Technagora

It’s nice to know that the economics department at Minnesota State University is still producing opinionated and informed students. My friend Mark Leirmo wrote this letter for the MSU Reporter, carrying on a tradition of econ students pointing out the administration’s wasteful spending and half-baked policies. An excerpt:

Who you love or what you worship doesn’t affect me, so I have no problem with it. What does affect me is when the university finds it necessary to spend money that I intended to use to better myself through what I wanted to study on trying to make me more “culturally enriched.” People who want to celebrate who they are should be more than free to. But I feel if people want to do this they should start a club on campus and manage their own funds, rather than the university funneling scarce resources from our paper printing budget into them.

A few months ago, the Blog Typealyzer determined that I’m an INTP personality type (logical, analytical, imaginative). Now the makers of the Typealyzer have unveiled the “Archetypealyzer,” a utility that attempts to describe a blogger’s Jungian personality archetype (or something like it, anyway).

The Archetypealyzer’s take on Technagora:

The analysis indicates that the author of
http://technagora.com
is of the type:

Motivation: Independence

Desire to be yourself and find out about the world

Archetypes:
Innocent – “Free to be you and me”
Explorer- “Don´t fence me in”
Sage – “The truth will set you free”

That feels about right to me, although granted, it’s a somewhat romanticized, idealistic description (hey, I’m a sucker for flattery). Readers, what do you guys think?

There’s also a Sport Typealyzer, which doesn’t seem as accurate (it thinks I like golf… I hate golf).

What do you get when you mashup Tim Burton, Vincent Price, and stop-motion animation? This.

Anybody who spent any time at the bar with me this past summer has come to know what to expect when I raise my glass and propose a toast. Two words: “Free Trade!”

I’ve recently passed the toast onto the senior-level members of my school’s Economics Club, and I’m urging all of my KSFP friends, now dispersed at schools throughout the country, to do the same. If we can bring our message to untold numbers of inebriated hipster college students, who knows? Maybe Bob Barr could carry a county or two in November.* (Hey, lest you forget, similar off-beat campaign tactics have been hugely successful in Minnesota before).

*This is not an endorsement of Bob Barr.

If you are reading this, then the existence has not been negated: Large Hadron Collider fired up and working fine.

We’re not gonna take it anymore! Alex Tabarrok calls for a libertarian exit from the GOP’s ranks.

NBC Universal puts its tail between its legs and crawls back to iTunes.

It’s alive! Biologist comes close to engineering artificial life.

Drool-worthy: Toshiba announces its new 240 GB hard drives for ultra-mobiles.

Dear readers (all seven of you),

Technagora will not be updated for the next week or so while I finish up an independent study project for school that’s been a year in the making… or rather, eight months overdue. Here’s hoping it’s a slow week for tech news.

A 3-year lawsuit between the RIAA and a Kazaa user was recently settled. The judge in the case is reported to have warned the RIAA to “be careful not to spend that $6,000 in one place, you hear?”

Another point for the 2nd Amendment: An armed 85-year-old woman makes intruder call cops on himself.

Robert Pindyck of MIT talks about the candidate’s energy policies. Brazilian ethanol is sounding pretty good right now. (Via Greg Mankiw).

Ars Technica reports that Presidential candidate John McCain has just released his statement on technology policy. Notably, he comes out against net neutrality (atta boy, John).

Read the statement here.

A/N: I apologize for not posting this week – between a winding-down internship and a new semester starting soon, things have been a bit hectic. Technagora will be back on schedule next week.

I’m having a busy/lazy day (depending on how you look at it), so rather than write my own post, I’ll just share some of today’s gems:

Mankiw and Cowen each comment on the horrifying level of influence that Oprah holds in the election (Idiocracy is upon us, ladies and gentlemen).

Slashdot reports that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s ordered pay cuts can’t be put into effect due to the California government’s info systems being written in the all-but-obsolete COBOL language. Oh, and this is the machinery they’ve got to work with.

How many times do I have to tell you tech-newbs: never, ever trust computer technicians.

Gorillas not as rare as once thought. Now I can finally get myself a lucky gorilla’s foot.

Will links readers to the funniest wikipedia page I’ve ever read.

Dan Mitchell at C@L found a great motivational poster with a libertarian flavor. Does anyone know where to find a high-res version of this? I want it for my wallpaper SO BADLY!!