1) Apparently Taiwanese handset maker HTC’s entire 2010 line-up became available to us all by some mysterious and wonderful leak. As Engadget notes, the most promising of the devices is the Bravo, which they report is supposed to be released sometime around April. It has full DivX support (great for some mobile video-watching), 720p video capture through a 5 megapixel AF camera (with flash), a 3.7-inch display, and perhaps most excitingly, Qualcomm’s Snapdragon — meaning the days of my ridiculously slow G1 hardware would be gone!
2) In non-tech news, New York Magazine asks the simple question:
What, precisely, is the point of the United States Senate?
It’s a perfectly fair question and one which, they argue, is more germane now than ever. The article goes into some of the more peculiar notions of the Senate, and particularly gets all worked up about filibuster. It’s funny to me because New York Magazine is a publication comprised of about 90% gossip/local reportage. But every once in a while (by my calculation, about 1 in every 10 articles), they come up with something interesting and incisive. I’ll continue to post those sorts of pieces as I find them.
3) Two great pieces in this week’s
New Yorker. One is a short piece about called “
Hannukah Stories” by Yoni Brenner. They are each great in their own existential/off-the-wall/absurd sense. Take “The Brightest Light,” for example:
There once was a little candle named Blue. Blue lived in a box with his forty-four brothers, all of them waiting for Hanukkah, when the Boy would reach into the box and place them atop the menorah for all the world to see.
But when the first night of Hanukkah came, and the Boy reached into the box, he did not pick Blue. Nor did he pick him on the second night, or on the third. And Blue was heartbroken, for he thought he would never sit atop the menorah.
Finally, on the eighth and final night of Hanukkah, the Boy reached into the box—and whom should he pick but Blue! And the Boy said, “Because you were so patient, I will make you the Shamash. And I will light you on fire first, and then I will use your flame to kindle the rest of your brothers.”
And Blue went pale and said, “Wait—what?”
True to his word, the Boy placed Blue atop the menorah. And as Blue was slowly incinerated by his bright little flame he screamed with joy, or something.
4) The other fun
New Yorker item this week is an
essay by the late David Foster Wallace. He was a fantastic writer and one of the reasons why I appreciate him so much is for his ability to condense ideas without losing meaning. Read the first page alone and tell me you don’t understand that
exact feeling, as if you were a child again, also falling victim to the naivete you had about anything you were told, especially by your parents.
6) Finally, this hilarious
breakdown of the first day of class in college seems spot-on to me:
- 0-4:30: name of course, name of professor, names of TAs, pictures of TAs [all stuff that could easily have been on a handout or Web site]
- 4:30-5:15: bragging about how many important people on Wall Street took his course, bragging about how great the course is even for people who aren’t going on to Wall Street
- 5:15-6:20: talking about how every human endeavor involves finance, e.g., if you’re a poet it will help you get published to know how finance works [my haiku: AIG bankrupt; your taxes gone to Greenwich; no one hears your screams]
- 6:20-7: talking about an unrelated course, Econ 251, and who taught it in previous years [big excitement at a university: some guy other than the usual lecturer taught it because Kahuna #1 was on leave]
- 7-10: history of why two intro finance courses exist, glorious biography of teacher of the other course, [after several minutes, we learn that the other course has a bit more math]
- 10-11:30: show of hands for who is interested in organic chemistry, discussion of how Robert Shiller is reading about this because he has such broad intellectual interests [implicit comparison to finance wizards, though Shiller is not able to cite an example of how organic chemists managed to bankrupt their shareholders and wreck the world economy]
- 11:30-15:00: writes authors of textbook on blackboard, says it is “very detailed”, discusses reactions of previous classes of students to this book, talks about his vacation in the Bahamas with some other important guy, reading textbook by the pool unlike the other stupid tourists who were reading novels. Discussion of what number the current edition is. “I met a really prominent person on Wall Street” who told him that his son had dropped out of the course because the textbook was too hard. Apparently Yale students are too stupid/lazy to read this book intended for undergrads at schools with more motivated students.
- 15-16: discussion of how library is obsolete in the Internet age, how Franco Modigliani is 2nd author of primary textbook, a Nobel Prize winner, and “my teacher at MIT”
- 16-18: discussion of assigning Jeremy Siegel’s Stocks for the Long Run book and how it has sold more than 1/2 million copies [Why do we need to pay $50,000/year to Yale to find books that are stacked out front in Barnes and Noble]
- 18: discussion of assigning his own book, Irrational Exuberance, and how he managed to time both the stock market crash of 2000 and the housing market peak in 2005
- 19-20:15: all of these are on sale at Labyrinth Books, an independent bookstore, as well as the campus bookstore. Talks about how he likes to support independent bookstores. Talks about New Haven bookstore that went out of business some time earlier. Helpfully provides street address for defunct bookstore.
- 20:15-21: discussion of lecture and teaching section schedule; there are six problem sets and they are due on Monday
- 21-22:30: this is one of the biggest classes at Yale [because we are such great teachers]; how grades are determined, e.g., what percentage are problem sets and exams, but then we use judgment as well [so perhaps you can ignore the percentages just given]
- 22:30: writes first topic on the board, “Behavioral Finance”, and begins what might be considered actual teaching.
Tags: A/B testing, bravo, college, david foster wallace, eric ries, health care, htc, qualitative testing, senate, snapdragon
A few additional links to share before I head off to bed (I am up early tomorrow morning to go to Carmel/Monterey, a trip which you can follow in all its exciting glory here):
Time takes a look at Meg Whitman’s campaign for California governor, and aptly points out that she is running a tough race as a fiscally conservative, socially moderate woman. She is, of course, playing up her experience at eBay, but it’ll be an interesting race here on out for sure.
Business Week reports on a public opinion poll which found that 40% of Americans are cutting back on holiday spending, not simply because of the poor economy but also because of rising health-care costs. The study also found that 60% support the woefully named public option.
Andrew Sullivan over at the Atlantic guided me to this awesome item on the evolution of the hipster.
Click on the image to view larger
Finally, Joel Stein recaps his 20-year high school reunion — a column which makes me concerned about my first Trinity School reunion a few months away. Eek.
Tags: california politics, health care, high school, hipster, hipsters, joel stein, meg whitman, public option
