Live from Austin!

I just listened to the This American Life episode Another Frightening Show About the Economy, a followup to their earlier show The Giant Pool of Money. The earlier show explained the mortgage crisis in terms anyone can understand. The new show explains how the problems of the mortgage industry have spread to the rest of the economy.

In particular, it explains:

• What a Credit Default Swap is, and how it turned from something harmless into something disastrous;
• What the commercial paper market is;
• Why AIG nearly collapsed and needed to be bailed out, and how the bailout was carried out;
• How the rest of the financial system nearly collapsed;
• Why the original $700 billion bailout plan was terrible, and how the new one (the one made into law) is slightly better in that it at least allows the right thing to be done;
• That the total failure to regulate a risky credit default swap market, bigger than the entire global stock market, was a totally bipartisan fuckup.

If any podcast is essential listening, this one is.

Sony has revised the terms of service for the PlayStation Network. The new TOS says:

You may not provide anyone with your name or any other personally identifying information other than your own Online ID

As it happens, I broke the new TOS twice at the weekend without realizing it at the time. I’ve told people in Team Fortress 2 and Burnout Paradise both my name, and the fact that I live in Austin, TX.

I can see a case for prohibiting disclosing someone else’s identity. (Key words being "disclosing" and "someone else’s".) However, if I want to tell people online where I live, I don’t see how that is any of Sony’s business. Furthermore, since my PSN ID is just my name with a random number appended, does that mean I need to change my ID? That’s awkward, as Sony’s system doesn’t let you do so. Perhaps I should send an e-mail to customer support?

A couple of weeks ago I saw a new Thai place had opened up a few blocks from our house. Today I was bored of my usual lunch fare, and decided to check it out.

It’s called thaifresh and is at 909 West Mary, in the same block as Café Caffeine. One wall is occupied by Thai groceries. Opposite that is the kitchen area, and in front is a cabinet with the dishes on offer. It’s cafeteria style, you can buy a 1- 2- or 3-item plate, or get takeaway. Apparently they also offer cooking classes.

I tried the red curry with summer squash and tofu, with brown rice. It was good–rich and creamy, and just hot enough to give a gentle afterburn.

Last night I dreamed about MIT.

Texas Instruments had finally decided to build an RPN-based calculator, and for obvious reasons had chosen MIT for a major promotional event. I had been browsing the MIT bookstore and had seen a promo kit, so I snuck in to the labs to see the hardware in action.

It was "landscape" format, like the classic HPs (12c, 15c, 16c), but had a wide bitmapped display that could show 20 digits easily. It wasn’t just a calculator–they had taken ideas from the mobile phone world, and added a camera with extra low light sensitivity, a Zeiss lens with macro focus, and high speed motion capture, so you could record your experiments with it too. Oh, and it ran for something like 60 hours on two AA cells.

Pondering whether to buy one, I sat in a nearby cafe. The barista asked why I was so excited, when I could be visiting New York or Harvard or something. I explained that for me, MIT was where it had all happened, but in my excitement the only name I could think of was Marvin Minsky. When I mentioned him, the barista snorted, and said he was a hack.

I think this is quite possibly the geekiest dream I’ve ever had. I think it’s all because I was looking at R6RS yesterday.

Inspired by an awesome FARK thread:

Today I spent three hours tidying my desk and going through paperwork. This included going through the entire filing cabinet, removing obsolete documents. Then I shredded old information until the shredder literally burned out, emitting an unpleasant melting plastic smell. Ah well, I’d been thinking of getting a better shredder anyway, preferably one that can shred CDs.

Now I’ve traveled to the coffee house with rothko and fixed their Internet.

I was lucky enough to get on the beta list for LittleBigPlanet for PS3. I’m probably not meant to reveal too much about it, but I will say that right from the opening credits, it is utterly delightful. The kind of cute yet rich game that I would expect Nintendo to come up with. It’s basically an old-school platformer, with state of the art 3D graphics used to depict a 2D world made up of photorealistic real-world materials. Level editing tools are built in, and you’re encouraged to share your created levels with the community.

The tools seem as though they will allow people to create a wide variety of worlds. You can construct backdrops and objects from various materials (wood, polystyrene, rock, padded fabric); add various canned objects that you collect by playing the game; decorate with paint and stickers; and make everything come alive with switches, generators, string, motors, and so on. The narrator for the tutorials is Stephen Fry, some of the music is pulled straight from cult BBC show "Vision On", and there’s a Green Submarine that bears a remarkable resemblance to a famous submarine of another color. If it were any more up my alley I’d have to move it aside to wheel the trash bin out.

I’m wondering if I can build a LittleBigPlanet that resembles my desk…

I skipped the presidential debate, but I think I might watch the VP debate. If Caribou Barbie really is as bad as rumors say, there could be lulz.