Blog birthday. Senses. And jazz.

Born in the anonymity of the blogosphere 5 years ago, this weblog grew up a curious, motivated, and responsible toddler: its (no longer) secret ambition remained no less than saving the world-- despite repeated trials of dissuasion by its author, who once foolishly pledged allegiance to the infusion of blogs about nothing. Thus, as this blog claims and proved a certain maturity, it will receive two significant presents for its half decade birthday. To be shared with its select audience:

• a second perennial motto, see blog footer; David Hilbert's Optimismus in der Forschung (und in das Leben!) is joined by Giacomo Casanova's raison d'être.
• a wonderful, complex, complete musical masterpiece; Chicago right now feels almost as dim and rainy as Barron and Haden's flawless "Twilight" in NYC.

Sunday night econlinks

• Good, Gelman is even more pissed off with Greenspun's to-a-large-extent-nonsense than I was: 9th bullet point.

• The culture of Old Europe (aka, new European Union...), via Gabi Istrate; I've also promised him I would carefully look at/comment on this: the promise is still there, the time-- not yet... :-).

• I am very curious how big this can/will get. After all, a whole Nobel might be at stake (I confess: I never really liked Gore, on any dimension; I still think he is submediocre or worse; however, I thought/still think that some of the climate guys/gals who won within the IPCC were more than decent...). This is not so much about scepticism (of any kind/degree), but first and foremost about scientific honesty. Seemingly a very rare quality today.

• The current world chess champ was in Romania some days ago, but nobody within the national mass media seems to have noticed. Of course not, they are all busy with one of the most pathetic presidential elections ever; they always manage to keep themselves busy with the least important things.

• The battle of the IT giants takes every possible form. In case you're wondering whom I am putting my money on, here's something to help you; these guys seem to know what's important for tomorrow: a small step in that direction with a (preliminary version of) automatic captioning for YouTube .

• I guess I am not in such of an intimate relationship with Tokyo after all (despite this...), since I didn't manage to meet any of the city's "groundbreakers" (though ok, fine, between me and you only: the truth is that I've been playing hard to get with Tao Okamoto)

• Only reinforces one point Easterly (and a minority of others) has been stressing all the time; this is how development should be done: help them to help themselves.

• The underrated Economist: A.C. Pigou.

• The research agenda of some of my LMDG colleagues: enter Rasmus Lentz and co-authors.

• "[s]urely the biggest police action we have ever had in Danish history" or one of the rare occasions when I am glad that I am not closer to Copenhagen...

Weekend Econlinks

• Science Q&A with the female Nobelists this year.

• EMH: it really ain't dead. (via Mankiw)

• Harvard's financial report for 2009. And some of the (dire) consequences.

• Head hunting for a (younger than Mas-Colell...legal requirement, apparently) distinguished scientist to be the European Research Council's new Director.

• the NAJ Ain't a Journal of Economics. I can't understand why I find about it only now, this looks extremely interesting (via cheaptalk).

• High time for the Viking to break through! And a funny interview after the Nanjing show off. (via Susan Polgar)

• Levitt did pretty well on The Daily Show (he also did well on the Colbert Report a great while ago). Though I am rather puzzled by his statement "I am not a scientist"; I wonder whether he thinks that a. Economics is not a science, or else b. what he does is not Economics..., or else...?

• Landsburg is blogging. And he's got a couple of great posts already. Here's one of them, on Dawkins, and the origins of complexity.

• Cancer progress might be completely different than known so far.

• Polygamy preferred from any angle. Reminds me of Becker's arguments a while ago (2nd bullet point)-- by the way, they now made a book of the Becker-Posner blogposts.

• The death of the book as we knew it!/? And some nostalgia after book browsing.

Mioritic achievements of bad renown. And their primary causes.

No one, it turns out, does Internet auction fraud like the Romanians. [...]

when it comes to online auctions, particularly for big-ticket items such as cars that can yield $5,000 a scam, Romanians own the game. Romanian police estimate that cyber-crime is now a multimillion-dollar national industry, as important to organized criminals here as drug smuggling or human trafficking. [...]

The Internet Crime Complaint Center, a partnership between the FBI and the National White Collar Crime Center, ranks Romania fifth in its table of naughty nations. But most experts agree that doesn't give Romanian criminals their due. Much of the cash being made on auction fraud reported as originating in the U.S., Canada, Britain, Spain or Italy is actually being picked up in those countries by Romanian money mules. An EBay fraud ring busted last year in Chicago, for example, has been traced to Pitesti, Romania. [...]

EBay, which doesn't even operate a site in Romania, won't talk dollar figures but acknowledges that the country is the No. 1 source of "professional fraud." On a November 2006 visit to the Romanian capital, Bucharest, FBI Director Robert Mueller said the vast majority of Internet fraud committed on "one prominent U.S. online auction website is connected to Romania or Romanians."

Read more here.

All well said, except this part that simply doesn't fit at all the story or the point or anything, though it raises a far more important issue. Here's the nonsense: "The respect for math is inside every family, even simple families, who are very proud to say their children are good at mathematics," said Radu Gologan, a senior research scientist at the Institute of Mathematics in downtown Bucharest." This is a myth that some Romanians still believe in (including, surprinsingly, the 'insider' interviewed above). Unfortunately, recent data reveals the very sad, but expected, truth (link in Romanian)... It is primarily the LACK of mathematics, logic, of good education/good job opportunities/ good preparation for (economic & social) life in general etc., in Romania, that determines such criminal behaviour as mentioned above, and not their (overwhelming- LOL!) presence (or respect for them and all the rest of the blahblah). But some still need to wake up. Including (or better: especially) those that are part of the Romanian education system.

Publicity: Anna's photo-trips around the world

Not bad so far, Anna :-). And I love Bresson as well...

Question: do we meet in Budapest later this month? Although it is not so exotic as your other trips. But hey, this one is about Economics :-).

Sibiu as one of the top world up-and-coming tourist hotspots

So says Tyler Cowen on MR after having read the most recent Italian edition of Vanity Fair. That would not be bad at all. However, I cannot find anything on the net about this (the Italian edition of Vanity Fair seems to exist only in print) so all we know for now is what Cowen tells us: Bogota (Columbia), Sibiu (Romania) and the Kurile Islands (Russia) are three of the six up-and-coming tourist hotspots. If anybody has more information and maybe a link or a scan of the article, I'd gladly welcome comments.

Update: The Guardian also talks about Sibiu (got the link via this Hotnews article in Romanian). It includes it among the "fabulous 50 for 2007" touristic locations, more precisely within the category "new horizons" next to "Lakshadweep cruise", "Sarajevo", "Yangtze cruise", "Yemen" and "Algeria".

BBC on Romanian and Bulgarian (media) culture

My friend Frédèric, EU member for a longtime now :-)- but with cosmopolitan views and interests- is pointing out to me a very recent BBC article on the media culture of the two new EU members (officially, in a few hours now).

The BBC article starts by shortly describing 'popular' Bulgarian and respectively Romanian music, hence a (indirect) link with my previous posts about Diskoteka Boom and Magyarorszag. Instead of the 30 seconds clips linked via the article, I link here the full YouTube clips -and much more than those (once again, I think YouTube is the internet innovation of 2006!). Thus:

• Azis with 'Kato Skitnica' and Rumaneca & Enchev with 'Shatrata' for our Bulgarian neighbours (Azis has a clear comparative advantage over all our songs inspired by (a) the Turkish-Arab leitmotiv (chalga, here, as Bulgarian version)- and he is far from being the only one- so much for our Adi Wunderkind de Vito, Guta & the rest; Rumaneca and Enchev are a mistake in there, but that is a matter of de gustibus and I am not going to fight over yoghurt brands with my Bulgarian friends...plus, they are still much much better than our 'manelists' :-) ). Other Bulgarian artists mentioned: Mariana Popova, Grafa, Epizod (from these arbitrary clips, Epizod seems pretty interesting- the others are again 'common'- reminds me of our Phoenix, unexpectedly missing from the Romanian artists mentioned in the sequel).
  
• Cleopatra Stratan with 'Ghita' and Holograf with 'Asa frumoasa' as the 'Romanian representatives' ('runners-up' mentioned as well in the article are Voltaj, DJ Project, Akcent, Morandi, which are 'sort of okay' for such a 'popular' top; there is however far too much credit- who on Earth was the Romanian source of Osborn?!- given to Marius Moga, aka the 'Little Mozart' -LOL!). Moreover, Vama Veche (and many others, better than most those mentioned) are surprinsingly omitted.
  

Overall: For my Romanian part, it could have been much worse (nevertheless, it would be wonderful if BBC's 'popularity' criteria would not be farfetched and thus the top would indeed remain devoid of 'manele'!). Cleopatra is a phenomenon, but I would have liked her father, Pavel Stratan, in the top , she's still got a lot of time to reach true fame... Also, personally I am not such a great fan of Holograf, but this piece above is not so bad. All in all, I think we're breaking even with the Bulgarians at the 'pop' music chapter (well, as seen/heard by the BBC...).

But unfortunately we can't party as yet: we lose badly in terms of the TV programmes given as representative, in the remainder of the BBC article on media culture (fortunately our EU friends who do not understand Romanian will never be fully exposed to such nonsense, brain-washing, shows as 'Iarta-ma' & the like...).

Magyarorszag: The Song, The Style, The Women...

This entry is supposed to somewhat complement my previous post on Diskoteka Boom and Romanian 'comparative advantages' in such products, bringing up fundamental differences in marketing and branding strategies in Romania and respectively, Hungary.

To have more a clear idea of what I am talking about, compare this Romanian very popular (well marketed...) clip (could not find a full version of Diskoteka Boom, except some 'freaky fun' of 25 secs, freaky indeed) with this Hungarian one (increasingly popular as well) (thanks to Tihi- very unfortunately, my Hungarian has not yet evolved enough for me to understand Tihi's own opinion about the clips there- but that is second to my goal here). I'll tell you in advance my opinion of 'Magyarorszag' and I'll let you guess what I think about 'Iubirea mea suprema' (btw, who the f... is this Carmen Serban- neither voice, nor compensatory qualities) one : I think our Hungarian friends have style and talent: the melody and setup are superb (forget for a moment the political intro in the clip above, I do not think the essence is - or should be- about that or any other political issue)- and the lyrics (see an English translation- both versions found by Dan) are good as well, particularly considering the title of the song and what could have been its content (yep, Hungarians do as well have their extreme types (political characters in particular), just as we do, I am not so sure though who has more...) and just imagining what a similar idea in Romania would turn into (and I really but really want somebody to prove me wrong here). And on a very personal note (perhaps not so personal, as some of my readers can testify :-)), they do have some of the most beautiful women in the world, certainly the highest population average in terms of female beauty, for all I can tell (I confess I didn't necessarily need this videoclip to get a confirmation of an opinion I hold for a very long time now). Anyway, do all the comparisons and then come back and talk to me about 'de gustibus' if you feel like it.

More: the artist who sings the original version of the song (see here a 'live' version, here a videoclip), Olah Ibolya , has an amazing voice that more than compensates for her English (mis)pronunciation (I also thought this duet was great).

Maybe my Romanian people will understand that marketing Adrian 'the Wunderkind' and Carmen Serban is a loss in the long run (I think it is a loss at any moment, btw), as the market will prove. So it's time to think about something else. I suggest you try- in this context- with (only mass, leave the 'elitist' for now, since Dan might get angry) products such as Vama Veche or Paula Selling (Phoenix worked pretty well until recently, at least in the Eastern European space, at least among the ones slighly knowledgeable). And if you want somewhat more (or better: another alternative), you might want to listen to the Balanescu Quartet or Ada Milea- or better, package them together (and don't throw me that elitist critique again, I do not think there was anything at all about elitism throughout this whole post...). Goes without saying, this is de gustibus, but certainly I am the one person most open to suggestions. It's not so difficult to do much better than 'Diskoteka Boom' or 'Iubirea mea suprema', we've got plenty of talent. The point is to use it!


P.S.1. Anybody who knows of any Hungarian 'music' genre that would drive me nuts such as the Romanian 'neomanele' do? I am very curious. I am mostly aware of music that I find close to amazing, such as, for instance, that of Anima Sound System.

P.S.2. I have a time allocation explanation à la Gary Becker for the fact that the 'manele' are so popular relative to other genres, despite that they sound... like they sound. But about that, with another occasion.

A clash of eras

This is something you cannot miss: an amazing act of courage by an Arab (Arab-American) scholar, a woman psychologist, who speaks up on the Al-Jazeera TV channel. I have never seen somebody so blunt and open about issues usually untackled. This is about questions the members of the Muslim religious group should ask themselves- and answer as well. The problem is that nobody does- at least not publicly- and this unfortunately includes also those- and I am sure they constitute the absolute majority- who do not support terrorist acts of any form carried out in the name of their religion. I entirely agree with the (main) standpoint- this is not about a clash of present-time religions or civilizations, but indeed it is about a clash of eras. On the one hand you have a side that evolved (in general, exceptions remain) incredibly-- despite paying huge costs that came along with this evolution-- from a similar fundamentalism that once materialized in the crussades, the Inquisition and the like; on the other hand you have the side that remained largely unchanged throughout the centuries...

The entire transcript of Wafa Sultan's speech in this video on an Arabic online tv (don't know for how long this link will be available) is available here. Excepts from it below:

The clash that we are witnessing around the world is not a clash of religions, or a clash of civilizations.
It is a clash between two opposites, between two eras.
It is a clash between a mentality that belongs to the Middle Ages and another mentality that belongs to the 21st century.
It is a clash between civilization and backwardness, between the civilized and the primitive, between barbarity and rationality.
It is a clash between freedom and oppression, between democracy and dictatorship.
It is a clash between human rights on the one hand and the violation of these rights on the other hand.
It is a clash between those who treat women like beasts and those who treat them like human beings.
What we see today is not a clash of civilizations. Civilizations do not clash but compete.

....

You are free to worship whomever you want, but the beliefs of other people are not your concern, whether they believe that the Messiah is God, son of Mary, or that Satan is God, son of Mary.
Let people have their beliefs.
The Jews have come from the tragedy (of the holocaust) and have forced the world to respect them; with their knowledge, not with their terror; with their work, not with their crying and yelling.
Humanity owes most of the science and discoveries of the 19th and 20th centuries to Jewish scientists.
15 million people, scattered throughout the world, united and won their rights through work and knowledge.
We have not seen a single Jew blow himself up in a German restaurant. We have not seen a single Jew destroy a church. We have not seen a single Jew protest by killing people.
Muslims have turned three Buddha statues into rubble. We have not seen a single Buddhist burn a Mosque, kill a Muslim, or burn down an embassy.
Only the Muslims defend their beliefs by burning down churches, killing people, and destroying embassies.
This will not yield any results.
The Muslims must ask themselves what they can do for humankind before they demand that humankind respect them.