Ideas Sold Like Slap Choppers

A friend of mine sent me this interesting video: the audio from a talk by Dan Pink, Drive: The surprising truth about what motivates us, put to a very creative use of  'real-time' sketching to illustrate the ideas:



I find this talk funny. I mean, subtract that he's talking about something interesting: what motivates people in a work context, and he might as well be doing an infomercial on the Slap Chopper. He also gets a lot of mileage out of a couple of 'studies'. A little bit too much mileage. Anyway the video is worth checking out. The visuals really add a lot to the meaning.

Dudus, Jamaica's modern-day Robin Hood?

I have to admit a certain fascination with the story of Christopher "Dudus" Coke, a gang lord in a neighborhood of Kingston called Tivoli Gardens. Pressured by the U.S. for years Jamaica is finally relenting with an extradition order. Problem is: the people of Tivoli Gardens see Dudus as a hero who keeps order in the community and helps schools and provides street justice where police won't. Police forces moving into the neighborhood are experiencing violent opposition (73+ have died). Dudus - Hero or Villain? Probably a bit of both. It reads like something out of a Hollywood movie.You can find out more about him in the Wikipedia entry on Christopher Coke. The National Post ran a piece on on Dudus yesterday.

Video on recent police action in Tivoli Gardens:

Planet Money Podcast - Highly 'Listenable' Reporting on Economics

Discovered a new podcast to follow: Planet Money. I heard a segment by them on an episode of This American Life, and loved it. I checked out other shows by Planet Money (via ITunes interface - but you can also listen on their website). They do really interesting reporting - including investigative journalism into a whole bunch of the behind-the-scenes shenanigans that led to the collapse of the financial markets. Here is the official description of the show, from their website:

Money makes the world go around, faster and faster every day. On NPR's Planet Money, you'll meet high rollers, brainy economists and regular folks -- all trying to make sense of our rapidly changing global economy.

The piece they did on this week's This American Life, Island Time, was on Haiti and why, after decades of aid, and over 10,000 NGO's 'helping' out, Haiti has not improved, and, in some respects gotten worse....

Check out the Planet Money Blog

Darwin - the Sweetheart of the Podcast World

CBC is a bit late in the game with their Ideas series, The Evolution of Charles Darwin. Most of my regular podcasts have already served up features on Darwin this year and last. The reason for this resurgence of interest in Darwin is that 2009 was the 150th anniversary of Darwin's famous book: On The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection. So, is CBC just playing catch-up after hearing everyone else's?

The CBC is late, but that's OK, because it's pretty good. They focus on the development of Darwin's ideas during that period in his life when he completed his famous tract. How he came to the theory of 'natural selection' to explain 'evolution' (which interestingly was an idea being thrown around at the time - the main challenge was to explain how it worked).

Here are some other podcasts on Darwin:

• NPR's take on Darwin
• BBC show In Our Time on Darwin
• WNYC on Darwin

The other reason for the resurgence of interest in Darwin? I'm wondering if it a response to the rise of religious fanatics and the perceived need to start propping up the discourse so that we don't roll-back culturally and intellectually into the dark (pre-Darwin) ages.

Can Reducing Legalese to Save the World?

Alan Siegel thinks so. His Ted Talk (see below) is about his campaign to simplify the way that governments and courts and bureaucracy of all sorts communicate with 'the people'. For example, if you understood the fine print about the minimum payments on your credit card, you'd probably behave differently. This simplification of language and 'interface design' between biz/govt and people is an attempt to avoid a lot of the bad sh*it in the world... How about understanding hedge funds? Would we let that even happen if we knew what was going on? It's a neat idea. You have to ask yourself -- surely there's a good reason for legalese? Can it be avoided?

For those of you who haven't heard about Ted Talks: basically pick the most interesting people and get them to talk for 6-12 minutes about ideas they care about. I prefer to listen to them as podcasts, which you can do via ITunes (see here)...

Promising new buddy comedy from Fox, The Good Guys

Looks like The Good Guys, a new tv comedy from Fox, is going to be good.  Fans of Life on Mars (the British one), will recognize some of the 70s references. But instead of dumping a by-the-book modern cop into the 70s, this show reverses that and dumps the 70s cop into a modern police department. It's pretty funny.

They're stuck in the small crimes beat, which ends up being quite funny as they investigate things like stolen humidifiers.They pull out all the 70s cliches for the one character - womanizing, action-oriented, alcoholic, trans-am driving, moustache-sporting, CHIPS sunglasses etc...

The Good Guys has a nice tone. Fans of the short-lived show The Unusuals will probably like this show, too. Quirky, fun... hopefully they can keep that winning mix for a whole season. You can watch episodes online at the Fox website.

Deepwater Horizon Nightmares

I can't get the Deepwater Horizon disaster out of my head. I went online just now to see how bad it is, to find that they are not exactly sure how much oil is being spilled. But, even the low-end of the estimate is sickening. According to the Wikipedia entry:

The gusher originates from a deepwater oil well 5,000 feet (1,500 m) below the ocean surface. Numerous estimates have been made for the amount of oil being discharged, ranging from 5,000 barrels (210,000 US gallons; 790,000 litres) to 100,000 barrels (4,200,000 US gallons; 16,000,000 litres) of crude oil per day [emphasis mine]. The exact spill flow rate is uncertain — in part because BP has refused to allow scientists to conduct accurate measurements — and is a matter of some debate.

The question on the cover of Bloomberg is apt. Is it worth it?

Strike Back: Jason Bourne meets James Bond.... Sort of......

Strike Back, a new six-part British TV spy thriller has its moments, but succumbs one too many times to action-hero cliches to be worth checking out (except for action-fans who will watch anything remotely good). It starts off interesting: the hero is part of a failed mission that gives him serious hangups. He's removed from duty for almost a decade. Then, an event brings him right back in and - presto - he's like the best spy EVER.

Check your brain at the door and enjoy some decent action sequences, but don't hold your breath for anything original or innovative. Very well produced fluff, though. Here's the official trailer >

What do suffragettes, income tax, and the KKK have in common?

National Public Radio's Fresh Air radio show/podcast is consistently good, but after a while the formula can be a bit too much. However, this week's interview with Daniel Okrent, author of Last Call: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition, stood out as an example of when the show works. Okrent looks at how Prohibition became an Ammendment to the constitution and who was behind it. Fascinating. So much of what we know of as modern politics, including modern forms of taxation came out of Prohibition..... Here's a snippet from the interview:

"It largely had to do with a xenophobic, largely anti-immigration feeling that arose in the American Middle West, that arose among white, native-born Protestants. It also had a strong racist element to it. Prohibition was a tool that the white South could use to keep down the black population. In fact, they used Prohibition to keep liquor away from black people but not from white people. So you could find a number of ways that people could come into whatever issue they wanted to use and use Prohibition as their tool. The clearest one, probably, was women's suffrage. Oddly, the suffrage movement and the Prohibition movement were almost one and the same — and you found organizations like the Ku Klux Klan supporting women's suffrage because they believed women would vote on behalf of Prohibition."

>> Take a Listen now

New six-part BBC crime drama, "Luther"

Just watched the first episode of Luther, a brand-new crime series from the BBC. I am a sucker for British crime drama. Shows like Prime Suspect, and Cracker. They have great stories, great camera work, top notch acting and excellent dialogue. BBC has just aired episode one of the six-part series that I hope will keep company with those other greats.

Idris Elba, the lead actor who plays Luther, you may recognize from the American show The Wire, where he played Stringer Bell. Is he British or American? Either way he does good accents! Episode One was good - introduces his flaws and failed relationships (of course - every detective needs those!), and demonstrates his volatility and intelligence. Looks like it will be good!

For more information on the show you can read the show's creator's comments on the BBC website. Distribution-wise who knows when it will be available in your area.... but there are ways.

Film Noir fans might like The Missing Person (2009)

Film Noir fans might want to check out The Missing Person (2009). Never heard about it before, but recently saw it on a whim and was impressed. The IMDB ranking was a bit low, I think (6.2/10). That may be because it is not a populist fare. It moves slowly (but in a good way), and it takes a while to get into the lead actor's delivery. Great atmosphere, and nice camera work and colours make it fit it right into the noir genre. I'd say it's a 8/10, with the caveat that it is slow. if you like slow great, if not, then steer clear.

Who cares what the NY Times says about Treme?

HBO's Treme (pronounced truh-MAY), received a mixed review at the NY Times. Although Allesandra Stanley's observations about the show's shortcomings are sorta accurate, they don't quite do justice to how great the show is.

The Wire started off in a similar way - characters seemed a tad stock and stilted, but as the show developed its complex themes it all fell into place. The same goes for Treme. After a few episodes, I am hooked.

Chatter about the new, New Deal

Podcasts from all over the (English speaking) world this week discussed big economic ideas: from guaranteed annual income to the demise of capitalism.

We do indeed live in interesting times. Not since the Great Depression have ideas about changing the market been so freely discussed, and seriously considered. Both left and right see the need for change and the question is: what do we do to right the ship?

TVO's The Agenda did a piece on Guaranteed Annual Income. Does a guaranteed annual income really help those in need? Can Canada afford such a program? A table of experts lead by Steve Paitken's deft guidance avoided blows, but just. Those against are concerned that lack of incentive will mean that nobody will want to work and that without economic incentive families won't stay together. While those in favour point out that eliminating poverty and the bureaucracy of social programs, especially for children has all kinds of positive effects. Either way, they all recognize that this lofty concept has had a hard time getting far. Politically it is dangerous territory. Maybe now that we are pressed, this topic will loosen?

BBC's Thinking Allowed podcast went bigger picture and addressed the question that many are asking: can capitalism survive? What would an alternative framework look like? In order to understand that we need to know how capital works. A couple of very smart guys talk about just that. Here's part of the writeup:

Modern economics has buried its head in detail but ignored the systematic character of capital flow, he claims, and it is time for a restore an understanding of how capital works. Also on Thinking Allowed is the Cambridge development economist Ha-Joon Chang. In his analysis the detailed global programmes on international development amount to little more than poverty reduction, and the rich world is keeping the less developed countries poor in the name of free trade. 

The show, Capitalism and Development can be heard here.