Entries Tagged 'Uncategorized' ↓

From the Volokh Conspiracy:

There are perfectly reasonable arguments that the health care mandate is constitutional. But no one who supports Roe v. Wade is any position to accuse judges who rule otherwise of failing to respect democracy, interfering improperly in complex policy matters based on their own understanding of the consequences of the relevant legislation, or reading into the Constitution limitations on government power that aren’t there.

For all of the talk of a brocolli argument (is Congress allowed to mandate consumption of brocolli?), the Roe v. Wade argument is the politically important one. If Congress is allowed to mandate that you buy health care why is not allowed to mandate that you do not buy abortions (or to tax them at $10000 a piece?)

From the Volokh Conspiracy: There are perfectly reasonable arguments that the health care mandate is constitutional. But no one who supports Roe v. Wade is any position to accuse judges who rule otherwise of failing to respect democracy, interfering improperly in complex policy matters based on their own understanding of the consequences of the relevant ...

Over at Andrew Sullivan’s blog, Scott Horton ponders why it is taking so long for Mubarak to leave: Human rights lawyers and international prosecutors may take a close look at the tools the deposed dictator used to stay in power. [...] A trip to The Hague or another tribunal might be in his future.

Over at Andrew Sullivan's blog, Scott Horton ponders why it is taking so long for Mubarak to leave: Human rights lawyers and international prosecutors may take a close look at the tools the deposed dictator used to stay in power. A trip to The Hague or another tribunal might be in his future.

There is this ad that shows up in Hulu about hunger in New York. It ends with the sentence no one should go hungry in New York. I suppose if they go hungry in Africa, then it’s quite alright, is it?

There is this ad that shows up in Hulu about hunger in New York. It ends with the sentence no one should go hungry in New York. I suppose if they go hungry in Africa, then it's quite alright, is it?

In which I flatter Will Wilkinson by blantant copying:

Let’s take a moment to think about those people who are in the 20% highest income. They might live in a place with guards keeping the hoi polloi out, they might have a very nice car, a good house, they might be, in most senses of the word, rich. However, they don’t feel rich. They are forever being compared to the ones above them. Their cars are just not as nice, their houses not as spectacular.

The description above could easily describe what the US calls its poor:

The poorest 5% of American are richer than the richest 5% of Indians, they are richer than almost 70% of the human population. If we grouped the rich world together (US, Japan, Northern EU), the numbers would be even more impressive when we compare the Western “poor” to the rest of the world.

Many liberals say they care about inequality, the inequality inside the US. But they do not care as strongly about the true inequality of being born rich (in a rich country) versus being born poor (in a poor country). The cosmopolitan left of NYC will say it cares, but it rarely translates into any policy recommendations.

Not so long ago, in American politics, the progressive/populist movement also cared about inequality. They were also deeply racist as their inequality of choice was only amoung white men (women were often not welcome either). As late as 1957, JFK (as a senator) would defend an increase in the minimum wage as a way to protect the white worker from the coloureds (the quotation is properly cited in the comments). Nowadays progressives are not racist anymore, but you can certainly hear the echos of this attitude when they talk about the poor in China (from whom the American worker must be protected).

In which I flatter Will Wilkinson by blantant copying: Let's take a moment to think about those people who are in the 20% highest income. They might live in a place with guards keeping the hoi polloi out, they might have a very nice car, a good house, they might be, in most senses of ...

The New York Times reports that less than 15% of Wikipedia contributors are women.

The discussion is really very poor, though. I’ve made a few edits on Wikipedia, but am not a big contributor so I don’t know what happens when you start editing a lot. I did write a few paragraphs on a controversial topic, the rise to power of Portuguese dictator Salazar and didn’t get negative comments, nor was my text immediately edited to reverse my description (for months, it stood almost unchanged and I can still recognise some of my sentences as well as the gist of my text).

I cannot believe that if anyone was to add a few more details on a fashion designer or a Mexican feminist writer (the examples in the NYT), they’d get much feedback, let alone the scary negative feedback that the authors seem to think keeps women away.

Maybe, women (in our current society) are just not that into writing for Wikipedia. Maybe that’s OK. Whose rights are being violated? I also bet that there are more men than women in most other online communities such as multi-player games. Is that an issue?

Oh, and when can we stop referring to women as a minority?

The New York Times reports that less than 15% of Wikipedia contributors are women. The discussion is really very poor, though. I've made a few edits on Wikipedia, but am not a big contributor so I don't know what happens when you start editing a lot. I did write a few paragraphs on a controversial ...

On of Hernando de Soto’s repeated stories about the shakiness of properties rights in the slums is how it is often imperative that people sit on their claimed plots or they will lose it. They do it in the favelas of Rio and they do it in Massachusetts.

On of Hernando de Soto's repeated stories about the shakiness of properties rights in the slums is how it is often imperative that people sit on their claimed plots or they will lose it. They do it in the favelas of Rio and they do it in Massachusetts.

Megan McArdle is asked whether there is a ‘libertarian’ solution to the foreclosure mess and answers no, not really.

Let me, respectfully, disagree.

There is much in this mess that reminds me of Hernando de Soto’s work in defending the formalisation of oral, informal, but widely respected, contract. If you read, nodding along, to how he described the slums of the third world with its plots of land parcelled according to tradition, but without legal protection; you mustn’t think that it only applied there.

Hayek, too, talked of the difference between Law (the practice that is generally accepted and respected by the people) and legislation. Here, we have a disconnect between the two.

It seems that, in most of the actual cases I have read described, there is no question on whether the bank has a moral right to the house, just whether the bank has the legal right to foreclose. There is no one else who even claims to own the property. Just whether five years ago, the signature on some document was or not properly notarised. This is the bureaucratic hell that de Soto described in the slums, but it happens in Massachusetts as well.

Let the banks (or other intermediaries) be served with penalties and fees for shoddy paperwork, but keep the property assignments based on more substantive arguments than some of what I’ve heard.

(This will probably require a legislative solution by either Congress or, most likely, the Supreme Court.)

Megan McArdle is asked whether there is a 'libertarian' solution to the foreclosure mess and answers no, not really. Let me, respectfully, disagree. There is much in this mess that reminds me of Hernando de Soto's work in defending the formalisation of oral, informal, but widely respected, contract. If you read, nodding along, to how he ...

I bought this computer a few months back and have been using it as my laptop since. I wanted to write a review after having used it for a while to avoid the type of review that goes like I got it out of the box and its shiny.

The Laptop

It is a very nice looking laptop. Not on the same league as Apple’s, but, in the PC space, it looks very good. When I take it out and show it around, it makes a good impression.

It is also surprisingly thin and light. I had previously owned an Eee because it was so light and got this one because I’d be using it as my primary computer when away from home. So, I do value a light laptop over raw power.

Speaking of raw power, this is a pretty responsive machine. Even editing images doesn’t feel slugish. The only time I wish for a faster machine is when editing video. Then again, if editing video is your primary usage, do get something other than a laptop.

It has a HDMI and a VGA output, which is essential. Even Dell now got the Apple bug and ships some laptops without a VGA output. Since one of my main uses for a laptop is to do presentations and there is almost no rooms equiped with an HDMI input, I didn’t want to have to put up with the Mac owners curse of carrying adapters everywhere. For such a thin laptop, having 3 USB plugs, plus a flash card reader, and an Ethernet port is very good.

The only negative is the trackpad whose buttons are too thin and slightly unresponsive. The power on button is also slightly unresponsive, but otherwise workable. The battery is not that impressive at 2 hours for regular usage. There is sometimes a flicker on the screen, which had me worried, but it only happens every once in a while.

The Linux Installed

It came with pre-installed Ubuntu (9.10 was current at the time, now it would ship with 10.04).

I was disappointed to find that it still required an extra step to install the drivers for the webcam and such. There is no reason why it shouldn’t all be pre-installed, no? This is the same with Dell’s preinstalled Linux stuff, but I had hoped that System 76 would do a better job.

The webcam worked once I installed the drivers and interfaced automatically with Skype. Wireless internet works, except when it doesn’t. I didn’t debug it, but at a friends’ house, I couldn’t connect to his wireless network even when I had the password. I just gave up, but not a 100% positive experience.

Hibernate and sleep work well as does CPU frequency scaling. I also got an external DVD writer and it works well for CD and DVD playing. I had to fiddle for a while with k3b’s settings to record DVDs, but I’m blaming k3b on this one.

Verdict

Overall, it is a nice computer. It is not the definite Linux-preinstalled laptop I would hope for, but better than any other experience I’ve had.

I would definitely buy again from System 76 (fortunately, I had no problems with the computer so I can’t comment on their support).

Follow me on twitter: @luispedrocoelho

I bought this computer a few months back and have been using it as my laptop since. I wanted to write a review after having used it for a while to avoid the type of review that goes like I got it out of the box and its shiny. The Laptop It is a very nice ...

Django-gitcms is finally getting to be a real framework instead of just the basis for my personal website.

I am doing a new website (on Python for computer vision) and using django-gitcms. This has forced me to make sure that the framework makes it easy to build different websites with it. It also led me to fix a lot of installation bugs. Right now pip install django-gitcms should get you a working system.

For an example, check the example-website/ directory, which should work after:

1. python manage.py syncdb to create the database.
2. django-gitcms-load-content to populate it.
3. python manage.py runserver

Should just work (otherwise email me).

Django-gitcms is finally getting to be a real framework instead of just the basis for my personal website. I am doing a new website (on Python for computer vision) and using django-gitcms. This has forced me to make sure that the framework makes it easy to build different websites with it. It also led me ...

I really got software testing (after over a year of usage!) when someone asked me why did you write this function this way?. I had written a function that took another function, a cost function, as input. In our programme, that cost function is always the same, so why the extra input. I answered it’s much easier to test than the alternative, so overall, the implementation+test is much more natural.

The interesting thing is that I hadn’t even thought about it that way before. I had just written it like that as the first thing that came to mind.

There it was, testing had changed the way I wrote code even if I wasn’t paying attention to testing.

I really got software testing (after over a year of usage!) when someone asked me why did you write this function this way?. I had written a function that took another function, a cost function, as input. In our programme, that cost function is always the same, so why the extra input. I answered ...