I was reading a news article this week in which a report from a think tank was cited. I found myself, as I often do, wondering what the context of this think tank was. Who’s paying their bills, what is their philosophy, etc. and should I take this with a grain of salt?

This led me to think: articles which have a possible political context need to treat all political actors, not just politicians, with the same hand. When someone is quoted, their affiliation needs to appear in context. To write “Brookings Institute supports military expansion”, “Grover Norquist angry about tax expansion”, or “Alec Baldwin unhappy about Romney comments” without noting their political and policy leanings does a disservice to the reader. I shouldn’t have to guess what their angle is if I’ve never heard of Norquist or Baldwin.

The first news organization that can take whatever is happening in the news cycle, filter out the chaff, and put the rest in a meaningful context will have my subscription. I’d like to think they’d capture a lot of folks who want more information in their news than entertainment (though entertainment isn’t bad either!)

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Economy as organism, not machine

A long time ago, over lunch with a friend, I went off on some rant about the stock market. At the time, I was just starting to study economics and learn how finance works. The gist of my rant was that the stock market can never be right because it’s made of humans, with all their irrationalities included. I’ve since come to understand that, in aggregate, many (but not all!) of the irrationalities drop out and one is left with a pretty good (but imperfect!) view on how much things are worth and how to allocate monetary resources.

You can imagine that a New York Times op-ed on “the market” with a name like The Machine and the Garden is right up my alley:

Lastly, consider spending. The word spending means literally “to use up or extinguish value,” and most Americans believe that’s exactly what government does with their tax dollars. But government spending is not a single-step transaction that burns money as an engine burns fuel; it’s part of a continuous feedback loop that circulates money. Government no more spends our money than a garden spends water or a body spends blood. To spend tax dollars on education and health is to circulate nutrients through the garden.

True, not all spending is equally useful, and not every worthy idea for spending is affordable. But this perspective helps us understand why the most prosperous economies are those that tax and spend the most, while those that tax and spend the least are failures. More important, it clarifies why more austerity cannot revive an already weak private economy and why more spending can.

The article reads a bit Keynesian, but it’s larger point is that the economy isn’t a rigid, error-proof machine. It’s millions of actors and billions of events that economists can describe roughly, but can’t perform rigorous experiments on or accurately predict its movements.

When someone says, “the market will correct for [whatever shortcoming in logic you just pointed out]”, I’m often entertained by replacing “the market” with “hyperintelligent aliens” or “rubbing some ’Tussin on it” (thanks Chris Rock!). What I’m trying to say is, this op-ed is much better worded and less glib view on how I try to think about the market: part science, part social dynamic.

The US Economy, not 100% gloom

Eurozone, LIBOR manipulation, and American politics got you down? This week’s Economist is surprisingly upbeat and sure to make you feel marginally better about how things are trending. Comeback kid and Points of light enumerate areas of the US economy (energy and services, largely) that are trending up and could be a big deal over the next months and years. An unconventional bonanza zeroes in on the energy industry, natural gas in particular. Fracking controversy aside (large disclaimer!), it’s encouraging to know that energy imports/exports are trending towards greater balance. The last pick-me-up in these articles is that everyone can decide whether an Economist cover featuring a ripped Uncle Sam with nipple tassels is a good or bad thing.

Shedding pounds, the realistic way

Thoughtful software developer James Golick wrote about how he’s dropped a lot of weight. How to lose 100 pounds covers the strategies, diets, and exercises he’s tried. The upside: you don’t necessarily have to exercise (it helps for some people, it didn’t help him). The downside: sugar and processed food are still pretty gnarly. The downside for me: starches like pizza and tortillas aren’t too great either.

The most useful thing I found in dieting is to put calories in context. For instance, I can eat a 300 calorie brownie in about five minutes. I asked my old trainer what exercise I could do to burn off that many calories in the same time. “You could flip tractor tires for five minutes, non-stop, and maybe burn off that many calories.” No more brownies for me!

Building tools to suit

Thoughtful software developer Sam Stephenson wrote about switching philosophies from highly customized computers to as-default-as-possible. For him, being better versed in his tools and using defaults allowed him to stay just as productive with the added benefit of reducing confusion when working with others on computers he hadn’t customized.

I’m somewhere in the middle of this spectrum. I abhor a system not bearing my idiomatic configuration. That said, I try not to change things in weird ways unless I have a very good reason. The result is that I can use most people’s computers for an hour or so without feeling slowed down, but I get that fast, in-the-zone feeling when I’m using my own system.

My situation is different from Sam’s though. I have been on distributed teams for the better part of the last five years, Sam’s been able to go into an office to colocate with teammates for that same time. Whichever situation you’re in, never hesitate to build your tools up to the level that suits what’s important to you producing awesome stuff.

Good hip-hop you maybe haven’t heard

I’ve listened to People Hear What They See, by Oddisee, a few times now. This is some solid hip-hop music. The beats are great, harkening back to the soul/funk coming out of Stax once Isaac Hayes became a big thing. The flows are nice, somewhere between the effortlessness of Jay-Z and the intricacy of Talib Kweli. I’ve paid the least attention to the lyrics (I don’t even hear lyrics until I’ve listened to a song a dozen times or more), but what I have paid attention to is good. This is worth a spin for the hip-hop heads and dilettantes out there.