Kruse Kronicle

Saturday Links

 1. Population Reference Bureau has a great resource that maps their 2013 World Population Data Sheet on an interactive map. Here is one example:

2. Modern family redefined: Say 'goodbye' to the typical American family

A New York Times story looking at the skyrocketing rate of birth outside of marriage among women under 30 (now over 50 percent of such births) pointed up one of the key differences between marriages and cohabitating couples:

Almost all of the rise in nonmarital births has occurred among couples living together. While in some countries such relationships endure at rates that resemble marriages, in the United States they are more than twice as likely to dissolve than marriages. In a summary of research, Pamela Smock and Fiona Rose Greenland, both of the University of Michigan, reported that two-thirds of couples living together split up by the time their child turned 10.

The research, in aggregate, says that things are changing for the American family, and quickly. There may be ways for the government to address the trend: increased financial benefits for getting and staying married, for example, or a macro-effort to actively battle rising economic inequality, but systematic change will be a long hard fight. The research seems to suggest that such a fight is worth the effort.

3. The Aging of the Baby Boom and the Growing Care Gap: A Look at Future Declines in the Availability
of Family Caregivers

4. Young People Are Still Dropping Out Of The Labor Force

Kids are likely staying in school for longer (or avoiding work altogether) thanks to a tough labor market. On the other hand, the 65-and-over crowd has seen the sharpest uptick in participation. The financial crisis bled retirement savings, forcing older Americans to stay on the job for longer.

5. How Big Data Is Transforming The Mobile Industry

6. Millennials Now Bringing Their Parents Along On Job Interviews

7. Why Bigger Is No Longer Better

Every manager and entrepreneur wants to grow their business.  Get bigger and more powerful, the thinking goes, and you'll have it made. The added heft will give you the upper hand in negotiations with suppliers and the doors of customers will swing wide open.

That used to be true to a certain extent, but not so much anymore. Digital technology has markedly evened out the playing field. Startups become billion dollar companies overnight while venerable brands like Kodak and Blockbuster hit the skids.

This turn of events presents considerable challenges for managers.  While there are still some advantages to scale, the disadvantages often outweigh them.  You have lots of customers, a large workforce and stodgy institutional investors to keep happy, all of which contribute to strategic rigidity.  To compete in the new economy, we need a new playbook. ...

8. Can For-Profit Corporations Have Religious Purposes?

...Okay, some may respond (e.g., here), churches and other organizations have free exercise rights, but for-profit corporations do not.  But why would this be?  An individual sole proprietor — of, say, a kosher deli, to use Will's example — would clearly be able to press a religious liberty claim, whether or not she hopes the deli will make her rich (and whether or not she commits to donate her earnings to a religious charity).   Does this individual lose such rights if she incorporated?   Does that somehow make her religious motivations any less sincere? Any less judicially cognizable?  I can't see how.   What, then, if the deli owner formed a partnership with her equally devout brother?  Would that matter?  And, again, if an informal partnership would be okay, why would the adoption of a corporate form and limited liability matter?

The consequence of the "no religious liberty for corporations" position is that individuals who would like to go into business are penalized if they seek to go into business without any potential recourse, under RFRA or otherwise.  The choice presented by the state is go into business or stay true to your religious beliefs.  Although I suggested otherwise before, it seems to me this approach imposes a substantial burden on the exercise of religion.  Whether this burden can be justified in a given case is a separate question, but the burden is there. ...

9. Five Insights About Private Property from Aquinas

1. God designed creation to support life, especially human life. ...
2. Private property engenders good stewardship. ...
3. Private ownership supports order in society. ...
4. Private property helps maintain peace in communities. ...
5. Private property benefits the community. ...

10. Germans Revolt Against Germany's Green Energy Revolution

11. Brussels fears European 'industrial massacre' sparked by energy costs

Europe's industry is being ravaged by exorbitant energy costs and an over-valued euro, blighting efforts to reverse years of global manufacturing decline.

12. What If Roads Lasted Twice As Long?

If there were a better way to take care of roads in the Lone Star State, it would be a very valuable idea.

Enter Sahadat Hossain, an associate professor of civil engineering at the University of Texas at Arlington and the man behind a new state program to shore up crumbling roads using an underground support system of recycled plastic pins.

"Just think about it," Hossain says. "You need one million dollars to repair something. Or you can use a sustainable recycling material and do it for $200- or $300,000. You don't need to be an engineer to see that."

The scheme's low price is matched by its high effectiveness. In a two-year feasibility study that concluded this August, sections of Texas Route 287 with 10-foot-long pins drilled into the roadway slope moved only one to two inches. The control sections, left unsupported, moved 15 to 16 inches. ...

... The input cost of the pins, which have previously been tested in Missouri, is less than 50 percent that of traditional highway support measures like retaining walls. And because they are made from recycled plastic—each pin contains about 500 soda bottles—the pin concept turns plastic's non-decomposition from an environmental headache to an engineering solution. ...

13. This Map Shows Which Countries Are Going To Make The World Cup, According To Nate Silver's Prediction Model

 

Learn About Tableau

14. Why So Many Articles Have Terrible Headlines Online

15. The 11 Most Common Grammatical Mistakes And How To Avoid Them

16. What would happen if your church was reviewed on TripAdvisor?

Churches spend a lot of time on the big things, like a glorious anthem and prophetic preaching. But a UMC pastor says small details matter, too, like lights that burn brightly, signs that make sense and greeters who greet. ...

Saturday Links

Some weeks the pickin's are thin. Not this week.

1. Asians are now the largest immigrant group in Southern California: New Suburban Dream Born of Asia and Southern California

2. Surge in unwed mothers: Deep in the stats, it's not what you think

According to the US Centers for Disease Control, 42 percent of children will have lived with cohabitating parents by the time they are 12 years old, almost twice as many who will have divorced parents. And this particular sort of family structure is on the rise, a number of studies show.

3. In a sharp trend reversal, highway fatalities rise

"The news, while disheartening, is not surprising," said Barbara Harsha, executive director of the Governors Highway Safety Association. "With the improving economy and historically low levels of motor vehicle deaths in recent years, we expected deaths to increase. Highway deaths have been declining significantly in recent years."

4. We live in a house that is 105 years old. IMO, most houses built after 1940 are boring. How Americans' Taste in Houses Has Evolved Over the Last Century

5. Are we purging the poorest?

In a new book, MIT urbanist Lawrence Vale examines the downsizing of public housing.

6. Eric Schmidt and Jared Cohen have been popping up everywhere promoting their new book, The New Digital Age: Reshaping the Future of People, Nations and Business. Here is a PBS interview:

Watch Google's Schmidt, Cohen Describe a 'New Digital Age' on PBS. See more from PBS NewsHour.

7. Love this story: Alleviating Poverty with a Washing Machine Powered by Your Feet

The GiraDora uses the principles of a salad spinner to make cleaning clothes less back-breaking and time-consuming work for millions of people in poverty.

8. Amen to this article. Good charities spend more on admin but it is not money wasted

The popular idea that charities fritter money on unnecessary admin has been proven wrong. You must spend to be effective.

9. Why US firms are turning to Mexico, leaving China behind

 ... Mexico has more international trade deals than any other country, and exports as many goods as the rest of Latin America combined.

There has always been an electronics manufacturing hub in Tijuana, but Chinese competition damaged its business a decade ago.

Now rising wage costs in Asia and a higher exchange rate are prompting many companies targeting the US market to take another look at Mexico. ...

...The new Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto wants to put a new spin on the country with the image of a booming economy and as a good place to do business.

Security and the drugs problem still dominate talks between the US and Mexico, but its southern neighbour's increasing importance in the global economy is changing the relationship. ...

10. The Manufacturing Cost Components For A Bunch Of Different Things

11. Five Innovative Technologies that Bring Energy to the Developing World

12. No-Wash Shirt Doesn't Stink After 100 Days

13. Craig Stanford, 'Planet Without Apes' Author, Says Eco-Tourism Could Save The Primates

A slice of the money that tourists pay can run $500 an hour at some of the sites in East Africa and goes to build hospitals and hire teachers." Although it's not philosophically or altruistically driven, the bottom line is the animals are more valuable alive than dead, since there's an incentive to protect them.

14. Approaching Nutrition From An Investor's Mindset

How does one succeed in nutrition when nobody seems to agree on anything? How can one get the benefits that arrive in the early stages of a diet without staying too long and compromising their health? What has worked well for me is thinking about nutrition like an investor thinks about investment opportunities.

15. The Lies You've Been Told About the Origin of the QWERTY Keyboard.

The QWERTY configuration for typewriters can be traced, actually, to the telegraph.

16. Money Buys Happiness and You Can Never Have Too Much, New Research Says

Here again we have to revisit the differences between happiness, joy, meaning, and satisfaction.

17. Baseball as a Road to God

Watch Baseball and Religion on PBS. See more from Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly.

18. Why Older Minds Make Better Decisions

Recent research has already challenged what we thought we knew about the capability of the brain. What has become clear, says Dr. Gregory Samanez-Larkin of Vanderbilt University, one of the network's co-directors, is that despite a decline in some types of cognitive function, "older people often make better decisions than younger people."

19. Moon Landing Faked!!!—Why People Believe in Conspiracy Theories

New psychological research helps explain why some see intricate government conspiracies behind events like 9/11 or the Boston bombing.

20. Scot McKnight answers the question So What's an Anabaptist?

21. Beneath the stereotypes, a stressful life for preachers' kids

22. When and Where Is It Okay to Cry?

23. 10 Reasons Why Humor Is A Key To Success At Work

24. Scientists May Be On Brink Of Major Discovery In Hunt For HIV Cure

Danish scientists are expecting results that will show that "finding a mass-distributable and affordable cure to HIV is possible."

They are conducting clinical trials to test a "novel strategy" in which the HIV virus is stripped from human DNA and destroyed permanently by the immune system.

Mapping Favorite NFL Teams

This map comes from: How Survey Data Helped the Federal Reserve Make a Regional Map of the United States

Am I correct in reading this map to say that South Carolina and half of North Carolina are Steelers fans? What's up with that? Do you see any other oddities?

Saturday Links

1. Atlantic: Could Earth's Population Peak in 2050?

"For the past two decades, demographers have generally agreed that global population growth will continue to inch steadily higher in the coming century, raising concerns about everything from pollution to housing to the world's water supply.

But a new study out of Spain suggests those estimates may be way off—we're talking several billion people off—and that the earth's population could instead peak as soon as 2050. Applying a mathematical model to global population trends, these researchers believe that there will be fewer people living on earth in 2100 than there are today. ..."

Since I started studying demography thirty years ago, low fertility estimates seem the closest to actual outcomes. People seem to be moving to lower fertility rates faster than most expected.

2. Speaking of world population, Chatham House writes about The End of Youth

"Advances in medicine and health care mean that people all over the globe are living longer, much longer. At the same time mothers in most countries are having fewer babies. The combination is a demographic timebomb. Sarah Harper looks at the challenges that lie ahead and the changes needed to cope with a grey new world."

3. Pew has published an interesting report on Demographics of Asian Americans

4. Forbes on Why China Is Finally Abandoning Its One Child Policy

"The policy was originally justified as necessary because of excess population and to promote economic development. Much has been written and can be found on the Internet about this policy and the current and long-term effects it is having and will have on China. The reluctance by China's central government to abandon the one child policy is not out of a failure to recognize its shortcomings. Rather, it is because the policy has been highly successful in achieving a principal objective, a unification of the public in support of an unelected, autocratic central government."

5. World Bank Aims To Eliminate Extreme Poverty By 2030

To reach that goal, Kim said the world need to reduce the number of people living below the poverty line of $1.25 per day to 3 percent globally by 2030, and raise the per capita incomes of the bottom 40 percent of every developing country.

The 3 percent level is a new target for the World Bank, which estimated in 2010 that 21 percent of the global population, or 1.2 billion people, lived extreme poverty.

Some World Bank estimates have put the 3 percent target at about 600 million people living below the poverty line by 2030.

6. Susan Brown writes about A 'gray divorce' boom

Until recently, it would have been fair to say that older people simply did not get divorced. Fewer than 10% of those who got divorced in 1990 were ages 50 or older. Today, 1 in 4 people getting divorced is in this age group.

7. Science reports on the prospects of One Drug to Shrink All Tumors.

8.  The Genetic Literacy Project on Monsanto Protection Act? Separating the facts from the fury

9. Dean Kalahar says Economics Is Easy, And Can Be Learned In 5 Minutes

10. Rebecca Schuman on why you shouldn't pursue that Ph.D.: Thesis Hatement

11. Facebook 'Dislike' Button Not A Good Idea, Says Product Engineer Bob Baldwin In Reddit AMA

12. Finally, we have an answer to one of the most important questions of our generation: How Many Spaces After a Period? Ending the Debate.

13. ABP News with some interesting data on the future of Mega Churches: Small is big for Millennials

14. Goal Control 4D. How referees will be automatically informed of goals in World Cup 2014.

15. For those of you who have deficiencies in your cultural education about all things Whovian, here is a primer for you: 'Doctor Who' Explained in 25 GIFs

Saturday Links

1. Scientific American has some interesting thoughts on How Your Language Affects Your Wealth and Health

... Different languages have different ways of talking about the future. Some languages, such as English, Korean, and Russian, require their speakers to refer to the future explicitly. Every time English-speakers talk about the future, they have to use future markers such as "will" or "going to." In other languages, such as Mandarin, Japanese, and German, future markers are not obligatory. The future is often talked about similar to the way present is talked about and the meaning is understood from the context. A Mandarin speaker who is going to go to a seminar might say "Wo qu ting jiangzuo," which translates to "I go listen seminar." Languages such as English constantly remind their speakers that future events are distant. For speakers of languages such as Mandarin future feels closer. As a consequence, resisting immediate impulses and investing for the future is easier for Mandarin speakers. ...

2. Fair Trade 2.0? Coffee's Economics, Rewritten by Farmers

3. R. J. Moeller qutoes from John Mackey's (Whole Foods CEO) new book:

"Capitalism has a purpose beyond just making money. I think the critics of capitalism have got it in this very small box. That it's all about money. It's based in being greedy, selfish and exploitative. And yet, I haven't found it to be that way. Most of the hundreds of entrepreneurs I know and have met did not start their business primarily out of a desire to make money. Not that there's anything wrong with making money. My body cannot function unless it produces red-blood cells. No red-blood cells and I'm a dead man. But that's not the purpose of my life.

Similarly, a business cannot exist unless it produces a profit . . . but that's not the only reason it exists."

4. David Henderson with thoughts on the economic impact of marriage: "Get Married and Stay Married"

When I was writing a review of Dwight Lee's and Richard McKenzie's excellent book, Getting Rich in America: 8 Simple Rules for Building a Fortune and a Satisfying Life, I called Dwight to ask a question and we got talking about Rule #5: Get Married and Stay Married. Dwight pointed out that if you follow the other 7 rules but don't get married or stay married, you have a substantial probability of building a fortune and a satisfying life. But, he said, if you don't get married and stay married, you tend not to follow at least some of the other 7 rules.

5. With more thoughts on the economic impact of marriage, Glen Reynolds reflects on The other marriage inequality

While the upscale college-educated crowd continues to marry at very high rates, marriage rates are plummeting among those further down on the socioeconomic ladder.

6. Steven Pearlstein with a thoughtful essay: Is capitalism moral?

... A useful debate about the morality of capitalism must get beyond libertarian nostrums that greed is good, what's mine is mine and whatever the market produces is fair. It should also acknowledge that there is no moral imperative to redistribute income and opportunity until everyone has secured a berth in a middle class free from economic worries. If our moral obligation is to provide everyone with a reasonable shot at economic success within a market system that, by its nature, thrives on unequal outcomes, then we ought to ask not just whether government is doing too much or too little, but whether it is doing the right things.

7. Matt Ridley with an interesting piece on how Obsidian chronicles ancient trade. This conclusion was interesting.

Instead, Dr. Butzer argues that Sargon's conquest itself caused the collapse of trade by destroying cities and disrupting what had till then been "an inter-networked world-economy, once extending from the Aegean to the Indus Valley." In other words, as with the end of the Roman empire, the collapse of trade caused the collapse of civilization more than the other way around.

8. Speaking of economic History, Rewriting Biblical history? Agriculture might be 5,000 years older than believed.

A new find suggests farmers in Bible lands built channels for irrigation long before historians thought they did, allowing for cultivated vineyards, olives, wheat and barley.

9. Americans Just Keep Driving Less And Less

10. The New York Times on New Reasons to Change Light Bulbs. (To LEDs)

11. Science 2.0 on A Biological Basis For Gender Differences In Math?

... "Educational systems could be improved by acknowledging that, in general, boys and girls are different," said University of Missouri biologist David Geary in their statement. "For example, in trying to close the sex gap in math scores, the reading gap was left behind. Now, our study has found that the difference between girls' and boys' reading scores was three times larger than the sex difference in math scores. Girls' higher scores in reading could lead to advantages in admissions to certain university programs, such as marketing, journalism or literature, and subsequently careers in those fields. Boys lower reading scores could correlate to problems in any career, since reading is essential in most jobs."

Generally, when conditions are good, the math gap increases and the reading gap decreases and when conditions are bad the math gap decreases and the reading gap increases. This pattern remained consistent within nations as well as among them, according to the work by Geary and Gijsbert Stoet of the University of Leeds that included testing performance data from 1.5 million 15-year-olds in 75 nations. ...

12. Malcolm Gladwell was half right. Professor Jonah Berger on his new book, Contagious: Why Things Catch On.

13. Scientific Explanations for Why Spoilers Are So Horrible

14. Mashable has great advice with 5 Alternatives to Unfriending Someone on Facebook

15. David Brooks with insight on How Movements Recover

... Two rival reform movements arose to restore the integrity of Catholicism. Those in the first movement, the Donatists, believed the church needed to purify itself and return to its core identity. ...

... In the fourth century, another revival movement arose, embraced by Augustine, who was Bishop of Hippo. The problem with the Donatists, Augustine argued, is that they are too static. They try to seal off an ark to ride out the storm, but they end up sealing themselves in. They cut themselves off from new circumstances and growth.

Augustine, as his magisterial biographer Peter Brown puts it, "was deeply preoccupied by the idea of the basic unity of the human race." He reacted against any effort to divide people between those within the church and those permanently outside. ....

16. A great piece by someone who considers them unaffiliated with any religion. Every Christian and congregation needs to reflect on the insignificance of the church in this writer's life. His tribe is growing: The significant insignificance of religion

The Geography of March Madness

Atlantic Cities: The Geography of March Madness

While you're filling out your expertly analyzed bracket, you might want to take a look at how March Madness fandom is spread across the country with this map from Facebook (via Gizmodo). Michael Bailey of Facebook's Data Science team analyzed the way "likes" are spread through teams and conferences, across the country—in similar fashion to this Super Bowl map. 

Here, for instance, Facebook looks at the conference divide. Bailey points out in his analysis how the ACC fan base is spread across the country, despite pockets of dominance for other conferences....

The article has other interesting maps as well.

Saturday Links

1. The Economist has an interesting graph showing that capitalism has led to greater happiness in member countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States (former Soviet Union countries excluding the three baltic countries.)

2. AEI has an informative piece on economic mobility in the United States: How's the American Dream doing? Well, which one?

There are two ways to define economic mobility: 1) absolute mobility, whether each generation is financially better off than the one before; and 2) relative mobility, whether you can change your income rank  vs. your parents. Most Americans probably think both measures important. We want to be more prosperous than mom and dad, but also be able to change our circumstances and make our dreams come true. ...

... A San Francisco Fed study – using data tracking families since 1968 — looks at both versions of the American Dream, finding one healthier than the other. Looking at absolute mobility, researchers Leila Bengali and Mary Daly find the United States "highly mobile." Over the sample period, 67% of US adults had higher family incomes than their parents, including 83% of those in the lowest birth quintile, or bottom 20% (versus 54% for children born into the top quintile, or top 20%.) ...

3. Concerning gender income inequality, Mark Perry says 'Studies' that compare average wages by gender, without controlling for demographic factors, can't be taken seriously

4. Clive Crook thinks an ownership society may be the answer to reducing wealth inequality: Liberals Should Embrace the Ownership Society

... It's true that conservatives' standard proposals for privatizing Social Security and voucherizing Medicare would shift risk onto beneficiaries -- but this plainly isn't a necessary consequence of the basic principle. I agree with Konczal that adequate insurance against economic risk, underwritten by the government, is essential. I also agree that most conservatives aren't interested in providing that guarantee. That's exactly why liberals ought to take up the ownership society themselves.

Ownership entails risk, it's true, but insurance can minimize it. Ownership also provides control, independence and self-respect -- things it wouldn't hurt liberals to be more interested in. And when it comes to inequality and stagnating middle incomes, ownership can give wage slaves a stake in the nation's economic capital.

Done right, an equity component in government-backed saving for retirement could be the best idea liberals have had since the earned-income tax credit (oh, sorry, that started out as a conservative idea as well). ...

5. Scientific American: Massive Open Online Courses, aka MOOCs, Transform Higher Education and Science

6. Scientific American also has an interesting piece on how Brain Researchers Can Detect Who We Are Thinking About

FMRI scans of volunteers' media prefrontal cortexes revealed unique brain activity patterns associated with individual characters or personalities as subjects thought about them.

7. Gizmodo reports that Sex in Space Could Be Deadly.

Researchers already knew humans, animals and plants have evolved in response to Earth's gravity and they are able to sense it. What we are still discovering is how the processes occurring within the cells of the human and plant bodies are affected by the more intense gravity, or hypergravity, that would be found on a large planet, or the microgravity that resembles the conditions on a space craft.

8. Walgreens Building First Self-Powered Store

According to estimations, engineers expect the the store to generate around 265,000 kilowatt hours (kWh) per year. Store operation will only require 200,000 kWh, so perhaps that extra wattage could be pumped back into the grid or used to power nearby utilities.

9. CNN reports on How online ruined dating ... forever

When people can browse potential dates online like items in a catalog, geo-locate hook-ups on an exercise bike just seven feet away, arrange a spontaneous group date with the app Grouper or arrange a bevy of blind dates in succession with Crazy Blind Date, it makes me wonder if all this newfound technological convenience has, in fact, made romance that much more elusive. Now, we may be more concerned with what someone isn't rather than what they are. And as that twenty-something entrepreneur reminded me over coffee, services like OkCupid, and even Facebook, sap a lot of the mystique out of those first few dates. So, sure, it may be easier than ever to score a date, but what kind of date will it really be?

10. Interesting piece on Why Do People Use Nope Even Though No Is Shorter?

11. Is the New Pope More Liberal Than the Last Two? Why It's Hard to Tell. Emily Chertoff offers some insightful analysis.

12. Michael Bird offers this quote from Michael Goheen and Craig Bartholomew's "The Drama of Scripture" in his post The Importance of the Narrative of Scripture.

Many of us have read the Bible as if it were merely a mosaic of little bits – theological bits, moral bits, historical-critical bits, sermon bits, devotional bits. But when we read the Bible in such a fragmented way, we ignore it's divine author's intention to shape our lives through its story. All humanity communities live out some story that provides a context for understanding the meaning of history and gives shape and direction to their lives. If we allow the Bible to become fragmented, it is in danger of being absorbed into whatever other story is shaping our culture, and it will thus cease to shape our lives as it should. Idolatry has twisted the dominant cultural story of the secular Western world. If as believers we allow this story (rather than the Bible) to become the foundation of our thought and action, then our lives will manifest not the truths of Scripture, but the lies of an idolatrous culture. Hence the unity of Scripture is no minor matter: a fragmented Bible may actually produce theologically orthodox, morally upright, warmly pious idol worshippers! (p. 12).

13. Scot McKnight has a great piece on what constitutes legalism: Legalism: Old and New Perspectives

14. Thom S. Rainer on Ten Things Pastors Wish They Knew Before They Became Pastors

1. I wish someone had taught me basic leadership skills. "I was well grounded in theology and Bible exegesis, but seminary did not prepare me for the real world of real people. It would have been great to have someone walk alongside me before my first church."
2. I needed to know a lot more about personal financial issues. "No one ever told me about minister's housing, social security, automobile reimbursement, and the difference between a package and a salary. I got burned in my first church."
3. I wish I had been given advice on how to deal with power groups and power people in the church. "I got it all wrong in my first two churches. I was fired outright from the first one and pressured out in the second one. Someone finally and courageously pointed out how I was messing things up almost from the moment I began in a new church. I am so thankful that I am in the ninth year of a happy pastorate in my third church."...

Read the whole thing.

15. Joseph Sunde rates the 5 TV Shows That Demonstrate the Importance of Ordinary Work

Saturday Links

1. The United States had its financial bubble. Europe is having one too. Is China next? If it is, it could reshape the global economy and radically reshape the Chinese government. Here is an interesting piece about China's real estate bubble.

2. Robert Tracinski thinks we are in the midst of a Third Industrial Revolution.

... I like the idea of a breaking the Industrial Revolution into stages, but I would define them in more fundamental terms. The first Industrial Revolution was the harnessing of large-scale man-made power, which began with the steam engine. The internal combustion engine, electric power, and other sources of energy are just further refinements of this basic idea. The second Industrial Revolution would be the development of interchangeable parts and the assembly line, which made possible inexpensive mass production with relatively unskilled labor. The Third Industrial Revolution would not be computers, the Internet, or mobile phones, because up to now these have not been industrial tools; they have been used for moving information, not for making things. Instead, the rise of computers and the Internet is just a warm-up for the real Third Industrial Revolution, which is the full integration of information technology with industrial production.

The effect of the Third Industrial Revolution will be to collapse the distance between the design of a product and its physical manufacture, in much the same way that the Internet has eliminated the distance between the origination of a new idea and its communication to an audience. ...

3. Tyler Cowen has some thoughts about the impact of our technological revolution as well Are we living in the early 19th century?

... Eventually all of the creative ferment of the industrial revolution pays off in a big "whoosh," but it takes many decades, depending on where you draw the starting line of course.  A look at the early 19th century is sobering, or should be, for anyone doing fiscal budgeting today.  But it is also optimistic in terms of the larger picture facing humanity over the longer run.

4. You may have seen a deeply flawed viral video about wealth inequality this past week. I am working on my own response, but economist Mark Perry's response is here.  In response to the viral 'Wealth Inequality in America' video

5. What are the contours of income inequality in the United States? This 40-minute video by Emmanuel Saez offers some important insights.

6. Futurist Ray Kurzweil is a little too sensationalist for my taste, but this vid offers interesting food for thought about nanotechnology and the future of sports. Will we even be able to have meaningful sports competitions?

7. Atlantic takes up a frequently perpetuated myth. 'Women Own 1% of World Property': A Feminist Myth That Won't Die

8. First, there was I, Pencil. Then I Smartphone. Now "I Coke." What Coke Contains

9. U.S. household wealth regains pre-recession peak but ...

The recovered wealth - most of it from higher stock prices - has been flowing mainly to richer Americans. By contrast, middle class wealth is mostly in the form of home equity, which has risen much less.

10. When looking at decisions in your own context, Seth Godin explains why Macro trends don't matter so much

11. It's a big, fat myth that all scientists are religion-hating atheists.

Whether or not you think science is wonderful, the stereotype of all scientists being atheists is unrealistic. There is, however, a special dance.

12. I consider this good news. Old Earth, Young Minds: Evangelical Homeschoolers Embrace Evolution

More Christian parents are asking for mainstream science in their children's curricula.

13. Remember to keep Syria and Egypt in your prayers. Nearly 1 in 20 Syrians are now refugees

Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/2013/03/07/4106038/us-household-wealth-regains-pre.html#storylink=cpy

Saturday Links

1. Conventional wisdom says wearing the red shirt in Star Trek will get you killed. Not so fast. Statistical analysis in Significance Magazine disagrees. (Keep your redshirt on: a Bayesian exploration)

"... In spite of wearing a redshirt, there is only an 8.6% chance of a member of the operations or engineering departments becoming a casualty. These personnel should ensure that their life insurance plans are based on their departments and not their uniform color.

Although Enterprise crew members in redshirts suffer many more casualties than crew members in other uniforms, they suffer fewer casualties than crew members in gold uniforms when the entire population size is considered. Only 10% of the entire redshirt population was lost during the three year run of Star Trek. This is less than the 13.4% of goldshirts, but more than the 5.1% of blueshirts. What is truly hazardous is not wearing a redshirt, but being a member of the security department. The red-shirted members of security were only 20.9% of the entire crew, but there is a 61.9% chance that the next casualty is in a redshirt and 64.5% chance this red-shirted victim is a member of the security department. The remaining redshirts, operations and engineering make up the largest single population, but only have an 8.6% chance of being a casualty.

Red uniform shirts are safe, as long as the wearer is not in the security department."

 2. Interesting piece on automation in the Economist: Robocolleague

Robots are getting more powerful. That need not be bad news for workers. ...

... Historically, technological advances have been relatively benign for workers. Labour-market trends through the 19th and 20th centuries show surprising continuity, according to Lawrence Katz of Harvard University and Robert Margo of Boston University. In recent decades, for example, computerisation and automation have displaced “middle-skilled” workers at the same time as employment among high- and low-skilled workers has increased. This “hollowing out” is not new, Messrs Katz and Margo note. Early industrialisation had similar effects. Middle-skilled artisans, like trained weavers, were put out of work by industrial textile production, but the fortunes of less-skilled factory workers and white-collar factory managers steadily improved. Mechanisation’s insatiable appetite for routine work of all types has yet to create mass unemployment. Quite the opposite.

The worry is that technology now has its sights set on non-routine tasks as well as mundane ones. Yet Mr Autor notes that just because a skilled job can be automated does not mean it will be. The number of workers used to build Nissan vehicles varies a lot between Japan, where labour is expensive, and India, where it is abundant and cheap. The relative cost of different types of workers matters for firms as they choose how to deploy new technologies. ...

3. Speaking of technology and its impact on industries Technology Upends Another Industry: Homebuilding

4. Businessweek has a piece about Indie Capitalism

Indie Capitalism has three foundational principles:

• Creativity generates economic value. Creativity is the source of profit. Yes, efficiency can squeeze more out of what exists, but creativity gives us originality, which translates into a market advantage and big margins.

• Creativity drives capitalism. These past few years we have been victimized by the disastrous results of “creativity” applied to the financial sector (mortgage-backed securities, for starters). What we lost sight of is that the scaling of creativity to actually make things of value sold in the marketplace is the true heart of our economic system. It is the true generator of net new jobs, wealth, and tax revenue.

• Creative destruction is crucial to economic growth. Crony capitalism, which relies on monopoly and political power, is antithetical to entrepreneurial capitalism. A faster cycle of birth, growth, and death of companies boosts creativity, economic value, and growth.

5. Business Insider reports on Why Manufacturing Jobs Are Returning To America For The First Time In Decades

 The bottom line: For the first time in decades, several key economic drivers have created a competitive advantage for the U.S. that will encourage corporate strategic decisions on capital allocation and acquisitions for generations to come.

Here's why:

1. Cheap and abundant natural gas. ...

2. Innovation. Despite talk of a brain drain, the U.S. remains the global innovation leader, maintaining a position enjoyed for 50 years. ...

3. Rule of law. Without the means to protect intellectual property, it cannot be exploited for competitive advantage. ...

4. Human capital. The wage gap between the U.S. and China has been shrinking. ...

5. De-complexity. Western multinationals continue to struggle with management of operations in developing countries. ...

6. Public policy and abundance. The federal government appears to be seizing the opportunity to promote job growth at home.

7. Credit, currency and the coming wave of mergers and acquisitions.

6. 3-D Printed Car Is as Strong as Steel, Half the Weight, and Nearing Production.

"Picture an assembly line not that isn’t made up of robotic arms spewing sparks to weld heavy steel, but a warehouse of plastic-spraying printers producing light, cheap and highly efficient automobiles.

If Jim Kor’s dream is realized, that’s exactly how the next generation of urban runabouts will be produced. His creation is called the Urbee 2 and it could revolutionize parts manufacturing while creating a cottage industry of small-batch automakers intent on challenging the status quo. ..."

7. And more about 3-D Printing. 3D Printing On The Frontlines — Army Deploying $2.8M Mobile Fabrication Labs.

Throughout history, war and innovation have gone hand in hand, whether it’s breakthroughs out of heavily funded R&D programs or makeshift contraptions thrown together with spare parts. Soldiers are trained to use the technology on hand to get the job done, one way or the other.

But how would military operations change if soldiers on the battlefield could have the best of both worlds: access to expert engineers able to fabricate custom-designed fixes right on-the-spot and in very little time? ...

8. And how about 4-D printing? 4D Printing Is The Future Of 3D Printing And It’s Already Here

"It may sound strange and far out, but it’s actually quite simple. 4D printing is being billed as a process where synthetic objects can change and adapt themselves to the environment. In a recent TED interview, Tibbits compared the process of 4D printing to the process of natural adaptation:

Natural systems obviously have this built in — the ability to have a desire. Plants, for example, generally have the desire to grow towards light and they generate energy from the translation of photosynthesis, carbon dioxide to oxygen, and so on. This is extremely difficult to build into synthetic systems — the ability to “want” or need something and know how to change itself in order to acquire it, or the ability to generate its own energy source. If we combine the processes that natural systems offer intrinsically (genetic instructions, energy production, error correction) with those artificial or synthetic (programmability for design and scaffold, structure, mechanisms) we can potentially have extremely large-scale quasi-biological and quasi-synthetic architectural organisms."

7. The New York Times reports that Music Industry Sales Rise, and Digital Revenue Gets the Credit

The music industry, the first media business to be consumed by the digital revolution, said on Tuesday that its global sales rose last year for the first time since 1999, raising hopes that a long-sought recovery might have begun.

The increase, of 0.3 percent, was tiny, and the total revenue, $16.5 billion, was a far cry from the $38 billion that the industry took in at its peak more than a decade ago. Still, even if it is not time for the record companies to party like it’s 1999, the figures, reported Tuesday by the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, provide significant encouragement.

The Economist also posted this chart this week:

8. Teleworking: The myth of working from home from the BBC. "Yahoo has banned its staff from "remote" working. After years of many predicting working from home as the future for everybody, why is it not the norm?"

9.  Europe's Youth Unemployment Nightmare Started Long Before The Euro Crisis 

"Reasons for high unemployment among the young include ineffective education systems (the share of early school dropouts is 20% in Italy and 30% in Spain) and dual labour markets with highly protected jobs for older employees. The good performance of Germany is not least a result of the German apprenticeship system, which facilitates labour market access for school leavers by lowering the company’s costs for employing them. The OECD’s latest “Going for Growth” report recommends reforms to strengthen the vocational training systems as one of the most effective ways to fight structural youth unemployment. This would also be a reasonable starting point for the EU’s youth employment programme."

10. Benjamin Wright - Book Review: God at Work: Your Christian Vocation in All of Life by Gene Edward Vieth, Jr.

11. Rough Type: Students to e-textbooks: no thanks

"What’s most revealing about this study is that, like earlier research, it suggests that students’ preference for printed textbooks is reflects the real pedagogical advantages they experience in using the format: fewer distractions, deeper engagement, better comprehension and retention, and greater flexibility to accommodating idiosyncratic study habits. Electronic textbooks will certainly get better, and will certainly have advantages of their own, but they won’t replicate the particular advantages inherent to the tangible form of the printed book."

12. How Many Ph.D.'s Actually Get to Become College Professors?

13. Top 10 Causes of Death in the U.S.

14. ABC reports that Young Hispanics Leaving Catholic Church for Protestant Faith

The Catholic Church has struggled to bring in young members in the United States. Less than half of U.S. Hispanics between 18 and 29 identify as Catholic, compared with the 60+ percent of Hispanics older than 50.

15. Robert Jones says Don't write off mainline Protestants

The narrative of decline in the mainline church underestimates the continuing influence of its members, says a religion researcher.

16. Some interesting observations by NYU psychologist Jonathan Haidt. He says we tend to process our social world through three lenses: Social distance, hierarchy, and disgust. Conservatives tend to have a lower threshold of revulsion, while liberals, and particularly libertarians, have a higher threshold.

17. Bruce Fieler has an interesting piece in the Atlantic. Want to Give Your Family Value and Purpose? Write a Mission Statement

Saturday Links

1. Christian History magazine has an entire issue devoted to Christians in the New Industrial Economy: The World Changed, the Church Responded. It is a priceless collection of essays on how various religious traditions responded to (or failed to) the challenges of the Industrial Revolution.

Issue 104 examines the impact of automation on Europe and America and the varying responses of the church to the problems that developed. Topics examined are mission work, the rise of the Social Gospel, the impact of papal pronouncements, the Methodist phenomenon, Christian capitalists, attempts at communal living and much more.

2. Orange County Register says Don't count out mainline Protestants yet.

As flocks shrink, denominations that once defined America fight to stay relevant with new ways of reaching out.

3. The Washington Post reports that Megachurches thriving in tough economic times.

"Despite the tough economy, many of the nation’s largest churches are thriving, with increased offerings and plans to hire more staff, a new survey shows.

Just 3 percent of churches with 2,000 or more attendance surveyed by Leadership Network, a Dallas-based church think tank, said they were affected “very negatively” by the economy in recent years. Close to half — 47 percent — said they were affected “somewhat negatively,” but one-third said they were not affected at all. ..."

4. Harvard Business Review: Steve Blank on Why Big Companies Can't Innovate

... It's not surprising that younger entrepreneurial firms are considered more innovative. After all, they are born from a new idea, and survive by finding creative ways to make that idea commercially viable. Larger, well-rooted companies however have just as much motivation to be innovative — and, as Scott Anthony has argued, they have even more resources to invest in new ventures. So why doesn't innovation thrive in mature organizations? ...

... First, he says, the focus of an established firm is to execute an existing business model — to make sure it operates efficiently and satisfies customers. In contrast, the main job of a start-up is to search for a workable business model, to find the right match between customer needs and what the company can profitably offer. In other words in a start-up, innovation is not just about implementing a creative idea, but rather the search for a way to turn some aspect of that idea into something that customers are willing to pay for. ...

... discovering a new business model is inherently risky, and is far more likely to fail than to succeed ...

... Finally, Blank notes that the people who are best suited to search for new business models and conduct iterative experiments usually are not the same managers who succeed at running existing business units. ...

5. A fascinating, if sobering, look at the conflict over islands off the coast of East Asia. Trouble at sea

6. The rise of post-industrial China? (Economist)

7. New Geography thinks U.S. LATE TO THE PARTY ON LATIN AMERICA, AFRICA.

"President Barack Obama's proposed tilt of U.S. priorities toward the Pacific – and away from the historical link to Europe – represents one of the most encouraging aspects of his foreign policy. Although welcome, we should recognize that this shift comes about three decades too late and that it may miss the rising geopolitical centrality of sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America. The emergence of these longtime historically impoverished backwaters has been largely missed as American policy-makers and businesses are now obsessed with the challenges and opportunities posed by the emergence of China and, to a lesser extent, India. Sub-Saharan Africa, for example, over the past decade has produced six of the world's 10 fastest-growing economies. Through 2011-15, according to the International Monetary Fund, seven of the fastest-growing countries will be African, and Africa as a whole will surpass the slowing growth rates in Asia, particularly China.

This growth has caused the region's poverty rates, still unacceptably high, to fall from 56.5 percent in 1990 to 47 percent today. Further growth will likely push poverty levels down further."

8. New Geography also asks, Is the Family Finished? Some interesting thoughts about the impact of declining birthrates in the U.S.

9. A Portrait of U.S. Immigrants

Pew Research Center has compiled key findings from a new analysis of the nation’s foreign-born population, based on U.S. Census Bureau’s 2011 American Community Survey.

10. Marketing Daily says More Latinos See Themselves As Bicultural

With more than half the population of many U.S. cities who are multicultural and Hispanics comprising more and more of the U.S. population, when does it become meaningless and redundant to execute marketing strategy that is directed to a general market and a Latino market perceived to be homogenous?

11. Committee on Economic Development has an interesting piece looking at both the ideological and economic aspects underlying the debate about the minimum wage. Raising the Minimum Wage: “Which Side Are You On?”

"It is an easy call if you are either (a) a strict libertarian or (b) an enthusiastic advocate of the less fortunate with limited concern about the scarcity of resources.  (If you belong to both of those groups, there is little advice that I can offer.)  However, in between those poles of opinion, things become rather murky, rather quickly."

12. Being a Republican or a Democrat may all be in your head: Republican Brains Differ From Democrats' In New FMRI Study

... Comparing the Democrat and Republican participants turned up differences in two brain regions: the right amygdala and the left posterior insula. Republicans showed more activity than Democrats in the right amygdala when making a risky decision. This brain region is important for processing fear, risk and reward.

Meanwhile, Democrats showed more activity in the left posterior insula, a portion of the brain responsible for processing emotions, particularly visceral emotional cues from the body. The particular region of the insula that showed the heightened activity has also been linked with "theory of mind," or the ability to understand what others might be thinking. ...

... The functional differences did mesh well with political beliefs, however. The researchers were able to predict a person's political party by looking at their brain function 82.9 percent of the time. In comparison, knowing the structure of these regions predicts party correctly 71 percent of the time, and knowing someone's parents' political affiliation can tell you theirs 69.5 percent of the time, the researchers wrote. ...

13. Health Care Without the Doctors Coming to a Walmart Near You

STERLING, Va. - Perched by a computer monitor wedged between shelves of cough drops and the pharmacy in a bustling Walmart, Mohamed Khader taps out answers to questions such as how often he eats vegetables, whether anyone in his family has diabetes and his age.

He tests his eyesight, weighs himself and checks his blood pressure as a middle-aged couple watches at the blue-and-white SoloHealth station advertising "free health screenings." ...

... As Americans gain coverage under the federal health law, putting increased demand on primary care doctors and spurring interest in cheaper, more convenient care, unmanned kiosks like these may be part of what their manufacturer bills as a "self-service healthcare revolution." ...

14. Is this a case of marketing going too far? Young Japanese Women Rent Out Their Bare Legs as Advertising Space

15. Nanotechnology Rebuilds the Periodic Table

Recent developments in the field of nanotechnology might give new meaning to the phrase “nothing gold can stay.” Atoms and bonds developed not by Mother Nature, but by scientists, are gaining momentum as the building blocks for cutting-edge materials.

Using nanoparticles as “atoms” and DNA as “bonds,” Chad Mirkin, the director of Northwestern University’s International Institute for Nanotechnology, is constructing his very own periodic table. So far Mirkin has built more than 200 distinct crystal structures with 17 different particle arrangements. ...

16. ExtremeTech says NASA’s cold fusion tech could put a nuclear reactor in every home, car, and plane.

17. Atlantic Cities has some great maps showing the impact of railroads on travel time in the early 19th Century, thus shrinking the nation. A Mapped History of Train Travel in the United States

18. A soccer goalie's worst nightmare.

19. You might want to think twice before a game of horse with this cheerleader.

The 20 Greatest Songs About Work

The Pessimist: The 20 Greatest Songs About Work

You might hate your job, but there’s nothing like a good song to make you feel like you’re not alone. (I mean, except when you think about it, and realize that the musicians who performed the song probably no longer have to work in an office, and are most likely drinking Champagne with supermodels in a brand-new Learjet 85, while you’re eating off-brand corn chips you bought from a convenience store that the health department should have closed down a long time ago.)

The point is, labor has been the single most popular subject of pop songs for decades (besides girls, cars, alcohol, parties, religion, and about 10,000 other things). So below, we’ve collected 20 of the best songs about the working life. Think of it as an extremely depressing playlist, like if your local radio station hired a German film director as its morning drive-time DJ. If we missed anything, let us know in the comments! (But be nice, or we’ll tell your boss you’re goldbricking again.)  ...

Take a look at the list. Any songs you would add?

 

Saturday Links

1. The new global top dog in international trade is China. China Eclipses U.S. as Biggest Trading Nation

"U.S. exports and imports of goods last year totaled $3.82 trillion, the U.S. Commerce Department said last week. China's customs administration reported last month that the country's trade in goods in 2012 amounted to $3.87 trillion."

2. As U.S. birth rate drops, concern for the future mounts

The drop in U.S. births to their lowest level since 1920 is sounding alarms about the nation's ability to support its fast-growing elderly population.

As public concern mounts, a growing number of books, reports and columns are laying out challenges the United States will face because of this demographic upheaval: Fewer babies are being born while the wave of 78 million older Baby Boomers have only begun to retire (the oldest turn 67 this year). ...

3. Raising the minimum wage has become a hot topic once again. Jared Bernstein makes Obama's case in the Huffington Post, saying that numerous careful studies say raising the minimum wage does not have an impact on employment. While that is true, there are also many careful studies that suggest that it does have an impact. My perception is that raising the minimum wage helps some working poor who already have jobs but makes it more difficult for low-skilled unemployed workers, particularly minority men in urban contexts. It is interesting that 25 years ago, the New York Times came out in opposition to the minimum wage: New York Times Called To Abolish The Minimum Wage In 1987. Fiscal Times makes their case against the minimum wage hike: Raise the Minimum Wage and Get Minimum Jobs

4. Speaking of low-income workers, The 20 Companies With The Most Low-Wage Workers

5. Last week, I wrote a post that linked a Salon article that said we are often swayed toward liking policies we have previously disliked when a political figure we like adopts those policies. (See When liberals ignore injustice) A prime example of rationalizing this inconsistency is this article in the Atlantic: MSNBC Host: Trusting Obama More Than Bush Isn't Hypocritical. The willingness of Krystal Ball to alter the degree of power and discretion a president has based on personal affinity rather than on an impartial assessment of the office's role is disturbing (and this is true of left and right.)

6. Gleaming skyscrapers are springing up in major cities of many developing nations. Partly because of practical concerns and partly as status symbols. But not in India. Why India Keeps Its Cities So Short

7. Does the time of year you were born relative to the date that determines which year you start school have any impact on your life? How Birth Date Affects Future Success

8. This technology is pretty cool! Follow the self-made road: Incredible machine that lays out a carpet of bricks removing back-breaking hard work

9. Let us give thanks for the demise of this publishing niche. A Midcentury Travel Guide for African-American Drivers Navigating Jim Crow

10. My former professor at Palmer Theological Seminary is in the news again. Resigning From the AARP

"The AARP is a selfish lobby demanding things for seniors even though modest sacrifices would help us reduce the deficit and enable us to spend more on crucial things like better education for our children. In fact, John Rother (long-time chief lobbyist for the AARP) suggested that in 2011 and promptly lost his job. Selfish seniors protested loudly and the AARP quickly backpedalled."

(For the record, I have never joined AARP. I'm still in denial that I am old enough to join.)

11. There are only a few seconds left in the basketball game. Your team is up by three, but the other team is about to inbound the ball. Do you quickly foul to force two free throws, or do you simply play defense against any score? Yet another study about fouling when up 3

Saturday Links

Today is the day our advanced technological culture turns to a cute furry rodent in Pennsylvania for a weather forecast. (The only thing a groundhog foretells in my yard is that I'm probably going to need some new landscaping.) Happy Groundhog Day!

1. Strategic Planning and the "Vision Thing" -- Fire, Not Fluff.

"In the course of our strategic planning work with clients, we've identified the things that make the difference between visions that fall flat and those that turn on. Here's a no-nonsense summary of those elements that you can use as a guide when you develop your strategic plan."

2. Some good thoughts on strategies we should all consider in trying to address controversial issues. Five simple lessons from Shane Windmeyer's friendship with Chick-fil-A's Dan Cathy

3. Anticipating a move? Here's Everything You Should Consider Before Moving To A New City

4. Jordan Ballor has some thoughts on subsidiarity at Political Theology. Subsidiarity 'From Below'

"In this way a conception of subsidiarity "from below" is focused on the location of sovereignty from the "bottom up" rather than on the delegation of authority from the "top down." We see these variegated approaches to subsidiarity and sovereignty work out in diverse ways in later centuries. It is with these different lenses of subsidiarity "from above" and "from below" that we can better understand the developments of the Roman Catholic principle of subsidiarity as such and the neo-Calvinist articulation of "sphere sovereignty" in the late nineteenth century and beyond."

5. Business Insider offers 21 Surprising Facts About Illegal Immigration.

6. Sarah Posner has an interesting piece. 'New Evangelical’-Progressive Alliance? Not So Fast

"Pally's essay is framed around the thesis that these evangelicals have "left the right." But left it for what? What she describes is really another vision of conservatism: church-based charity in lieu of a government safety net; exemptions from government regulation for religious groups; federal funding of religious activities; and persistent sexual puritanism. Perhaps it's more accurate to say they've left the radical right and are in the process of creating a new religious right, stripped of harsh rhetoric but still undergirded by conservative ideology. Which is a movement worth chronicling, but not, as Pally intimates, as the new saviors of civility in our religiously-inflected politics."

7. What has the iPad meant to Apple? A picture says a thousand words. A decade of Apple' computer' sales

8. Extinction of millions of species' greatly exaggerated'

"In the past scientists have warned that up to five per cent of species are at risk of dying-out as a result of climate change, deforestation and development.

But a new analysis by the University of New Zealand found that this figure was five times greater than reality because the number of animals living in the wild in the first place had been over estimated."

9. It Turns out once the culprit in species extinction may be curled up in your lap. Cats Are Ruthless Killers. Should They Be Killed?

10. I've written before that fear is not an effective motivator for long term change. This is particularly true for some climate change and environmental activism. You need to make new behaviors fun and engaging. WWF appears to have taken this strategy to heart. (Hard to go wrong with anthropomorphized critters but maybe they should consider the article immediately above.)

11. The evolutionary plot thickens. Who Was the First Human Ancestor?

From the time of Charles Darwin science has painted a picture of our earliest ancestor in the image of a chimpanzee. Scientific American editor Katherine Harmon explains how new fossil evidence is redrawing the lines of human evolution.

Actually, I think we already know who our first ancestor was.

12. For the most part (with a few exceptions), when it comes to movies, if you can't tell your story in less than two hours, then I think you didn't edit the movie well. Hollywood would apparently beg to differ. Why Movies Today Are Longer Than Ever Before

"The average of the highest-grossing films from 20 years ago is 118.4 minutes compared to this year's 141.6 minutes."

13. More interesting findings of early civilization in the Americas. Research Confirms Massive Louisiana Mound Was Built By Archaic Native Americans In Less Than 90 Days.

14. Melissa and I love history and have always loved old cemeteries. This story makes me sad. Black history dies in neglected Southern cemeteries

15. Okay, purists, Rule Change Eliminates a Fake Pickoff. Pitchers can no longer fake a throw to third before throwing to another base. Good idea or bad?

Saturday Links

1. Too often, Westerners perceive the African economy as a monolithic basket case. There are actually many very hopeful regions. Ozwald Boateng explains Why entrepreneurs are back in Africa

2. Want a higher-paying occupation? Here Are The Jobs With The Biggest Wage Growth Right Now

3. Lots of recent talk about whether or not e-books will ever actually totally supplant hard copy books. This week Mashable explores Why Are People Still Buying CDs? (And people are still buying them.)

4. Speaking of transitions to digital media, Business Insider shows that Old Media Is Alive And Rocking

5. This fascinating chart shows Inflation Since 1775 And How It Took Off In 1933

6. Want to live to a ripe old age? US News reports on What People Who Live to 100 Have in Common.

7. I almost didn't link this article because I could swear I've linked it before. Why Does Deja Vu Happen?

8. Several months ago, I saw a speech expert interviewed has offered voice training to several famous figures. One was Margaret Thatcher. They showed her speaking in the 1970s and then in the 1980s, after receiving voice training. A big piece of the change was lessening the modulation in tone and pitch, which tends to vary more widely with female voices. The changes were intended to make her sound more authoritative, which both men and women, unjustified as it may be, more often associate with male vocal traits. But apparently, the thing that really triggers gender detection in our language is the way we use S's. Change Your Perceived Gender by Pronouncing S's Differently

9. This has to be a new low technological achievement: a sensor-filled smart fork that tells you when you're overeating. Medieval Tines: A Brief History of the Fork

10. And this has to be the Holy Grail of technology cool! Star Trek-Inspired 'CommBadge' Gives You Handsfree Access to iPhone, Android

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Saturday Links

1. Building Congregations Around Art Galleries and Cafes as Spirituality Wanes

"... Although the number of evangelical churches in the United States declined for many years, the trend reversed in 2006, with more new churches opening each year since, according to the Leadership Network's most recent surveys. This wave of "church planting" has been highest among nondenominational pastors, free to experiment outside traditional hierarchies.

"I hear a lot of pastors say, 'I'm not just trying to be creative and avant-garde, I think this is maybe the last chance for me,'" said Doug Pagitt, the founder of Solomon's Porch in Minneapolis.

Mr. Pagitt has written several books on church innovations, many of which were first developed in the "emergent" church movement of the last decade or among "missional" churches whose practices focus on life outside the church.

Many of their innovations are being adopted by an increasing number of pastors in the mainstream.

..."

2. Signs of Changes Taking Hold in Electronics Factories in China

... But in March, unbeknown to Ms. Pu, a critical meeting had occurred between Foxconn's top executives and a high-ranking Apple official. The companies had committed themselves to a series of wide-ranging reforms. Foxconn, China's largest private employer, pledged to sharply curtail workers' hours and significantly increase wages — reforms that, if fully carried out next year as planned, could create a ripple effect that benefits tens of millions of workers across the electronics industry, employment experts say.

Other reforms were more personal. Protective foam sprouted on low stairwell ceilings inside factories. Automatic shut-off devices appeared on whirring machines. Ms. Pu got her chair. This autumn, she even heard that some workers had received cushioned seats.

The changes also extend to California, where Apple is based. Apple, the electronics industry's behemoth, in the last year has tripled its corporate social responsibility staff, has re-evaluated how it works with manufacturers, has asked competitors to help curb excessive overtime in China and has reached out to advocacy groups it once rebuffed.

Executives at companies like Hewlett-Packard and Intel say those shifts have convinced many electronics companies that they must also overhaul how they interact with foreign plants and workers — often at a cost to their bottom lines, though, analysts say, probably not so much as to affect consumer prices. As Apple and Foxconn became fodder for "Saturday Night Live" and questions during presidential debates, device designers and manufacturers concluded the industry's reputation was at risk. ...

3. Yet another reflection on the impact of 3-D printing in Spiegel: Technology May Bring New Industrial Revolution

4. Some states are no longer requiring that cursive writing be taught. The Wall Street Journal laments The Lost Art of the Handwritten Note

5. Speaking writing, an e-company has developed a new spin on celebrity autographs: Is This Really the Future of the Autograph?

"...Launched in July, the Seattle-based Egraphs' business model is simple, but pretty clever. Fans can peruse the company website to see if their favorite athlete has partnered up with Egraphs. Each player's section has a number of professionally shot action photographs included, typically priced between $25 and $50. The fan pays and sends the athlete a message through the website, including some personal details or memories.

The athlete then receives that message on his custom iPad app, using the the information provided to write a personalized note and electronic autograph on the selected photo. The photo is then sent electronically to the fan, who can save it digitally, share it on social media or order a physical print. Revenue is split between company and athlete. ..."

6. Hispanic Pregnancies Fall in U.S. as Women Choose Smaller Families

7. Huffington Post ponders whether or not Biblical Baby Names Falling In Popularity

8. This month is the 40th anniversary of the Roe v. Wade ruling legalizing abortion nationwide. Time magazine has a feature article about the Pro-Choice movement this week that suggests 1973 may have been the high-water mark for the movement. Unfortunately, the article is behind a paywall. Here is a short clip summarizing their take.

9. Why Are College Textbooks So Absurdly Expensive?

"...Academic Publishers will tell you that creating modern textbooks is an expensive, labor-intensive process that demands charging high prices. But as Kevin Carey noted in a recent Slate piece, the industry also shares some of the dysfunctions that help drive up the cost of healthcare spending. Just as doctors prescribe prescription drugs they'll never have to pay for, college professors often assign titles with little consideration of cost. Students, like patients worried about their health, don't have much choice to pay up, lest they risk their grades. Meanwhile, Carey illustrates how publishers have done just about everything within their power to prop up their profits, from bundling textbooks with software that forces students to buy new editions instead of cheaper used copies, to suing a low-cost textbook start-ups over flimsy copyright claims. ..."

10. Feeling thirsty? Consider that Bottled Water Is More Dangerous Than Tap Water.

11. Good news for history mystery buffs. Amelia Earhart Plane And Flight 19 Wreckage Could Be Found By New NOAA Technology

12. Baseball Pitchers like Phil Niekro, Tim Wakefield, and now, R. A. Dickey did their magic by throwing a knuckleball. Pitchers who master usually do very well, and it puts less stress on the arm. So why don't more pitchers throw it? Why the Knuckleball Isn't Thrown by More Pitchers in Major League Baseball

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Saturday Links

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1. Several articles I saw this week reflect on data presented in The Pew Forum's The Global Religious Landscape: A Report on the Size and Distribution of the World's Major Religious Groups as of 2010. Here is one interesting chart from the survey showing what percentage of each religion's adherents live in minority religious status in their own country.

2. This is really fascinating. Smithsonian: Why Japan is Obsessed with Kentucky Fried Chicken on Christmas. “Kurisumasu ni wa kentakkii!” (Kentucky for Christmas!)

3. Four Harvard and MIT grads are experimenting with direct aid to the poor. "GiveDirectly, the brainchild of four Harvard and MIT graduate students, is so simple, it's genius. Give poor Kenyan families $1,000 -- and let them do whatever they want with it." Can 4 Economists Build the Most Economically Efficient Charity Ever?

4. From the Guardian, Private healthcare: the lessons from Sweden

"... Despite its reputation as a leftwing utopia, Sweden is now a laboratory for rightwing radicalism. Over the past 15 years a coalition of liberals and conservatives has brought in for-profit free schools in education, has sliced welfare to pay off the deficit and has privatised large parts of the health service.

Their success is envied by the centre right in Britain. Despite predictions of doom, Sweden's economy continues to grow and its pro-business coalition has remained in power since 2006. The last election was the first time since the war that a centre-right government had been re-elected after serving a full term.

As the state has been shrunk, the private sector has moved in. Göran Dahlgren, a former head civil servant at the Swedish department of health and a visiting professor at the University of Liverpool, says that "almost all welfare services are now owned by private equity firms". ..."

5. Scott Annan writes in The Future Of Business Is Morality, And The Future Is Now

"... We have reached a point in our economy where it is becoming increasingly clear that businesses are being measured not just for their profit, but also for their impact. And I'm not just talking about writing a check or funding a charity; I'm referring to business models for which community involvement and inspirational brand building are the profit centers. (Think Warby Parker, TOMS, and startups such as SOMA.) I recently went to a conference where the founders of a startup posited a powerful idea: the future of marketing is philanthropy. But I think the even bigger idea is the future of business is morality. My grandfather saw this early on.

At a time when the moral framework of America appears to be fractured – or at the very least confused – businesses are in the propitious position to espouse cultural standards that can help restore values that our youth can use to build the next generation of positive enterprise. In fact, whether businesses succeed in creating and promoting positive cultures might determine whether they stay in business at all. The future of business is morality, and the future is now.

Whether it's the job of the corporation or not to set the moral tone for society, the expectation is trending towards companies setting the right example for others to follow. With the sharp rise in entrepreneurship, young companies have the opportunity to establish strong cultures early on and share them with their communities. Money must have a moral center, and from greater consciousness in business, greater profit will follow. ..."

6. Scientific American asks, After 40 Years, Has Recycling Lived Up to Its Billing?

7. AOL has a short piece about the rise of small nuclear reactors. The Next Big Thing in Nuclear Power: Going Small

8. Scientific American has a list of The Top 10 Science Stories of 2012.

9. Depression Surpasses Asthma as Top Disability Problem among U.S. and Canadian Teens

"New data show an increasing contribution of mental and behavioral disorders to deterioration in the health-related quality of life among teens in the U.S. and Canada over the past two decades, and increases elsewhere around the globe."

10. Robotic arm controlled by the mind allows paraplegic woman to feed herself

11. Interesting piece on Why We Prefer Masculine Voices (Even in Women).

12. Atlantic Cities looks into The Mystery of Our Declining Mobility.

13. People Are Leaving California In Record Numbers

More people moved out of California in 2011 than moved in, according to the latest report from the U.S. Census Bureau, signaling that the Democrat-run state's economic woes continue to drive residents away.

Most statisticians attribute California's net loss of 100,000 people last year to its high cost of living, increased population density and troubling unemployment rate.

The widening middle class in Mexico is also encouraging some immigrants to remain in that country instead of moving to California.

Texas — home to lower taxes, less regulation and what the Manhattan Institute calls a "labor pool with the right skills at the right price" — is one of the most attractive destinations for companies departing from California, according to the Census Bureau. ...

14. The United States Has Seen A Huge Drop In Executions Since 2000.

"The country reported 85 executions in 2000 but only 43 in 2012, according to a new report released by the Death Penalty Information Center. Plus, far fewer people are being sentenced to death row in the first place. The year 2000 saw 224 new inmates sentenced to death, while 2012 saw only 78, according to the report."

15. Conor Friedersdorf at the Atlantic had a great piece: Why 'If We Can Just Save One Child ...' Is a Bad Argument, referring to President Obama's statement at Newtown, CT. When dealing with complex topics like gun control, we always talk about tradeoffs. For instance, I know how we can save more than 30,000 lives. There were 32,367 traffic fatalities last year. Let's set the speed limit to 5 miles per hour. Nearly all those lives would be saved. Should we do this "if we can save just one more life"? I, like Friedersforf, am not advocating any particular policy. I'm just pointing out the absurdity of making such statements, as politicians often do.

16. The New York Times has an opinion piece by John Dickerson, The Decline of Evangelical America

"I found that the structural supports of evangelicalism are quivering as a result of ground-shaking changes in American culture. Strategies that served evangelicals well just 15 years ago are now self- destructive. The more that evangelicals attempt to correct course, the more they splinter their movement. In coming years we will see the old evangelicalism whimper and wane."

He speaks of an Evangelical "collapse" having happened. That may be a bit premature, but his articulation of trends is right.

17. I saw two interesting posts on the sociology Facebook this week. The New York Times had a piece about announcing bad news on Facebook: On Facebook, Bad With the Good. Mashable reports that Socioeconomic Status Predicts Number of Facebook Friends.

18. Gangnam Style hits one billion views on YouTube. K pop rules!

Saturday Links

(Like the Kruse Kronicle on Facebook if you want links to daily posts to appear in your Facebook feed.)

1. Pray for Egypt Today!

More than 50 million Egyptians are voting today on a constitution that would be a giant step backward for Egypt and much of the Middle East, marginalizing women and religious minorities. A nation that has historically been a voice of moderation, the largest Muslim nation in the region, will likely move toward becoming an Islamist state. Remember to pray for Egypt. (See the Economist's The Founding Brothers)

2. Our prayers are with the victims' families at the Sandy Hook elementary school. Grace and peace to the entire community.

In the wake of the horrific shooting, more debate about gun control will surface. The Atlantic has some useful charts showing Americans' nuanced take on gun rights and control. Do Americans Want More or Less Gun Control? Both, Actually The Christian Science Monitor also has this piece: What gun control laws might US voters support?

3. Traffic deaths in 2011 fewest in six decades

Traffic deaths in the USA continued their historic decline last year, falling to the lowest level since 1949, the government announced Monday.

A total of 32,367 motorists, bicyclists and pedestrians died in 2011, a 1.9% decrease from 2010. Last year’s toll represents a 26% decline from 2005, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) said. ...

4. Obesity in Young Is Seen as Falling in Several Cities

... The trend has emerged in big cities like New York and Los Angeles, as well as smaller places like Anchorage, Alaska, and Kearney, Neb. The state of Mississippi has also registered a drop, but only among white students.

“It’s been nothing but bad news for 30 years, so the fact that we have any good news is a big story,” said Dr. Thomas Farley, the health commissioner in New York City, which reported a 5.5 percent decline in the number of obese schoolchildren from 2007 to 2011....

5. In Girl’s Last Hope, Altered Immune Cells Beat Leukemia

....The experiment, in April, used a disabled form of the virus that causes AIDS to reprogram Emma’s immune system genetically to kill cancer cells. ...

... The research is still in its early stages, and many questions remain. The researchers are not entirely sure why the treatment works, or why it sometimes fails. One patient had a remission after being treated only twice, and even then the reaction was so delayed that it took the researchers by surprise. For the patients who had no response whatsoever, the team suspects a flawed batch of T-cells. The child who had a temporary remission apparently relapsed because not all of her leukemic cells had the marker that was targeted by the altered T-cells. ...

6. The CDC says Chlamydia, gonorrhea cases increasing

....In 2011, 1.4 million chlamydia infections were reported to the CDC. The rate of cases per 100,000 people increased 8%, to 457.6 in 2011 from 423.6 in 2010.

The CDC reported 321,849 gonorrhea infections. The rate increased 4% to 104.2 cases per 100,000 in 2011 from 100.2 in 2010. Like chlamydia, gonorrhea can lead to pelvic inflammatory disease, a major cause of infertility in women.

Last year, 13,970 primary and secondary syphilis cases were reported. The rate of 4.5 cases per 100,000 was unchanged from 2010. ...

7. You may be bilingual, but can you write in two languages, one with each hand, at the same time?!

8. Washington State Senate: Republicans Claim Majority After Democrats Defect. That makes two states where Democrats have won majorities in the state Senate and then a small number of Democrats decide to caucus with Republicans, giving Republicans the majority. The same thing happened in the New York Senate last week.

9. One-party dominance grows in states

10. Kevin Drum of Mother Jones speculates on why liberals have more exaggerated perceptions of political differences. We Are More Alike Than We Think

11. A surprising "right to work" bill was signed into law in Michigan. That has spurred much debate about unions and the right to work. Michael Kinsley wrote a thoughtful piece opposing RTW, The Liberal Case Against Right-to-Work Laws. David Henderson has a piece in support of RTW, The Economics of "Right to Work".

12. Slate has a piece about The Great Schism in the Environmental Movement. Keith Kloor opines on the division between modernist environmentalists (or eco-pragmatists) and conservation traditionalists.

... Modernist greens don't dispute the ecological tumult associated with the Anthropocene. But this is the world as it is, they say, so we might as well reconcile the needs of people with the needs of nature. To this end, Kareiva advises conservationists to craft "a new vision of a planet in which nature—forests, wetlands, diverse species, and other ancient ecosystems—exists amid a wide variety of modern, human landscapes."

This shift in thinking is already under way. For example, ecologists increasingly appreciate (and study) the diversity of species and importance of ecosystem services in cities, giving rise to the discipline of urban ecology. That was unthinkable at the dawn of the modern environmental movement 50 years ago, when greens loathed cities as the antithesis of wilderness. ...

13. One of the creepiest Twilight Zone episodes I remember from childhood was when this woman ends up trapped in a department store at night. The mannequins begin calling to her. She discovers she is actually a mannequin who has overstayed her time out in the world, and it is time for the next mannequin to spend some time outside the store. This story confirms my worst nightmares: In Some Stores, the Mannequins Are Watching You

14. Carpe Diem: World manufacturing output, 2011

15. One of the biggest concerns about fracking technology is the enormous amount of water it uses. A company has figured out how to recycle water so that far less water is used in fracking. Solving fracking's biggest problem

16. Scientific American has an interesting article on the potential impact of 3-D Printing: Why 3-D Printing Matters for "Made in U.S.A."

... 3D printing represents the latest version of what industry experts call "additive manufacturing" — a way to turn practically any computer designs into real objects by building them up layer-by-layer using plastics, metals or other materials. The technology could end up affecting every major industry — aerospace, defense, medicine, transportation, food, fashion — and have an even bigger impact on U.S. manufacturing than the robot revolution. ...

17. Popular Mechanics is celebrating its 110th anniversary. In celebration, they are publishing 110 Predictions For the Next 110 Years.

18. Scot McKnight has a great post reflecting on the (false, IMO) equation of progressive with prophetic: The Prophetic is the Progressive

19. Dirk Kurbjuweit offers some interesting insights into Why Germany Can't Shed Its Troubling Past.

20. Michael Cheshire has a great piece in Leadership Journal on "What I learned about grace and redemption through my friendship with a Christian pariah." Going To Hell with Ted Haggard

".... A while back I was having a business lunch at a sports bar in the Denver area with a close atheist friend. He's a great guy and a very deep thinker. During lunch, he pointed at the large TV screen on the wall. It was set to a channel recapping Ted's fall. He pointed his finger at the HD and said, "That is the reason I will not become a Christian. Many of the things you say make sense, Mike, but that's what keeps me away."

It was well after the story had died down, so I had to study the screen to see what my friend was talking about. I assumed he was referring to Ted's hypocrisy. "Hey man, not all of us do things like that," I responded. He laughed and said, "Michael, you just proved my point. See, that guy said sorry a long time ago. Even his wife and kids stayed and forgave him, but all you Christians still seem to hate him. You guys can't forgive him and let him back into your good graces. Every time you talk to me about God, you explain that he will take me as I am. You say he forgives all my failures and will restore my hope, and as long as I stay outside the church, you say God wants to forgive me. But that guy failed while he was one of you, and most of you are still vicious to him." Then he uttered words that left me reeling: "You Christians eat your own. Always have. Always will."

He was running late for a meeting and had to take off. I, however, could barely move. I studied the TV and read the caption as a well-known religious leader kept shoveling dirt on a man who had admitted he was unclean. And at that moment, my heart started to change. I began to distance myself from my previously harsh statements and tried to understand what Ted and his family must have been through. When I brought up the topic to other men and women I love and respect, the very mention of Haggard's name made our conversations toxic. Their reactions were visceral."

21. Leonardo Bonucci got a yellow card for faking a collision during a soccer game. It should have been a red card. No one deserves to be a professional soccer player with acting skills this bad!

Saturday Links

Here are the links. BTW, if you haven't already, you can "like" the Kruse Kronicle Facebook page and see daily links in your Facebook feed.

1. As a kid, I watched Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom on Saturdays. That was the beginning of my life-long appreciation for big cats. One of the organizations we support is the Turperntine Creek Wildlife Refuge for big cats in Arkansas. Check out this Nat Geo super slo-mo video of a running cheetah. Be sure to go to this five-minute video and see him from the front. His head barely moves. Just amazing!

Cheetahs on the Edge--Director's Cut from Gregory Wilson on Vimeo.

2. Good news! Charitable giving increased slightly in 2011

3. Counting sheep not putting you to sleep? Eat These Foods For A Better Night's Sleep

4. Tiny Swarming Robots Play Beethoven.

5. Just a reminder. That Ebook you bought? You don't own it. That Barnes & Noble Ebook is Only Yours Until Your Credit Card Expires

6. Speaking of books, how about a Book-Scanning Robot Reads 250 Pages Per Minute?

7. If you are a man, getting along with the in-laws means you have a 20% higher chance of not getting divorced. If you are a woman, getting along well with the in-laws makes you 20% more likely to get divorced. Getting Along With The In-Laws Makes Women More Likely To Divorce

8. Could the first billion-dollar athlete be less than a decade away? Why the World's First Billion-Dollar Athlete Is Just a Few Years Away

9. A business icon died this week. Motivational speaker Zig Ziglar dies at age 86.

10. This was pretty cool. An Inspiring Story Of A Grocery Store Owner Who Gave His Business To Employees

11. One of the challenges of colonizing the moon or Mars is all the supplies you would need to bring to construct a habitat. 3D printing may help solve that problem. 3D printer on moon or Mars could make tools from local rocks

12. Give us this day our monthly bread? "American company has developed a technique it says can make bread stay mold-free for 60 days." Bread that lasts for 60 days could cut food waste

13. The Next Web has an interesting piece on the history of 3D printing. The Rise of 3D Printing

14. Supreme Court to Decide if Human Genes Are Patentable

"The Supreme Court announced Friday it would review a case testing whether human genes may be patented, in a dispute weighing patents associated with human genes known to detect early signs of breast and ovarian cancer. A 2009 lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union claimed among other things the First Amendment is at stake because the patents are so broad they bar scientists from examining and comparing the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes at the center of the dispute. In short, the patents issued more than a decade ago cover any new scientific methods of looking at these human genes that might be developed by others."

I am guessing there are some bioethics questions to consider here as well. ;-)

15. 4.5 billion years of the earth's evolution as if it happened in 24 hours.

16. The Real Story on the Falling U.S. Birth Rate

"The Pew Research Center announced Nov. 29 that the U.S. birth rate fell to its lowest level since at least 1920, when reliable record-keeping began. That was true—but not news. The National Center for Health Statistics reported that way back on Oct. 3.

What was news was Pew's analysis of the government data, which showed that the birth rate decline was greatest among immigrant women. "We were the first to point that out," Gretchen Livingston, the lead author of Pew's report, said in an interview. ..."

17. Small-business optimism is tanking. Gallup

18. Also from Gallup. As it turns out, maybe Democrats really are socialists.

19. What's Driving Evangelical Enthusiasm?

"Data shows growing Catholic-evangelical "intensity gap"—but it doesn't indicate exactly why. ...

... New research shows that Catholics now report the lowest proportion of "strongly affiliated" followers among major American religious traditions, while the data indicates that evangelicals are increasingly devout and committed to their faith.

According to Philip Schwadel, a sociologist at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, in the 1970s there was only a five-point difference between how strongly Catholics and evangelicals felt about their religion.

By 2010, he said, that "intensity gap" had grown to around 20 points, with some 56 percent of evangelicals describing themselves as "strongly affiliated" with their religion compared with 35 percent of Catholics. Even mainline Protestants reported a higher level of religious intensity than Catholics, at 39 percent. ..."

20. For Amish, fastest-growing faith group in US, life is changing.

"Indeed, for America's Amish, much is changing. The Amish are, by one measure, the fastest-growing faith community in the US. Yet as their numbers grow, the land available to support the agrarian lifestyle that underpins their faith is shrinking, gobbled up by the encroachment of exurban mansions and their multidoor garages.

The result is, in some ways, a gradual redefinition of what it means to be Amish. Some in the younger generation are looking for new ways to make a living on smaller and smaller slices of land. Others are looking beyond the Amish heartland of Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Indiana, seeking more space in states such as Texas, Maine, and Montana."

21. Finally, one of the things I found interesting about the presidential election was Team Romney's seeming confidence they were winning. I think every losing candidate often tries to spin things positively until the very end, but I had the sense that Team Romney wasn't faking it. They believed they were winning. I think post-election analysis reveals that it was true. From The New Repbulic The Internal Polls That Made Mitt Romney Think He'd Win

Saturday Links

Here are the links for this week. Lots of interesting finds this week, and not nearly enough time to blog.

1. Google Fiber offers super-fast broadband to Kansas City. If all goes well, we will get connected in late spring of 2013.

2. Two Thirds of Ocean Life Remains Undiscovered. If they haven't found them, how do they know?

3. "British people - and many others across the world - have been brought up on the idea of three square meals a day as a normal eating pattern, but it wasn't always that way." Breakfast, lunch and dinner: Have we always eaten them?

4. What is the optimal rate of taxation according to the Laffer Curve? Goats hold the answer. Goat Economics: Why the Laffer Curve Is No Joke

5. The print media industry is rapidly morphing right before our eyes. Google Ad Revenue Now More Than U.S. Print Publications Combined [CHART]

6. Cyberspace continues to evolve. Text Messaging Declines in U.S. for First Time, Report Says

7. "It's a common grumble that politicians' lifestyles are far removed from those of their electorate. Not so in Uruguay. Meet the president - who lives on a ramshackle farm and gives away most of his pay." Jose Mujica: The world's 'poorest' president

8. You may have heard that there was a presidential election last week. Here is a map showing how the counties voted, with red being the most intensely Republican and blue being the most Democrat. (Source: The Real Reason Cities Lean Democratic)

9. Speaking of the election, a lot has been written about how the GOP will need to change if they want to win national elections. As a right-leaning guy, I thought this article in Slate, The New Grand Old Party, and Bobby Jindal's article, How Republicans can win future elections, were among the best.

10. China continues working on technological innovations to address its water problems. Industry Special: Desalination tech helps slake nation's thirst for fresh water.

11. The world is going to the dogs. The Dog Economy Is Global—but What Is the World's True Canine Capital?

12. As manufacturing becomes more automated, requiring fewer workers, we see The Emerging Professional, Scientific, and Technical Sector.

13. Nanotechnology just keeps getting more impressive. "The latest invention from Stanford University's Department of Electrical Engineering sounds like something a superhero would have. A self-repairing plastic-metal material has been developed by a team of professors, researchers and graduate students." New Self-Repairing Material Invented at Stanford

14. For the true narcissist, you now can replicate your image in 3D. 3D-printing photo booth gives you a figurine instead of a bad photo

15. Speaking of 3D-Printing, how big a deal is it? "Chris Anderson has exited one of the top jobs in publishing - Editor-in-Chief of Wired magazine - to pursue the life of an entrepreneur, making a big bet that 3D printers represent a massive new phase of the industrial revolution." Chris Anderson: Why I left Wired - 3D Printing Will Be Bigger Than The Web

16. The debate about a historical Adam continues. Peter Enns with another interesting post, Who Needs a Historical Prometheus…uh, I mean Adam?

17. George Bullard asks, When is a Church a Church, and When is it a Flash Mob?

"A flash mob (or flashmob) is a group of people who assemble suddenly in a place, perform an unusual and seemingly pointless act for a brief time, then disperse, often for the purposes of entertainment, satire, and artistic expression. Flash mobs are organized via telecommunications, social media, or viral emails." [Wikipedia accessed 11.12.12] How do you define a church?"

18. This was me thirty years ago (in my dreams!)

19. Ever wonder how Cy Young award-winning pitcher R. A. Dickey manages to throw knuckleballs? Apparently, so do physicists. How a Baseball Star's Tricky Pitch Strikes Out Hitters—and Baffles Physicists

20. I loved these stat brain teasers. 5 Statistics Problems That Will Change The Way You See The World

Saturday Links

I spend considerable time scanning headlines each week as I look for stories to blog about at the Kruse Kronicle. I clip them into an Evernote Notebook and usually twice a day, I select one or two to link and discuss. Several interesting stories never make it onto the blog.

So this week, I'm beginning what I hope will be a regular Saturday feature. Each Saturday, I will post links I did not use the previous week. For now, I will call it "Saturday Links." Happy clicking!

1. Interesting video intro to Gen IV Nuclear Power at the Catalyst: Next Generation Nuclear Power

2. BBC L'Aquila quake: Italy scientists guilty of manslaughter. Scientists found guilty of bad predictions about an earthquake. That will put a chill in the scientific community.

3. Icon of the American Libertarian movement, Murray Rothbard, once asked, "Why won't the left acknowledge the difference between deserving poor and undeserving poor? Why support the feckless, lazy & irresponsible?" Chris Dillow gives a libertarian response affirming the need to support the undeserving poor.

4. I love historical restoration. The Atlantic has a great piece, Scientists Recover the Sounds of 19th-Century Music and Laughter From the Oldest Playable American Recording, about how scientists have restored a phonograph recording made in 1878 in St. Louis.

5. Chronicle of Philanthropy says Most Donors Plan to Give as Much or More in 2012, Survey Finds.

6. How did those Easter Island statues get into place? California State University archaeologists think they have the answer. See Easter Island Statues Could Have 'Walked' Into Positions in Wired. Here is the YouTube clip:

So where did they get the rope?

7. Think you "bought" a book for your Kindle? Gizmodo says think again: You Don't Own the Books on Your Kindle.

8. BBC has a report on the stuff people are printing with 3D printers:

But then there is also The Dark Side of 3D Printing.

9. Bryan Caplan explains that the rate of executions per capita in the U. S. has been in monotonic decline over the nation's history: U.S. Executions Per Capita Have Been Falling for 400 Years.

He writes:

"I can easily imagine my graph in a Julian Simon or Steven Pinker chapter on human progress and the decline in violence. Even though I have no philosophical objection to the death penalty, it's hard not to interpret this 400-year pattern as a strong sign of human betterment."

10. Mark Roberts has a great piece about cross-generational misunderstandings using social media: Living in the Brave New World of Social Media: Posting a Death on Facebook

11. American Association of University Women (AAUW) says pay inequity begins right out of college: Does gender pay gap exist? Right out of college, says new study. But Elizabeth Dwoskin says "not so fast" on attributing this all to discrimination: Why Women Earn Less Than Men a Year Out of School.

12. Wildcat football rising! Kansas State moves up to No. 3  EMAW!

13. Sporting KC finishes first place in East with 2-1 win over Philadelphia Union. Awesome!

Star Trek technology: how 21st century scientists are making it so

The Guardian: Star Trek technology: how 21st century scientists are making it so

Many have been inspired by Star Trek to become scientists, and some are starting to make its gadgetry a reality.

Destination Star Trek London has kicked off at the ExCeL exhibition centre, and I'm willing to bet that among those heading down for a weekend of pointy-eared fun, there'll be a high proportion of scientists and engineers.

Many have been inspired by Star Trek to take up a career in science, technology or engineering. I think the franchise deserves more respect as a science popularisation medium – how many other prime-time TV shows would allow their characters to toss out phrases like "I performed a Fourier analysis on the harmonics, Captain"?

Since its inception in 1966, Star Trek has familiarised us with the lingo and applications of science. At least, that was the case for me. I felt pretty disenfranchised from science at school: it wasn't until I discovered science fiction that I realised I could understand "difficult" technical concepts.

Since the show began, many of us have become more tech-savvy than we could possibly have imagined at school. More than that, we're now seeing emergent technology here on Earth that was once little more than a Star Trek scriptwriter's dream. To get you in the mood for this weekend's festivities, here's a roundup of some of the best Star Trek-inspired technology.

Replicators - ... Three-dimensional printers have been on the open market commercially for most of the 21st century.  ...

Transporters - Earlier this year, Nature reported that photons had been teleported 89 miles, between La Palma and Tenerife. OK, it wasn't exactly transportation ...

Bioneural circuitry - ... And in February of this year, the Scripps Research Institute published details of a DNA-based biological computer based on an original design by Alan Turing. ...

Cloaking devices - ... In January, our first real "invisibility cloak" was unveiled at the University of Texas. ...

Tricorders -

Hyposprays -

Nanites - ... They've constructed a set of nanorobots, with inbuilt chemical sensors, that can silence genes within cancerous cells. ...

Androids - Japanese scientists have created some remarkably human-looking androids, though they wouldn't beat Data in a game of three-dimensional chess. ...

Of course, we already have personal communication devices. But as someone recently pointed out, while we all have communication devices, we don't see people in Star Trek constantly looking down at them and running into things. ;-) Warp drive would be pretty cool. Any other Trekkie devices that you want to see?

Dancing to the Beat of Shalom: Christians Revive Kansas City's Arts Scene

Christianity Today: Dancing to the Beat of Shalom: Christians Revive Kansas City's Arts Scene

The Culture House and Störling Dance Theater have given believers a voice in the local arts scene and beyond, meanwhile bringing a bit of racial peace to the Kansas City area.

... Since that time of uncertainty, however, the Ennas and fellow leaders at The Culture House and Störling Dance Theater have given Christians a voice in the local arts scene and beyond, meanwhile bringing a bit of racial peace to the Kansas City area.

Starting something new

Enna, who received a theater degree at UCLA and performed with a dance theater group in Sweden, began organizing a board of directors that would help lay the foundation for The Culture House, a grassroots arts organization with schools of dance, theater, and music. Störling-Enna, who received her professional dance education in Helsinki, Finland, and Paris, continued honing her skills in order to lead what would become Störling Dance Theater, a neo-classical dance company known for its powerful storytelling.

With both projects, the two wanted to merge excellence in the arts with their faith in a way that benefited the Kansas City area, meanwhile raising the bar for Christians in the arts. With the community's increased support for the Kansas City Ballet, the Kansas City Chorale, the Nelson-Atkins Art Museum, and the Lyric Opera on the Missouri side during the 1990s, they arrived at the right time. The seeds for what would become the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts, which opened in 2011, were also planted during this time.

"We saw that the whole community was starting to focus on the arts," Enna says. "We came here not to 'take over the city for Jesus,' but to at least sit at the table because of the quality of our work."

The vision of The Culture House, which includes the residency of Störling Dance Theater, is to enable quality artists, believers and nonbelievers alike, to have a platform in the marketplace.

The Culture House launched in 1996 in Overland Park, a suburb of Kansas City. It initially resided between a Chuck E. Cheese's and a Hooters. In 2005, the organization bought a larger facility in neighboring Olathe. The extra space proved useful.

"That's when we expanded our school of music and started our school of theater," says Enna, executive director. "We went from 100 students to 450 in one cycle. Then another 650 the next year, and it just grew from there. We now have about 800 students [and are growing."

While The Culture House is a Christian organization, Störling Dance Theater is a dance company run by Christians, not a "Christian dance company." As such, some of its dancers are not Christians. Yet "people still do, even if they're not Christian, ask for prayer," notes Störling-Enna, artistic director. "I'd say 90 percent of the dancers who joined the company and were not Christian have become Christian through the company." ...

... While not explicitly Christian, Störling does operate the Artist Development Program, which provides pre-professional dancers with nine months of intensive instruction, and helps them develop tools for their life and career, spiritual maturity, physical and mental discipline, and an appreciation of the arts.

"That is a specifically Christian discipleship program," Enna says. "You don't have to participate in the spiritual development, but besides dancing day and night, they take design classes, as well as an apologetics course and a discussion group about Christianity and culture. It's to help those young artists have the discussions, think about their faith, and be prepared for the marketplace . . . It's not just so their faith survives in the arts, but that it thrives and they have the support and the integrity with them going into it."

Today, graduates of the program are receiving scholarships to top dance and theater programs around the country, including the Ailey School, part of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater in New York, and theater programs at the University of Harford in Connecticut and Oklahoma City University. Students have also received full scholarships to the Joffrey Ballet's summer program in Chicago. ...

... "If Christianity has been so ineffective during the past 150 years in the arts, it's moving to see that we're part of a bigger picture and that the ship is turning," Enna says. "Christians are now being known for their good work."

Buy a group of Belgian soccer fans to root for your country during euro 2012

Who says the entrepreneurial spirit is dead in Europe?

Buy a group of Belgian soccer fans to root for your country during euro 2012.

For sale: Belgian soccer fans for euro 2012. Second hand but mint condition. Not been used since Fifa World Cup 2002.

Once again we Belgians have no team to root for at the euro 2012 soccer championship. Since tournaments are much more fun when you have a favourite team, we decided to put our fandom for sale at ebay.
All profits will be sent directly to Unicef.

What is for sale:
During Euro 2012, all members of this facebookgroup:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/414750861890585/

will root for the national soccer team of the highest bidder, or the national team of his choice. Even if it's Holland. We will watch the games, wear the colours, possibly even buy the flag and learn the national anthem. Pictures and videos will be made and sent to the winning bidder to be posted on his or her website.
Slight hooliganism is available at extra cost. We can, for example, kick a pigeon or smoke in a non-smoking area if such pleases our master.

Once the team is eliminated, we will grieve for 24 hours and then put ourselves for sale again on ebay. Hopefully joined by the previous winner since he or she will also have become an orphaned soccer fan by then.

African Men. Hollywood Stereotypes.

This is hysterical. I love it.

Elite Soccer Players Are Smarter Than You Are

Wired: Elite Soccer Players Are Smarter Than You Are

Elite soccer players are smarter than you are, and the sharpest of them score more often than dimmer teammates.

Top-tier players think more clearly, quickly and flexibly than non-players, and there is a correlation between cognitive ability and the number of goals and assists a soccer player scores, Swedish researchers found. The study, published in the journal PLoS One, says measuring cognitive skill could predict a player’s potential.

“Our data suggest that measures of executive functions with validated neuropsychological tests may establish if a player has the capacity to reach top levels in soccer,” the researchers wrote. “Thus, the present study may change the way ball-sports are viewed and analyzed and how new talents are recruited.” ...

...  Petrovic and his colleagues used standardized tests to analyze the executive functions of 31 male and 26 female soccer players over the course of five months in 2007. The players were drawn from six teams in Sweden’s elite Allsvenskan league and five teams in next-tier Division 1. Players from both groups performed far better than non-players, with Allsvenskan footballers ranked among the top 5 percent of the general population. The Allsvenskans also outscored their Division 1 counterparts.

The research then moved to the pitch as the scientists followed several players between 2008 and 2010 to record the number of goals and assists they made. Here, too, the smartest players performed best, even after accounting for age and position. ...

It would be interesting to know if other elite athletes in other sports have similar cognitive advantages. I had a roommate in graduate school who was getting his Ph.D. in Psychology. I remember him showing me a study about perception of field and ground among American football players. One of the key issues there was that pro running backs had a keen ability to see the spaces between players versus seeing the players themselves.

Opening Day

Let us bow our heads and give thanks that life begins anew. ;-)

The Economics of The Hunger Games

Slate: The Economics of The Hunger Games

Could any real country have an economy like Panem’s? Actually, yes.

At first glance, the economic landscape depicted in Suzanne Collins’ best-selling Hunger Games trilogy doesn’t make much sense. Despite its post-apocalyptic condition, the fictional nation of Panem is quite technologically advanced. It has high-speed trains, hovercrafts, extraordinary genetic engineering capabilities, and the ability to create extremely advanced weapons. And yet Panem is also a society of tremendous economic inequality, with clear examples of absolute economic deprivation and even famine.

Economic theory teaches us that over the long term, prosperity is driven by two factors—capital accumulation and the “Solow residual” of technology—and that of the two elements the technology is more important. Perhaps the best example comes to us from the experience of Germany and Japan around World War II. These were, before the war began, prosperous, technologically advanced societies rich in industrial capital. They had the capacity, in other words, to build the tanks and bombs and aircraft carriers one would need to mount a successful effort at global conquest. But during the course of the war, the capital stock of both countries was run down to almost nothing by massive Allied bombing. In the very short-term, this impoverished both countries, but they bounced back remarkably quickly. Knowing how to build a prosperous society, in other words, was more important than actually having the physical stuff.

So how can Panem, more than 70 years after the conclusion of its last major battle, be so poor and yet so rich in knowledge?...

... District 12 is a quintessential extractive economy. It’s oriented around a coal mine, the kind of facility where unskilled labor can be highly productive in light of the value of the underlying commodity. In a free society, market competition for labor and union organizing would drive wages up. But instead the Capitol imposes a single purchaser of mine labor and offers subsistence wages. Emigration to other districts in search of better opportunities is banned, as is exploitation of the apparently bountiful resources of the surrounding forest. With the mass of Seam workers unable to earn a decent wage, even relatively privileged townsfolk have modest living standards. If mineworkers earned more money, the Mellark family bakery would have more customers and more incentive to invest in expanded operations. A growing service economy would grow up around the mine. But the extractive institutions keep the entire District in a state of poverty, despite the availability of advanced technology in the Capitol.

Similar conditions would apply to the plantation agriculture we briefly see portrayed in District 8, and presumably other commodity-oriented Districts such as 7 (lumber), 10 (livestock), and 9 (grain). On the other hand, Collins wisely avoids going into detail about what life is supposed to be like in Districts specializing in luxury goods or electronics. It’s difficult to have a thriving economy in electronics production without a competitive market featuring multiple buyers and multiple sellers.

Absent market competition, personal computers never would have disrupted the mainframe market and the iPhone and Android never would have revolutionized telecommunications. Entrenched monopolists have no interest in developing new technologies that shake things up. It’s difficult to get real innovation-oriented competitive markets without secure property rights, and exceedingly difficult to have secure property rights without some diffusion of political power. That needn’t mean real democratic equality—a standard the United States and Europe didn’t meet until relatively recently—but it does mean fairly broad power-sharing, as the U.S. has had from the beginning.

But Collins is right in line with the most depressing conclusion offered by Acemoglu and Robinson, namely that once extractive institutions are established they’re hard to get rid of. Africa’s modern states, they note, were created by European colonialists who set out to create extractive institutions to exploit the local population. The injustice of the situation led eventually to African mass resistance and the overthrow of colonial rule. But in almost every case, the new elite simply started running the same extractive institutions for their own benefit. The real battle turned out to have been over who ran the machinery of extraction, not its existence. And this, precisely, is the moral of Collins’ trilogy. [Spoiler alert: Ignore rest of this story if you haven’t finished the trilogy.] To defeat the Capitol’s authoritarian power requires the construction of a tightly regimented, extremely disciplined society in District 13. That District’s leaders are able to mobilize mass discontent with the Capitol into a rebellion, but this leads not to the destruction of the system but its decapitation. Despite the sincere best efforts of ordinary people to better their circumstances, the deep logic of extractive institutions is difficult to overcome, whether in contemporary Nigeria or in Panem.

What Geography Can Teach Us About Basketball

Slate: What Geography Can Teach Us About Basketball

... From a map like this, a player can quickly learn both where he should try to shoot during a game (the red spots) and where he should shoot during practice (the blue spots). A coach, meanwhile, could layer the equivalent map for each one of his players on top of one another and find in the visual data inspiration for new plays that lead each man to one of his sweet spots. And for the mere fan, such maps can not only lead to a greater understanding of the game, but also provide at least a hint of the aesthetic pleasure that makes basketball enjoyable in the first place. As Michael Scott might say, win-win-win.

Five Leadership Lessons From James T. Kirk

Forbes: Five Leadership Lessons From James T. Kirk

Captain James T. Kirk is one of the most famous Captains in the history of Starfleet. There’s a good reason for that. He saved the planet Earth several times, stopped the Doomsday Machine, helped negotiate peace with the Klingon Empire, kept the balance of power between the Federation and the Romulan Empire, and even managed to fight Nazis. On his five-year mission commanding the U.S.S. Enterprise, as well as subsequent commands, James T. Kirk was a quintessential leader, who led his crew into the unknown and continued to succeed time and time again.

Kirk’s success was no fluke, either. His style of command demonstrates a keen understanding of leadership and how to maintain a team that succeeds time and time again, regardless of the dangers faced.  Here are five of the key leadership lessons that you can take away from Captain Kirk as you pilot your own organization into unknown futures.

1. Never Stop Learning

“You know the greatest danger facing us is ourselves, an irrational fear of the unknown. But there’s no such thing as the unknown– only things temporarily hidden, temporarily not understood.” ...

2. Have Advisors With Different Worldviews

“One of the advantages of being a captain, Doctor, is being able to ask for advice without necessarily having to take it.” ...

3. Be Part Of The Away Team

“Risk is our business. That’s what this starship is all about. That’s why we’re aboard her.” ...

4. Play Poker, Not Chess

“Not chess, Mr. Spock. Poker. Do you know the game?” ...

5. Blow up the Enterprise

“‘All I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by.’ You could feel the wind at your back in those days. The sounds of the sea beneath you, and even if you take away the wind and the water it’s still the same. The ship is yours. You can feel her. And the stars are still there, Bones.” ...

I'll add a sixth: Help frame the choices. "The choice is yours: Peace or utter destruction." ;-) Any other addendums?

Hollywood by the numbers

ASYMCO: Hollywood by the numbers

... Drama / Comedy vs. Adventure / Fantasy: Why the Ancient Greeks had it all wrong

Storytelling has not changed throughout history. The same types of stories affect audiences the same way since stories were first told. The earliest known “genres” were tragedy and comedy and they are still seen as the bedrock of theater today. The same is true for movies. The following bar chart shows the distribution of genres as cited by movies over our data set.

Drama and comedy are about 50% of all movies made. If we add romance they are 60% of cited genres. This is understandable given the history of theater. However the profitability (or revenue potential) of those genres is not as strong as Action, Adventure and Fantasy. The following chart shows the same count of genre citation but only for movies grossing over $200 million (which we chose to call “blockbusters”).

Action, adventure and fantasy handily beat Comedy and even SciFi beats drama. Romance, musicals and and mystery genres typically associated with female audiences are very rarely successful as blockbusters. The overall data is shown in the following table. The rows represent gross revenues and the columns genres cited ranked in order of frequency. One can easily observe the density of low earning drama and comedy (grey colored) vs. the more lucrative instances of fantasy and adventure. These male-dominated genres have consistent success into middle, high and very high revenue tiers. ...

... The reason for this blockbuster attention to action and adventure is probably the prevailing theater-going audience demographic: adolescent males. The industry still produces the classic genres but less profitably than what the current targeted markets.

Indeed, these genres were very uncommon in eras predating the late 1970s. More “adult-oriented” movies like romance (Gone with the Wind), musicals (The Sound of Music) and epic movies (Ben Hur, The Ten Commandments) were common in the “golden age” of Hollywood. As we’ll see in the next section, the age of the audience is a now driving more than just genre selection. ...

Check out the whole article. It's an interesting window into the movie industry.

In Honor of Black Friday

In honor of Black Friday, I needed to reprise a little Daniel Amos from 28 years ago:

Mall (All Over the World)

from the album "Doppelgänger"

Words and Music by Terry Taylor
©1983 Twitchen Vibes/ Paragon Music Corp. ASCAP

Mall all over the world
Mall all over the world...

Moving into the age of leisure
Where east meets west in a maze of pleasure
And why do we feel we can live forever?
Cos' they've piped in music of religious nature...

How come you're sad, how come you cry
When golden arches 'cross your sky?
They're reminders of sweet bye and bye
This could be heaven when we die...

Mannequin left!
Mannequin right!
Do the mannequin day and night
Elevator up, Escalate down
It spreads like the blob
It swallows your town

Moving into the age of leisure
Where east meets west in a maze of pleasure
And why do we feel we can live forever?
Cos' they've piped in music of religious nature...

Mall all over the world
Mall all over the world...

A Hitch in time: save the Hitchcock 9

Guardian: A Hitch in time: save the Hitchcock 9

Nine of the 10 films Hitchcock directed in the 1920s are getting a full restoration. Henry K Miller enters the dusty world of the archivists and learns about the race to save the silents.

The audience at the Capitol cinema in London during the middle week of April 1926 witnessed an unusually bold declaration of authorship. The opening moments of The Pleasure Garden, touted in the fan magazines as the debut of "the youngest director in the world", contained, under the "directed by" credit, the slanted and underlined signature of the 26-year-old Alfred J Hitchcock. What followed was also – as it would become clear over the decades – signature Hitchcock film-making. The film's first scene gives us a voyeur's-eye-view of a dancer's legs; and then makes us share the voyeur's unease as the look is returned. The Spectator's influential critic Iris Barry scented the "new blood" desperately needed by the ailing British film industry, writing that Hitchcock had "astonished everyone with his freshness and power".

Despite the plaudits, and despite Hitchcock's self-confidence, there was no inkling that his films would be seen in five years' time, let alone 85. Three million Britons went to the pictures every night, and the turnover was fast. Most movies played for half a week before being replaced, with a favoured few lingering in circulation a little longer. Survival was a matter of luck and the market. But next year, if all goes to plan, nine of the 10 films Hitchcock directed during the 1920s will be seen as no one has seen them since their first release, restored thanks to the BFI National Archive's Rescue the Hitchcock 9 project.

Publicly launched a year ago, and yoked to 2012's Cultural Olympiad, the biggest single undertaking in the archive's history is global in scope, but has its nerve-centre on the edge of Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire, in what used to be – and from the road still resembles – a farm. Home to vast air-locked, low-temperature film vaults, and to the personal papers of the likes of Michael Powell and David Lean, "Berko" is a hive of white-coated, clean-handed, obsessive activity.

Now the largest film archive in Europe, it was among the very first. The National Film Library, as the archive was originally called, was launched in July 1935, a few weeks after the release of The 39 Steps. A lowly department of the young and deeply troubled British Film Institute, it started out, in the words of its first curator Ernest Lindgren, 24 years old when he took on the role, with "no films, no equipment, and no money". Most of the silent heritage had been destroyed since the coming of talkies at the end of the 1920s, and so the library comprised, said Lindgren, "scraps of flotsam and jetsam, the wreckage of a vast output of film, which purely by chance have survived the destructive storm of time". ...

It's thrilling: the rise of Africa's amusement parks

Global Post: It's thrilling: the rise of Africa's amusement parks

What Africa's booming middle class really wants is a roller coaster.

... At least eight theme parks have opened or are scheduled to open in West Africa alone since 2000. The region’s roller coaster tycoons — some foreign, many local — brave one of the world’s least friendly business environments.

Power outages in Dakar last half the day; Nigeria’s last longer. Most citizens of either country can’t earn enough in 24 hours to ride Magic Land’s bumper cars for even 15 minutes.

And yet, triumphing over power outages, corrupt governments and widespread poverty, Africa's middle class is flourishing. And that middle class, theme park operators say, craves roller coasters.

“More and more, Senegalese parents bring their children here to ride the attractions and play,” said Abdoulaye Ndiaye, security guard at Magic Land. “It’s super. We have given them a place to relax in a city where we don’t have a lot of space to play.”

However discouraging West Africa’s economics are, its demographics make it ripe for a theme park bonanza. Half the continent is under 20. By 2050, one in every fifth person on the planet will be a sub-Saharan African, according to the United Nations. Hundreds of millions of those will be teenagers with no place to go on a date. ...

New Time Warp for ‘Doctor Who’

New York Times: New Time Warp for ‘Doctor Who’

The namesake character in “Doctor Who” can travel through time and space, but he cannot outrun the Internet.

When new episodes of that long-running BBC science-fiction drama were broadcast in Britain last year, executives at the BBC America cable channel observed a major spike in illegal file sharing of the show in the United States. Some stateside fans, it seemed, were unwilling to wait the two weeks between the British and American premieres. Many other “Who” fans who did wait were frustrated by online spoilers on blogs and Twitter.

The BBC’s solution is to compress time and space. Taking a page from the same-day worldwide premieres of blockbuster films, the new season of “Doctor Who” will start on Saturday not just in Britain, but in the United States and Canada too.

“Frankly, there are compelling reasons to do it more quickly,” said Perry Simon, the general manager for channels at BBC Worldwide America, citing an opportunity to make the telecasts feel like worldwide events for fans. But the main reason relates to online piracy.

“The moment it airs in the U.K., it’s open season for pirates around the world,” Mr. Simon said. “It’s the dark side of living in a global media village.” ...

Yet another interesting impact of globalization and the internet. I watched the season premiere on Saturday.

I've been DVRing some episodes on BBC America for later in the week. I'll need something to watch while all the William and Kate nonsense is going on. ;-)

God at the Grammys: The Chosen Ones

Wall Street Journal: God at the Grammys: The Chosen Ones

... When this year's Grammy winners accept their awards on Sunday night, God is likely to be thanked and praised more than a few times. It's a longstanding showbiz tradition, after all, prevalent at the Oscars, the Emmys and even the AVN Awards for adult movies. Until I began interviewing many of the winners of these awards two decades ago, I thought this was a sign of humility and gratitude (or at least an affectation of them). But the truth is more interesting than that.

Before they were famous, many of the biggest pop stars in the world believed that God wanted them to be famous, that this was his plan for them, just as it was his plan for the rest of us not to be famous. Conversely, many equally talented but slightly less famous musicians I've interviewed felt their success was accidental or undeserved—and soon after fell out of the limelight.

As I compiled and analyzed these interviews for my new book, I reached a surprising conclusion: Believing that God wants you to be famous actually improves your chances of being famous. Of course, from the standpoint of traditional theology, even in the Calvinistic world of predestination, God is much more concerned with the fate of an individual's soul than his or her secular success, and one's destiny is unknowable. So what's helping these stars is not so much religion as belief—specifically, the belief that God favors their own personal, temporal success over that of almost everyone else. ...

... This hardly proves that there is a God guiding the destiny of these stars. But it does suggest that unshakable confidence and a powerful sense of purpose are good predictors of success. Look at Justin Bieber, who released a single two months ago titled "Pray" and seemed untouched when getting booed recently by fans at a New York Knicks game. Or consider the derision heaped on Ms. Aguilera for botching the national anthem at the Super Bowl. If an unknown singer had made the same mistake, most people would have felt sorry for her.

But the more successful you get, the faster, louder and more savage the criticism becomes. To deal with the psychological burden of becoming a household name and the attacks that come with it, it helps to be thick-skinned. It helps even more to have a sense of divine mission and to feel that, when everyone else seems to be against you, God is walking at your side. Most stars who feel even a sliver of doubt about being in the spotlight will buckle under the constant pressure. Fearing criticism or failure, they become risk-averse and pass up opportunities.

The hip-hop mogul Diddy, for example, has been in and out of courtrooms over the years, facing charges for assault, gun possession and bribery—yet he continually bounces back with a new name and a new career. When I asked him if he ever felt fear, he replied, "My faith is in God. Like, look who I'm rolling with. Look who my gang really is. My gang is God. Come on, now, I don't have fear."

The meek may indeed inherit the Earth, but until then, stars who are presumptuous enough to see themselves as God's chosen ones are likely to dominate the pop charts, award shows and sports championships. Talent counts for a lot, but so too does the motivating power of divine conviction.

Chiefs: 40 Years in the Wilderness (or "O Come, O Come, Matt Cassel")

Forty-one years ago this month, Len Dawson led the Chiefs to their first and only Super Bowl Championship in Super Bowl IV. For forty years, the Chiefs have been wandering in the football wilderness. But to make matters worse, the Chiefs have had chances to return to the big show six times over the last seventeen years. The last time the Chiefs won a playoff game was against the Oilers in a divisional playoff game on January 16, 1994, under the leadership of Joe Montana. They lost the next week to the Bills in the conference championship game.

Since then, the Chiefs have made the playoffs five times, only to lose the opening game: '95, '96, '97, '04, and '07. Probably the most painful loss was the '96 playoffs when the Chiefs had a home-field advantage throughout the playoffs. The divisional game was against the Colts on a bitterly cold day. They lost 10-7 in a game where Lin Elliot missed three field goals, and three of Bono's fourteen complete passes were to the defense. (For a complete recounting of Chief's misery, see blogger Benjamin Herrold's post.) No team has lost seven consecutive playoff games.

So Chief's fans come to this weekend in hopes of deliverance from their wilderness wanderings and ending their string of playoff futility. In honor of the event, I thought I would offer a Chief's playoff carol for the hometown faithful.

O come, O come, Matt Cassel

O come, O come, Matt Cassel
And put an end to our losing spell
We wait in chilly Arrowhead here
Until the Chiefs of old reappear
Go Chiefs! Go Chiefs! Matt Cassel
Shall come to us, and end our losing spell.

O come, Thou Coach Todd Haley, free
Chiefs fans from hapless tyranny
From football Hell Thy faithful save
Put opponents hopes in the grave
Go Chiefs! Go Chiefs! Matt Cassel
Shall come to us, and end our losing spell.

O come, Chiefs players, come and cheer
Our spirits by Thine advent here
Disperse the gloomy clouds of night
And winless shadows put to flight.
Go Chiefs! Go Chiefs! Matt Cassel
Shall come to us, and end our losing spell.

That said, I confess I really feel a bit like Miracle Max in The Princess Bride, sending off Wesley and friends to storm the Castle.

MLB Discusses World Series Winner Playing Japanese Champion

Business Week: MLB Discusses World Series Winner Playing Japanese Champion

Dec. 17 (Bloomberg) -- Major League Baseball will continue talks next month on a plan that would pit the World Series winner against Japan’s champion.

Jim Small, MLB’s vice president for Asia, said at a media conference in Tokyo yesterday that MLB officials will meet with counterparts from Nippon Professional Baseball in January for a fourth round of discussions.

Any title series schedule would be complicated by cold weather, MLB free agency and competition from other sports for air time, Small said.

“When you really get into the details of it, it’s a difficult thing to see happening, but we continue to do it,” he said. “Not all those things are insurmountable, but they do create some issues.”

A matchup this year immediately after the World Series would have pitted teams from the milder climates of San Francisco and Chiba, east of Tokyo. ...

Oh my! This is going to send the purists over the edge.

Behind Colbert’s Right-wing Funny Man, a Quiet Faith

Ethics Daily: Behind Colbert’s Right-wing Funny Man, a Quiet Faith

... It was a different kind of religious message than Colbert typically delivers on Comedy Central’s “The Colbert Report,” where he often pokes fun at religion—even his own Catholic Church—in pursuit of a laugh.

Yet it was the kind of serious faith that some of his fellow Catholics say makes him a serious, covert and potent evangelist for their faith.

“Anytime you talk about Jesus or Christianity respectfully the way he does, it is evangelization,” said Jim Martin, the associate editor of the Jesuit magazine America, who has appeared on Colbert’s show four times.

“He is preaching the gospel, but I think he is doing it in a very post-modern way.” ...

... Colbert has said that he attends church, observes Lent and teaches Sunday school. “I love my church, and I’m a Catholic who was raised by intellectuals, who were very devout,” he told Time Out magazine. “I was raised to believe that you could question the church and still be a Catholic.”

His on-air persona is a bloviating holier-than-thou conservative whose orthodox Catholicism is part of what makes him funny. On air, Colbert has chided the pope as an “ecu-menace” for his outreach to other faiths, referred to non-Catholics as “heathens and the excommunicated” and calls those who believe in evolution “monkey men.”

Diane Houdek has tracked Colbert’s on-air references to Catholicism on her blog, Catholic Colbert. When he recites the Nicene Creed or Bible verses from memory, as he did in 2006, it shows how foundational his faith is, she said.

“He is moving in an extremely secular world—it is hard to get a lot more secular than Comedy Central,” Houdek said. “Yet I feel he is able to witness to his faith in a very subtle way, a very quiet way to an audience that has maybe never encountered this before.” ...

And of course, it is Colbert who gave us the wonderful term "truthiness."

What Will Happen to Agent Gibbs?

Tonight is the season premiere of NCIS. When we left NCIS in May, the leader of the Reynosa drug cartel was plotting to kill everyone Gibbs cares about. Despite the intervening four months, I suspect she still is. The last episode ended with her walking into the Stillwell, PA store owned by Papa Walton ... errr, I mean  .... Gibbs' dad ... who, curiously, is also agent Booth's dad on Bones. How many families did that guy have? But I digress. What will happen to Gibbs and the crew? Will any cast members get nixed and replaced?

I will be at a meeting during the airing. I'm recording it to watch later in the evening. So nobody spoil the ending until after about 9:30 central time.

Nominee for a Gibbs Head Slap

Physics forced to come up with whole new equation to explain "impossible" soccer kick

IO9: Physics forced to come up with whole new equation to explain "impossible" soccer kick

In 1997, Brazilian soccer player Roberto Carlos scored on a free kick that first went right, then curved sharply to leftwards in what looked like a physics-defying fluke. We've finally discovered the physics equation that shows it was no fluke.

The amazing goal, which left French goalkeeper Fabien Barthez too stunned to react, was scored during a friendly match in the run-up to the 1998 World Cup. A group of French scientists, perhaps desperate to prove that at least the laws of physics aren't actively rooting against their national team, were able to figure out the trajectory of the ball and, with it, an equation to describe its unusual path.

It all comes down to the fact that, when a sphere spins, its trajectory is a spiral. Usually, gravity and the relatively short distance the ball travels covers up this spiral trajectory, but Carlos was 115 feet away and kicked the ball hard enough to reveal its true spiral-like path. As you can see in the diagram up top, the ball would have kept spiraling if gravity (and the netting) hadn't gotten in the way.

This means that anyone can perfect this spiral trajectory if they're able to hit the ball far enough and with sufficient force, which might explain why Carlos has pulled off this supposed once-in-a-lifetime fluke so often.

In the first video, it looks to me like the ball barely makes more than one revolution before getting to the goal. It looks sort of like a knuckle ball.

I played fullback in college. (I call it playing. Others refer to it as my foray into comedy.) My friend Dave had a banana kick that was wicked. (You more or less slice through the ball using the outside edge of your foot causing the ball to slice away from that foot. You use the inside to go slice the other way.)  It always amazed me what some of the strikers could do with a ball, particularly on set plays.

A-Rod youngest in history to 600 homers

Yankees.com: A-Rod youngest in history to 600 homers

NEW YORK -- Aug. 4 has been good to Alex Rodriguez.

Three years to the day after Rodriguez hit his 500th home run, he became the seventh player in Major League history to hit 600 homers in his career with a first-inning blast off Blue Jays starter Shaun Marcum.

Rodriguez's landmark long ball came on a 2-0 delivery from Marcum with two outs and Derek Jeter on first. The shot into the netting over Monument Park was Rodriguez's 17th of the season, his 255th career home run as a member of the Yankees, his second career off Marcum in 18 at-bats and his 51st career blast against Toronto. It gave the Yankees a 2-0 lead. ...

What's Up with Shyamalan?

This graph comes from Marginal Revolution:

I think it's important to remember that Hitchcock's popularity took a nosedive before he had a revival. The same can be said with other directors and artists.

Thank you, World Cup fans, I now understand institutions for development

Aid Watch: Thank you, World Cup fans, I now understand institutions for development

My original notion was that intentionally breaking the rules to prevent a loss was cheating, and that it was too bad norms prevalent in Football World did not penalize such behavior more fiercely so that it wouldn’t have happened in the first place. (A column in today’s Wall Street Journal agreed with me. Maybe we’re just both fervent Ghana fans.)

But let’s shift now from normative to positive economics. Do the norms in the Football World let you sometimes break the rules intentionally and suffer the official penalty, without any further normsy punishment of everlasting disgrace? ...

... Possible cautionary lesson #1: arrogant people (code word for Americans) should not pass judgment on other societies they don’t understand (like Football World).

Other people pointed out the complexities of rule systems that include penalties for breaking the rules. You don’t want excessively draconian penalties (like the death penalty for contract violations or handballs), or nobody would engage in mutually beneficial activities in the first place, like contracts or football matches. And, with that caveat, no penalty system can be perfectly designed so that it never pays to break the rules in any and all situations. Some egregious case where it paid to break the rule could cause an over-reaction towards excessive penalties or dysfunctional rules (possible examples in financial and economic reforms as well as football).

Norms play a useful role in not only strengthening the incentives to keep the formal rules, but also in complementing the formal rule-formal penalty system. Norms can handle the subtleties of when intentionally breaking the rules and accepting the penalty is OK and when it is not. So for example, social norms might forgive a businessman who chooses to break a contract because of something unforeseen like a fire in his factory, but not so much a businessman who lied about whether there was really a factory fire. ...

Soccer has a number of norms about fair play. In one of the games, a defender kicked the ball across the end line to stop play for an injured player. By rule, the opponents had a corner kick. Instead, the opponent's teammates avoided the goal as he placed the ball at the corner and tapped it to the opposing goalie.

There are times when the formal rules need not be followed, or it is appropriate to break them and take the consequences. Unfortunately, when this happens in business or with other interactions, some reformers point to them as instances where the system is broken. It can be evidence, but not necessarily. There is no formulation of laws that will perfectly match justice in all situations. It is a tough balancing act.

Is World Cup soccer socialist?

Christian Science Monitor: Is World Cup soccer socialist?

No, and Americans -- especially conservatives -- should embrace soccer as a democratic and meritocratic game.  ...

... At a deeper level, many Americans – especially conservatives – resent having soccer foisted upon them. Glenn Beck rants, “We don’t want the Word Cup, we don’t like the World Cup, we don’t like soccer, we want nothing to do with it.” The late Jack Kemp even opposed a congressional resolution supporting US efforts to host the 1994 World Cup, stating, “a distinction should be made that football is democratic, capitalism, whereas soccer is a European socialist [sport].”

But soccer has plenty to offer Americans of all political stripes. For one, when you take in a soccer match, though goals may be scarce, you’ll be watching 90 minutes of almost nonstop action (not commercials!).

Let’s compare that with America’s favorite spectator sport, professional football. According to a Wall Street Journal study, the average amount of time the ball is in play on the field during an NFL games is less than 11 minutes. The remainder of the 174 minutes that make-up a typical broadcast are filled with images of players huddling and milling around, images of coaches and referees and, of course, commercials. ...

... For conservative hold-outs, soccer may be the most capitalist game going. In most American sports leagues, failure is rewarded as the worst teams get the best shots at the top draft picks, and most leagues have revenue sharing and salary caps to spread the wealth around.

In contrast, the free market reins in most European soccer leagues. Teams that finish last must move to a lower division the following year, while the best of the lower divisions move up. It’s the ultimate meritocracy. ...

... America’s ambivalence toward soccer probably has less to do with politics or lack of scoring than with our already saturated sports market. But we are a sports-loving nation. And as our exposure to soccer continues, I believe we’ll find room for one more sport to love.

Netherlands or Spain?

I lean toward the Netherlands but Spain seems to have regained their stride. What do you think?

What Are Your World Cup Predictions?

We have now finished the knockout round of the World Cup and are ready for the quarterfinals. Prior to the knockout round, I made the following prediction:

Final Four: Uruguay, Brazil, Argentina, and Spain.

Final Match: Brazil vs Argentina

Winner: Argentina

So far so good. What are your predictions?

John Cleese Explains Offside in Soccer

Who says the USA doesn't care about soccer?

(HT: Brad)

27% - Little Going-In American Enthusiasm for the World Cup

Pew Research: 27% - Little Going-In American Enthusiasm for the World Cup

While the United States may often be described as a sports-crazed nation, Americans were one of the least enthusiastic publics about the 2010 World Cup in South Africa. Only 27% of Americans said they were excited (11% were very excited) about the soccer tournament in this year's Pew Global Attitudes survey, which was completed well before the beginning of tournament play. Nearly seven-in-ten said they were not too or not at all excited about what is possibly the world's largest sporting event. Among the 22 nations surveyed, the World Cup was overwhelmingly popular in South Korea (79% were excited about the competition), Nigeria (79%), Kenya (71%), Indonesia (71%) and Brazil (70%). Surprisingly, the tournament was not as highly anticipated in soccer-powerhouse nations in Europe such as Britain (43% excited), Spain (41%) and France (33%). Excitement had little to do with expectations about winning and losing. For starters, despite their anticipatory excitement, neither Kenya nor Indonesia was able to field a team in this year's tournament, and only 11% of South Koreans believed their nation would win the World Cup (by comparison, 43% said Brazil would win). In contrast, a majority in Spain (58%) expected their country to triumph in the World Cup, but an equal 58% were not excited by the prospect of the games. Brazil was the only country surveyed where both a large majority was excited about the World Cup and also expected a victory for the home country (75%).