Jun 23, 2015
Don't Let the Ex-Im Bank Expire
From my latest piece in The Conversation, why we should not let the charter for the Export-Import Bank of the United States Expire: Almost 90% of its loans support small businesses, which…
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Archive page 53 of 73
Jun 23, 2015
CBO's Analysis of Ex-Im Bank
I just read the CBO report applying fair value accounting to the Export-Import Bank of the United States. The numbers are interesting. It's essentially a benefit-cost analysis, but it doesn't work. But…
Jun 22, 2015
Take It Down, Amazon
John Price writes here, in the wake of Charleston, that the Confederate flag is a flag of treason and terrorism, not heritage.[^flagnote] It is no different from the ISIS flag. It represents…
Jun 21, 2015
I'm Going to MathFest...
This August, I will be speaking about my Virtual Bumblebees. Here's the abstract: Based on Langton's Ant, this talk briefly describes a simple simulation environment for quasisocial behavior. The world is a…
Jun 20, 2015
So I'm Going to Mars...
...Society's 18th Annual Convention this August. I will be speaking about governance in space. Here's the abstract: Extended human space exploration requires governance structure that does not yet exist. While the Moon…
Jun 18, 2015
Don't Kill the Mac
The Wall Street Journal has an editorial that Apple should drop the Macintosh product line and focus on portable consumer electronics, the iPhone and its spawn. Since the WSJ has a crappy…
Jun 15, 2015
Fix Downtown Columbia Parking Now
Downtown Columbia has become more difficult to navigate in the last month or so. With the summer concert season now in full swing, parking has become a problem. Signs at Whole Foods,…
Jun 12, 2015
Decibels
According to Wikipedia, "\[t\]he decibel (dB) is a logarithmic unit used to express the ratio between two values of a physical quantity, often power or intensity." We usually hear it applied to…
Jun 11, 2015
Only Evil Genius Spontaneously Arises
This morning, Confessions of a Community College Dean writes: Most of us in higher education would give vital organs to never again hear a student say "I'm just not a math person."…
Jun 10, 2015
Bitcoin and Money
I am not a Bitcoin fanboy. But most people discussing Bitcoin, both for and against, really don't know what they are talking about. Take Washington Post reporter Matt O'Brien, for instance. He…
Jun 5, 2015
Place and Space in the Christianisation Sagas
I recently completed the Sagas and Space - Thinking Space in Viking Age and Medieval Scandinavia course through Coursera. With the course over, I have posted my final class essay on the…