Rich Walsh's posterous http://gan-ainm.com Most recent posts at Rich Walsh's posterous posterous.com Sun, 01 Jan 2012 12:26:00 -0800 My Favorite Songs of 2011 http://gan-ainm.com/my-favorite-songs-of-2011 http://gan-ainm.com/my-favorite-songs-of-2011

Here's my personal list of favorite songs for the year in order by artist or group.

I restricted the list to 24 songs and, like last year, to only one per recording, which was difficult at times though I felt like I didn't listen to - or was as engaged with - as many recordings in 2011 as prior years.

The List:

 * Adele - Rumour Has It  [Since this was deservedly the year of Adele, I felt I needed a song for the list and this is the one I grew to like best.]

 * Beirut - Santa Fe

 * The Black Keys - Lonely Boy

 * Bon Iver - Wash.  [Though Holocene seemed to get the most play, I liked this song and Minnesota, WI more.]

 * The Civil Wars - Barton Hollow

 * Coldplay - Paradise

 * Cults - Go Outside

 * Danger Mouse & Daniele Luppi (with Norah Jones) - Black  [I chose this over Two Against One because it was so effectively used at the end of the awesome Breaking Bad season finale, but both songs are great. Season's Trees is also a fine song from the Rome recording.]

 * The Decemberists - June Hymn  [This was easily my favorite recording of the year so lots of choices but this was my favorite over Rox in the Box and This Is Why We Fight.]

 * Drake (with Rihanna) - Take Care  [Headlines is a pretty damn good song too.]

 * Fleet Foxes - Grown Ocean

 * Florence + The Machine - Lover to Lover

 * Foster the People - Helena Beat  [I liked this song as well as Call It What You Want more than the much bigger hit Pumped Up Kicks but they're all infectiously good.]

 * The Head and the Heart - Lost in My Mind

 * Iron & Wine - Tree by the River

 * M83 - Midnight City

 * Metronomy - The Look  [I enjoyed The Bay a lot as well.]

 * My Morning Jacket - Holding on to Black Metal

 * PJ Harvey - Let England Shake  [I know PJ Harvey has been recording for a while now but I really feel like I don't listen to her enough and this song rocks.]

 * The Roots - The Other Side  [Lighthouse is another really fine song from this recording.]

 * Scars on 45 - Give Me Something

 * Tom Waits - Bad as Me  [He sure hasn't lost his mojo.]

 * Trombone Shorty - Buckjump

 * Wilco - I Might

By the way, Kathleen Edwards (a big favorite of mine) put out Change the Sheets as an advance of her soon to be released recording and, while I think it is a great song, I'll consider it as part of my 2012 picks rather than here.

 

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/80429/Rich_W.jpg http://posterous.com/users/eK20pxoH73 Rich Walsh Rich Rich Walsh Sun, 27 Mar 2011 10:09:12 -0700 G's Beef Bourguignon.jpg http://gan-ainm.com/gs-beef-bourguignonjpg http://gan-ainm.com/gs-beef-bourguignonjpg
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Her first effort with Julia Child recipe. Very labor intensive but oh so yummy. Paired well with a 2006 Monticello Vineyards Estate Merlot.

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/80429/Rich_W.jpg http://posterous.com/users/eK20pxoH73 Rich Walsh Rich Rich Walsh Sat, 12 Mar 2011 17:30:16 -0800 Fish Head Fertilizer http://gan-ainm.com/fish-head-fertilizer http://gan-ainm.com/fish-head-fertilizer
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A salmon fish head in the service of G's new tomato planting. Six more where that came from. Thanks Race Street Seafood....I think.

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/80429/Rich_W.jpg http://posterous.com/users/eK20pxoH73 Rich Walsh Rich Rich Walsh Mon, 31 Jan 2011 10:52:00 -0800 'This Time is Different' by Carmen M. Reinhart & Kenneth S. Rogoff http://gan-ainm.com/this-time-is-different-by-carmen-m-reinhart-k http://gan-ainm.com/this-time-is-different-by-carmen-m-reinhart-k

[Cross-posting latest book summary I added to LinkedIn.]

For what was undoubtedly first conceived as an academic book, I found This Time is Different (http://www.amzn.com/0691142165) to be surprisingly readable with many helpful graphs and charts.  It explores the history of financial crises from the perspective of two basic premises:

  1) Economists have lacked a comprehensive database that contains sufficient geographic and temporal scope to effectively perform broad-based crisis analysis in a quantitative way.

  2) Crisis episodes are often preceded by a pervasive sense of 'this time is different' as participants believe they can ignore the patterns and signals of earlier episodes because people are wiser, markets are stronger, macroeconomic policies are better, etc.

Reinhart and Rogoff define a financial crisis as consisting of one or more events where a sovereign country defaults on some aspect of its debt or where bank failure rates, inflation increases or currency crashes achieve certain threshold levels.  

The authors then outline how they painstakingly assembled for the first time the sort of database necessary to analyze these events across many countries and over long time horizons.  Some of this data goes back eight centuries, though their core set focuses on sixty-six countries between 1800 and the present.  An important goal was to have countries represented from all continents and at varying stages of market development.

Most of the book is devoted to reviewing crisis events through the lens of their data to identify themes.  One conclusion is that while many countries seem to learn how to avoid sovereign defaults as they become advanced economies, the evidence indicates that the other crisis types - especially banking problems - remain a recurring problem for all.  Thus, there really is no empirical basis for the 'this time is different' aspect of human nature.  Another grim conclusion is that the level of debt a country has in the aftermath of a banking crisis rises 86% on average while the time required for asset prices and output to return to pre-crisis levels can be quite protracted.

The last part of the book explores the most recent global financial crisis - what the authors term the 'Second Great Contraction' - based upon the earlier research and with specific comparisons to the Great Depression.  However, since the book was completed in 2009, this exploration is only partial as the full story continues to unfold there.  It would be helpful to have this subject revisited in a few years.

The book is designed to support a certain amount of skipping around and targeted reading (for instance some people may just want to read the chapters on the current global crisis).  While this style of organization has its advantages, it does introduce some annoying repetition when reading from start to finish.  Another minor irritation to me is that there are a few inconsistencies between the text and the charts/graphs and so more rigorous proofreading would have been helpful.

Carmen Reinhart was a guest on EconTalk shortly after the book was published and her interview (http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2009/11/reinhart_on_fin.html) is a worthwhile hour long discussion on its themes and implications.

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/80429/Rich_W.jpg http://posterous.com/users/eK20pxoH73 Rich Walsh Rich Rich Walsh Thu, 27 Jan 2011 22:59:32 -0800 'Green Zone' http://gan-ainm.com/green-zone http://gan-ainm.com/green-zone Finally had a chance to watch the Green Zone film tonight about the whole Iraq WMD fiasco and starring Matt Damon.  Probably not for everyone in content and/or style - its box office results would surely lead one to that conclusion - but I enjoyed it.  

I thought this was clearly the most polemic film by Paul Greengrass since his great Bloody Sunday that first garnered him some widespread attention.  (That one recounted the 1972 Derry civil rights march and its tragic aftermath.)  I never have a problem with his jumpy, hand-held directorial style because some of my favorite TV shows are that way too, starting with Homicide in the 1990s.

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/80429/Rich_W.jpg http://posterous.com/users/eK20pxoH73 Rich Walsh Rich Rich Walsh Fri, 14 Jan 2011 17:02:00 -0800 'Where Good Ideas Come From' by Steven Johnson http://gan-ainm.com/where-good-ideas-come-from-by-steven-johnson http://gan-ainm.com/where-good-ideas-come-from-by-steven-johnson

[Cross-posting latest book summary I added to LinkedIn.]

Where Good Ideas Come From (http://www.amzn.com/1594487715) addresses the topic of innovation with a focus on what the author terms 'good ideas' to avoid narrow semantic definitions of the concept (such as the word 'inventions') and to broadly apply the concept across multiple disciplines and environments.

I always find Steven Johnson to be an entertaining, eclectically knowledgeable writer and this book is similar in style to others (using what he terms his fractal long zoom approach) and often builds on themes he has explored in earlier works such as the value of emergent behavior in ecosystems and cities.

The majority of the book covers seven patterns of innovation, which often are mutually reinforcing, and Johnson cites many historical examples from 1400 to the present to illuminate these patterns.  (He also has a lengthy appendix that chronologically summarizes important good ideas over this time period.)  The patterns are:

    *  The Adjacent Possible
    *  Liquid Networks
    *  The Slow Hunch
    *  Serendipity (which contains a shout-out to DEVONthink, my favorite information management software)
    *  Error
    *  Exaptation (a term borrowed from evolutionary biology)
    * Platforms

The book closes with a four quadrant taxonomy of innovation that attempts to organize various innovations by their origin (market vs non-market based and individual vs network derived).  In particular, the author's a fan of the quadrant where good ideas arise from open collaboration in non-market settings and he argues this will remain an important source of innovation even in a world of intellectual property protection and market competition.

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/80429/Rich_W.jpg http://posterous.com/users/eK20pxoH73 Rich Walsh Rich Rich Walsh Fri, 31 Dec 2010 16:28:00 -0800 'The Quants' by Scott Patterson http://gan-ainm.com/the-quants-by-scott-patterson http://gan-ainm.com/the-quants-by-scott-patterson

[Cross-posting latest book summary I added to LinkedIn.]

The Quants (http://www.amzn.com/B0036894XC) is a survey of the growth of math-based modeling in financial services and its impact on profit making and crisis generation.  The author is a reporter with the Wall Street Journal and he mostly tells his story from the perspective of some younger quants (two running hedge funds and two working within Wall Street investment banks) as well as two 'pioneers' in the field - Ed Thorp and Jim Simons.

The book is a quick read and the extensive direct access Scott Patterson had to many of these players as well as his interviews with other people such as Benoit Mandelbrot provided a personal dimension to the tale.  The Quants overlapped somewhat in scope with The Myth of the Rational Market (http://www.amzn.com/0060598999) by Justin Fox which I had read earlier this year.  That book, which I preferred, charted a more rigorous focus on the development of Finance theory in the 20th century but offered less of the day to day impact on Wall Street.  Due to timing, it also did not really cover the most recent financial crisis whereas Patterson's story ends in 2009 as the pieces were being put back together and lessons were trying to be learned.

In that respect, it's hard to dispute that the quants over-reliance on the accuracy of financial models which undervalued risk coupled with the 'industrialization' of computer-based trading were an important contributing factor to the start of the crisis.  However, they were certainly joined by lots of other bad policies, strategies and actors in the full realization of the crisis.

This is the first book by the author and it shows.  While it's breezy writing does make it a fast read, parts of the book seem a bit cobbled together with repetitions from earlier parts and Patterson's somewhat breathless style and overwrought figurative language were more annoying than helpful to me and temper my recommendation.

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/80429/Rich_W.jpg http://posterous.com/users/eK20pxoH73 Rich Walsh Rich Rich Walsh Fri, 31 Dec 2010 00:34:00 -0800 'Last Call' by Daniel Okrent http://gan-ainm.com/last-call-by-daniel-okrent http://gan-ainm.com/last-call-by-daniel-okrent

[Cross-posting latest book summary I put out on LinkedIn.]

Last Call (http://www.amzn.com/0743277023) is quite a fascinating tale of social and political history in the United States.  The path to Prohibition and the sorry 14 year life of the only constitutional amendment to ever be repealed had many more twists, unexpected alliances and unintended consequences than I ever imagined.

Daniel Okrent starts out with some background on the prodigious drinking habits of the country during the 19th century, which in turn led to a temperance movement that had a sensible core desire to combat the negative social effects of these habits and often overlapped in philosophy and leadership with other "progressive" religious/social movements of the time such as slavery abolition and women's rights.

However, the altruistic motives of temperance became much more convoluted moving into the 20th century as the movement weaved itself into the many other battles engendered by rapid industrialization, extensive immigration, growing urbanization and unresolved racial/ethnic tensions then present in the country.  Among other things, the aim of the temperance leadership - primarily the Anti-Saloon League or ASL by then - became legal prohibition rather than moderation advocacy which ultimately set the path to the 18th Amendment.  This amendment only really became possible with the passage of the 16th Amendment, as the income tax provided an alternate means of revenue for the federal government to potentially replace the very high amount of revenue it obtained from the alcohol excise tax.  

No matter how one might view the wisdom or motives of Prohibition as it began in 1920, it's outcome was dreadful.  It did not truly represent the will of the majority of the country due to some representation quirks in state and federal legislatures and its enforcement was chronically underfunded from the start.  So, drinking moderated somewhat but criminal activity rose unmoderately.  The specifics of the Volstead Act, which provided the legislative structure for the 18th Amendment, also provided a few interesting exemptions which both influenced behavior and garnered some fortunes.  In the end, the organization of a much more coherent opposition to Prohibition (with as many strange bedfellows as the alliances which led to it) and the need for more jobs as the Depression lingered led to a surprisingly quick repeal process in 1933.

The most interesting person in the book is Wayne Wheeler, who effectively ran the ASL and devised the tactics of what we would call wedge politics today.  He used these tactics to great effect and was enormously influential in his time (he died in 1927) but is now on the wrong side of history and mostly forgotten.

Daniel Okrent did a great interview on EconTalk earlier this year (http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2010/06/okrent_on_prohi.html).  I would recommend it as either a supplement to reading the book or getting the gist of it in an hour.

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/80429/Rich_W.jpg http://posterous.com/users/eK20pxoH73 Rich Walsh Rich Rich Walsh Thu, 30 Dec 2010 00:31:00 -0800 My Favorite Songs of 2010 http://gan-ainm.com/my-favorite-songs-of-2010 http://gan-ainm.com/my-favorite-songs-of-2010

Here's my personal list of favorite songs for this year in order by artist or group.

I restricted the list to 25 songs and to only one per recording  - which was especially hard when considering the overall excellent music from Arcade Fire, Deerhunter, Josh Ritter, Laura Veirs, LCD Soundsystem and Spoon.  It was also painful to not include a song from The New Pornographers, but I thought they put out their weakest effort to date (though I did like Crash Years and a few other tracks).


The List:

  *  Arcade Fire - We Used to Wait   [Great HTML5 video collaboration with Google on this song too]

  *  Ben Folds & Nick Hornby - From Above   [Love the out chorus at the end as well as the collaboration of a musician and a novelist]

  *  Broken Bells - The Ghost Inside

  *  Citizen Cope - Keep Askin'

  *  Corinne Bailey Rae - The Blackest Lily   

  *  Deerhunter - Desire Lines   [Final instrumental break sold me on this one over Helicopter]

  *  Gil Scott-Heron -  Me and the Devil   [I didn't think he was still recording until I heard this great funky song]

  *  Janelle Monáe - Tightrope   [impossibly catchy]

  *  John Legend & The Roots - Humanity (Love the Way It Should Be)   [Their updated cover of Wake Up Everybody was outstanding too]

  *  Josh Ritter - Rattling Locks   [This guy is really good; I don't listen to him enough]

  *  Junip - Always

  *  KT Tunstall - Fade Like a Shadow

  *  Laura Veirs - Make Something Good   [The most lovely song you will ever hear with 'steer manure' in the lyrics; Wide-Eyed, Legless is also amazing]

  *  LCD Soundsystem - You Wanted a Hit   [My particular favorite though Pow Pow is quite clever and humorous as the next track]

  *  Old 97's - Every Night is Friday Night (Without You)

  *  Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings - Better Things   [I Learned the Hard Way is also a great song]

  *  Spoon - Nobody Gets Me But You    [A tough choice with so many fine songs but the beat and instrumental flourishes just rock]

  *  Stars - Fixed   [I became a big fan of this Canadian band this year, including some older songs]

  *  Sufjan Stevens - Vesuvius   [As always, he's musically dense and lyrically strange]

  *  The Black Keys - Howlin' for You

  *  The Concretes - Good Evening 

  *  The National - Bloodbuzz Ohio   [How can you not like a song with 'I was carried to Ohio with a swarm of bees' in its lyrics?]

  *  Tracey Thorn - Why Does the Wind?   [Very happy to hear her singing again after EBTG]

  *  Trombone Shorty - Hurricane Season 

  *  Yukon Blonde - Wind Blows

So, lots of outstanding new music in the first year of this decade from a diverse group of artists in both style and experience.  Despite all the whining from the traditional music industry about their economic state, it's very gratifying to listen to all this good work.

January 2011 Postscript
I would have seriously considered Money Grabber by Fitz and the Tantrums, Kontrol Phreak by Lyrics Born and O.N.E. by Yeasayer for the above list if I had listened to them as carefully as I've done recently - though I don't know what I would remove.  Also, Lost by KT Tunstall really is a beautiful song as well to complement the choice I made.

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/80429/Rich_W.jpg http://posterous.com/users/eK20pxoH73 Rich Walsh Rich Rich Walsh Thu, 21 Oct 2010 14:10:00 -0700 'What Hath God Wrought' by Daniel Walker Howe http://gan-ainm.com/what-hath-god-wrought-by-daniel-walker-howe http://gan-ainm.com/what-hath-god-wrought-by-daniel-walker-howe

[Cross-posting latest book summary I put out on LinkedIn.]

I had wanted to read this contribution to the Oxford History of the United States series for a while because the period of the American experience the book covers (1815-1848) always felt like a bit of a black hole to me.

In that respect, I found What Hath God Wrought to be very informative as I gained a much better appreciation of how the people and events during those years set patterns of culture, structure and behavior that still show their mark in the United States of today.

This was the period where the country concluded one war with Britain and forced another one with Mexico, thus fully shaping the geographic extent of what became the contiguous United States - save for the small part of the southwest obtained via the Gadsen Purchase a few years later.  

It was a time where the *relative* homogeneity of the country first started to unravel between territorial expansion, the gradual rise of industrialism and urbanization, and changing patterns of immigration.  This, in turn, created more pronounced sectional and economic conflicts which led to the formation of what we now consider to be today's two-party political framework, the American style of election campaigns and persistent conflicts over the role and mechanisms of national government.

This was the era where the country's religious/spiritual impulse deepened but greatly diversified in its expression, spawning numerous - and often contradictory - movements to improve individuals and society.  Sadly, it was also the shameful era where the country allowed the institution of slavery to strengthen its grip and where it treated Native Americans most callously.

Though undoubtedly influenced by the lens of early 21st century experience from which he is writing, Daniel Walker Howe does make a compelling argument that the interlocking revolutions in transportation and communication technologies during this time (especially the railroads and the telegraph) were a key enabler to the degree with which the country changed as they allowed the dispersion of goods, capital and ideas across the growing landscape at a rate unthinkable in earlier times.

While the book is clearly very well-researched, it is written in a lively and approachable style.  I particularly liked how the author varied chapters between those that were more chronological in approach and those that were more thematic.  That said, it is quite long at ~850 pages and felt repetitive at times.  Some tighter editing would have been helpful in my view.

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/80429/Rich_W.jpg http://posterous.com/users/eK20pxoH73 Rich Walsh Rich Rich Walsh Sun, 26 Sep 2010 17:09:57 -0700 Ready for Picking! http://gan-ainm.com/ready-for-picking http://gan-ainm.com/ready-for-picking
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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/80429/Rich_W.jpg http://posterous.com/users/eK20pxoH73 Rich Walsh Rich Rich Walsh Mon, 30 Aug 2010 13:39:00 -0700 'Web Operations' by John Allspaw and Jesse Robbins http://gan-ainm.com/web-operations-by-john-allspaw-and-jesse-robb http://gan-ainm.com/web-operations-by-john-allspaw-and-jesse-robb

[Cross-posting last book summary I put out on LinkedIn.]

I found Web Operations (http://www.amzn.com/1449377440) to be a very informative and helpful book. The structure is a little unusual in that it is essentially a series of essays by different people on various topical aspects of web operations. However, what this approach loses in consistency of tone and organization is amply made up by the diversity of perspectives from the many thought leaders who contributed to the content.

The best chapters to me were:
3 - Infrastructure and Application Metrics
4 - Continuous Deployment
6 - Monitoring
7 - How Complex Systems Fail
10 - Dev and Ops Collaboration and Cooperation
12 - Relational Database Strategy
15 - Nonrelational Databases
17 - Things That Go Bump in the Night

That said, I found something of value in each chapter and mileage will likely vary with what chapters resonate most to different readers based on their specific interests and needs.

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/80429/Rich_W.jpg http://posterous.com/users/eK20pxoH73 Rich Walsh Rich Rich Walsh Sun, 11 Jul 2010 15:15:32 -0700 G's first potato harvest! http://gan-ainm.com/gs-first-potato-harvest http://gan-ainm.com/gs-first-potato-harvest
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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/80429/Rich_W.jpg http://posterous.com/users/eK20pxoH73 Rich Walsh Rich Rich Walsh Tue, 04 May 2010 23:38:00 -0700 'Broad Street Bullies' on HBO http://gan-ainm.com/broad-street-bullies-on-hbo http://gan-ainm.com/broad-street-bullies-on-hbo

I really enjoyed tonight's fair-minded 'Broad Street Bullies' documentary on HBO (http://www.hbo.com/#/sports/broad-street-bullies/synopsis.html). That early '70s team made me a life-long hockey fan - and a forever Flyers fan. I appreciate the honest yin/yang perspective on their tactical use of rough play but the Flyers clearly meshed elite players (particularly Clarke, Parent and Barber then) with a wild and ornery assortment of role players to achieve their first success. I think the elite part is often forgotten by critics but the blend certainly did establish the ongoing house style for the franchise. Still amazing to watch video of players who wore no helmets in front of goalies 'protected' by fragile masks and who actually had no masks not so long before. What were they thinking??

It was also nice to see Fred Shero get his props. He was definitely a uniquely motivational coach who marched to his own drummer and was well ahead of his time.

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/80429/Rich_W.jpg http://posterous.com/users/eK20pxoH73 Rich Walsh Rich Rich Walsh Sun, 18 Apr 2010 21:46:00 -0700 'Too Big to Fail' by Andrew Ross Sorkin http://gan-ainm.com/too-big-to-fail-by-andrew-ross-sorkin http://gan-ainm.com/too-big-to-fail-by-andrew-ross-sorkin

[Cross posting last book summary I put out on LinkedIn.]

Too Big to Fail (http://www.amzn.com/0670021253) really is a remarkable work of journalism and just a great read as well.  Though bracketed by a short introduction and a thoughtful epilogue, it is mostly a propulsive chronological account of the 2008 financial crisis starting on March 17th, the day after Bear Stearns was sold, and ending on October 13th, the day the nine remaining major banks agreed to accept the first TARP capital investments.

The author offers only the minimally necessary background on prior events and avoids editorializing in order to focus on his narrative.  What Sorkin does provide, however, is a wealth of details and anecdotes about the events in question and a brisk, cross-cutting style of writing that accentuates the flow and drama of the story.  It is as engrossing as a work of fiction and it's a pity it isn't given how much disruption and pain the facts have caused us all.

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/80429/Rich_W.jpg http://posterous.com/users/eK20pxoH73 Rich Walsh Rich Rich Walsh Tue, 09 Mar 2010 10:27:00 -0800 'The Guns of August' by Barbara Tuchman http://gan-ainm.com/the-guns-of-august-by-barbara-tuchman http://gan-ainm.com/the-guns-of-august-by-barbara-tuchman

[Cross-posting latest book summary I put out on LinkedIn.]

The Guns of August (http://www.amzn.com/0345476093) is a book I've been meaning to read for quite a while and finally did.  It is approaching the 50th anniversary of its acclaimed publication and its subject, the start of World War I, will have its centennial in a few years.  (I suspect there will be many new commemorations as we approach that anniversary.)

In any case, the book is beautifully written by Barbara Tuchman and gave me a much better understanding of one of the great inflection points in modern history.  Beyond the tragedy of the war itself (over 16 million dead), the arc of the rest of the 20th century was spawned or hastened by the results of this war and the peace treaty which followed.  In a sense, Tuchman's organization of the book mirrors this ripple effect as she only focuses on the lead up to the conflict in Germany, France, England and Russia and then the first month of hostilities, where the momentum of pre-determined grand strategies mixed with specific choices and vacillations by variously flawed leaders and the effect of contingent events dictated the course of the rest of the war with its years of stalemate and killing.

It's seems hard to believe now that governments and their citizens could have so grossly miscalculated the length and severity of the war as they entered into it.  Of course, this sort of failure in perception is not unique.  Countries, companies and people do it all the time, just rarely with such fateful consequences.

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/80429/Rich_W.jpg http://posterous.com/users/eK20pxoH73 Rich Walsh Rich Rich Walsh Wed, 24 Feb 2010 12:53:00 -0800 My Albums of the Decade http://gan-ainm.com/my-albums-of-the-decade http://gan-ainm.com/my-albums-of-the-decade

WXPN published their top 88 Albums of the Decade last week: http://xpn.org/allaboutthemusic/xpns-albums-of-the-decade-6146. This prompted me to compile my personal favorites list in chronological order, which I tried to restrict to less than 20 entries.

  • Sailing to Philadelphia by Mark Knopfler (2000)
  • Look into the Eyeball by David Byrne (2001)
  • Yankee Hotel Foxtrot by Wilco (2002)
  • Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots by The Flaming Lips (2002)
  • Cuatros Caminos by Café Tacvba (2003)
      though Sino (2007) is also excellent

  • Feast of Wire by Calexico (2003)
      though Carried to Dust (2008) is also excellent

  • O by Damien Rice (2003)
  • Electric Version by The New Pornographers (2003)
      though I really enjoyed all four of their recordings in the decade

  • The Clarence Greenwood Recordings by Citizen Cope (2004)
  • Illinois by Sufjan Stevens (2005)
  • Plans by Death Cab for Cutie (2005)

  • Fox Confessor Brings the Flood by Neko Case (2006)
  • St. Elsewhere by Gnarls Barkley (2006)
  • Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga by Spoon (2007)
  • Santogold by Santogold (2008)
  • Asking for Flowers by Kathleen Edwards (2008)

I probably could have included the self-titled Fleet Foxes (2008) on the list and definitely would have if I could have substituted my two favorite tracks from their Sun Giant EP released earlier that year for my least favorite tracks on the full recording.

I noticed I don't have any entries for 2009. I'm not sure if that reflects the quality of the music for the year (or more probably) my tendency like so many others to get and listen to individual tracks rather than becoming immersed in full recordings. That said, I did particularly enjoy Sometimes I Wish We Were an Eagle by Bill Callahan, Give Up the Ghost by Brandi Carlile, Manners by Passion Pit and Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix by Phoenix.

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/80429/Rich_W.jpg http://posterous.com/users/eK20pxoH73 Rich Walsh Rich Rich Walsh Wed, 03 Feb 2010 22:17:00 -0800 'The Myth of the Rational Market' by Justin Fox http://gan-ainm.com/the-myth-of-the-rational-market-by-justin-fox http://gan-ainm.com/the-myth-of-the-rational-market-by-justin-fox

[Cross posting latest book summary I added to LinkedIn.]

I found The Myth of the Rational Market (http://www.amzn.com/0060598999) to be a very informative survey on the evolution of Finance - and its touch points with Economics - throughout the 20th century and into our own.  Justin Fox is a journalist by profession and he strikes a good balance between not trivializing a complex subject while not making it too dense for a reader outside the disciplines covered.

The narrative is roughly in chronological order and the author focuses each chapter on an important contributor or two in this evolution.  However, the linking theme and narrative arc to the story is the gradual rise to pre-eminence of the rational/efficient theory of markets, the impact of this theory on the actual conduct of business in securities markets (including the conceptualization and utilization of new financial instruments like index funds and derivatives) and the eventual backlash of concerns about the limitations of the theory in practice as well as flaws in its intellectual underpinnings, particularly from contributors in the field of behavioral economics.

The book was effectively completed before the most recent financial crisis, though the author does conclude with an epilogue which addresses the crisis in the context of his themes and how these events clearly underscored the concerns and limitations with the rationality of markets and its participants.  However, he does not offer any prescriptive guidance as to where to go next.

There are a *lot* of players to this story and I found the 'Cast of Characters' summary very helpful over the course of my reading.  Also, Justin Fox was a guest on EconTalk shortly after the book was published (http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2009/07/justin_fox_on_t.html) and the discussion is helpful in both complementing and amplifying his thinking.  In fact, this conversation was the reason I bought the book in the first place.

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/80429/Rich_W.jpg http://posterous.com/users/eK20pxoH73 Rich Walsh Rich Rich Walsh Wed, 23 Dec 2009 15:07:48 -0800 Habaneros http://gan-ainm.com/habaneros http://gan-ainm.com/habaneros
Habaneros

Last chilis ripening for the season on our incredibly prolific - and super hot - habanero plant.

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/80429/Rich_W.jpg http://posterous.com/users/eK20pxoH73 Rich Walsh Rich Rich Walsh Tue, 08 Dec 2009 08:38:47 -0800 Frozen Birdbath http://gan-ainm.com/frozen-birdbath http://gan-ainm.com/frozen-birdbath
Media_cardblackberrypicturesim

This was an odd early morning sight in our San Jose backyard.

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/80429/Rich_W.jpg http://posterous.com/users/eK20pxoH73 Rich Walsh Rich Rich Walsh