理解趨勢 創造未來

在這堂課裡姚仁祿老師分享如何掌握趨勢 並創造未來

Isaac Mizrahi on fashion and creativity

About this talk

Fashion designer Isaac Mizrahi spins through a dizzying array of inspirations -- from '50s pinups to a fleeting glimpse of a woman on the street who makes him shout "Stop the cab!" Inside this rambling talk are real clues to living a happy, creative life.




I have, like, a thing about sleeping. I don't sleep that much, and I've come to this thing about, like, not sleeping much as being a great virtue, after years of kind of battling it as being a terrible detriment, or something. And now I really like sort of sitting up, you know. But for years I've been sitting up and I think that, like, my creativity is greatly motivated by this kind of insomnia. I lie awake. I think thoughts. I walk aimlessly. Sometimes I used to walk more at night. I walk during the day and I follow people who I think look interesting. (Laughter)

And sometimes -- actually, once it was on Page Six in The Post, that I was cruising this guy, like, sort of, whatever, but I was actually just following because he had these really great shoes on. And so I was following this guy. And I took a picture of his shoes, and we thanked each other and just went on our way. But I do that all the time. As a matter of fact, I think a lot of my design ideas come from mistakes and tricks of the eye. Because I feel like, you know, there are so many images out there, so many clothes out there. And the only ones that look interesting to me are the ones that look slightly mistaken, of course, or very, very surprising. And often, I'm driving in a taxi and I see a hole in a shirt, or something that looks very interesting or pretty or functional in some way that I'd never seen happen before. And so I'd make the car stop, and I'd get out of the car and walk, and see that in fact there wasn't a hole, but it was trick of my eye, it was a shadow, you know. Or if there was a hole I'd think like, oh damn, there was actually someone thought of that thought already. Someone made that mistake already so I can't do it anymore.

I don't know where inspiration comes from. It does not come for me from research. I don't get necessarily inspired by research. As a matter of fact, one of the most fun things I've ever, ever done in my whole life, was this Christmas season at the Guggenheim in New York. I read Peter and the Wolf with this beautiful band from Juilliard. And I did like, you know, the narrator, and I read it. And I saw this really smart critic who I love. This woman, Joan Acocella, who's a friend of mine, and she came backstage and she said, oh, you know, Isaac, did you know that, talking about Stalinism, and talking about, you know, like the '30s in Russia. And I said, how do I know about Stalinism? I know about a wolf and a bird and, you know, he ate the bird, and then in the end you hear, you know, you hear the bird squeaking, or something, you know?

So I don't really know that. I don't really -- actually I do my own kind of research, you know. If I'm commissioned to do the costumes for an 18th-century opera, or something like that, I will do a lot of research, because it's interesting, not because it's because what I'm supposed to do. I'm very, very, very inspired by movies. The color of movies and the way light makes the colors, light from behind the projection, or light from the projection, makes the colors look so impossible. And anyway, roll this little clip, I'll just show you. I sit up at night and I watch movies and I watch women in movies a lot. And I think about, you know, their roles, and about you have to like watch what your daughters look at. Because I look at the way women are portrayed all the time. Whether they're kind of glorified in this way, or whether they're kind of, you know, ironically glorified. or whether they're, you know, sort of denigrated, or ironically denigrated.

I go back to color all the time. Color is something that motivates me a lot It's rarely color that I find in nature, although, you know, juxtaposed next to artificial color natural color is so beautiful. So that's what I do. I study color a lot. But for the most part, I think, like, how can I ever make anything that is as beautiful as that image of Natalie Wood? How can I ever make anything as beautiful as Greta Garbo? I mean, that's just not possible, you know. And so that's what makes me lie awake at night, I guess, you know. I want to show you -- I'm also like a big -- I go to astrologers and tarot card readers often, and that's another thing that motivates me a lot. People say, oh, do that. And astrologer tells me to do something. So I do it. (Laughter)

When I was about 21, an astrologer told me that I was going to meet the man of my dreams, and that his name was going to be Eric, right? So, you know, for years I would go to bars and sort of anyone I met who's name was Eric I was humping immediately, or something. (Laughter) And there were times when I was actually so desparate I would just, you know, walk into a room and just go like, Eric. And anybody who would turn around I would, sort of, make a beeline for. (Laughter) And I had this really interesting tarot reading a long time ago. The last card he pulled, which was representing my destiny was this guy on like a straw boater with a cane and you know, sort of spats and this, you know, a minstrel singer, right? I want to show you this clip because I do this kind of crazy thing where I do a cabaret act. So actually, check this out. Very embarrassing. (Video): Thank you. We can do anything you ask.

The name of the show is based on this story that I have to tell you about my mother. It's sort of an excerpt from a quote of hers. I was dating this guy, right? And this has to do with being happy, I swear. I was dating this guy and it was going on for about a year, right. And we were getting serious, so we decided to invite them all to dinner, our parents. And we, you know, sort of introduced them to each other. My mother was, sort of, very sensitive to his mother, who it seemed was a little bit skeptical about whole alternative lifestyle thing. You know, homosexuality, right? So my mother was a little offended. She turned to her and she said, "Are you kidding? They have the greatest life together. They eat out, they see shows." They eat out, they see shows. (Laughter) That's the name of the show, they eat out, they -- that's on my tombstone when I die. "He ate out, he saw shows," right?

So in editing these clips, I didn't have the audacity to edit a clip of me singing at Joe's Pub. So you'll have to, like, go check it out and come see me or something. Because it's mortifying, and yet it feels ... I don't know how to put this. I feel as little comfort as possible is a good thing, you know. And at least, you know, in my case, because if I just do one thing all the time, I don't know, I get very, very bored. I bore very easily. And you know, I don't say that I do everything well, I just say that I do a lot of things, that's all. And I kind of try not to look back, you know. Except, I guess, that's what staying up every night is about. Like, looking back and thinking, what a fool you made of yourself, you know. But I guess that's okay. Right? Because if you do many things you get to feel lousy about everything, and not just one, you know. You don't master feeling lousy about one thing. Yeah, exactly.

I will show you this next thing, speaking of costumes for operas. I do work with different choreographers. I work with Twyla Tharp a lot, and I work with Mark Morris a lot, who is one of my best friends. And I designed three operas with him. And the most recent one, "King Arthur." I'd been very ingrained in the dance world since I was a teenager. I went to performing arts high school, where I was an actor. And many of my friends were ballet dancers. Again, I don't know where inspiration comes from. I don't know where it comes from. I started making puppets when I was a kid. Maybe that's where the whole inspiration thing started from, puppets, right. And then performing arts high school. There I was in high school, meeting dancers and acting.

And somehow, from there, I got interested in design. I went to Parsons School of Design and then I began my career as a designer. I don't really think of myself as a designer, I don't really think of myself necessarily as a fashion designer. And frankly, I don't really know what to call myself. I think of myself as a ... I don't know what I think of myself as. It's just that. (Laughter) But I must say, this whole thing about being slightly bored all the time that is what -- I think that is a very important thing for a fashion designer. You always have to be slightly bored with everything. And if you're not you have to pretend to be slightly bored with everything. (Laughter)

But I am really a little bored with everything. I always say to my partner, Marissa Gardini, who books everything -- she books everything and she makes everything happen. And she makes all the deals. And I always tell her that I find myself with a lot of time on the computer bridge program. Too much time on computer bridge, which is, you know, like that's so ... somehow, like, about ten years ago I thought that the most unboring place in the world would be like a TV studio, like for a day show. Some kind of day talk show. Because it's all of these things that I love all kind of in one place. And if you ever get bored you can look at another thing, and do another thing and talk about it, right?

And so I had this TV show. And that was a very, very, very big part of my process. Actually, could you roll the clip, please? This is one of my favorite clips of Rosie.

(Video) Isaac Mizrahi: We're back on the set. Hi there.

Rosie O'Donnell: Hello Ben.

IM: Look how cute she looks with this, just a slick back.

Man: Her mother says, "Delish!"

IM: Ah, wow, delish. All right. So now where should I position myself? I want to stay out of the way. I don't want to be -- okay. Here we go. Do you get nervous, Ashleigh?

Ashleigh: Doing what? Cutting hair.

A: Cutting hair? Never, never. I don't think there was ever a day where I cut hair I was nervous. You look so cute already, by the way. You like it? All right. Do you have a problem with looking cute? You want to look cute.

ROD: Of course I want to look cute. IM: Just checking, because some people want to look, you know, aggressively ugly.

ROD: No, not me, no.

IM: You read about all these people who have a lot of money and they have kids and the kids always end up somehow, like, really messed up, you know what I mean? And there's got to be some way to do that, Rosie. Because just because if you're fabulously rich, and fabulously famous, does that mean you shouldn't have kids, because you know they're going to end up getting messed up?

ROD: No, but it means that your priority has to be their well-being first, I think. But you have to make the decision for yourself. My kids are seven, who the hell knows. They're going to be like 14 and in rehab. And they're going to be playing this clip: "I'm such a good mother." My God, this is the shortest I've ever had.

IM: It looks good, yeah?

A: I was going to ask you, you hair --

ROD: No! It's all right -- go crazy.

IM: I feel like it needs to be a little closer down here.

A: Oh no, we're just staging,

ROD: We're just staging it.

IM: Are you freaking out? You look so cute.

ROD: No, I love it. It's the new me.

IM: Oh, it's so fabulous!

ROD: Flock of Rosie. Wooo!

So by the way. Of all the most unboring things in the world, right. I mean, like making someone who's already cute look terrible like that. That is not boring. That is nothing if it's not boring Actually, I read this great quote the other day, which was, "Style makes you feel great because it takes your mind off the fact that you're going to die." Right? And then I realized, that was on my website, and then it said, like, you know, the quote was attributed to me and I thought, oh, I said something, you know, in an interview. I forgot that I said that. But it's really true.

I want to show you this last clip because it's going to my last goodbye. I'll tell you that I cook a lot also. I love to cook. And I often look at things as though they're food. Like I say, oh, you know, would you serve a rotten chicken? Then how could you serve, you know, a beat up old dress or something. How could you show a beat up old dress? I always relate things to kitchen-ry. And so I think that's what it all boils down to. Everything boils down to that.

So check this out. This is what I've been doing because I think it's the most fun thing in the world. It's, like, this website. It's got a lot of different things on it. It's a polymathematical website. We actually shoot segments like TV show segments. And it's kind of my favorite thing in the world. And it just began like in the beginning of February. So who knows. And again, I don't say it's good, I just say it's not boring, right? And here is the last bit.

Video: IM: I have to tell you, I make buttermilk pancakes or buttermilk waffles all the time.

Chef: Do you?

IM: Yeah, but I can never find buttermilk, ever.

Chef: Oh.

IM: You can't find buttermilk at Citarella; you can't find buttermilk.

Chef: You can't? IM: It's always low-fat buttermilk.

Chef: No, but that's all it is. IM: Is that all it is?

Chef: Oh, you don't know? Let me tell you something. Let me tell you something interesting.

IM: You know what? Stop laughing. It's not funny. Just because I don't know that whole -- that there's no such thing as whole buttermilk. Sorry, what?

Chef: Well, here's the deal. Let me tell you the deal. In the old days when they used to make butter, you know how you make butter?

IM: Churns?

Chef: For cream?

IM: Yeah, exactly.

Chef: So you take heavy, high-fat milk, which is cream, and you churn it until it separates into these curds and water. The liquid is actually that clear liquid. If you've ever overbeaten your whipped cream, it's actually buttermilk. And that's what it was in the early days. And that's what people used for baking and all sorts of things. Now, the buttermilk that you get is actually low-fat or skim milk.

IM: Excuse me, I didn't know. All right?

Chef: The reason he thought that is because buttermilk is so wonderfully thick and delicious.

IM: Yeah, it is, exactly. So who would think that it was low fat?

Well, that's it. Thank you very much. Happy TED. It's so wonderful here. I love it. I love it. I love it. Thanks. Bye.

Endgame: Challenging the Masters

Endgame: Challenging the Masters

This video describes the fifty-year quest to build a computer that can defeat the world chess champion. Keywords: Deep Blue, Kasparov, Computer History Museum, Mastering the Game: A History of Computer Chess, Artificial Intelligence, algorithm, heuristic, IBM, Ken Thompson, Murray Campbell, Feng-Hsiung Hsu, David Levy.

Stem cells and Miracles 1 of 3 - Panorama BBC Documentary

Ed Miliband: Time for Labour's New Genaration

Ed Miliband: Time for Labour's New Genaration

Chanel 4: Labour's new leader, Ed Miliband, pledges to lead a "new generation"

Transcript

Labour's new leader, Ed Miliband, pledges to lead a "new generation" which will "relish" the chance to take on David Cameron. Political editor Gary Gibbon says the speech did not sink - or fly.

In his speech to the party conference in Manchester, Mr Miliband said that - despite his similarity in age with Prime Minister David Cameron - he represented a new, optimistic political generation.
"A few days ago our contest came to an end and now the real contest has begun. I relish the chance to take on David Cameron," he said.
"We may be of a similar age but in my values and ideals I am of a different and new generation. The new generation is not simply defined by age but by attitude and ideals, and there is a definite difference between us and David Cameron. And that is optimism...
"We are the optimists in politics today, so let’s be humble about the past, understand the need to change, inspire people with the vision of a good society. Let the message go out - a new generation has taken charge of Labour which is optimistic about our country, optimistic about our world, optimistic about the power of politics. We are optimistic and together we will change Britain."
'Why are you clapping?'
He used the hour-long speech - coming just three days after he beat his brother to become the Labour leader - to distance himself from some of the policies of his party when in government - most notably declaring that the invasion of Iraq was "wrong".
The criticism caused some consternation in the conference hall.
In a moment captured by ITN cameras, Harriet Harman clapped Ed Miliband's criticism of the war, his brother David Miliband asked her: "You voted for it. Why are you clapping?"
Channel 4 News Political Editor Gary Gibbon said: "David Miliband's hands stayed firmly apart. His face tenses as Ed Miliband says the words then he looks down at Harriet Harman's hands and then says the words. Harriet Harman's remarks back to David Miliband aren't audible on the tape. But his words are. He doesn't look like a man who is going to hang around in the Shadow Cabinet to me."
Tonight the elder Miliband brother left Manchester to head back to London, further fuelling speculation that he would not throw his hat into the ring for the Shadow Cabinet elections before nominations close tomorrow.
Channel 4 News FactCheck probes Ed Miliband's speech: how did he do?
He didn't sink, he didn't fly
There were some tick-box lists of policies he feared omitting, there was
no rhetorical zest but that probably wouldn’t have worked with his more
conversational style. The jokes weren’t terrific but weren’t awful either.
He didn’t sink, he didn’t fly, writes Channel 4 News Political Editor Gary
Gibbon.
But given that most of the peope in the hall didn’t vote for him and
were gasping on Saturday as the results came up on the screen, he
turned some opinion in the room. The country will have to watch and
see what he really means to do (if anything) about top salaries being
too high. He thinks the Coalition will last 5 years and he has time to
explain … but first impressions can be powerful and hard to shift.
He’ll hope he’s done enough today to combat some attempts to
paint him as an extremist and keep voters’ minds open.
Read more from Gary Gibbon's blog on Ed Miliband's speech
Cheers for future
Ed Miliband won cheers when he pledged to pursue a living wage, but fewer when he said he supported voting reform and would vote "yes" in the referendum on the Alternative Vote.
He condemned the Coalition government's approach to cutting the deficit, but said he would not oppose the Coalition for the sake of it. He said he was prepared to take difficult decisions as Labour leader.
"When I disagree with the government, as on the deficit, I will say so loud clear and take the argument to them," he said.
"But when Ken Clarke says he will look at short sentences, I will not say he is soft on crime. When Theresa May says she will review stop and search, I will not say she is soft on terrorism. Our generation must find a new way of conducting politics."
Warning shot to trade unions
He also fired a warning shot to the trade unions whose votes propelled him to victory in the leadership contest, saying he would have "no truck" with irresponsible strikes.
But Len McCluskey - the man tipped as the next leader of the Unite union, which backed Ed Miliband in the leadership contest - was caught on camera mouthing "rubbish" at this comment.
He said his aim as leader was to make the Coalition a "one-term government".
"This will require strong leadership and it won't always be easy, you won’t always like what I have got to say, but you have elected me leader and lead I will," he said.
His speech - which began with tributes to the former Labour leaders, his family, and his brother - also tackled the "Red Ed' moniker he has attracted since his election.
"Come off it," he said, to cheers from the conference hall. "Let’s start to have a grown up debate in this country about who we are, what we believe and what kind of country we want to build."
Read our special report on the Labour leadership contest in full.
At best half an answer on what kind of leader Ed Miliband will be
Ed Miliband made a confident start to his leadership here in Manchester
but those who wonder quite what kind of leader he's going to turn out to
be got at best half an answer, former Labour party communications
director Lance Price writes for Channel 4 News.
It will be remembered as the optimism speech, one that offered
confidence and faith promises in a better future. For now he has
given little detail about how that future would look if he ever
became prime minister but there is time for that. He made a lot
of use of the "new generation" – too much in my view. Not just
because a lot of voters may feel excluded from it but because
it suggests he can do without the wisdom of more experienced heads.
He didn't take many risks in what he said, although it was the
first speech from a Labour leader in a very long time to praise
"the workers".
Read more from former Labour party communications director Lance Price on Ed Miliband's speech

New UK Wind Farm to Cost newlook

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Multisource political news, world news, and entertainment news analysis by Newsy.com

New UK Wind Farm to Cost newlook.php.3B

Newsy coverage of UK offshore wind farm installation

Plannr is the up-to-the-minute, simple way to make plans with your friends.

Plannr is the up-to-the-minute, simple way to make plans with your friends.

LinkedIn Takes Groups To The Next Level With Likes, Follows And More

On the heels of reaching the 70 million member mark, professional social network LinkedIn is adding new functionality to its Groups feature on the site. Launched last August, Groups essentially allows anyone on the network to create an open forum around a specific subject or profession where users can comment and share news and information. Currently there are over 650,000 groups on LinkedIn, with the largest amassing 200,000 members (for an E-Marketing Association).

Today, Groups has undergone a bit of a facelift. LinkedIn has improved the look and feel of the Groups feature, making threaded conversations within groups similar to face-to-face professional interactions by removing the wall between original remarks and off-site content such as news articles. You can share links on Groups the same way you would on the homepage. And your profile picture will now be attached to any comment you make on a group, personalizing the experience.

You can also now roll over the images of the last three participants on any thread to see comment previews and click their profile pictures to jump to their part of the conversation. If you are new to the thread, you can easily view an entire discussion by clicking the discussion headline or “See all comments” link, which will tale you to the beginning of the discussion.

One of the significant changes in the the groups experience is the ability to curate new content and vote on shared content by liking and commenting on discussions with a “like” button. Content that is “liked” will be highlighted. You can also see who has liked a conversation to get a sense for topics that group members are gravitating toward.

Group members can now get email alerts when select members of a group participate by simply following a member within the group. The following feature was originally added to LinkedIn a few months ago. And LinkedIn will begin to highlight active group participants as “top influencers,” which designate the the member whose contributions stimulate the most participation from other group members.

LinkedIn’s principal product manager Ian McCarthy says that overall, Groups has been upgraded to be more engaging with users and a place where people can have conversations on the platform. The interface looks almost like a Facebook or FriendFeed, which isn’t surprising considering that LinkedIn has taken inspiration from other social networks for some of its features.

The network has been adding social features continuously over the past six months to broaden LinkedIn’s reach across the web, including adding a deeper Twitter integration, adding the ability to follow, and enhancing sharing options.

TigerText Media Reel

Terry Pratchett Lecture about Alzheimer's and assisted dying.

Richard Dimbleby Lecture from the Royal College of Physicians

Sir Terry Pratchett - Shaking Hands With Death

Orator: Tony Robinson
Category:
Education

CloudMagic

Want to keep jobs in USA? Bridgelux' new LED light factory shows how

Here Bill Watkins, CEO of Bridgelux, celebrates the opening of its new fab, the first new fab to open in the San Francisco Bay Area in 25 years, he says. But listen to his other comments of how government can work to keep high-tech jobs in the US instead of letting them move to China.


open_house

Yapper: Your App Maker (for mobile)

There are a bunch of companies coming along that let you make mobile apps. Here's Yapper. What does it do differently from the others? Watch the video or visit http://yapper.sachmanya.com/ For one, they make apps for more platforms than their competitors.

Remarkable young entrepreneur helps small businesses manage their money: Indinero

When you meet Jessica Mah you are struck by a few things. For one, she's young. For two, she's smart and she's business astute. Where did that come from, I asked her, soon learning her parents were entrepreneurs. She talks to me about entrepreneurship (her company was one of 36 that were birthed by YCombinator this summer) as well as explains why she developed her company. http://indinero.com

WiseDame Wins The TechCrunch Disrupt Hackathon, A Black Box For Real Life

This weekend, 450 or so developers descended upon the San Francisco Design Center to hack. The result? Some really cool/interesting/crazy stuff being made at our TechCrunch Disrupt Hackathon. On Sunday, it was time to present before our selection of judges: Cyan Bannister, Brett Bullington, Rebekah Cox, Chris Dixon, Bradley Horowitz, Dean Hovey, Michael Marquez, Christopher Poole, Joshua Schachter, and Mike Schroepfer.

After 86 60-second presentations on stage, the judges went backstage to pick the ones they felt put their time to best use last night (and/or gave the best presentation on little or no sleep).

The overall winner was WiseDame, an app that allows you to easily let people you care about know where you are. For example, perhaps you told your parents that you would be home at a certain time, but you’re going to be late for some reason, you’ll get a notification to let them know why. Perhaps your phone battery is dying and you’ll be forced off the grid — you can also send out a message to let someone know this so they don’t freak out when they can’t reach you.

This app was developed with women in mind — specifically, J’aime Ohm, the sole developer, viewed it as a “black box” recorder like they have in planes, but for real life. But you can easily see this idea being applicable in a lot of ways. (See our video with J’aime above.)

Congrats to WiseDame — they’ll get some time to present during TechCrunch Disrupt, which begins tomorrow.

Galapagos: Sharp Announces 5.5-Inch And 10.8-Inch Android Tablets (Video)

Galapagos: Sharp Announces 5.5-Inch And 10.8-Inch Android Tablets (Video)
by Serkan Toto on September 27, 2010


It took them a while, but now it seems Sharp is serious about entering the e-book and tablet business. The company announced “Galapagos”in Tokyo today [press release in English], with Galapagos being the (terrible) name both for Sharp’s cloud-based e-book service and two new Android devices supporting that service.

The smaller one, the “mobile type”, has a 5.5-inch LCD screen (1,024 × 600 resolution) that’s optimized for displaying paperback books (it will be available in red and black). It also comes with a trackball to scroll through pages.



The other model, the Galapagos “home type”, misses said track ball (you’ll turn pages just like you do on the iPad). It has a 10.8-inch LCD screen (1,366 × 800) for magazine content formatted across a two-page spread. By way of comparison: The iPad has a 9.7-inch LCD screen featuring 1,024×768 resolution.



Both Galapagos devices will have Wi-Fi (IEEE 802.11b/g) on board. Buyers will be able to surf the web, view “PC documents”, play games (via apps), and share comments and recommendations with other owners via a pre-installed “social app”. That’s the reason why Sharp, on its Japanese website, advertises the devices as “media tablets” – not just e-book readers.

The Galapagos e-bookstore service is scheduled to start in Japan in December. Sharp says that buyers of the reader can expect a total of 30,000 newspapers, magazines, and books at time of launch.

The company has yet to announce further details (more specs (which Android version?), prices, exact release dates, international availability). It expects to move about 1 million units next year. We’ll keep you posted.

Here is Sharp’s official promo video (it’s in Japanese, but that doesn’t matter that much in this case):

TavernInTheSkyAndSea

Getting my Mac pimped out with SSD, more RAM, big hard drive

I uploaded a YouTube video - Getting my Mac pimped out with SSD, more RAM, big hard drive

If you go down to Los Angeles, you can get EVERYTHING pimped out. Some people get pimped out cars, or motorcycles. Others get plastic surgery. But, if you are a geek, you'll want to visit MCE Technologies and get your Mac pimped out with a new SSD...

Getting my Mac pimped out with SSD, more RAM, big hard drive

Jim Henson on Arsenio Hall

This is one of Jim Hensons last interviews. I finally found it after poring through hours of tape! Nice little visit by Kevin Clash and Clifford as well. That's CLIFF. ORD. You'll see.

Rove interviews Kevin Clash - Elmo

Obama Gets Blindsided

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Meet the Depressed
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Tea Party

So much for the screeners doing their job. Har.

BBC Report on the RAF's Reaper Unmanned Aerial Vehicle

Video – Unedited John Stewart Interview on the O’Reilly Factor

I found the interview to be a complete waste of time, nothing was said, nothing was learned , 20 min of one's life will never get back if you dare to watch.

The Disrupt Hackathon Movie (And Slideshow) TCTV

Picture this: late night coding, new and tenuous liaisons, the driving desire to create something great and just a dash of booze. No, I’m not talking about that movie, I’m talking about the pressure cooker that is TechCrunch Disrupt’s Hackathon.
With less than 4 hours until show time, the programmers, designers and entrepreneurs have been slaving away (or at least that’s the expectation) all night to make something stage-worthy and coherent. Starting at Sunday 11:00am EST, you can watch the frenzy as the teams deliver 60-second presentations in rapid-fire succession to our panel of expert judges. However, before we hurtle to the triumphant, disoriented end, let’s savor the blood, sweat and Redbull: please enjoy this trailer (sorry, I didn’t have time to find a creepy soundtrack). See video

If Stimulus Works, Why is Unemployment So High?

Transcript

PAUL JAY, SENIOR EDITOR, TRNN: Welcome back to The Real News Network. I'm Paul Jay in Washington. One of the big debates in the coming November elections is about the stimulus plan. Did it have any real effect? Was it just a waste of money? According to certain forces, the Republicans and libertarians and other economists, stimulus just doesn't work. The multiplier effect, they say, is a myth. And their proof? Well, just look at the unemployment numbers. The Obama administration thought or said that unemployment would be down around 7 percent by now. And we actually haven't seen much of a change. It's still hovering around 10 percent, the official rate. Unofficially, or at least if you include all the people who have given up looking for work, it could be as high as 20 percent. So does all that mean stimulus just doesn't work, and leave it to the private sector? Joining us now to talk about this idea is Bob Pollin. He's the codirector of the PERI institute, Amherst, Massachusetts. And he teaches there. Thanks for joining us, Bob.

ROBERT POLLIN, CODIRECTOR, POLITICAL ECONOMY RESEARCH INSTITUTE: Thank you. Happy to be on again.
JAY: So, again, you've written a paper called Austerity Is Not the Solution, and in that, if I understand correctly, you think stimulus is part of a solution. So what do you make of this argument, the proof is in the pudding, stimulus just didn't do anything?
POLLIN: First of all, you're obviously correct that the Obama administration did say that, okay, you guys, let's pass this stimulus, and by mid-2010, around now, unemployment's going to be around 7.5 percent. So that is the single strongest piece of evidence that the stimulus program failed. Obviously, the people that said that on behalf of Obama were engaging in a bit of happy talk. They of course didn't know that unemployment would really be down at 7.5 percent, and it was a mistake for them to have said it. But, anyway, that's that. Now, why hasn't the stimulus brought unemployment down? There's a bunch of factors, but let me just point to the two biggest ones. The first one is the magnitude of the recession and the financial collapse is so severe that basically we saw the evaporation of about $13 trillion in household wealth over the course of two years, over the course of the recession. And that was a loss of about 20 percent—households on average lost 20 percent of their wealth. Now, when you experience that level of wealth decline, you also then tend to stop spending money to the same extent. And some of the research tells us that, okay, for every $1.00 of wealth that you lose, you're going to spend about $0.03 to $0.05 less every year. And so, as a result of that $13 trillion evaporation in wealth, we would expect that households are going to spend about $300-400 billion less money. So that's almost half the size of the stimulus right there. So that's step one. Now, step two, okay, we can say, okay, that's ancient history; the wealth was just part of a bubble anyway, and now people are adjusting. Let's say that's true. Now, the second part is that the financial markets are completely locked up. Now, people say, okay, yes, but monetary policy's very, very loose. Yes, monetary policy is loose, in this sense that the Federal Reserve has set the interest rate, its policy interest rate (called the federal funds rate), at essentially zero. That means, though, that's a rate only at which private banks borrow among each other. So private banks can borrow and lend at basically free money back and forth, and they can get it from the Fed, basically, for free. The problem is that they're sitting on that money. The problem is they're now sitting on this unprecedented $1.1 trillion in cash reserves. That money isn't being injected into the economy.
JAY: Why?
POLLIN: Why? Well, because both on the parts of borrowers and lenders, they don't see the advantage, because the markets are so weak, so they don't see—well, why should I gamble, why should I risk my money in this lousy economy? So what—the notion that we have of very loose monetary policy is extremely misleading, because while we have a zero percent interest rate for banks, we have relatively high interest rates for business borrowers, especially small business borrowers. And so they don't see any advantage in borrowing money to put it into investments and hiring people. So the real thing that we need in addition to a fiscal stimulus is—I won't even call it monetary policy. Let's call it credit policy. It very aggressively lowers the risks for borrowers and lenders to get the money out there, and then taxes these what we could call excess reserves of the banks so they stop sitting on the money and start doing their job, which is to go out and find productive activities to lend money and to support people that want to invest and create jobs.
JAY: Well, if I was sitting on a several trillion dollar pile of cash, maybe another strategy would be, let's have austerity and let the economy crash and burn, and then I'll buy everything up for a song. So, in other words, stay liquid and preach austerity.
POLLIN: Well, yes. That is another option. That doesn't look like a very rosy option to me.
JAY: Well, it's pretty rosy if you're sitting on the three-quarters or a trillion dollars.
POLLIN: Yeah, yeah, but it's also a very high-risk option because, as we were discussing earlier, the austerity—. Look, nobody really knows, if we really go through austerity, like they're going through in Greece, that likely means deflation. Deflation means that the value of debts go up. That means it's harder for people to pay off their debts. That means we could spin into another financial crisis as a result of austerity. That is a very real possibility. Chairman of the Fed, Bernanke, is aware of that possibility—not that he necessarily knows what to do about it, but he's aware of it. So what you say is true. It's possible. But it carries extreme risks, and beside which it certainly doesn't benefit hundreds of millions of ordinary people that aren't sitting on $1 trillion.
JAY: I'm only speaking on behalf of my investment bank, 'cause we're sitting on so much dough. So let's break down the stimulus just a little bit more. A big piece of the stimulus went to state governments. And one of the arguments is is that maybe unemployment didn't come down further, but it would have been much worse, 'cause there would have been much bigger layoffs in the state governments and municipalities. I mean, is that true? But also the stimulus running out—aren't we about to then see that?
POLLIN: Yeah, absolutely true. Again I can cite my own employer right here, the University of Massachusetts. I was sitting on our university budget committee, and we were about to start layoffs. Then we got a $50 million check from the federal government, and that allowed us to prevent layoffs. Now, there wasn't any new hiring that was done. So you can say, well, wait a minute, the stimulus didn't do anything; where are all the jobs? Well, the jobs are this term that's become kind of a term of derision, jobs preserved, not jobs created. But those jobs that are preserved are real. Again, I know it firsthand from what went on at UMass. I know about people who were afraid 'cause they were about to lose their jobs and didn't lose them. Now, what we faced at UMass, and at hundreds of other institutions around the country like UMass with the money running out, is to come right back to that conversation we had two years ago and say, well, now is when we have to start the layoffs. And that's what's being experienced in state and local governments, and not just in those institutions but in the communities where those institutions reside, like right here in Amherst, Massachusetts, in western Massachusetts. We will start to see a downspinning of the economy if there are significant layoffs, if there isn't another stimulus to help get us out of this recession.
JAY: Now, part of the other argument about stimulus is tax cuts versus direct spending. I think 24 percent of the Obama stimulus of, what, $787 billion, 24 percent was in tax cuts. What is the argument, tax cuts versus direct spending, on creating jobs?
POLLIN: Well, you know, the problem right now with tax cuts is that both businesses and households, again, they're hard up, so if you give them a tax cut, yes, they'll have more money, but they're using the money to pay off their debts, which is okay. They're using the money to keep their homes, as opposed to going underwater and losing their homes—very important. Businesses are keeping the money to try to build up their reserves. All okay. But none of those things add up to more spending in the economy. So the strength of direct spending measures is that it is actually injecting spending for businesses into the private economy. And until we see evidence of major increases in the level of spending in the economy, then it's going to be very difficult to convince businesses to invest on their own. And what you'd need is that positive momentum where the government's spending, gives opportunities for businesses, creates jobs, and then that creates this positive image. And then the investor says, look, actually, things seem to be getting better; it's time for us to invest, time for us to expand. That's how you get out of a recession, including a severe recession.
JAY: So you're arguing for a bigger stimulus.
POLLIN: Well, I definitely think we need to continue the stimulus, and I think we should scale the level of the stimulus relative to the problem so that, for example, state and local governments today face about $100 billion in budget shortfalls. Now, either they are going to get the money from the federal government or they're going to retrench by $100 billion. So rather than, like, scaling the stimulus relative to GDP, let's say we can't let those $100 billion in cuts to state and local governments go through. The federal government has to continue to support them. Obviously, the result is political posturing around unemployment insurance. You can't let people who are unemployed, the ones who are suffering the consequences of Wall Street hyperspeculation, you can't let them bear the brunt of the crisis. At the very least, we have to continue unemployment insurance. So, again, the number is the number that's needed so that the unemployed people don't lose their benefits. Those are the ways that I think we calculate the level of the stimulus.
JAY: So in the next segment of our interview, we'll talk about another piece of this argument. Peter Peterson, a well-known billionaire who is one of the prime or leading advocates for austerity and getting the debt-to-GDP ratio into what he calls a more manageable amount, says that it's only a matter of time until other countries simply lose faith in the dollar, starting with China and the rest of the global economy; US loses its position as the reserve currency, which is a big advantage; and the whole thing starts to unravel. So join us for the next segment of our interview with Bob Pollin on The Real News Network.

Russia Renews Claim in 'Race for the Arctic'

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Multisource political news, world news, and entertainment news analysis by Newsy.com

Russia Renews Claim in 'Race for the Arctic'

Newsy: Russia is renewing its claim to the resource-rich arctic following a 2-day conference in Moscow

WITN: The World (By Which We Mean Major US Cities) Is His Oyster

A few months ago, Sarah wrote about group-buying travel site Jetsetter.com, arguing that it solves a ‘big problem’ in hotel booking. After the post went live, she received plenty of feedback suggesting other sites to look at, but one came up time and time again: Oyster.com.

Founded in 2008 by Elie Seidman and Ariel Charytan, Oyster is – essentially – a curated version of Trip Advisor. Focusing on Hotels in major US cities, Oyster sends real-life reviewers to each property in the hope that users will come to trust a professional editorial voice over the crowd-sourced opinions of user-generated rivals.

Now the NY-based company is about to start raising a series B round. We invited Seidman to join us on this week’s episode of ‘Why Is This News?’ to explain what the funding is going to be used for, and also to defend a costly editorial operation in a market where user generated views are king.

(After which we spent five minutes discussing room service)

Video below.

TALKS - David Merrill demos Siftables

About this talk

MIT grad student David Merrill demos Siftables -- cookie-sized, computerized tiles you can stack and shuffle in your hands. These future-toys can do math, play music, and talk to their friends, too. Is this the next thing in hands-on learning?


Transcript

I want to start out by asking you to think back to when you were a kid, playing with blocks. As you figured out how to reach out and grasp, pick them up and move them around, you were actually learning how to think and solve problems by understanding and manipulating spatial relationships. Spatial reasoning is deeply connected to how we understand a lot of the world around us.

So, as a computer scientist inspired by this utility of our interactions with physical objects -- along with my adviser Pattie, and my collaborator Jeevan Kalanithi -- I started to wonder -- what if when we used a computer, instead of having this one mouse cursor that was a like a digital fingertip moving around a flat desktop, what if we could reach in with both hands and grasp information physically, arranging it the way we wanted? This question was so compelling that we decided to explore the answer, by building Siftables.

In a nutshell, a Siftable is an interactive computer the size of a cookie. They're able to be moved around by hand, they can sense each other, they can sense their motion, and they have a screen and a wireless radio. Most importantly, they're physical, so like the blocks, you can move them just by reaching out and grasping. And Siftables are an example of a new ecosystem of tools for manipulating digital information. And as these tools become more physical, more aware of their motion, aware of each other, and aware of the nuance of how we move them, we can start to explore some new and fun interaction styles. So, I'm going to start with some simple examples.

This Siftable is configured to show video, and if I tilt it in one direction, it'll roll the video this way, if I tilt it the other way it rolls it backwards. And these interactive portraits are aware of each other. So if I put them next to each other, they get interested. If they get surrounded, they notice that too, they might get a little flustered. And they can also sense their motion and tilt.

One of the interesting implications on interaction, we started to realize, was that we could use everyday gestures on data, like pouring a color the way we might pour a liquid. So in this case, we've got three Siftables configured to be paint buckets and I can use them to pour color into that central one, where they get mixed. If we overshoot, we can pour a little bit back.

There are also some neat possibilities for education, like language, math and logic games where we want to give people the ability to try things quickly, and view the results immediately. So here I'm -- (Applause) This is a Fibonacci sequence that I'm making with a simple equation program.

Here we have a word game that's kind of like a mash-up between Scrabble and Boggle. Basically, in every round you get a randomly assigned letter on each Siftable, and as you try to make words it checks against a dictionary. Then, after about 30 seconds it reshuffles, and you have a new set of letters and new possibilities to try.

(Applause) Thank you. (Applause)

So these are some kids that came on a field trip to the Media Lab, and I managed to get them to try it out, and shoot a video. They really loved it. And, one of the interesting things about this kind of application is that you don't have to give people many instructions. All you have to say is, "Make words," and they know exactly what to do.

So here's another few people trying it out. That's our youngest beta tester, down there on the right. Turns out, all he wanted to do was to stack the Siftables up. So to him, they were just blocks. Now, this is an interactive cartoon application. And we wanted to build a learning tool for language learners. And this is Felix, actually. And he can bring new characters into the scene, just by lifting the Siftables off the table that have that character shown on them. Here, he's bringing the sun out.

Video: The sun is rising.

David Merrill: Now he's brought a tractor into the scene.

Video: The orange tractor. Good job! Yeah!

So by shaking the Siftables and putting them next to each other he can make the characters interact --

Video: Woof!

DM: inventing his own narrative.

Video: Hello!

DM: It's an open-ended story, and he gets to decide how it unfolds.

Video: Fly away cat.

DM: So, the last example I have time to show you today is a music sequencing and live performance tool that we've built recently, in which Siftables act as sounds like lead, bass and drums. Each of these has four different variations, you get to choose which one you want to use. And you can inject these sounds into a sequence that you can assemble into the pattern that you want. And you inject it by just bumping up the sound Siftable against a sequence Siftable. There are effects that you can control live, like reverb and filter. You attach it to a particular sound and then tilt to adjust it. And then, overall effects like tempo and volume that apply to the entire sequence. So let's have a look.

Video: (Music)

DM: We'll start by putting a lead into two sequence Siftables, arrange them into a series, extend it, add a little more lead. Now I put a bassline in.

Video: (Music) DM: Now I'll put some percussion in. Video: (Music)

DM: And now I'll attach the filter to the drums, so I can control the effect live.

Video: (Music)

DM: I can speed up the whole sequence by tilting the tempo one way or the other.

Video: (Music)

DM: And now I'll attach the filter to the bass for some more expression.

Video: (Music)

DM: I can rearrange the sequence while it plays. So I don't have to plan it out in advance, but I can improvise, making it longer or shorter as I go. And now, finally, I can fade the whole sequence out using the volume Siftable, tilted to the left.

(Applause) Thank you.

So, as you can see, my passion is for making new human-computer interfaces that are a better match to the way our brains and bodies work. And today, I had time to show you one point in this new design space, and a few of the possibilities that we're working to bring out of the laboratory. So the thought I want to leave you with is that we're on the cusp of this new generation of tools for interacting with digital media, that are going to bring information into our world on our terms. Thank you very much. I look forward to talking with all of you.

(Applause)

Green@Google: Vinod Khosla

Vinod Khosla visits Google's Mountain View, CA headquarters to discuss renewable energy and the path to real impact. This event took place on April 22, 2009, as part of the Green@Google series.

Vinod Khosla will provide a look at renewable energy - where we are (and some of the exciting technologies out there) and where we need to be, as well as the key criteria necessary to differentiate real solutions from niche opportunities. His focus is on "Chindia" solutions - how to identify them, the issues with forecasting them, the importance of cost, scaling, and carbon trajectory, and the policy prescriptions that can help drive these.

Vinod Khosla was a co-founder of Daisy Systems and founding Chief Executive Officer of Sun Microsystems where he pioneered open systems and commercial RISC processors. Sun was funded by Kleiner Perkins and in 1986 Vinod switched sides and joined Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (KPCB). In 2004, driven by the need for flexibility and a desire to be more experimental, to fund sometimes imprudent "science experiments," and to take on both "for profit" and for "social impact" ventures, he formed Khosla Ventures. Khosla Ventures focuses on both traditional venture capital technology investments and clean technology ventures. Social ventures include affordable housing, microfinance among others.
類別：

Talks - Jamie Oliver's TED Prize wish: Teach every child about food

About this talk

Sharing powerful stories from his anti-obesity project in Huntington, W. Va., TED Prize winner Jamie Oliver makes the case for an all-out assault on our ignorance of food.

Forget The Facebook Phone, Here’s Mozilla Seabird — An Open Web Concept Phone

Much as been made of the so-called Facebook Phone. While Facebook is still being vague about their ideas for this (but at least they’re no longer denying it), it seems likely that anything they do will be based on Google’s Android platform. And INQ may offer the first of these starting next year. But Facebook isn’t the only web company thinking about phones and Android. Mozilla is as well. Or at least, their community is. Today on the Mozilla Labs blog, they’ve unveiled Seabird, an Android-based concept phone built around the ideals of the Open Web.

The concept, created by Billy May, looks amazing. The shape is a little odd (sort of like an upside down raindrop), but it boasts an 8 megapixel camera, dual side pico projectors, wireless charging, and an embedded Bluetooth dongle. The dongle acts as both an earpiece and a controller for the phone. While the pico projectors allow you to display a virtual keyboard on a tabletop for typing.

Would any of this actually work? Who knows. Some of this technology is certainly a few years out. But still, as a concept, this is pretty great.

As for Mozilla actually making such a device, in a FAQ below, this is addressed:

Does Mozilla have plans to produce a mobile phone?

No. Mozilla produces Firefox for Mobile, the popular Firefox browser for mobile phone systems such as Nokia Maemo and Android.

Will You Try My Paper iPhone App?

I see a lot of demos for a lot of apps. Today, in particular, I sat through a dozen back-to-back demos for startups launching at Disrupt next week. Some of them really blew me away. But none of them quite compare to the unexpected demo I got after my long day when I walked into a Palo Alto CVS to buy some toothpaste.

As I was waiting in the checkout line, a very polite Stanford college student named Parth Bhakta asked me if I would be willing to test out a prototype for an augmented reality mobile app. I was tired, but I am a supporter of higher education.

When I looked down at his hands, however, instead of an iPhone, he held a few pieces of paper with wireframe drawings in pencil. This was his app. I was supposed to pretend the paper was an iPhone screen and press the hand-drawn buttons as I shuffled through the flow. The idea is that you could point your camera at a magazine rack and get digital versions of the magazines, which you could preview on your iPhone and then purchase individual articles or the entire magazine. It made a lot more sense when he did it (see video).

Now, there is nothing wrong with getting your ideas down on paper or paper prototypes to work out the kinks before you start coding. But you might want to wait until you have an actual working app on an iPhone before testing it out in the wild and asking for feedback from normal people. To be fair, Bhakta was only following his assignment, which was to make a paper prototype of an app that could enhance the experience of standing in line and test it on potential users. So I blame his professor for sending him on this hapless mission. (There is really no way to test an iPhone app on paper, the buttons don’t do anything). The best part: the course is called “Introduction to Human-Computer Interaction Design.” I didn’t want to break it to him, but he was missing the computer part.

Austerity Not a Solution

Austerity Not a Solution

Robert Pollin: Stimulus and debt not creating inflation

Transcript

PAUL JAY, SENIOR EDITOR, TRNN: Welcome to The Real News Network. I'm Paul Jay in Washington. As the November elections close in on us, the biggest debate, of course, is about the economy. And we're told the following. Number one, a higher deficit and more stimulus will cause inflation. It will cause business confidence to decline. Fiscal stimulus policies never work anyway. And the most important, at least we're told so: a big fiscal train wreck is on the way. So does all this bear out under study and investigation? What are the facts? Well, Bob Pollin, who's the codirector of the PERI institute in Amherst, Massachusetts, says more or less none of these are true, and we're going to work our way through these main arguments with Bob. And Bob now joins us from Amherst and the PERI institute. Thanks, Bob.

ROBERT POLLIN, CODIRECTOR, POLITICAL ECONOMY RESEARCH INSTITUTE: Thank you very much for having me, Paul.
JAY: Okay. So we're going to do—for the audience's sake, knowing where we're headed here, we're going to do four segments here, where we're going to take on the four main arguments about what's wrong with higher deficits and why increased stimulus is the wrong thing to do. So argument number one: large fiscal deficits will cause high interest rates, large government debts, and inflation. So, Bob, that sounds like almost a truism—we're told, at least. What do you say?
POLLIN: That one is the easiest argument to contend with, because right now the long-term interest rates on government bonds, for example the interest rate on a five-year Treasury bond, when somebody essentially lends money to the government over a course of five years, that interest rate is about 2.5 percent, which is historically low. It's rarely ever been that low. So, contrary to the idea that the interest rates have to go up when the government borrows a lot of money, the interest rates have gone significantly down. Now, the reason why they think it should go up is a simple supply and demand story, which is, if the government is asking for people to lend them money, more and more people, so the government essentially is saying, well, we're desperate for money, and then the borrowers say, oh, good, well, we've got you over a barrel, so that we'll just keep raising the interest rate, 'cause, you know, you're going to need to borrow more, well, that has not happened at all. The interest rate, as I said, is very low, and as a result of that, thinking over the five-year period where the government pays back its debt, the actual debt burden to government debt as a share of the economy or as a share of the government is correspondingly very low.
JAY: So why aren't the interest rates bonds on going up? I mean, if I understand it correctly, the debt-to-GDP ratio now in the US is about 10 percent, which is at historic levels. The last time time it was anything close to this was during World War II. Why isn't this happening?
POLLIN: Right. The fiscal deficit as a share of the GDP, the amount the government is borrowing as a share of the whole-economy GDP (and you're right), is at around 10 percent, and it hadn't been that high since World War II. Now, so, yeah, it's an interesting question, because, yeah, read 95 textbooks, they will all tell us that the interest rates have to go up when the government borrows so much money. Well, the real reason it's happened is precisely, ironically, because of the crisis itself. Because of the crisis itself, all the world's bondholders, the people that actually play seriously in the global financial markets, are very risk-adverse. They don't want to take big risks anyplace, and they see the US government securities, US government bonds, as the safest asset. So, contrary to what one would expect, what has happened is, even though the US is where the crisis originated (the crisis originated on Wall Street), as a result of that, the US gets this bargain where we get to put out government bonds, and all the world's big money players are saying, let's lap those up because they're safe—they're a lot safer than, for example, government bonds in Europe. Now, government bonds in Europe might have been considered, well, the next safest place, until Europe had its own crisis, which in financial market terms is more severe now than the US crisis. So that's the main reason why the US really is almost getting a free ride as regards this big government borrowing.
JAY: The traditional argument is that when the Fed and the federal government start pushing money into the economy, quote-unquote, by "printing it", even though I suppose they don't have to actually print paper money anymore to do this, that these big debts and this kind of push of money—they call it quantitative easing, I think, which is another one of these wonderful terms to kind of hide what's going on—it necessarily has to lead to inflation. And part of the argument here is that sooner or later this inflation has to kick in. Is that true or not?
POLLIN: Well, again, it hasn't kicked in. And, again, the real problem today is not inflation. It's deflation. The real problem today is that prices are going to keep going down. And when that happens, actual debt burdens go up, because if you owe $100 that you have to pay off next year and prices go down, that means the value of $100 has gone up. That means the value of your debt, the $100 of your debt has gone up. So deflation is a huge danger, because we already have an unstable financial market, and it will become still more unstable if deflation occurs. Inflation isn't happening. Now, why isn't it happening? Some of the deficit hawks actually acknowledge that there was never an argument for this. And, for example, Martin Feldstein at Harvard acknowledges that this has never been a legitimate argument. In order for there to be inflation, there needs to be some pressure in the real side of the economy. That is, there needs to be either labor is able to push up their wages or businesses have the power to push up prices. But if the markets are soft, people are lucky to sell things at even lower prices. So there is no inflationary pressure in the economy, and there actually never was a legitimate argument as to why you would get inflationary pressures during a recession. Now, we did have inflationary pressures in a recession in the 1970s, but that was because of oil prices shooting up. If oil prices shoot up again, okay, we may get inflation, but that will be because oil prices have shot up, not because of the fiscal deficit.
JAY: You wrote a paper recently called Austerity is Not a Solution. If what you're saying—and it seems, you know, rather obvious—there's no inflation, then deflation seems to be the order of the day—then why the push for austerity?
POLLIN: Well, the push for austerity starts with the simple fact where you began, you know, the interview, which is that the fiscal deficit is large. There's no debate about whether the fiscal deficit is large. It's 10 percent of GDP. Again, it hasn't been this high since 1942, and that was when we were fighting World War II. So the fiscal deficit is large. So it's fair for people to be concerned about fiscal deficits of that order of magnitude. But they forget the next step. The reason the fiscal deficit is so large is because the crisis is so large. The crisis caused by Wall Street, by the Wall Street hyperspeculation and collapse of financial markets, meant that the economy was spinning into what would have been another Great Depression. The fiscal deficit stimulated the economy to keep us out of a 1930s-level depression. Now we're still in a very severe recession, with unemployment officially at 10 percent—and a better measure would be close to 20 percent. Another argument is, okay, well, you tried the deficit spending, and it didn't work, so let's go backwards and let's go back to, you know, fiscal stability, let's go back to a balanced budget, because obviously the deficit spending didn't cure the recession. I also think that argument is wrong. The fiscal deficit has worked to some degree, but the fiscal deficit had a lot to fight with given the severity of the recession. So if we go back and say, well, let's impose austerity—and let's be specific about what austerity means. I mean, sitting at a public institution right now, the University of Massachusetts, it would mean hundreds of people at my institution will get laid off. And when they get laid off, then they lose their homes, then they stop spending money in the community. That means more jobs are lost. That's what austerity means in real life, and that's no solution. That's why the title of my article is Austerity is Not a Solution.
JAY: Okay. Well, in the next segment of our interview, let's talk another piece of the argument, which is maybe all of this is true, they say (these are the people saying we do need austerity), but the global economic system is so fragile, there's such a lack of confidence in the ability of governments to someday repay these debts—and they point to Greece and Spain—and sometimes, people say, sooner or later, the US could be in a similar "basketcase", they like to say. So in the next segment of our interview, how real is that danger? And what is the whole question of business confidence? Please join us for the next segment of our interview with Bob Pollin on The Real News Network.
END OF TRANSCRIPT

Savory Cheddar Biscotti

Mark Bittman adds cheese, herbs and spices to biscotti, which need not be sweet.

What I Didn't Find in Africa

OPINION | OP-ED
What I Didn't Find in Africa
For Op-Ed's 40th anniversary, former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV recounted the story behind his Op-Ed from June 2003 and the series of events that followed its publication.

Sony Raises Camera Feats to New Level

September 22, 2010
Sony Raises Camera Feats to New Level
By DAVID POGUE
When it made up the term “S.L.R.,” the technology terminology industry was not operating at its peak creative powers.

An S.L.R. is one of those big, black, professional-style cameras. They do things that make pocket cameras look like pretenders: they can blur the background, take lower-light shots without a flash and shoot with no shutter lag (the delay after you press the shutter button). And thanks to enormous light sensors and lenses, the photos just look fantastic.

But ouch — that name. Even if you know what S.L.R. stands for (“single-lens reflex”), you have no idea what it means. “Single lens” is misleading, because the whole point of these cameras is that you can attach dozens of different lenses. And to most people, “reflex” refers only to wincing when they see the price.

Kidding aside, historically, there was a point to the term “single-lens reflex” (yes, I use Wikipedia, too). It describes the mirrors and prisms inside that bend the light from the lens to your eye.

Recently, a new generation of mirrorless cameras have hit the market. They look and work like S.L.R.’s — interchangeable lenses, no shutter lag and so on — but they’re smaller and they capture high-definition video. (Since they’re not technically S.L.R.’s anymore, Popular Photography magazine proposes the term I.L.C. for them, for “interchangeable-lens compacts.” Let’s run with it.)

Sony’s new Alpha A55 camera, available in October ($850 with 3X zoom lens), is an S.L.R. — sorry, an I.L.C. — that changes a bunch of games at once. It accepts any of Sony’s existing 33 Alpha lenses, but its radically different guts give it talents no other camera has had before.

This will require a paragraph or two of technical slogging, but you’ll feel rosy and smart when it’s over.

In a typical S.L.R., light from the lens hits a mirror, which bounces light up to your eye and onto a focusing sensor. The blessing: you see what the lens sees. The curse: when you take the actual photo, the mirror has to flip out of the way so that the light falls on the main image sensor (the “film”). For that fraction of a second, the camera can’t focus. If someone or something is hurtling toward you, a typical S.L.R. may have trouble keeping rapid-fire shots in focus.

That’s also why most S.L.R.’s can’t change focus when you’re shooting video. If you start filming on something close up, and then pan to something across the room, the video goes out of focus.

Still with me?

All right. Sony’s A55 camera adopts a new spin on a decades-old photographic idea: the mirror is translucent. It splits light between the focusing sensor and the image sensor — all the time. The mirror never has to flip up to take a picture, so the autofocus never goes blind when you take a shot.

As a result, the camera can shoot an incredible 10 shots a second, refocusing all the way. Sony says no other camera in the world can do that.

The camera also shoots beautiful, high-definition video — and it can change focus as you pan the camera, gorgeously and cinematically.

Very few S.L.R.’s, or even I.L.C.’s, can do that trick, refocusing while filming.

But the Sony doesn’t just change focus in video. It changes focus fast. According to Sony, the A55 is the first camera — or camcorder, for that matter — to use what’s called phase-detection focusing for video. (Other cameras, and all camcorders, use a slower system called contrast detection.) That’s only possible because, in this camera, the autofocus sensor can see the scene all the time.

Now, to pull off this unusual design, something had to go, and it was the optical viewfinder. When you hold this camera to your eye, you’re basically looking at a tiny TV screen in the eyepiece, rather then peering out through the glass of the lens. In other words, it’s an electronic viewfinder.

Photographers usually pooh-pooh electronic viewfinders, because no screen is as sharp as real life. But Sony’s viewfinder is extremely big, bright and sharp (how does 1.4 million pixels strike you?). And having a screen in the eyepiece gives you all kinds of advantages you don’t get when you’re just looking through glass.

For example, you can see exactly what effect your settings will have before you take the shot (white balance, exposure, focus, and so on). You can summon digital overlays in the viewfinder, including a horizon level. You can magnify the scene up to 15 times for precise manual focusing. You can play back your photos right in the viewfinder — a rare, surprisingly handy feature, especially when you’re experimenting with settings or reviewing your photos in bright sunlight (which washes out the screen somewhat).

You can shoot video with the camera to your face, too, a more stable way of holding the camera. (Most S.L.R.’s require you to look at the screen on the back to shoot video.)

The best part is that these gee-whiz features are part of a generally terrific camera. It has Sony’s Sweep Panorama mode, where you swing your arm in an arc as the camera snaps away — and then, two seconds later, the camera displays an automatically assembled, stunning 260-degree panoramic photo. The quality is fantastic, although it’s auto-mode only.

The A55 also creates high-dynamic range photos automatically — a neat trick by which it restores detail from areas that are too bright or too dark by superimposing three photos with different exposures.

There’s a built-in stereo microphone for use with your video, plus a mike jack. The button placement is excellent — especially the dedicated Video Record button (no switching modes when filmic inspiration strikes). The tilting, rotating, flip-out screen lets you shoot over your head, at knee level or even self-portraits. You can also fold the screen flush against the camera (with either screen in, for protection, or screen out).

I was so confident in the A55’s ability not to muff photo ops that I did a risky thing: I used it as the sole recording device for my son’s one and only sixth birthday party. Happy ending — the ratio of winner shots to losers was amazingly high. Even the low-light candle-blowing moment looks fantastic in video, like a Scorsese shot it. (Have a look at the sample photos that accompany this column.

Now, there are a few flies in the ointment. That 10-frames-a-second mode requires a lot of light; indoors, these superburst-mode photos are sometimes too dim, and you can’t adjust the aperture in this mode.

The camera is small and light compared with true S.L.R.’s, but it’s still much bulkier than, for example, Sony’s own minuscule NEX-5 (the smallest of this type in the world, although you give up a lot of features — like a flash, a mode dial and a wide choice of lenses).

There are two separate playback modes, one each for stills and videos, and it’s annoying to have to switch between them. Battery life is about 350 shots a charge, which could be better. And some of the fancy modes (like high dynamic range) require a lot of processing after each shot, during which time you can’t use the camera.

Still, this camera takes pictures and videos as well as anything in its price range — and, in some cases, better than far more expensive equipment. (A sibling camera, the A33, is available now for $100 less. It gives you 7 frames a second instead of 10, and 14 megapixels instead of 16; it also does away with the GPS chip that tags each photo with your location.)

Even more exciting, it’s thrilling to see Sony finding its mojo again, introducing radical new design ideas that, in this case, really advance the state of the art.

In other words, maybe the right term for this camera is neither S.L.R. nor I.L.C. Maybe it’s really an E.S.F. (exciting step forward).

E-mail: pogue@nytimes.com


From readers' comment:

Nice try, Mr. Pogue, but this is article is obviously written by a non-photographer trying to review a camera after limited use and reading the new product's press packet sent by Sony publicists. I have no doubt that this camera is a fine camera, as most recent model cameras by Sony, Nikon, Pentax and Canon are -- particularly those models which are a notch above consumer level. However, mirrorless or light splitting designs are not new and offer a well known set of technical compromises.

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