otium cum dignitate

Giants get Eli

It might be the offseason but this weekend was better than any the Giants had during last year's season. After the Raiders took Robert Gallery 2nd, the G-men were forced to take a QB and fortunately, got the best one possible: Ole Miss star Eli Manning.

The Giants have had quarterback woes since the ancient days of Phil Simms. If hes anything like his brother, (and alot of people are saying he's better) Eli could be a franchise hall-of-fame QB that will make the Giants a formidable team for years and years.

I'm hoping Kerry Collins stays for a year to help tutor manning and take the pressure off. The Giants had a disgusting year last season (4-12) but you cant say they havent had a remarkable offseason in attempting to turn the team around.

Bad Blogging

I'll admit that I've been a bad blogger as of late. Amidst many research papers and other semester-ending assignments, I've had a hard time devoting any time to this blog.

Consider this a short posting moratorium. By the end of this week, the majority of my work will be done (for a little while at least) and i'll get back to updating this blog regularly.

One thing to think about: is one man's terrorist another man's freedom fighter? I worked in a conservative think tank last summer in Washington D.C. that despised this familiar saying. However, I never bought into the view that terrorists should be so distinctly characterized as "evil." Obviously, terrorism is a terrible way of threatening society into serving the radical minority. But was Israel's recent killing of the latest Hamas leader truly justified? Something to ponder.

Ill be back to full blogging status hopefully soon.

Davidson Alumnus on Princeton Review Board?

I'm not sure about this one.

How could davidson possibly beat stanford? Well, im not complaining. After seeing this article, I further looked into what the princeton review had to say about Davidson and was interested to find out that our academic rating is an impressive 97, but our quality of life rating is an 88 (bad). This sounds about right.

And then under extracurricular activities, one of the first listed is "jazz band." What a joke. But hey, its nice people are starting to notice the school--hopefully all this work will pay off after graduation.

Giants Going for #1

After an abysmal season, the Giants have made a number of significant changes this off-season, including the hire of a new coach, and an almost completely different defensive line, offensive line, and linebacker core. But recent rumors are swirling about the biggest move yet.

The Giants have spoken with the Chargers about trading for the first pick in the draft.

Plagued by quarterback miseries since the days of Phil Simms, the Giants would do well to draft expected #1 pick Eli Manning, the brother of star Colts QB Peyton Manning. I'm psyched. But who might they have to give up to get that top selection?

Bashing Krugman

I've ignored Paul Krugman's columns for almost a year now after concluding that they are almost always completely predictable, obviously partisan, and stubbornly pessimistic. Having realized that Bush's team might be smarter economists, Krugman has recently resorted to cheap shots on Iraq is supposed "Economic" columns. I can't tell you why I forced myself to read his column today, but as usual, I regret it.

Being the esteemed Princeton economics professor that he is, Krugman finds it necessary to publically ruminate on all that is wrong with the U.S. economy (and it always leads back to criticism of the Republican administration).

On this issue of jobs, I've become particuarly interested in the difference between the payroll and household methods of surveys. While the payroll survey shows a jobless recovery, the household survey suggests something far different, as says Tim Kane of Heritage:

"Since the recession ended in November 2001, the payroll survey has reported 323,000 fewer payroll jobs, but the household survey has found 1.9 million more overall jobs. Common sense tells us that payroll jobs aren't the end-all, be-all of jobs in the new economy. Economists reflexively like payroll data because it has a bigger sample, but quantity doesn't always ensure quality."

Krugman has made mention of these two methods of job counting but quickly discounts the household survey (who would've guessed?) and declares:

"Conservative commentators are raising objections only because they don't like the facts."

Funny he should say that. In today's column, Krugman was faced with explaining the payroll survey's recent report that over 300,000 jobs we're created in March. With no reservation, Krugman blurts:

"[We shouldn't] make too much of one month's data; payroll numbers are, as economists say, noisy."

Thanks for proving everyone else right. The payroll estimates are hardly the end-all. They're erratic, and fail to take into account significant types of job growth that the household survey does consider. I'm not advocating one over the other, but both should certainly be considered. A review: payroll survey shows job growth up, household survey shows job growth having been up for a while, unemployment is down, the stock markets are way up. Give up the doom and gloom already Krugman.

Video Games Make Good Doctors

Yet another reason to buy the newest madden next August.
The same hand-eye coordination that helps me score touchdowns against my roomate seems to help surgeons perform Laparoscopic surgerys (surgerys that employ tiny cameras controlled by joy sticks).

"Researchers found that doctors who spent at least three hours a week playing video games made about 37 percent fewer mistakes in laparoscopic surgery and performed the task 27 percent faster than their counterparts who did not play video games."

Best of all, the article mentions developments of a pre-surgery "warm-up" for doctors that includes a mandatory dosage of video-game playing.

While the idea intrigues me...being the hypochondriac that I am, im not sure how secure I would feel if I walked in on a doctor deeply absorbed in a game of grand theft auto or ESPN NHL hockey directly before going to work on my appendix.

More on File Sharing

I seem to have inspired Skip's recently posted dissertation on file sharing. But his well-thought out (and well-linked) post deserves some feedback here.

Skip's file sharing ethics seem to differ slightly from mine. While he agrees that illegal downloading of music is generally detrimental to musician's rights, he has built in a little exception for small-scale downloading. Obviously, though, when compounding the small-scale downloading of millions of internet geeks, and this is especially true of a group like Outkast, the amount of illegally obtained intellectual property becomes enormous. So I think this line of thought can be, and has been easily disregarded.

As for the contention that "im not going to buy the cd anyway," this is just an easy way out for morally "conflicted" downloaders attempting self-justification. This argument holds no water in a serious legal debate over copyright law. While it may give the individual downloader piece of mind, it provides little basis for arguing against something like the DMCA.

Now that we're on the topic of the DMCA, I can't repress the urge to call out skip's rip of the language from the primary "anti-DMCA" website.

Moving on, the DMCA may have problems in certain wording. But the purpose and spirit of the Act is not all bad. It was the first real attempt to protect intellectual property on the Internet. Now whether this or that obscure scientist should be able to hack encryption for legitimate purposes is something beside the point. Even if this part of the act is made more clear, the main tenants of the Act should and will remain.

Thats it for now. Travis, a friend of mine particuarly into the legality of intellectual property, directed me to the Future of Music Coalition for info. It seems pretty legit, and has alot of good stuff.

Gambling Woes

Monetarily, this was a tough night in multiple ways.

I Blew the possibility of winning $17 at the poker table, and with Georgia Tech losing, lost what had been a very secure first place in the bracket pool, along with the $35 pot.

Granted, I only actually lost a total of $7 combined.

I only started playing poker about a month ago, and I've already played at least 30-40 games and even participated in school texas hold 'em tournament.

In the wake of multiple wins by Travis, we've all been entrenched in a feverish debate over whether its all just luck, style, or worst of all...skill?

The law of averages is getting ready to rain on Travelope's parade.

I've still yet to see a straight flush.

L.A. Times

I've given little respect to the West Coast's leading paper. Why worry about the L.A. Times when you've got the NYT for just about everything and the Wash Post to fill in the gaps on politics?

Maybe its time to give the California paper a chance. Its just been announced that the L.A. Times won 5 pulitzers, the second most by a newspaper ever in one year (the NYT won the most in 2002 with 7).

Ok, maybe I do have a fetish for the NYT. I had never even considered giving the West Coast Times a chance. California is pretty weird after all. How could one ever forget all that recall business?

I'll start checking the L.A. Times out. The Pulitzer people are somewhat legitimate I guess. If nothing else, it would at least allow for more variation in my links. And more wisdom on important topics like Arny's latest fling, never-ending energy crises, and the status of baby seals.

The morals of file sharing

Interesting article buried in the business section of the Times today (does anyone ever get all the way to section C?).

The recording industry and our government have done a decent job convincing Americans of the evils of file sharing. I, for one, quit back in high school out of respect for musicians' rights.

But two prominent economic professors recently released an extensive study that seems to largely deflate the government's take on the file sharing issue. The study basically claims that:

"Downloads have an effect on sales which is statistically indistinguishable from zero, despite rather precise estimates."

I don't know how such a stat is legitimized, but both economists further assert:

"it would take 5,000 downloads to reduce the sales of an album by one copy."

Is file sharing still bad if sales appear to be unnaffected by it?