Interesting Links for 15-8-2011

[matgb]

Collected links from around the web

• David Starkey is wrong, plain and simple – @Miss_Snuffy's demolishes those defending Starkey's racism
  I've rewatched Starkey's train wreck of a Newsnight performance twice now, and I've read both Toby Young and Jerry Hayes defending what they thinks he meant to say. I suspect, actually, that they're right about what he was trying to say. But he used such racist language in such a dismissive and stupid way that he was, quite simply, wrong. Here's hoping he'll stop getting invited on shows like Question Time to rudely talk over every other panellist and refuse to let anyone else get a word in edgeways. If I never see him on TV again I'll be happy. Man's an arse.
  (tags: David-Starkey Katherine-Birbalsingh education racism london riots)
• Rethinking the Tube map - I quite like the new alternative design, makes location easier to picture
  I like the existing map, but it can't half be confusing at times. Stations that're around the corner from each other look like they're miles apart, lines that go straight up actually curve around half of London, etc. And the Overground and other new additions look stupid on it. Why not start from scratch, apply the same basic principles, and see what comes out?
  (tags: london london-underground maps design)
• Post-Conflict Potter - Foreign Policy journal covers conflict resolution and rebuilding. In the Potterverse
  "the defeat of Voldemort by Harry Potter may have been the easy part. Indeed, one might even say it was child's play. The hard work of postwar stabilization still lies ahead. " Not sure I agree with all of their proposed ideas, but I'm ten years out of date in the literature, perhaps readers with more hands on experience in the area might contribute an opinion?
  (tags: analysis harry-potter politics foreign-policy)
• Apple blocks Samsung tablet from EU markets | WTF? "the order was issued without any hearing"
  The interminable patent disputes with the higher end tech markets are really getting to me now, the whole area of law seems in major need of reform, two major trading partners are also suing each other for ripping each other off, etc etc. But to block sales of a product line without hearing or notification? Something wrong with that.
  (tags: patents Apple Samsung)
• Speculation doesn't increased commodity prices-it stabilises them
  If there's a sudden shortage in a commodity because, say, the wheatfields in Russia go up in smoke, then prices rise, partially due to speculators investing. But that rise in prices encourages more production of the commodity, seeing prices start to fall again and stopping massive peaks and troughs in prices. After a lot of reading around this, I've come to the conclusion that the futures market is actually a Good Thing within the current trade framework. This surprised me, but the evidence is clear
  (tags: economics speculation)
• Sarcastic Responses To Well-Meaning Signs | a couple are a bit off, but...
  A couple are, well, offensive, but most are well done and funny
  (tags: humour)
• The 5 Biggest Disasters in the History of Marketing Ideas - they can't count, it's 6 disasters
  Number one is two separate case studies, both ridiculously dull. Nice to see Britain punching above its weight in the stupid department again.
  (tags: marketing advertising sales-gimmicks stupidity)

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Comments

[supergee]

Blogging Starkey. Thanx. Wotta maroon!

[frightened]

Ugh, Starkey. I can't tell you how much I hated that fame-whore and his populist bullshit when I was doing a history degree.

I think one of my lecturers hated him more. She had a scathing article about him, Niall Ferguson and some other neo-colonialist asshole cut out and stuck on her office door.

[matgb]

What always bothers me the most about him is the sheer historical illiteracy that he's prepared to spout to support a political point. If you're on t'telly as a historian, and it's not your period, asserting things as facts that are supposition, conjecture or just wrong is actively damaging. And the very idea that the riots recently are a sign of decline, given the history of disturbances in London, is simply false.

I have at least seen Ferguson admit something wasn't his field, even if he is a bit of a cock.

[daweaver]

Is the Adam Smith Institute really addressing a straw man in its article? The spike in cereal prices towards the end of the last decade was attributed at the time to increased demand from biofuels, higher input costs from increased oil prices, and decreased supply from a prolonged drought in Australia.

Lower supply, higher demand, and increased fixed costs are part of conventional economic theory, and belongs to the depressingly small part of economics that actually has predictive power: when supply increased, and demand reduced, and fixed costs fell from late 2008, the price also fell. Then these reversals were themselves partly reversed, resulting in renewed inflation in the past twelve months.

Surely Occam's Razor requires the most simple explanation is to be preferred?

[matgb]

I always dislike the razor, as the default answer is 'god did it', but while you're right, simple supply/demand explains things, that's not the perception of some campaigners.

There's a serious campaign led by some major players (and my brain has gone blank as to which charities it is) to outloaw speculation on commodities, and they're asserting as fact that speculation causes price rises.

The evidence points to supply and demand fluctuations being judges by traders to try and make money, but their work actually stops the fluctuations it would cause from being as high as you'd expect--fires in russia caused the futures market to peak prompting more US farmers to plant wheat that year, etc.