gamerates

New Yorker: Have for years, love the urban feel and the mix of arts & politics and 10,000+ word articles on very strange things. Most importantly, great writing and a great fact checking department.

The Economist: To the point, global, compact, and great writing and reporting. Plus the student rate isn't that expensive. It combines well with my Washington Post and WSJ daily subs.

City Journal: It's Quarterly, but is sort of like a more conservative free market New Yorker. Great articles with a different slant.

Atlantic Monthly: I read a lot of the articles online, and read a lot of Andrew Sullivan, so decided to support the magazine and pick it up in print as well (got 2 years for under $10 online)

GQ: For the pictures and ads, although British GQ is better it's just too expensive in the states. Personal interest in style/fashion/design.

Forbes: I let expire after they wrote an article titled "Love Global Warming" (http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2006/1225/038.html) written by the head of what is more or less an ExxonMobile thinktank. It was just too much for me.

Wired: Because it was free

Used to subscribe to Maximum PC (great magazine) when I use to tinker with computers more.

Magazines I'm looking at subscribing to:

HBS: For upcoming mgmt consulting job

Urban Land Institute: Due to a growing interest in commercial development, architecture, and urban planing

Probably a magazine on design/architecture... haven't decided what yet.

FT: And before you start nitpicking the numbers, a word of warning from the study:

"Our Social Return on Investment analysis is not just an intellectual exercise – it has big implications for the way in which our society and economy are structured. Financial incentives are very powerful, and we tend to shower them on some of the professions that are the most socially and environmentally costly. This promotes undesirable behaviour, while positive activities are discouraged. .... We have not aimed for precision in our calculations – there may be aspects of value that were left out. The point was to draw attention to the issue. We have not included detailed recommendations because it is clear to us that there are deep structural issues that need to be addressed, and change will not come overnight."

On that wider `issue’ note, prepare to forget almost every economic theory you’ve ever heard.

According to the study, the City of London is not essential for the UK economy (manufacturing, apparently, is much more important). Low-paid jobs don’t create a ladder for people to work their way up — social mobility is flat. The UK doesn’t need high salaries to attract and retain talent, since higher salaries don’t necessarily reflect the best people available. Etc.

That's changed a bit now as the Fed has does whatever it can to increase liquidity. Less of a stigma, the discount window rate is about what the fed funds rate is, the time period of the loans is longer, etc.

So, you can borrow from the discount window (the fed) and you can do so at a rather low rate. However, the whole theory that the recent upsurge in banking profits is from buying treasuries is a bit silly.

For starters it isn't risk free to buy a 30 year treasury note when you are financing it with short term loans the rate of which could be changed at any time. If interest rates go up your 30 year treasury you bought isn't going to be worth much and may actually start to lose you money. Remember if you are 10x leveraged the market price of that 30 year treasury only has to drop a little for you to lose money. So instead, let's invest in short term treasury rates ( http://www.bloomberg.com/markets/rates/index.html) well except the return on short term treasury rates is about what you would pay at the discount window.

I guess you could invest in short term bonds or other investments, but it isn't going to be risk free then. And it really isn't a scandal that trying to set low interest rates will encourage lending/investing some of which could turn out to be speculative or would not have been made if interest rates were higher. It could also lead to inflation. Those are sort of the costs/benefits of cheap money.

The KQII remake (new animation/storyboard, new story, voice over pack) is probably one of my favorite games of all time.

With Eve these matters are a bit confusing as you can "role-play" a morally bankrupt character or a thief and such behavior is at times semi-encouraged in the game. Players known this when they sign up for the game. However, when you use your trust within the community to steal from a player-formed bank and then use the proceeds for real life gain it seems to cross an ethical boundary.

I've debated before over the justification for real money trade (http://www.gamerates.com/posts/show/debate_over_the_justifca...) and compared the "War on Gold Farming" to the "War on Drugs" (http://www.gamerates.com/posts/show/the_war_on_drugs__the_wa...), but all of those arguments required that the RMT/gold farming be a sort of "victimless crime" which would not hurt the game or community anymore than if you choose to play extra hours instead of outsourcing that boring playtime to China (boring repetitive gameplay is at anything a game flaw in MMO's as it's expensive to make original unique gameplay that can keep players busy for months/years; and very cheap to make them replay the same event hundreds of times aka "farming").

It seems the thief made the common mistake that just because you are anonymous and online that it is somehow OK to cheat and steal. I mean how many of you have had someone try to cheat you out of something online, but doubt the same person would ever be so brazen in person? It didn't seem like the theif was "role-playing" to enhance the wild-wild-west-in-space nature of the game either. He stole virtual money from a bank he was entrusted with (that players had spent a great deal of time acquiring and valued) and then sold it to a website that spams virtual currency ads to pay some bills.

It is one thing to outsource boring parts of the game to another to player for you, and another to steal from your fellow players and then sell the proceeds to pay your personal bills. If the player who did this was fine with his actions, he should have publicly released his name. However, hiding behind anonymity shows he's probably not that comfortable with his actions "role-play" be dammed.

I know if I ran a google search of his name and this was the top story that came up I'd have reserves about hiring him.

:)

You wouldn't have to wipe away the differences, but for some a "just" society should view someone who had poor parents, limited opportunities and an IQ of 70 and someone who had every opportunity, great parents, and an IQ of 130 as equally important and valuable. Such people view a society where the top 2% of the world owns over half the wealth and much of the world lives in absolute poverty as a sign that maybe our institutions are a bit out of wack.

Personally I'm more a fan of smaller "nudge" (nudge.org) like concepts combined with a progressive tax code and a strong commitment to helping minimize "brute luck" (being born to poor parents) while holding people fully accountable for personal decisions or "option luck" (choosing to take a risk, or making a life decision such as being a teacher vs. an i-banker; or going out at bars instead of saving). (Sort of in a Dworkin fashion see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_Dworkin#Theory_of_equali... / or http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luck_egalitarianism).

For example the "equal opportunity" American ideal doesn't match up if the greatest predictor of your economic success is not your intellect, hard work, creativity, etc. but rather the income of the family you were rather arbitrarily born into.

For example: http://www.portfolio.com/views/blogs/market-movers/2009/04/2...

"The truly amazing thing to me is that parental income isn't just crucial in getting to college, and getting through college -- its effects linger on, basically, in perpetuity. One of the most remarkable findings from the Pew Charitable Trusts' Economic Mobility Project is that a child from a family in the top income quintile who does not get a college degree is more likely to wind up in the top income quintile himself than a child from a family in the bottom income quintile who does get a college degree"

A large part of this is due to public policy and there are clear examples of many European countries where changing public policy produces less arbitrary income inequalities. As the developed world transforms into a more knowledge based economy which requires large long-term investments in yourself to really compete, income inequality will only grow between those that can make the investments and those that can't.

I'd also be careful to consider how the market pays people as necessarily being "fair" until you look at after-tax income and the institutions that help determine that price. There are many different ways to setup a distribution of resources in a society and there are many different ways to setup markets (property rights, laws, public services, regulation, taxes etc.). As such we should consider the fairness of our human created rules and institutions; the particular results they create are just indicators. Of course whatever people are paid is "appropriate" as long as it follows the system of rules we have setup.

The "appropriate" results would be very different if we changed how the system was setup.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3071001/ "In a study of 35 sex education programs around the world, the World Health Organization found there is no evidence that comprehensive programs encourage sexual activity.

The study also concluded that abstinence-only programs are less effective than comprehensive classes that include abstinence and safe-sex practices such as contraception and condom use."

At the same time it reminds me of a scene from the movie "Mean Girls" a comedy about the American High School where the gym teacher (who somehow in most high schools is also the "health teacher") uncomfortably states:

"Don't have sex, because you will get pregnant and die! Don't have sex in the missionary position, don't have sex standing up, just don't do it, OK, promise? OK, now everybody take some rubbers."

However, if having sex puts you at a high risk of infinite punishment forever (instead of infinite reward forever) it sort of changes the argument which is why the two sides have difficulty even discussing the topic. It's also why there are claims that after more and more studies show that sex education doesn't increase promiscuity (but it does reduce STD and teen/unwanted pregnancy rates), and the documented failures of abstinence only education, that even then many Christian groups will always say the studies are flawed. This is because the question was never open to debate in the first place, it was a divine infalliable law and we just need to keep running the tests until we get the predetermined correct answer. That's sort of where I see people arguing that many Christian groups are opposed to science. They love science, as long as it agrees with them (the same can we said for many secular liberals as well as Larry Summers found out).

I also think the Catholic church will reverse it's position on contraception for married couples within my lifetime. They sort of semi already have the steps to do that when they endorsed Natural Family Planning (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_family_planning)

"Having sex at an infertile time in a woman's life (such as pregnancy or post-menopause) is also considered acceptable, since the infertile condition is considered to be created by God, rather than as an act by the couple." (http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/pius_xi/encyclicals/docume...)

I always thought that was rather arbitrary that you could have sex for pleasure only, but only during infertile times to prevent pregnancy, which we can measure rather accurately today due to advanced technology that we couldn't do very well in the past, because that's part of the human cycle and thus part of God's plan. However, doing the exact same sex-for-pleasure while preventing pregnancy act by using a piece of technologically simple latex that also protects against STI's is an awful sin.

However, due to the vast pluralism of viewpoints in society and our governments responsibility to not endorse any set religion, they suppose to consider the heaven/hell side of the argument in it's policy decisions. It should of course allow others to consider it independently, and thus we have an opt-out program with our sex education.

Here is a really poor wiki definition of "sex negative" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex-negativity).

"Sex negativity" is more about a lack of tolerance of different forms and viewpoints of sexuality.

I don't think that upon reading the Catechism or looking at a history of the Catholic Church and it's view on sex/sexuality you come away with a very comfortable view of the actual sex act. Part of this may be due to the fact that those that wrote the doctrine were suppose to be chaste. It's interesting reading how the Catholic Church changed it's early viewpoint from allowing priests to marry early on, to outlawing it (in all but a few loopholes, such as getting the "calling" after you are married).

Most of the doctrine seems to view sex as some unfortunate necessity for procreation, not something to be celebrated by itself. It's never been that comfortable with sex for pleasure. This is in stark contrast to let's say the Greek/Roman societies before the rise of Christianity.

However, I feel like the word itself is partly biased because it assumes that a "sex-negative" viewpoint is bad and a "sex-positive" viewpoint is good (similar to the atheists movement to call atheism "brights"... which makes it seem like everyone else is dims) instead of using more neutral definitions.

Just take a look at the Catechism: "2352 By masturbation is to be understood the deliberate stimulation of the genital organs in order to derive sexual pleasure. "Both the Magisterium of the Church, in the course of a constant tradition, and the moral sense of the faithful have been in no doubt and have firmly maintained that masturbation is an intrinsically and gravely disordered action."137 "The deliberate use of the sexual faculty, for whatever reason, outside of marriage is essentially contrary to its purpose." For here sexual pleasure is sought outside of "the sexual relationship which is demanded by the moral order and in which the total meaning of mutual self-giving and human procreation in the context of true love is achieved."138 "

Source: http://www.vatican.va/archive/catechism/p3s2c2a6.htm

However, if they do commit suicide, and they proposed that they wanted to do it by blowing themselves up on a schoolbus; or doing it peacefully alone at their house; I'd be much more against the schoolbus example as it takes other lives with it (and thus is less healthy to society). I'd say I think suicide is a terrible thing, do everything I could to help or convince them otherwise, but ultimately if someone really wants to kill themselves they can and will. I'd advise them that if they are going to do it, they should hurt as little people in the process as possible. I think not telling them that suicide bombing is worse than suicide alone in your home would be rather immoral. As much as I need to convince them not to commit suicide, I need to convince them almost more they shouldn't commit suicide and in the process kill other people.

To make the analogy fit a bit better we are going to assume that the person having sex and the person who wants to commit suicide aren't suffering from some psychological disorder (which puts both situations on a bit different grounds).

Also remember having sex with condoms is equivalent of trying to commit suicide with a gun that has a very very very low percentage of killing you (I'd argue driving your car to work has a much higher percentage of killing you, than having safe sex, where you and your partners are responsible and get tested regularly for STD's) and sex brings with it pleasurable benefits that suicide does not.

So in review, poor analogy.

The new study shows that by age 20, 75% of Americans have had premarital sex. That number rises to 95% by age 44."

Source: http://www.webmd.com/sex-relationships/news/20061220/premari...

It's just that the doctrine isn't working, and it never has. Teaching people about condoms doesn't increase non-monogamous sex ratio's (those are high already), but it does increase condom usage. The guilt and exceptionally "sex-negative" culture that's been fostered in Western Culture, a large part due to Christianity, has caused us tremendous problems through sheer ignorance of human sexuality.

Unfortunately, it's often the women who are at the most at risk, even those in monogamous relationships (women are at a much higher risk of AIDS infection) as it's statistically the male who cheats and in many societies the ability to divorce is limited. This doesn't even touch on the power birth control and condom usage has given women in fully monogamous relationships to properly and effectively plan their pregnancies.

Oh, and should this even be hackernews?

Actually many of my experiences with Brock and what his company did the reputation of the virtual currency industry was the inspiration for my startup to empower the user to vote with their dollars by providing them information on the background of these virtual currency companies (startup: http://www.gamerates.com; also provides charts of exchange rates and covers industry news: our coverage of this piece is at: http://www.gamerates.com/posts/show/happy_thanksgiving_from_...).

The majority of our class majors in finance, and 30% of the recent graduating class ended up at I-banks and 20% at consulting firms (http://www.commerce.virginia.edu/career_services/Destination...). With that said Lehman Brothers was the sixth top employer and I doubt those recent graduates still have jobs.

People are still applying to I-banks, but now every person is now applying to one of the top consulting firms as well (McKinsey, Bain, BCG, Monitor, etc.). Offers were being rescinded to a lot of my friends in the class of 2009 (I'm 2010) and Goldman Sachs just cut it's salary 45% (http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aQjV...). For many it's been a rather depressing year. Our new business school is flooded with 50 inch plasmas and stock tickers all over the place so the class of 2009 literally saw many of their companies collapse in real time. I found it very exciting from an academic perspective however.

A lot more people are looking at corporate jobs as well with GE, G.Mills, Rolls-Royce, P&G, Fortune 500 etc. and the accounting firms such as Deloit and Ernst and Young being overrun with applications. Some of the recruiters I've talked to from larger and smaller firms that never see the "I-bank crowd" are now getting swamped with top applications.

I think it's important to remember that complex instruments that properly evaluate risk and allow for huge influxes of money into companies that make, "cars, phones, computers, teaching tools, Internet programs and medical equipment that could improve the lives and productivity of millions." is rather important. When that stream is turned off it's more than the financial industry that suffers, it's the lifeblood of our economy. Although you may be able to bootstrap an internet startup it's not as easy to bootstrap a revolutionary new technology or new cancer drug.

The reason people go after jobs at I-banks and consulting is the top salaries and more importantly the chance for fast advancement based on pure meritocracy (in theory) that most traditional corporations lack. Us B-students are a bit of a sucker for prestige as well. Until more traditional companies allow for greater meritocracy and faster advancement they won't be able to hold the top talent. The top talent is more than willing to work hard and produce results, they can't help it. Many of them have a sort of irrational drive for success even in the face of the philosophical absurdity of the concept of "success". They want to be rewarded for it. The problem isn't so much finance, it's that other companies didn't create programs to attract top talent and finance did.

With that said as I write this I'm working on my cover letters for consulting summer internships. The vast business experience and name attached to a consulting firm is still worth the investment, even if it's only for two years or a way to kick start a career (or become a career, depending on if you like it I guess).

Ultimately, however I plan to continue my entrepreneurship which I've been doing since a kid (three past internet startups; and two I'm involved in right now). Then again at 21, who knows what I will be thinking in two...five...ten years.

I must say it does help starting out with some nice savings in the bank from these ventures, and knowing that if things get worse I'm confident I can always find ways to scrap things together to pay the rent.

So, although it seems like the people at the top are overpaid the position is a sort of trophy that serves as motivation to underpay a number of grunt workers. For example look at corporate law (the number of lawyers, vs. those that get partner and the real money); or investment banking; or the pilot/airline industry. All have a few top positions that few will make, but many will try to and are willing to be economically underpaid and abused for the chance to win that "trophy" at the top.

Nik has been a contributor and advisor to Techcrunch since 2005. In 1998 Nik was a founding member of the 2600 chapter in Australia, and in 2005 was a founding member of 2web, a loose-knit group of Australian technology entrepreneurs. Nik has advised, or is a current advisor to a range of companies and startups based in both Australia and the USA."

-As per his bio

This seems like a possible solution to that problem and could be the future of the news industry.

For a bit of a summary of the case and some commentary feel free to check it out at: http://www.gamerates.com/posts/show/blizzard_wins_legal_case...

In short, Blizzard who makes the MMO World of Warcraft is suing the creators of a bot that plays the game for you (note: it doesn't hack the game, or do anything a normal player can't) as using the bot violates the Terms of Service that you click "accept" to everytime you play the game. They have ruled that such an "EULA" violation is in fact copyright infringement as the game loads into your RAM and then you are modifying the "experience" of the game outside the realms of the Terms of Service, hence a copyright infringement.

If it is appealed, I think the decision will change. It's just way too wide of a scope. Under these definitions any virus protection program that scans the World of Warcraft client could be violating the EULA as it's 3rd party and also be subject of "copyright infringement". Interesting enough World of Warcraft provides an anti-cheating tool called Warden that scans your computer for known bots which in itself could be a copyright infringement if it is violating the EULA of let's say the bot program (Glider, who is being sued) if they say in it's own EULA that it's illegal to have any 3rd party tool scan it.

The 2005 list is a lot more balanced: http://www.prospect-magazine.co.uk/intellectuals/results.htm

There is actually a really interesting article about why Iceland ranked so high that makes some nice comments about the evolving family structure:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/may/18/iceland

"Highest birth rate in Europe + highest divorce rate + highest percentage of women working outside the home = the best country in the world in which to live. There has to be something wrong with this equation. Put those three factors together - loads of children, broken homes, absent mothers - and what you have, surely, is a recipe for misery and social chaos. But no. Iceland, the block of sub-Arctic lava to which these statistics apply, tops the latest table of the United Nations Development Programme's (UNDP) Human Development Index rankings, meaning that as a society and as an economy - in terms of wealth, health and education - they are champions of the world."

Some PEOPLE are confident. Some PEOPLE are not. Maybe it's just because I happen to attend a top university that is highly competitive, but I don't commonly see this lack of confidence. Although, at the same point as a generation gets older and matures in it's occupational field, of course it is going to become more confident.

People = People. We are much more alike than we are different. That's what makes classics, classics throughout centuries not just generations. It's because they relate to all PEOPLE.