July 2011 – Page 2 – artdiamondblog.com

Zuckerberg: ”Filmmakers Can’t Get Their Head around the Idea that Someone Might Build Something because They Like Building Things”

Marc Andreessen. Source of photo: online version of the NYT article quoted and cited below.

(p. 13) After hearing a story about Foursquare’s co-founder, Dennis Crowley, walking into a press event in athletic wear and eating a banana, I developed a theory that bubbles might be predicted by fashion: when tech founders can’t be bothered to appear businesslike, the power has shifted too much in their favor.

Believe it or not, this goes deep into the interior mentality of the engineer, which is very truth-oriented. When you’re dealing with machines or anything that you build, it either works or it doesn’t, no matter how good of a salesman you are. So engineers not only don’t care about the surface appearance, but they view attempts to kind of be fake on the surface as fundamentally dishonest.

That reminds me of Mark Zuckerberg’s criticism of ”The Social Network.” He said that ”filmmakers can’t get their head around the idea that someone might build something because they like building things.”

Aaron Sorkin was completely unable to understand the actual psychology of Mark or of Facebook. He can’t conceive of a world where social status or getting laid or, for that matter, doing drugs, is not the most important thing.

For the full interview, see:
ANDREW GOLDMAN. “TALK; Bubble? What Bubble? Marc Andreessen, one of Silicon Valley’s biggest venture capitalists, has no fear.” The New York Times Magazine (Sun., July 10, 2011): 13.
(Note: bold in original, indicating comments/questions by interviewer Andrew Goldman.)
(Note: the online version of the interview is dated July 7, 2011 (sic).)

Feds Protect Us from “Older Tasty Tomato Varieties”

(p. C3) Historically, when a farmer has learned to grow a tasty variety, that farmer has actually been scorned and prevented from shipping it.

“Regulations actually prohibit growers in the southern part of Florida from exporting many of the older tasty tomato varieties because their coloration and shape don’t conform to what the all-powerful Florida Tomato Committee says a tomato should look like,” Mr. Estabrook writes.

For the full review, see:
DWIGHT GARNER. “BOOKS OF THE TIMES; That Perfect Florida Tomato, Cultivated for Bland Uniformity.” The New York Times (Weds., July 6, 2011): C3.
(Note: the online version of the review is dated July 5, 2011.)

The web site of the Florida Tomato Committee describes its Federal mandate:

The Florida Tomato Committee is a Federal Marketing Order that was established pursuant to Federal Marketing Agreement and Order No. 966 as amended regulating the handling of tomatoes and has authority over the tomatoes grown in Florida’s production area comprising the counties of Pinellas, Hillsborough, Polk, Osceola, Brevard and all counties situated south. It affects tomatoes that are shipped outside the regulated area, which includes that portion of the state of Florida situated east of the Suwanee River and south of the Georgia border.

The Committee funds research and development projects and marketing promotions that focus on maximizing Florida tomato movement, including consumer and marketing research and customized marketing programs.

Florida Tomatoes … quality you can trust. Each Florida field-grown tomato shipped out of Florida is regulated by a Federal Marketing Order that controls grade, size, quality and maturity. The standards are the toughest in the world and ensure that Florida tomatoes are the best you can buy.

Source:
http://www.floridatomatoes.org/AboutUs.aspx
(Note: ellipsis in original.)

The book under review is:
Estabrook, Barry. Tomatoland: How Modern Industrial Agriculture Destroyed Our Most Alluring Fruit. Kansas City, Missouri: Andrews McMeel Publishing, 2011.

“If We Can’t Win on Quality, We Shouldn’t Win at All”

Source of book image: online version of the WSJ review quoted and cited below.

(p. A13) At the tail end of the 1990s dot-com boom, Douglas Edwards took a gamble: He left his marketing job at an old-media company, taking a $25,000 salary cut to start work at a small, little-known Internet concern in its second year of operation. That his new employer was losing money and burning through venture capital went without saying. But unlike the footloose 20-somethings who usually populated Silicon Valley start-ups, Mr. Edwards had little margin to bet wrong; he was 41, with a mortgage, three children and a worried wife. He hoped he could get his old job back if the company ran out of money.

. . .
Mr. Edwards came to his job as a subscriber to the conventional wisdom. In an early presentation to cofounder Larry Page and others, Mr. Edwards unwisely declared that only marketing, not technology, could set Google apart. “In a world where all search engines are equal,” he asserted, “we’ll need to rely on branding to differentiate us from our competitors.”
The room became quiet. Then Mr. Page spoke up. “If we can’t win on quality,” he said, “we shouldn’t win at all.”

For the full review, see:
DAVID A. PRICE. “BOOKSHELF; How Google Got Going; Branding, shmanding, a marketer was told. ‘If we can’t win on quality,’ Larry Page said, ‘we shouldn’t win at all.'” The Wall Street Journal (Tues., July 12, 2011): A13.
(Note: ellipsis added.)

Book being reviewed:
Edwards, Douglas. I’m Feeling Lucky: The Confessions of Google Employee Number 59. New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Co., 2011.

Medieval Halls of the Rich Incubated Plague in a Nest of “Filth Unmentionable”

(p. 51) In even the best houses, floors were generally just bare earth strewn with rushes, harboring “spittle and vomit and urine of dogs and men, beer that hath been cast forth and remnants of fishes and other filth unmentionable,” as the Dutch theologian and traveler Desiderius Erasmus rather crisply summarized in 1524. New layers of rushes were laid down twice a year normally, but the old accretions were seldom removed, so that, Erasmus added glumly, “the substratum may be unmolested for twenty years.” The floors were in effect a very large nest, much appreciated by insects and furtive rodents, and a perfect incubator for plague. Yet a deep pile of flooring was generally a sign of prestige. It was common among the French to say of a rich man that he was “waist deep in straw.”

Source:
Bryson, Bill. At Home: A Short History of Private Life. New York: Doubleday, 2010.

Castro’s Communist Goons Impound Cuba Libre

“Her writing, said Yoani Sánchez, above in her Havana apartment, describes “the sentiments of one person but sums up the reality of many people.”” Source of caption and photo: online version of the NYT article quoted and cited below.

(p. C1) Like any other first-time author, Yoani Sánchez was looking forward to receiving copies of her book, “Cuba Libre,” after it was published last year. But when the package sent from Buenos Aires by her publisher arrived in Havana, the Cuban customs service impounded the parcel and, after she complained, sent her a notice explaining its action.

“The content of the book entitled ‘Free Cuba’ transgresses against the general interests of the nation, in that it argues that certain political and economic changes are necessary in Cuba in order for its citizens to enjoy greater material well-being and attain personal fulfillment,” stated the document, which Ms. Sánchez posted on her Web site. Such positions “are extremes totally contrary to the principles of our society.”

Outside her homeland, though, Ms. Sánchez’s writing is free of such censorship, and she has emerged as an important new voice, both literary and political. Published in the United States in May under the title “Havana Real” (Melville House), her book draws on the same collection of sketches of daily life in Cuba — a dreary, enervating routine of food shortages, transportation troubles and narrowed opportunity — that she has been posting on her Web site, Generation Y (desdecuba.com/generationy), since 2007.
. . .
(p. C6) Recently Ms. Sánchez completed a second book, a manual whose title translates as “WordPress: A Blog for Speaking to the World.” A new fiber-optic cable connecting Cuba with South America has just been laid, and when it begins fully operating later this summer, it is likely to increase opportunities not just for her, but for other dissident bloggers and writers, many of whom have attended the seminars she conducted that led to the writing of the second book.
“It’s interesting that we’re talking not about a bearded 80-year-old man, but a sharp, fearless, skinny 35-year-old mother,” said Ted Henken, an expert on Cuba and the Internet who teaches at the City University of New York and visited Ms. Sánchez in April. “That’s new, and in some ways, by spreading the virus of blogging and tweeting to others, she has displaced Che and Fidel among young, progressive people.”

For the full story, see:
LARRY ROHTER. “In Cuba, the Voice of a Blog Generation.” The New York Times (Weds., July 6, 2011): C1 & C6.
(Note: ellipsis added.)
(Note: the online version of the story is dated July 5, 2011.)

Today artdiamondblog.com Turns Six

I continue to welcome comments from those who enjoy entries, or find them useful. I receive enough such comments to continue to believe that there is a “remnant” out there who benefit from the examples and evidence that I try to highlight and make accessible.
That is what matters. But for those who like stats, here are some stats:
As of 7/11/11, the Palgrave publishing house’s ranking of blogs ranked mine as 96th among 481 economics blogs. (I do not know what criteria they use for their ranking.)
Gongol’s most recent posted ranking was on March 15, 2011 (he emailed me on 7/11/11 that he intends to resume the postings). As of March 15, my blog was ranked 48th among the 168 economics blogs in terms of average daily pageviews and 47th among 173 economics blogs in terms of average daily visits.
Technorati ranks my blog 22,426th out of 1,273,077 blogs that they rank on all subjects as of 7/11/11. (I do not know what criteria they use for their ranking.)

Katrina Was Less a Natural Disaster, and More an Artificial One Caused by Government

“Harry Shearer in the documentary “The Big Uneasy.”” Source of caption and photo: online version of the NYT article quoted and cited below.

(p. B6) . . . Mr. Shearer is serious about his reasons for adding to a Katrina genre that includes two documentaries by Spike Lee (“When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts” and “If God Is Willing and Da Creek Don’t Rise”), another about custody battles over pets lost in the storm (“Mine”), and Werner Herzog’s reinterpretation of “Bad Lieutenant” (“Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans”).

“What they are missing is why it happened, why people suffered,” said Mr. Shearer, who spoke last week from his home in New Orleans.
At one-day screenings in about 160 theaters around the country on Monday, “The Big Uneasy” will fill in the blanks with a feature-length description of what it sees as failings by the Army Corps of Engineers and others.
Mr. Shearer said he was inspired to make the film last year, after hearing President Obama refer to the hurricane as a “natural disaster.” Mr. Shearer argues there was nothing natural about the breakdown of systems that were supposed to protect the city.

For the full story, see:
MICHAEL CIEPLY. “Katrina Film Takes Aim at Army Corps of Engineers.” The New York Times (Mon., August 30, 2010): B6.
(Note: ellipsis added.)
(Note: the online version of the story is dated August 29, 2010.)

Medieval Halls Did Not Conduce to Comfort or to Observing Modern Proprieties

Practically all living, awake or asleep, was done in this single large, mostly bare, always smoky chamber. Servants and family ate, dressed, and slept together–“a custom which conduced neither to comfort nor the observance of the proprieties,” as J. Alfred Gotch noted with a certain clear absence of comfort himself in his classic book The Growth of the English House (1909). Through the whole of the medieval period, till well Into the fifteenth century the hall effectively was the house, so much so that it became the convention to give its name to the entire dwelling, as in Hardwlck Hall or Toad Hall.

Source:
Bryson, Bill. At Home: A Short History of Private Life. New York: Doubleday, 2010.
(Note: italics in original.)

In Medicine, as Elsewhere, What Pays Is Usually What Gets Done

“”I had to train myself not to get too interested in their problems, and not to get sidetracked trying to be a semi-therapist.” Dr. Donald Levin, a psychiatrist whose practice no longer includes talk therapy.” Source of caption and photo: online version of the NYT article quoted and cited below.

(p. A1) DOYLESTOWN, Pa. — Alone with his psychiatrist, the patient confided that his newborn had serious health problems, his distraught wife was screaming at him and he had started drinking again. With his life and second marriage falling apart, the man said he needed help.

But the psychiatrist, Dr. Donald Levin, stopped him and said: “Hold it. I’m not your therapist. I could adjust your medications, but I don’t think that’s appropriate.”
Like many of the nation’s 48,000 psychiatrists, Dr. Levin, in large part because of changes in how much insurance will pay, no longer provides talk therapy, the form of psychiatry popularized by Sigmund Freud that dominated the profession for decades. Instead, he prescribes medication, usually after a brief consultation with each patient. So Dr. Levin sent the man away with a referral to a less costly therapist and a personal crisis unexplored and unresolved.

For the full story, see:
GARDINER HARRIS. “Talk Doesn’t Pay, So Psychiatry Turns Instead to Drug Therapy.” The New York Times, First Section (Sun., March 6, 2011): A1 & A21.
(Note: the online version of the story is dated March 5, 2011.)

Warm Yourself Over a “Dung Fire, and You Will Know What Pollution Really Is”

(p. D4) To the Editor:
The idea that ancient man had fewer tumors because he lived in a less polluted atmosphere (“Unearthing Prehistoric Tumors, and Debate,” Dec. 28) can be held only by those who have limited experience living in a preindustrial way. Try cooking over an open fire burning half-rotten wood, or sitting in a cave warming yourself with a peat or dung fire, and you will know what pollution really is.
Carol Selinske
Rye Brook, N.Y.

Source of NYT letter to the Editor:
Carol Selinske. “LETTERS; Cancer, Then and Now.” The New York Times (Tues., January 4, 2011): D4.
(Note: the online version of the letter is dated: January 3, 2011.)

“We Are All Dutchmen Now”

Source of the book image: http://yalepress.yale.edu/images/full13/9780300115475.jpg

(p. A15) Samuel Pufendorf, a 17th-century German historian, described the English people as “having been always inclined to rebellion and intestine commotion.” But England’s regime change in 1688–soon called “glorious”–was a revolution with a difference. Instead of overthrowing the existing order in violent upheaval, it put “government upon its ancient and proper basis, which the measures of a mad bigot had almost destroyed.” The “mad bigot” was, in this case, James II, the Stuart king (and a Catholic) who was deposed in favor of William of Orange, a Protestant from the Dutch Republic. Edmund Burke famously contrasted England’s balance of change and continuity in 1688 with the ferocity in France a century later.

In “1688: The First Modern Revolution,” Steve Pincus challenges this received account to argue that the Glorious Revolution marked a much greater break with history than Burke realized–and proved to be an emblem of the West’s future. James II, Mr. Pincus notes, sought to extend state power at the expense of Parliament and the privileges of local communities. James’s adversaries preferred the dynamism of commerce; they believed that wealth sprang from the limitless striving of human endeavor rather than the finite availability of land. France under Louis XIV provided James with a pattern for absolutism; the Dutch Republic provided his opponents with a commercial ideal. The Glorious Revolution is often seen as a clash between ”popery”–the term for authoritarian Catholicism–and ancient English liberties. But Mr. Pincus persuasively describes it as the collision of two ideas about the state in society. In a sense, he implies, we are all Dutchmen now.

For the full review, see:
WILLIAM ANTHONY HAY. “Going Dutch; When a dynamic commercial ideal won out over centralized power.” The Wall Street Journal (Tues., September 1, 2011): A15.
(Note: the online version of the review is dated AUGUST 31, 2009.)

The book under review is:
Pincus, Steve. 1688: The First Modern Revolution. New Haven, CT: Yale, 2009.

An alternative view is presented in a a book by Lisa Jardine (reference below). She argues that William of Orange was more interested in grabbing power than in promoting liberty. Her view is persuasively disputed in the following review by Andrew Roberts:
ANDREW ROBERTS. “A New William The Conqueror.” The Wall Street Journal (Thurs., August 28, 2008): A13.

The Jardine book is:
Jardine, Lisa. Going Dutch: How England Plundered Holland’s Glory. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2008.