Progress and ChartBloat

Think people are getting more informed as the arrow of time moves forward? Turns out the answer is that they are getting less informed. Here's the wired study.

Watch out for that graphic though - it sensationalizes the statistics. The metrics are mapped to the diameter of the circles and not the area. Makes the effect appear much more amplified than it really is. Someone needs to buy the reporter the Tufte book.

Mellow Terrorists

Funny beyond belief.

Smaller is Better

Gladwell strikes again and makes another strong case that he is one of the best analyst/writers in the country. In "Big and Bad" Malcolm takes on the SUV myth that bigger is safer. The article is peppered with quotes ("An elegant woman said that she needed her full sized-Lexus 470 to drive up over the curb and onto the lawns to park at parties in Beverly Hills"), anecdotes ("SUV buyers tend to be insecure, vain, self-centered, and frequently nervous about their marriage"), statistics ("the driver fatality rate humble camry is more than three times that in the mighty 4Runner), psychology research ("learned helpnessness") - and is a meaty and filling read. The basic gist is that SUVs are very bad at active safety, ie being nimble enough to avoid running into objets - and they tend to make drivers think that they are safe just by the virtue of being huge, and hence SUVers are less inclined to avoid collisions. The latter is a fallacy because safety standards for cars are much higher than those for trucks.

And incidentally, it praises the VW Jetta - "clearly audible engine, light and precise steering, short wheelbase - and so dwarfed by other cars on the road that it reminds an intelligent driver the necessity of driving safely and defensively". Quite a coincidence that last Sunday these exact features saved me from getting into a fender bender. I did a rolling stop manuever on a stop sign, and it turned out that it was not a four way stop and there was a minivan coming in from the right side. I slammed on the brake and swerved to the left and avoided a certain collision and patted myself on the back for my quick reaction time. Now I know that were I in a SUV - that would have been a certain crash. Suddenly I like my Jetta a lot more :D Danke, Wolfsburg!

Trade Policy: Goods vs Information

Good article by Cory Doctorow. The argument is that the US allowed cheap imports to flood the US market in exchange for developing countries promise to opt into the american IP laws. It is not clear (and I doubt it could be proven) whether that premise can be proven, or whether there was a conscious decision to go that route - but that is what happened in essence. Now the only option for US is to go whack-a-mole over companies in China and Russia that abuse the unenforceable IP laws. Good luck with that sisyphean task, old man Sam!