I have a Twitter account, too. More updates, maximum of 140 characters per message. I will link it to this blog at some point. Enjoy.
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Even More Realistic Video Game Acting
February 24, 2010 – 7:31 pm
Virtual, real-time rendered acting is one of the most rapidly improving aspects of modern video games. For example, watch one of the trailers for the upcoming “Mafia II” game by 2k Czech:
Stunning.
As we (meaning the society as a whole) increase the overall level of capital accumulation, human resources like actors become more and more expensive, at least in general. Processing power and digital storage, on the other hand, tend to move in the opposite direction and get cheaper on a constant basis.
I think we all suspect what the future of acting is going to look like if we take the above into account.
UoL External System Blog
January 10, 2010 – 11:23 pm
I have become one of the contributors to the official University of London External System Blog. My welcoming post has been already published and more is to be expected at least once a week. If you hold any interest in this mode of study, please visit the blog from time to time.
I have updated the About page accordingly.
Streaming vs. Downloading or the Personal Dimension of Book Ownership
December 24, 2009 – 9:01 pm
Cory Doctorow, a writer, a Boing-Boing contributor and one of the most interesting thinkers on copyright, copyleft and social aspects of intellectual property, explains why music streaming services will never become an effective substitute for downloading, ending up as a complementary service instead:
The Nature of Climategate
December 3, 2009 – 5:24 pm
Climategate or, as Wikipedia calls it, the “Climatic Research Unit e-mail hacking incident”, has been all over the Internet for some time now and I do not feel like adding anything substantial to the discussion. However, the editorial in this week’s Nature has provoked quite a strong reaction on my side. The editors write:
The e-mail archives stolen last month from the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia (UEA), UK, have been greeted by the climate-change-denialist fringe as a propaganda windfall (see page 551). To these denialists, the scientists’ scathing remarks about certain controversial palaeoclimate reconstructions qualify as the proverbial ‘smoking gun’: proof that mainstream climate researchers have systematically conspired to suppress evidence contradicting their doctrine that humans are warming the globe.
This paranoid interpretation would be laughable were it not for the fact that obstructionist politicians in the US Senate will probably use it next year as an excuse to stiffen their opposition to the country’s much needed climate bill. Nothing in the e-mails undermines the scientific case that global warming is real — or that human activities are almost certainly the cause. That case is supported by multiple, robust lines of evidence, including several that are completely independent of the climate reconstructions debated in the e-mails.
White Collar Crime
December 2, 2009 – 9:42 am
Some will rob you with a six-gun
And some with a fountain pen
This line from Woody Guthrie’s “Pretty Boy Floyd” has been used to illustrate the problem of white collar crime in a fascinating three-part mini-cycle of the “Thinking Allowed” podcast produced by BBC Radio. Laurie Taylor does a magnificent job of uncovering and discussing the technical, cultural, political and moral whys and hows of British and American financial crimes perpetrated by respected professionals working for both private and public sectors of the economy.
Below are direct links to the mp3 files of relevant episodes of the podcast:
The Tax Poem
November 18, 2009 – 9:24 am
This is already all over the Internet but I could not help myself posting it here:
The Tax Poem
Tax his land, tax his wage,
Tax his bed in which he lays.
Tax his tractor, tax his mule,
Teach him taxes is the rule.
Tax his cow, tax his goat,
Tax his pants, tax his coat.
Tax his ties, tax his shirts,
Tax his work, tax his dirt.
Tax his chew, tax his smoke,
Teach him taxes are no joke.
Tax his car, tax his grass,
Tax the roads he must pass.
Tax his food, tax his drink,
Tax him if he tries to think.
Tax his sodas, tax his beers,
If he cries, tax his tears.
Tax his bills, tax his gas,
Tax his notes, tax his cash.
Tax him good and let him know
That after taxes, he has no dough.
If he hollers, tax him more,
Tax him until he’s good and sore.
Tax his coffin, tax his grave,
Tax the sod in which he lays.
Put these words upon his tomb,
“Taxes drove me to my doom!”
And when he’s gone, we won’t relax,
We’ll still be after the inheritance tax.
A Social Science(?)
October 19, 2009 – 11:14 pm
Roger Pielke, Jr. writes:
Brad DeLong emailed me with a verbatim version of comments entered on my post about his attack-by-proxy on me by someone named “brad”. I had assumed that “brad” was not Professor Brad DeLong because “brad“‘s comments were so sophmoric and inane, but apparently they are one and the same person.
(…)
A comment shows up:
Roger, I find Climatology and Economics to be similar in their personality quirks (a kind description.) Both are replete with huge egomaniacal leaders who cultivate a cult following. Many of the leaders in each field are more about politics than their ?science?.
My response to the comment:
That’s true, unfortunately. The problem stems from common features of both fields: lack of truly controlled experiments, tinkering with complex systems that cannot be put under laboratory examination, close ties to politics and policy making, strong mixture of ideology and facts.
Contrary to physics or mathematics (which I learn to respect more and more), in economics you can draw completely opposite normative conclusions from the very same paper. This is the reason why I hate the distinction between positive and normative economics. I would prefer to call them just “economics” and “politics”.
Just the Way It Is
September 16, 2009 – 1:00 am
University of London External System Exam Results
September 1, 2009 – 2:45 pm
University of London External System staff has finally published exam results online. It seems that I have passed both 05A - Mathematics I and 96 - Economic history in the 20th century. I hope that everybody else did well during this session, too.
My plan for 2009/2010 is slightly more ambitious as I intend to take three half units (H) and one full unit (F):
- 05B - Mathematics II (H)
- 04A - Statistics I (H)
- 04B - Statistics II (H)
- 02 - Introduction to economics (F)
If I pass these exams I will go into a full throttle mode and have two years worth of what amounts to four full units a year.