Below are two letters recently published in Lancet concerning the Iraqi Mortality Survey. I am going to post on the letters but I wanted to cache them here because the Lancet link system (1) requires registration and (2) is a bit wonky under the best of conditions and I want people to have easy access to them.
Month: March 2005
Dear Google
Dear Google:
It’s been over a year since you acquired the Blogger product line. I use blogger at Photon Courier (or try to) and it’s becoming increasingly difficult due to very frequent performance problems. Trying to use Blogger Comments at other weblogs is also an often-painful experience.
Presumably, you acquired Blogger based on some theory about how you were going to make money with it. How do you think you are going to do this when you are alienating your customer franchise, or at least the most serious part of it?
Integrating acquisitions is hard, but I would think this one would fall on the relatively “easy” end of the scale. What happens when you try to do a really difficult one? This experience does not fill me with confidence as to your abilities in the acquisition arena….
Comments to an Author About Blogging
I have this friend who is a published author. He started a blog but practically never puts anything on it. I get these great emails from him. So, I responded ” Might as well use that dang blog. These clever insights might as well see the light of day someplace. You should every day or two cannibalize your email into blog posts. I do that ALL the time. He wrote back about how he over-analyzes and fusses too much, then by the time he’s ready to post something it is no longer timely.
To paraphrase Truman Capote’s famous jibe against Jack Kerouac, blogging is not writing, it is typing. A writer who is blogging is not writing, he is blogging. A concert pianist who is sitting down at the concert grand piano in Carnegie Hall in front of a packed house is the equivalent to an author publishing a finished book. The same person sitting down at the piano in his neighborhood bar on a Saturday night and knocking out a few old standards, doing a little improvisation, and even doing some singing — that is blogging. Same instrument — words, piano — different medium. We forgive the mistakes and wrong-guesses because we value the immediacy and spontaneity. Plus, publish a book, it is fixed in stone. Write a blog post you later decide is completely wrong, it is actually good, since it gives you a good hook for a later post explaining your thoughts that led to the changed conclusion. The essence of a blog is to air things informally, to throw things out, to say “this interests me because …” From time to time a more considered and article-like post is good. But most people read blogs by skimming. If a post is too long, in my observation, it does not get much response and may not be read at all.
He wrote back ” Thing is, I wonder how many spontaneous jam sessions big artists would do if every one of them were recorded and posted as MP3s on the web?”
I responded:
Actually, we are getting to the point where that is exactly what is going to happen more and more. Artists are putting jam sessions, live recordings, demos, everything on the web. They know that their hardcore fans are products of the Web Age and need constant stimulation. So they keep giving us a recurring barrage of STUFF, in between the big projects. So the answer to your question is “all of the smart ones.”
If you are going to have a blog, it should be a blog as that is understood. There are at least three good models I can think of. Barnett’s blog is great. He just dumps that day’s thoughts on there. But it is engaging. Virginia Postrel is the opposite. She only puts stuff up that either supports her positions or pretty directly amounts to promotion of her money-making ventures. Rather cold-blooded, though sometimes interesting. The Long Tail guy is terrific, He is thinking out loud about his next book, tossing out ideas, as he goes.
The main thing though, is a blog has to be frequently updated with enough (short) posts that blog readers will read the posts.
That’s how it looks to me.
(Of course, saying “a blog” is a little bit like saying “a piece of paper”. There are people who use the technology to put up all kinds of erudite stuff, or use it to gather professional or technical information. I am speaking of the blog as an online journal of opinion and commentary, like this one.)
Germany as Husband
My son-in-law forwarded “Germany Is Tired of Footing the European Bill” (from On-Line English edition of Der Spiegel). It discusses preparations for June 16-17 when
Europe’s heads of state will come together for their next summit and to ratify the European budgetary framework for the coming years. What may sound like a routine yawner is really a meeting at which nothing less than the future of Europe will be decided — and especially Germany’s role in that future. On those two days in June, the assembled heads of states will decide how much each member state should pay to Brussels and how much it should receive in payments from Brussels, if anything.
The potential pitfalls are huge; the European Commission’s proposals in this regard are completely unacceptable to the German government. According to the current draft of the legislation, which bears the relatively innocuous-sounding title “Financial Forecast for 2007 to 2013,” the EU’s budget will increase from about €100 billion this year to €158 billion in 2013. This increase would have serious consequences for Germany, which, as Europe’s largest economy, pays by far the most into the common budget. Between now and 2013, Germany’s contribution to the EU would almost double, to about €40 billion. Instead of the current 8 percent of its federal budget, Berlin would then be required to send more than 10 percent of its budget to Brussels.
The authors observe that
the Germans send significantly more money to Brussels than they receive back. In 2003, the difference amounted to €7.7 billion, making Germany the biggest net contributor by a long shot. Only the Netherlands and Sweden pay more on a per capita basis.
TV-B-Gone v. Glock: Compare and Contrast
What follows is simplified, but based on the true facts, i.e. the responses to the posts linked to here. I am really trying to be fair. Really.
1. The simple, random ChicagoBoyz reader is asked this question: “Should Jane Q. Public be allowed to carry a concealed TV-B-Gone?”
His answer would go something like this: “Are you mad, sir? Why, think for a moment of what you are suggesting. She could use such a device irresponsibly and without express permission! In fact, I can imagine a hideous scenario that should give you pause. She might walk into a crowded sports bar full of cheerful and unsuspecting patron, and when no one was looking at her, at a key moment in The Big Game, reach into her purse, take out the infernal object and turn off the TV! That is the kind of atrocity I am contemplating! Do you grasp that, you irresponsible maniac? No private citizen can possibly be trusted with such awesome power!”
2. The simple, random ChicagoBoyz reader is then asked this question: “Should Jane Q. Public be allowed to carry a concealed Glock?”
His answer would go something like this: “Are you mad, sir, to ask such a question in this venue, this haven of Second Amendment absolutism? I will have you know that the right to keep and bear arms is one of our most precious freedoms! How dare you suggest that Jane Q. Public, a law-abiding citizen, might be denied her natural right, in fact her Constitutionally enshrined right, to possess a concealed firearm, so that she may have instantly at her disposal such lethal force as she alone shall deem necessary for the defense of herself and her loved ones in any contingency. I resent, sir, the merest suggestion that any citizen or our great nation shall not be presumed to be able to carry and use a firearm responsibly and sensibly.”
I agree with 2, by the way.