which is the primary research and development arm of DHS. I'm not allowed to divulge any details from the all-day event nor can I talk about who was present or what they said since government officials and agencies were involved and are funding the project (which kind of sucks but makes sense and is understandable), but this kind of academia-government interaction is exactly the type of collaborative effort that is needed to foster cooperation between academics and practitioners, and the kind of interaction that Joe Nye, Dan Drezner and others have called for in recent months. One of the primary goals of the discussion was to bring social science scholarship and methodology to the table to help government agencies find answers to problems and questions that they face on a daily basis. There is a lot that government practitioners can learn from social science research and the ways we approach complex questions.
Categories: climate Tags: climate, document-has, miscellany, moved-here-, moved-permanently, permanently, social science
Now This Is How You Do Journalism
I spend more time bashing bad press work than praising good. I don't know if that's because there isn't very much good stuff, or because I'm mean-spirited, but today I can happily praise this article on Greece and the IMF by Sewell Chan and Liz Alderman of the NY Times . Let's parse it a bit: In the last two days, Greece’s finance minister has threatened to turn to the International Monetary Fund for a bailout if Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany and other European politicians resist pledging aid to help Greece cope with its newfound frugality.
Categories: climate Tags: climate, document-has, greece, imf, moved-here-, moved-permanently, permanently, political economy, sovereign debt
Categories: climate, internet Tags: climate, document-has, internet, miscellany, moved-here-, moved-permanently, permanently
PSA: Iraq Election Breakdown
For those curious about the recent Iraq election and what it means, Juan Cole is always a reliable source.
Categories: climate Tags: climate, document-has, iraq, moved-here-, moved-permanently, permanently
P (Agreement | Different Epistemologies) < 0.5
"Scott Wedman" kills the "Great Quant/Qual Debate of 2010" in a guest post at Abu's place by saying almost exactly what I said , but more succinctly and with more grace. If Abu had taken that tack originally there would have been no disagreement from anyone. Nobody thinks that quant analysis is flawless or that qual research is worthless; just that it has a lot to offer if done well. As for humor... I don't think anyone missed anything. I don't think Abu would've been criticized by any of us if his post had been obviously humorous, and a few of us would've linked to it approvingly in that case. Abu was trying to cheekily make a substantive point, and the criticisms directed at him were at the substance, not the cheekiness*. It wasn't in good humor at all, or certainly didn't come across that way, since he's made very clear in the past how little use he has for quant/formal research.
Categories: climate Tags: climate, document-has, international relations, moved-here-, moved-permanently, permanently
Who’s Afraid of the IMF?
Emmanuel notices that multilateral lenders-of-last-resort are popping up in Europe and Asia, and wonders: why not scrap the IMF? A European lender could tailor its policies to European needs, by surveilling compliance with the Maastricht criteria, for example. Emmanuel also notes that European countries rarely have balance of payments problems, which is the ostensible purpose of the IMF. The Vreelander sees the move from international to regional multilateral institutions as just another sign of the times: The European Monetary Fund is less of a big deal. In the 1950s, 60s, and 70s, European countries borrowed from the IMF and had to accept the conditions attached. With the United States as the largest shareholder of the IMF, this gave our country some influence over policy in Europe. But Europe turned away from the IMF a long time ago. With Greece flirting with the idea of turning to the IMF for a loan, Germany and France are moving to make the divorce more final; Europe will deal with European monetary affairs. But this European monetary move adds impetus to other regional organizations, like the Chiang Mai Initiative for Asia, and the Banco del Sur for South America. Global governance going forward will be increasingly based along regional lines
Categories: climate Tags: climate, document-has, imf, moved-here-, moved-permanently, permanently
Make game consoles safe to sell
If you're getting rid of your XBox, Wii, or PS3, make sure you delete your personal data first! Originally posted at CNET TV
Categories: computer Tags: document-has, here, moved, moved-here-, moved-permanently
Top 5 most popular products for March
These are the products CNET users have been looking at the most this month. Originally posted at CNET TV
Categories: computer Tags: document-has, here, moved, moved-here-, moved-permanently
I’m Losing My Religion: Methods as Fetish
(Disclaimer: The majority of my published research employs statistical analysis. Everything I am currently working on employs statistical analysis. ) R.E.M. - New Music - More Music Videos I fear for the future of my profession. Part I The IR blogging community's response to Andrew Exum's (rather insipid) manifesto , which Will ably collects here , illustrates something I have been contemplating for a while: the talismanic status of quantitative analysis in contemporary study of international politics. Consider Drew Conway's response (I d on't intend this to be a dig at Drew Conway, who by all appearances is an intelligent, thoughtful, and highly-skilled individual. I focus on his post because I think his response is representative of median IR-man .
Categories: climate Tags: climate, document-has, moved-here-, moved-permanently, permanently
That’s a Nice Straw Man You’ve Got There
So this Andrew Exum post bashing the use of quantitative methodologies in IR research has gotten a lot of play in the IR blogosphere. (Aside: it was sure nice of him to write a manifesto for those of us who use stats in our analysis... would he mind if I wrote one for him?) The Foreign Policy bloggers are split: Stephen Walt got a thrill from it while Drezner thinks it's "unadulterated horsesh*t" .
Categories: climate Tags: climate, document-has, international relations, moved-here-, moved-permanently, permanently
The Eye of the Beholder
From a (surprisingly) good David Broder column : From too many years of covering politics, I have come to believe as Axiom One that the absolute worst advice politicians ever receive comes from journalists who fancy themselves great campaign strategists. Really? And all this time I thought the worst advice came from social scientists . I guess it all depends on where you're sitting.
Categories: climate Tags: climate, document-has, moved-here-, moved-permanently, permanently, social science
What Do Americans Want?
Will Wilkinson argues that Americans don't value the type of government spending that we get: My sense is that, despite the U.S.’s historically relatively modest level of government spending, the composition of U.S. spending is such that U.S. taxpayers get less of value in return for their tax dollars than do taxpayers in many places with higher taxes and higher levels of government spending. Which is to say that when using GDP per capita as a proxy for welfare, the U.S.
Categories: climate Tags: climate, democracy, document-has, moved-here-, moved-permanently, permanently, public choice
Oh Blather
Today an anonymous commenter writes in response to an old post , Chavez and Morales are sooooooooo crazy, huh, professor. And the IMF and UN have been helping Haiti all this time using values we, as Americans, stringently hold; subjugating any aspect of the earth until we can target it with mega machinery and the vultures who prey on the carcass of the third world. Earthquake machine? What else would you call the Bush administration? Your complicity with the Heritage Foundation is showing. I pull this comment from obscurity because it nicely illustrates why my fellow citizens are incapable of engaging in reasoned discourse about anything important. The reaction is incoherent ethos ; logos makes no appearance.
Categories: climate Tags: climate, document-has, moved-here-, moved-permanently, permanently
The IMF Tries to Take the Teeth Out of the IMF
Emmanuel passes along this article on the changing culture in the IMF: The International Monetary Fund is considering a new multibillion dollar lending arrangement it would deploy during crises, which would offer money to countries even if they don't ask for it. Under the "multicountry credit line," the IMF would, for the first time, make money available to groups of countries that it believes are in danger during financial crises, rather than individual nations, said a senior IMF official. The previous m.o. of the IMF was to make their loans as unattractive as possible to reduce moral hazard. But in recent days the Fund seems more interested in staying relevant: The credit-line concept represents further rethinking on the part of the IMF of how it should operate to ward off or handle crises. During the past few weeks, the IMF has suggested that countries might aim for a higher level of inflation than central banks traditionally do, and that countries might consider using taxes and regulation to limit surges of capital that could inflate asset bubbles.
Categories: amazon, climate, review Tags: amazon, climate, document-has, imf, moved-here-, moved-permanently, permanently, review
The Non-End of Influence
Thought I'd toss out this video of Stephen Cohen talking about his book (with Brad DeLong) The End of Influence . The discussion frustrated me, because both discussants kept talking about how important politics was in shaping economic outcomes without ever mentioning how it was important, why it was important, what politics had to do with outcomes, how political incentives shaped history, or really anything substantive about politics. It's difficult to pull out any one wrong thing in it to pick on, mostly because the discussion is too vague to pin down any clear, consistent argument beyond "being in debt is a bad thing for America", but also because there are half-truths and "yeah, but..." moments throughout. And also because it's an hour long and basically everything said in it is incomplete, wrong, or begs a question that it doesn't answer. For example: the title of the book is The End of Influence , and yet nowhere in the interview does Cohen explain how America has lost its influence or even defend the notion that it has. At the very end he actually says the opposite: that despite the financial crisis nothing much seems to be changing at all.
Categories: climate Tags: climate, document-has, foreign policy, moved-here-, moved-permanently, permanently, political economy
Categories: climate Tags: climate, document-has, moved-here-, moved-permanently, permanently
Politics isn’t the Dispassionate Quest for Truth
Jamie Whyte proposes a "politics should be like a graduate seminar" model of democracy that strikes me as quite curious. The quote that motivates my thoughts is the following: But how can a bad policy be good politics? What defect in the electoral system can explain this? The most popular explanation these days is the malign influence of “special interests”. Perhaps there is something in this. But a more fundamental defect is always overlooked, presumably because it is mistaken for a virtue of modern democracies. The reason so many bad policies are good politics is that so many people vote: about 62 percent of adults at the last general election, both in Great Britain and in the United States. The best way to get more sensible policies would be to reduce the number of voters to less than 0.01 percent of the population. The logic of Whyte's call for fewer voters rests on the assumption that ignorance is the primary obstacle to good policy.
Categories: climate Tags: climate, document-has, moved-here-, moved-permanently, permanently
Hell Freezes Over
William Easterly and Jeffrey Sachs have finally found common ground... on Twitter. Easterly blogs the (so far one-sided) exchange and reactions: (anon): Just noticed that @bill_easterly is following @jeffdsachs but not vice versa / Hilarious @bill_easterly: This hurts :> ) RT Just noticed that @bill_easterly is following @jeffdsachs but not vice versa @jeffdsachs: Hello friends, thank you for the warm welcome. @jeffdsachs: RT @EndOfPoverty: mobile phones and internet in Africa means changes to life in fields, in clinics,… http://fb.me/5LOwcWe @bill_easterly: I agree w u on mobile potential RT @jeffdsachs mobile phones in Africa means changes to life in fields, in clinics,… http://fb.me/5LOwcWe (anon): Pigs just flew!! RT @bill_easterly: Agree w u on mobile potential RT @jeffdsachs mobiles in Africa means changes to,… http://fb.me/5LOwcWe (anon): WHAT? My entire belief system just corroded to nothing RT @bill_easterly I agree w u on mobile potential RT @jeffdsachs http://fb.me/5LOwcWe (anon): Hell just froze over! RT @bill_easterly:I agree w/ u on mobile potential RT @jeffdsachs mobile phones in Africa (cont) http://tl.gd/c0m70 (anon): Ahem, @jeffdsachs where are you? The whole developmentgeek twittersphere is waiting for you to reply to @bill_easterly OK let’s remain calm.
Categories: climate, internet Tags: climate, development, document-has, internet, moved-here-, moved-permanently, permanently
