If you are having a bad day, check out http://globalrichlist.com/.  I, apparently, am among the richest 2.37% in the WORLD…  That means that 97.63% of people are, in a big way, much worse off than me.  However, you can’t relate money and attitude towards life.  Just because I make more money than 97.63% of the world, doesn’t mean I am in the top 2.37% of the happiest people.  Interesting stuff…

Well it looks like the bailout is going down in flames, at least for today. If you’ve been watching the whole thing unfold, it’s been interesting to see who has opposed and who was backing the bill. It definitely didn’t fall along party lines, and opposition came from both the far left and the far right. Techdirt has a really great write-up covering the basics from a non-political viewpoint, and is definitely worth a read.

Haven’t been following the whole breakdown of modern society? Well, This American Life (an awesome show on NPR) had a great piece a couple of months ago in conjuntion with NPR news that profiled how the whole thing happened. It’s downloadable as a podcast, and really goes into depth about what happened and why.

Don’t know what a house is? Hmm, here’s the Wikipedia page. Good luck.

yo yo yo,

I just traded my Wii w/guitar hero for an Xbox 360 with a wireless network adaptor, three wireless remotes and 10 games or so including Call of Duty 2 and 3, Halo 2 and 3, Perfect Dark Zero, Ghost Recon Advance War Fighter, Madden 08, NHL 07, Need for Speed and a couple others I can’t remember. I gave him $50 in addition to the Wii because of how many games there were but I think I got a killer deal…god bless Craigslist

Anyways, the reason I am posting this is because I know a bunch of you are into the XBOX live thing and I wanted to figure out how I would get hooked up with you so I could play against/with you as that sounds like a good amount of fun. What games do you guys play online? Do I have to get a membership thing?

Was reading this article that discusses social traits as associated with where you live in the country and what factors can be strongly correlated to those traits/regions.

It had colored maps so I was all about it. Stuff like this can be particularly important I think if used in population behavioral modeling. Thinks like election tendencies, etc could be inferred more accurately.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122211987961064719.html?mod=yhoofront

Say what you want about the presidential candidates and who’s more fit to run this country.  In all reality things will only slightly change for us common folk.  The real reason to go out and vote in November are the ballot questions.  There’s only 3, they can be found here.  I’m voting for yes for all three.

The first question almost passed two years ago and has a strong chance of passing this year.  The state government is terrified of this one and they should be.  It would really force them to think about how things are run and truely show that the people have the power.  Number 2 is clearly a no brainer and it’s about freaking time this happened.  And number 3 I could go either way on it but it is a cruel industry. All things being equal we don’t really need dog racing in the state.

I’m not sure why I didn’t post this a month ago when I first saw it. Its an interesting little tidbit about a study done by some Cornell students. I was reminded of it today when a political article on Yahoo made reference to it.

The original concept is known as the Dunning-Kruger effect. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning-Kruger_effect) In essence they found that the less adept a person is at something the more likely they are to overestimate their own ability, and similarly people who are very skilled often underestimate themselves. While logic seems to play out that that would be the case, the interesting part of the study came in how people’s notions self reinforced their arguments when presented with evidence to the contrary.

Then today I see this article on Yahoo that discusses how once people have their mind around “their candidate” even a staggering mountain of evidence is unlikely to sway them, since their connection with one side convinces them that the evidence is false, simply because it is contrary to what they believe to begin with. Its the dunning-krugger effect in essence that makes them over estimate the correctness of their initial choice.

The socio-political implications of something like this are fairly staggering. Truly the unwashed mindless masses in action.

There’s no country we as Americans like to hate more then France (that’s what they get for helping us in that revolution). France, to most Red state folks, represents the pinnacle of bad socialism: forced work weeks, public health care, and wine at lunch. Time magazine has an interesting commentary piece about how we’ve co-opted thier ways, and how America has taken all the bad parts of socialism, without getting free wine at lunch (among other benefits). It’s a good read considering the huge bailouts of companies owned by extremely wealthy people that have rocked the country. Check it out here:

How we became the United States of France.

Don’t ye forget – today be talk like a pirate day (http://www.talklikeapirate.com/piratehome.html).

….please, please, please get this and try it out.  This looks pretty sweet.  I wonder if it works on an ipod touch?

She has the best energy policy…really.

http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/64ad536a6d

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=URIypadX3n0

Rick Wright, one of the original members of Pink Floyd, has died from cancer at age 65. I’m cranking up Dark Side tonight.

I can just check here.

There’s an interesting map here (new window) that shows the breakdown of what Americans refer to carbonated beverages as by county (Pop, Soda, Coke, other). My challenge to you: what makes up the ‘other’ category??

Well I finally managed to sort and upload the pictures to Flickr of my summer in Africa. It was an unbelievable time, and some of the pictures really came out great, especially the wildlife. Check them out here:

My Flickr Collection

For some reason, one of the videos wouldn’t go up on flickr, so it had to go up on the blog I used during the trip:

http://labaokenya.blogspot.com/