voluntaryXchange

How Libya Might Screw Up Twitter

You’re probably not going to believe this one …

Most of you know that countries other than the U.S. have URL extensions — you know, you write to your friend in England and their address ends in .UK.

Some of you may know that some countries have made money by selling the right to use their internet extension: either because they won’t use all their possible addresses, or because they need quick cash. At some level, some of that traffic can and does get routed through Libya as routers “phone home”, even if it has nothing to do with the country.

And some of you may know that various people and services use URL shorteners.

Now combine those 3 points: Twitter relies on a service called Bit.ly to shorten URLs for use on their 140 character limited system — and Bit.ly purchased rights to use Libya’s country extension: Ly.

Libya has actually sold rights to a lot of people who want to be able to add the ly extension to their URL to spell something cute.

There are 5 “ly” servers in the world: 2 in Libya, 2 in Oregon, and 1 in the Netherlands. Those last 3 have to “phone home” to the Libyan routers periodically.

That’s right … Libya has some power to hold Twitter hostage.

That’s right … the same Libya that is bombing its own people, and has hired mercenaries to use ambulances to as cover to fire on protesters.

In managerial economics this is called a hold-up problem, but the name is more apropos than usual in this case.

Technorati Tags: libya,twitter,bit.ly,url,shortener

Faith as an Expressive Brand

From an article summarizing new research to be published in  Marketing Science:

A subject who attended worship services at least weekly was roughly 20% less likely to select an "expressive" brand than one who did not; there was no difference in the functional category.

“Expressive” indicates a brand with some cache:

The researchers classified the products as either "expressive" (Ralph Lauren sunglasses vs. WalMart's) or "functional" (Motrin vs. CVS ibuprofen).

So, I live in Utah, where non-Mormons are wary of expressing their faith†. Does this mean that there’d be better expressive brand identification by non-Mormons in Utah?

† This goes back to the first religious non-Mormons in the then territory - the Presbyterians - who were strongly discouraged from proselytizing to Mormons in any way. To this day, it is common to find Mormons who don’t know that the reason some others don’t proselytize in the state is because they’re trying to get along.

Technorati Tags: expressive,brand,religion,faith

Colorado River Tube Map

Via Kottke via Something About Maps – where there are many more just like this! Prints for sale too!

Technorati Tags: colorado,river,tube,map

Don’t Worry, Be Happy

Max Borders gives 10 reasons why we shouldn’t worry so much about income inequality:

1. Worrying about the gap is not the same as worrying about the poor.
Whenever you read yet another article about the rich-poor gap, join me in asking ‘So what?.’ Some of the smartest (and even richest) people in America conflate concern for the poor with concerns about how much rich people have. … the meaningful conversation is about absolute poverty, not relative poverty.

2. Envy is a paleolithic instinct that should remain in the Stone Age.
Our ancestors lived in small clans of no more than 150 people. … Everyone was better off sharing -- engaging what you might call “slow trade.” … these inborn cooperative strategies -- while successful in Stone Age contexts -- don’t scale very well. … Sharing among 50 is not analogous to sharing among 350 million. … systems of redistribution are built on instincts forged in the fires of our genetic past … Guilt, envy and indignation -- the Stone Age Trinity -- are cave man ethics that should be tempered.

7. Philanthropy is hard, but more effective than taxes.
… it’s hard to give and give wisely. It takes work -- when the government takes more in taxes, you can conclude your work here is done. You have bought, very cheaply, a sense of rectitude -- but without all the hassle.

Technorati Tags: income,wealth,inequality

What We Did Before the Internet

Orson Scott Card:

The other night, my wife, knowing I was working on this essay, said, "I can't remember how we used to find things out before the Internet. We never went to the library."

"I'm a fiction writer," I said. "If it wasn't in a book I already owned, I just made stuff up."

Actually, a lot was available in libraries before the internet. But here’s some stuff that was pretty tough to find:

• Lyrics
• Actual sheet music (not fake books) for rock music
• “Calendar type” landscape photos
• Ways to contact people – remember the agony of asking for a phone number when people didn’t just give out their contact info – your were SOL if they said no
• Recipes

Technorati Tags: before,internet,orson,scott,card,quote

Not Many Really Want to Help Endangered Species

Megan McArdle:

… If the government were paying for endangered species, on the other hand, people would be searching assiduously for snail darters and spotted owls.

Ah, you'll say, but we could never afford to do that.  My answer would be that if this is true, we don't actually care very  much about it, do we? If we only want things when we can stick other people with the bill, then we probably shouldn't have most of those things.

Of course, we know what happens to endangered species when the government only uses the stick instead of the carrot: shoot, shovel, and shut up.

As is often the case, government operates this way because no one thinks outside the box: they’ve always done it this way.

Technorati Tags: endangered,species

Big Solar: What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

Solar power is fine for calculators. On the big scale though it’s most efficient to heat water to generate power by running steam turbines – not with millions of personal size solar cells.

One problem though … part of the money that shows up as a cost in running a turbine is the fresh water that goes into. Vast amounts of it, if you think about it.

And big solar uses water only half as efficiently as a coal-fired power plant.

No biggie … right … it’s just water … and we’ve got that everywhere … except of course the places like Arizona where solar projects make the most sense.

It gets worse … most of the water in the arid southwest already is accounted for, and belongs to farmers and ranchers.

The great thing about the sun is that it’s free. The bad thing about people is that if they see the word free, they think the whole deal is free. Far from it – so expect a lot of rural westerners to made filthy rich by short-sighted Federal subsidies to Big Solar.

The workaround for this may be even worse: promotion of popular photovoltaic (i.e., solar cells) for industrial scale uses. These are wildly cost inefficient. They’re also not new – they’ve been around for about 100 years and are still wildly inefficient.

Technorati Tags: big solar,water,consumption,rights

Your New Security Nightmare

The technology is good enough to take a photo of a physical key from a distance and turn it into a working key.

No joke: they tested whether this could be done from 195 feet, with part of that being a change of altitude.

WTF?

Technorati Tags: key,security,copy

Crovitz Quote About Egypt (and Others)

L. Gordon Crovitz on the internet crackdown prior to Mubarrak’s abdication:

The authorities learned there was something even worse than foreign involvement: no foreign involvement.

Technorati Tags: egypt,internet,revolution

BRICs, PIIGS, and Now MAVINS

Legacy media types like these acronyms for advanced, but still developing, economies.

In macroeconomics, you need to know them to be conversant.

BRIC’s and PIIGS are old ones, and you can find write-ups on them in other parts of this blog.

MAVINS is new: this is Mexico, Australia, Vietnam, Indonesia, Nigeria, and South Africa.

Unfortunately, those in the legacy media aren’t often that sharp. Let me take some of these down.

Mexico: a good choice, bigger and richer than most people realize.

Australia: a horrible choice, a reporter probably got a free trip there to include them. Australia does not have the base population, population growth, or immigration to ever be a serious contender.

Vietnam: a great choice. Very populous, and almost a generation of making decent macroeconomic decisions.

Indonesia: a good choice. Very, very, populous, and doing pretty well for almost 40 years.

Nigeria: WTF. Big population. Not really a country so much as a bunch of tribal areas stapled together. It’s resources are badly managed, but it’s fairly common for journalists to think everything revolves around resources.

South Africa: WTF. Not quite as big a population. Not very many decent economic or political choices in a generation. Lots of bad choices prior to that. Lots of easy ground to make up, which will look impressive for a while.

The MAVINS: what a bunch of crap. To me it looks like a reporter was assigned to come up with a new acronym and list, but told to make sure that it included 1 Latin, 1 Asian, 1 White, and 1 Sub-Saharan African country, and any other starting letters that would lead to a pronounceable buzzword.

Unusually, this article also contained entries on countries that almost made the list, but didn’t.

South Korea: you might be able to justify not including this one because it’s already a First World country. South Korea is already what Vietnam wants to be when it grows up.

The Philippines: a hop, skip and jump away from Vietnam and Indonesia. I tend to agree that it should be excluded right now, but this could easily change.

Pakistan: a disaster. Why even talk about it in this list? To even put it on the list without including Bangladesh (the former East Pakistan), which started out poorer, and has outstripped the former West Pakistan is to accentuate your cluelessness.

Turkey: a basically developed country, with large population, that is going to be competitive with really big and rich countries like Italy in your lifetime.

Iran: another basket case. Big population, badly managed economy, supported by arms and oil sales. This country was on everyone’s list 40 years ago. Now it is a slow motion replay of Argentina in the 20th century.

Technorati Tags: MAVINS,BRIC,PIIGS