Book Review – The Travels of a T-Shirt in the Global Economy

The Travels of a T-Shirt in the Global Economy: An Economist Examines the Markets, Power, and Politics of World Trade
by Pietra Rivoli, 2005

Very interesting discussion of the realities of growing cotton, weaving and dyeing shirts, and what happens on the second-hand market after clothing is donated. Less interesting, and much longer, discussion on international trade agreements and import quotas. That part can certainly be skimmed.

I imagine there have been minor changes to the realities of the market since the book came out, but most of the principles should still hold.

Maria and I listened to the book on tape. The reader’s voice was fine.

Weakest Links 20180411

Sports:
I prefer it when my links are about on-field actions, but it’s been a slow week. The Reds have not been good, and I haven’t watched other sports.
NBA2K League players paid more than G-League players.
The Marlins Will Sue Almost Anyone.
The carriage fee for Pac-12 Network is way down.

Energy:
Drones Are Lowering the Cost of Clean Energy.

Other:
It’s time to rebuild the web.

Dash writes about the demise of the View Source browser feature, which dispays the HTML from which the web page is built. View Source isn’t dead, but it’s sick. He’s right that the web succeeded, in part, because people with little background could look at the source for the pages they liked, copy the code they wanted, and end up with something that looks pretty good. Today, you can no longer learn by copying; while View Source still exists on most browsers, the complexity of modern web pages have made it next to useless. The bits you want are wrapped in megabytes (literally) of JavaScript and CSS.

and

Much as we may complain about Facebook, selecting relevant content from an ocean of random sites is an important service. It’s easy for me to imagine relatives and friends building their own sites for baby pictures, announcements, and general talk. That’s what we did in the 90s. But would we go to the trouble of reading those all those sites? Probably not. I didn’t in the 90s, and neither did you.

We already have a tool for solving this problem. RSS lets websites provide “feeds” of news and new items. Applications like Feedly and Reeder let you build a collection of sites that interest you, and show you what’s changed since the last time you visited. While I’d never check a dozen sites each day, I use Feedly to monitor hundreds of websites. I would never check those sites by hand, but I scan Feedly every morning. And, unlike Facebook, Feedly doesn’t know anything about its users except for the sites they read.

You should really use Feedly.

Book Review – Letters to a Young Writer

Letters to a Young Writer: Some Practical and Philosophical Advice
by Colum McCann, 2017

Put yer arse in the seat. You can’t write if you don’t put the time in, so be sure to give a solid effort before succumbing to distractions or distress. That’s the piece of advice that most transfers to academic writing. I read it hoping for more nuggets that I could apply to my work, but the book wasn’t really written for me. It’s focused on fiction writing, and, from my outside perspective, seems to be useful and well-written for that purpose. The part about getting blurbs for your novel seems reminiscent of getting external letters for your tenure review.

I listened to the audiobook on my drive. This is one of the few where having the author read it is a positive, as McCann’s Irish accent and tone are great.

Weakest Links 20180404

It’s hard to consistently get multiple weekly link roundups (one for sports, one for energy, one for other stuff) out, and I’ve been doing a bad job of it this year. I’m going to collapse them to one weekly link roundup on Wednesday afternoons. This is the first attempt at that. Here are your weakest links:

Sports:
The Four-Man Outfield and Position-Less Baseball.
The Pacers Are Bucking Every NBA Trend. And It’s Working. We’ll see how it goes in the playoffs.
Fake Sister Jean Twitter.

Energy:
FirstEnergy Files for Bankruptcy; To Close 4 Nuclear Reactors.

Other:
How to run a blog for 8 years and not go insane.
How to Fall Asleep in 2 Minutes. Already my specialty.
How to make a ship bigger — cut it in half first.
Army Strips Down Network To Survive Major War.

Book Review – Humans Need Not Apply

Humans Need Not Apply: A Guide to Wealth and Work in the Age of Artificial Intelligence
by Jerry Kaplan, 2015

Expands on the ideas in this video:

Actually, I got the causation backward when I checked out the book from the library. I thought the video above was based on the book, but: “I would also like to acknowledge that the title for this book is not original – it is borrowed from an outstanding short video of the same name by the famously reclusive C.G.P. Grey. I’m a big fan. Check out his work on YouTube.” (pg. 210)

Good discussion of how synthetic intelligences can do many things better and faster than humans ever could. However, optimistic on the whole: “I’m supremely confident that our future is very bright – if only we can figure out how to equitably distribute the benefits.” (pg 197)

Quick read.

Book Review – American Energy

American Energy: The Politics of 21st Century Policy
by Walter A. Rosenbaum, 2015

Overview of energy policies and politics in the U.S. I enjoyed the section on nuclear history and policy. However, the book is in need of better editing. In particular, it got repetitive in the renewable and climate change sections and confusing in the last chapter on global energy considerations. The figures also leave something to be desired, with an overuse of pie charts and simplistic U.S. state maps.

Book Review – A Passion for Leadership

A Passion for Leadership: Lessons on Change and Reform from Fifty Years of Public Service
by Robert M. Gates, 2015

Gates was Director of Central Intelligence, President of Texas A&M, and Secretary of Defense, and he is currently the President of the Boy Scouts of America. Some of the versions of this book have the cover quote, “The book [politicians] should all admit to reading- and actually read… Refreshingly nonideological.” I think that is apt. It is a very good rundown on how to treat subordinates, how to foster trust, what mindset to have as a leader, how to enact effective change, and when to know it’s time to walk away from a position of power. Gates has a wealth of experience to draw from, and he tries to give examples that are relevant to government, academia, and business.

The audiobook is very well read and highly recommended. I listened to this on my lunch-time walks.

Strength of March Madness Teams

Similar to last year and the year before and the year before that, I will run my NFL model over NCAA men’s basketball teams to show the strength of each team. The model predicts how many more points a team will score than the “average” team, along with how many more points they will give up on defense. The model is only based on the final scores of games during the season and conference tournaments. Positive numbers are good for Offensive strength. Negative numbers are good for defensive strength. My model does not discount (late season runs matter no more than early season victories) and does not account for injuries.

Some things to note:
1. 6 tournament teams are worse than an NCAA Division 1 average team.
2. The top 8 teams are within 5 expected points of each other.
3. My model says Xavier is only the 11th best team, deserving of a 3 seed. Chronically under-seeded West Virginia is a 5 seed deserving to be a 3 seed. Virginia’s offense is below average, but their defense is preposterous (7 points better than 2nd best Cincinnati). Villanova has the best offense, but Oklahoma is right behind them.
4. The best teams not to make the tournament are Penn State (14.0 points above average), Baylor (13.7), Louisville (13.7), and Notre Dame (13.5).
5. Creighton, Butler, and Arizona State deserved seeds that were 3 better.
6. Miami and Rhode Island deserved seeds that were at least 3 worse.