Bluematter.

Literally speaking - this is one hell of a blender, watch what happens to Chuck Norris, IT infrastructure, and a video camera.

I love the aesthetic (youtube kitsch?) and, of course, don't breath this!

If you listen to Bruce Bueno de Mesquita, and a lot of people don’t, he’ll claim that mathematics can tell you the future. In fact, the professor says that a computer model he built and has perfected over the last 25 years can predict the outcome of virtually any international conflict, provided the basic input is accurate. What’s more, his predictions are alarmingly specific. His fans include at least one current presidential hopeful, a gaggle of Fortune 500 companies, the CIA, and the Department of Defense.

More here, via MR.

Stardom (our Friday Special blogger) emails me from a 'truly magnificent spectacle of nature'; I am in the midst of one of the most stressful life experiences.

Yes, according to this research (via Andrew Gelman):

The debate over the definition of beauty has been waged by both scientists and philosophers for centuries. We tested the idea that a facial configuration close to the population mean is fundamental to attractiveness.

First, we digitized images of faces of male and female college students (i.e., transformed the facial images into little dots of lightness and darkness called "pixels"). Each face is represented by a matrix of pixel values that can be mathematically averaged with the matrices of other faces. Once digitized and averaged together, we can turn the averaged pixel values back into images and have the composite faces rated for attractiveness.

College students rated the male and female composite faces as significantly higher in attractiveness than the individual faces used to create them, if the composites had at least 16 different faces in them. Thus, averaged faces are attractive. Note that when we use the word, "average," we mean the arithmetical mean, and not an average-looking person. If, for example, you take a female composite (averaged) face made of 32 different faces and overlay it on the face of an extremely attractive female model, the two images line up almost perfectly indicating that the model's facial configuration is very similar to the composites' facial configuration.

[...] we view averageness as fundamental and necessary to facial attractiveness. Averageness is not the only component of attractiveness, but without it, no face will be attractive.

Here are some selected publications on the matter.

My two cents: what makes you ugly are extreme characteristics (e.g. big nose or ears); averaging simply takes care of these 'large errors'. The same principle is behind the frequently superior performance of composite forecasts (e.g. of economic variables), where the arithmetic mean of a number of forecasts is often more accurate than any of the individual components.

Postscript: Note that averaging doesn't quite work with hair.

So, well into middle age, I figured that it was probably a good time to take up the smoking habit. The result? I enjoy it so much that I don't know why I didn't take it up earlier.

More in the Wall Street Journal.

Robert Reich at the Economist Free Exchange revisits an argument I first heard from David Henderson almost a decade ago:

THE current tempest over whether Toyota is hypocritical in selling the Prius while at the same time signing up with Ford, GM, and Chrysler in opposing a Senate bill mandating higher fuel mileage standards illustrates the dilemma of so-called "corporate social responsibility." Toyota isn't being hypocritical at all. Toyota isn't even a person. The company exists to maximize shareholder value [...]

Presumably Toyota invented the Prius to fulfill an important and potentially growing market niche in cars that consumed less energy. As such, it was being neither socially responsible nor irresponsible; it was simply responding to market demands. In making a political decision to join with the Big Three in opposing higher fuel standards, Toyota was also acting as a profit-maximiser [...]

The problem is that Toyota, and other companies that venture into politics, are undermining the democratic process. Most people are not just consumers and investors. They're also citizens, who have citizen values—including saving the planet from global warming. Toyota has every right to respond to the part of our heads that correspond to consumer and investor values, but companies have no ethical grounds for entering into the democratic realm which should be reserved for citizen values. If corporate social responsibility means anything at all, it should mean refraining from corrupting the political process.

There are three issues here:

1) Given that they are the shareholders's agents, are CEOs justified in straying from the goal of profit maximisation?

2) Companies (and the rich in general) have a much louder 'voice' (through their ability to fund political campaigns, control of the media, better information and contacts etc) when it comes to government policy and setting social priorities. Where should we draw the line? Would it be acceptable, say, for the big auto-makers to collude to decrease emissions? Do companies have the right to have their own social policies when they do not have a democratic mandate?

3) What is the effect of corporate social responsibility and related activities (e.g. charity) on the equilibrium level of public good provision? In other words, and to turn the question as it is usually posed on its head, does private giving crowd out public spending?

My answer on this last one is most probably yes; more here.

This dream machine and more from the Tokyo Motor Show

Extreme sports taken to the next level: Wingsuit basejumping

Musicovery is tailored interactive web radio that lets you explore

Something more relaxing: Simply pass the ball

Shuffle and mix your personal Monoface

The world's top 10 most liveable cities

Scott Aaronson has a money-can't-buy experience:

A reader named Warren Smith informs me of an Australian TV commercial (which you can watch on YouTube), in which two fashion models have the following conversation:

Model 1: But if quantum mechanics isn’t physics in the usual sense — if it’s not about matter, or energy, or waves — then what is it about?

Model 2: Well, from my perspective, it’s about information, probabilities, and observables, and how they relate to each other.

Model 1: That’s interesting!

The commercial then flashes the tagline “A more intelligent model,” followed by a picture of a Ricoh printer.

More intelligent, or simply more shameless? Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, allow me to quote from Lecture 9 of my Quantum Computing Since Democritus notes:

But if quantum mechanics isn’t physics in the usual sense — if it’s not about matter, or energy, or waves, or particles — then what is it about? From my perspective, it’s about information and probabilities and observables, and how they relate to each other.

Postscript: Responding to his (many, many) comments, Scott stumbles upon two fundamental truths that many a blogger will relate to:

The longer I blog, the more I despair of ever achieving my central goal in life, namely for everyone to like me.

The longer I blog, the more I despair of ever achieving my secondary goal in life, namely for everyone to understand me.

[I wasn't sure whether I should post the photo, and in the end I decided against it. If you are interested, click here]

Dorota Rabczewska (nicknamed Doda or Doda Elektroda; born February 15, 1984 in Ciechanów, Poland) is a famous Polish singer.

In 2000, at the age of 16, Rabczewska became the vocalist of the Polish rock band Virgin. In 2004, at the age of 20, she joined Mensa International and it was revealed that she has an IQ of 156.

That's from Wikipedia. Here's Doda's official website (in Polish). Here's the distribution of IQ score (from Encarta):


Here, Greg Mankiw posts on the 10 principles of feminist economics.

More at Odd Numbers.

Video (must watch),article, website. I really don't understand why the get one give one programme is limited both in number of pieces to be made available and location, but I can wait.

And yes, I think it's an amazing idea and will work wonders in the developing world - and beyond. More on this in an upcoming post.

This, on the other hand, is a gadget I will be getting soon - and fellow owners will find the information in the video very, very useful.

And while we are at it, David Pogue's podcasts at the NYT are simply amazing; unless you hate gadgets and technology with a passion, don't miss it.

Burning our money, in a venomous post with a number of ridiculous assertions, asks whether immigrants have made 'us' (indigenous Britons) richer:

Has it (immigration) made us richer?

* No: overall GDP per head has been little changed by immigration

The most widely quoted study is still the one published by the highly respected National Institute for Economic and Social Research (NIESR) last year (and see their Lords submssion here). They reckoned that immigration between 1997 and 2005 had raised GDP by 3.1%. But since it had increased the population by 3.8%, GDP per head had actually fallen.

Why might that be?

First, because many of these new immigrants take low-skilled jobs which produce less than the average UK worker. High productivity investment banking immigrants are very much the exception.

Second, they displace indigenous workers who join the dole queue (eg see this blog on the problems in Slough where hungry incomers from Eastern Europe consigned existing Pakistani immigrants to an 18% fall in their employment rate in three years).

I won't question the facts he quotes or address the morality of the issue (as an immigrant, I suffer from many defects including attention deficit disorder). But this guy can't even get his algebra right.

He presents the fall in GDP per capita that is attributable to immigration as proof that immigration does not make us richer. But, of course, it is perfectly conveivable for immigration to be making EVERYONE better off (both the indigenous population and the immigrants) while leading to a lower GDP per capita. How?

Let's say what's his name is the sole inhabitant of Britain and he earns (produces) £100 a year. GDP per capita in Britain in this scenario is £100 pounds.

Now let's say I come to live in Britain, from a country where I was earning £20 a year, and I now earn (produce) £30 a year. Let's also say that, because of immigration, what's his name now earns £150. GDP per capita in Britain is now down to £90 from £100, yet we are all much, much better off.

Ah, the wonderful things you learn in primary school when you are not busy harassing little Johnny immigrant...

Or is this a tax on emailing?

Attent™ [...] tackles the problem of information overload in corporate email using psychological and economic principles from successful games. Attent creates a synthetic economy with a currency (Serios) that enables users to attach value to an outgoing email to signal importance. It gives recipients the ability to prioritize messages and a reserve of currency that they can use to signal importance of their messages to others.

More here. I have reservations:

1) Who is responsible for controlling the currency supply (and will internal corporate communications enter a boom and bust cycle?)

2) Can a goods market work without a credit market to enable capital to find its way to its most productive use?

3) Will the reduced informational cost faced by the readers compensate for the increased informational cost faced by the senders?

4) Is the system incentive compatible? Do senders' valuations correspond to those of the readers, even on average?

5) Does this formal system offer much at all? Don't we already have ways to show that a particular piece of information is important? (the word URGENT in the subject title, coupled with a couple of follow-up calls, together with a reputation for not sending useless email does it for me)

On related news, in today’s America there are more World of Warcraft players than farmers.

You can say the Soviets were a tad bit too keen on planning, but you sure can't blame them for lack of optimism:

Soviet plan for WW3 nuclear attack unearthed by Nato historian: While most Western planners were convinced that any first strike would lead to total mutual destruction, the plan - written in matter-of-fact language - shows that Warsaw Pact nations presumed a massive ground war would follow nuclear attacks.

Mr Lunak described the military plans as “fairy tale” thinking based on World War II warfare: “They (the Soviets) really planned to send ground troops out in the field and have them fight for a few days until they died from radiation,” he said.

Via voluntaryXchange.

Back
October 21st, 2007 by Walt

I was out of town for a couple of days. Regular posting should resume. (I was going to post beforehand to let you all know that I was going out of town, but then I thought “Who are you? My mom?”)

In Ars Mathematica.