Life isn't fair. Many of the most coveted spoils--wealth, fame, links on the Web--are concentrated among the few. If such a distribution doesn't sound like the familiar bell-shaped curve, you're right.
Along the hilly slopes of the bell curve, most values--the data points that track whatever is being measured--are clustered around the middle. The average value is also the most common value. The points along the far extremes of the curve contribute very little statistically. If 100 random people gather in a room and the world's tallest man walks in, the average height doesn't change much. But if Bill Gates walks in, the average net worth rises dramatically. Height follows the bell curve in its distribution. Wealth does not: It follows an asymmetric, L-shaped pattern known as a "power law," where most values are below average and a few far above. In the realm of the power law, rare and extreme events dominate the action.
For Nassim Taleb, irrepressible quant-jock and the author of "Fooled by Randomness" (2001), the contrast between the two distributions is not an amusing statistical exercise but something more profound: It highlights the fundamental difference between life as we imagine it and life as it really is. In "The Black Swan"--a kind of cri de coeur--Mr. Taleb struggles to free us from our misguided allegiance to the bell-curve mindset and awaken us to the dominance of the power law.
The author of the nation's strongest global warming law tells us how California is responding to climate change and how she gained the political support to get it done ...
"Leading the Way on Climate Change"
a free public lecture by Fran Pavley
3:30 p.m. Wednesday, April 25
Memorial Union (see "Today in the Union" for room)
800 Langdon Street
University of Wisconsin-Madison
Fran Pavley has served three terms in the California State Assembly, where she is known as one of the most effective legislators in Sacramento. The former Mayor of Agoura Hills and long-time public school teacher is the author of landmark legislation (the Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006) on global warming that has become a model for other states and countries. She is also author of the first regulations on vehicle carbon dioxide emissions. Eleven other states and Canada have modeled their laws after Pavley's Clean Car Regulations. She has been selected as one of Scientific American's Top Technology Leaders in Transportation and received the 2006 California League of Conservation Voters' Global Warming Leadership Award along with former Vice President Al Gore.
This event is co-sponsored by the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies and the Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences at UW-Madison. For more information, please contact Steve Pomplun at the Nelson Institute or call Steve at 263-3063.
AT&T doles out $54,000 ahead of cable bill debate
Doyle, lawmakers say money won't affect stands on deregulation legislation
Communications giant AT&T pushed a controversial bill to have state government license cable systems by showering more than $54,000 in campaign cash on dozens of lawmakers and Gov. Jim Doyle over the past 15 months.
Campaign-finance records show that AT&T's political action committee gave a total of $10,000 to four legislators and the Assembly Republican Campaign Committee in the past two months, when legislators negotiated details of the complex package with AT&T's 15 registered lobbyists.
A new oven is being billed as the greatest invention since the discovery of fire itself. This high-tech contraption, seemingly a cross between a furnace and a microwave, allegedly can roast a whole rack of lamb in 6 1/2 minutes flat. Which sounds impressive if all you want is chops on the table in less time than you would need to set it.
If you want an almost transcendental experience, though, the only route is low and slow, no special equipment required.
Cooking meat, or seafood, slowly and at extremely low temperatures does more than get the job done. It changes everything for the better — the texture turns more tender, the flavor becomes more concentrated — which is why chefs around the world, such as Ferran Adrià, David Bouley and, closer to home, Govind Armstrong, are so enamored of sous-vide. They seal food in plastic, then poach it at super-low temperatures. But it's astonishingly easy to get the same effect using only the appliance you have, not the one you dream of: Turn the oven to a setting just above what you would use to keep pancakes warm, or on the stove, bring a pot of water to just below a simmer. Insert ribs or sea scallops or whatever.
And in very little time you will be biting into the most true-to-itself pork or shellfish you have ever experienced.
Every year over ten million vehicles pass through U.S. auto dealer auctions. This decades old free market has always been dependent on you, the consumer. Dealers will bid up those models that are popular with buyers, while those with a limited audience are stuck in what’s commonly called ‘wholesale heaven’. This is a place where thousands of unappreciated and unloved models go until the market dictates otherwise. Over the course of time, consumers dictates the winners… and the losers.
Over the last few years, The Big 2.5 have been downsizing their domestic production capacity to match falling demand, and compensate for their decision to wean themselves from low-profit fleet sales. Enormous assembly plants that once produced hundreds of thousands of new vehicles are now shuttered. The theory: as production sinks, new car prices will eventually hold firm and profits will follow. Unfortunately, the latest patchwork of new product has already come apart, and th
Walter has stopped hugging his friends. He is throwing out his clothes and furniture, and he rarely comes out of his Tenderloin hotel room anymore.
He's not suicidal, but darn near. He has bedbugs.
Nearly eradicated in the United States 50 years ago, resistant strains of "super" bedbugs are infesting mattresses at an alarming rate. In what's being touted as the biggest mystery in entomology, all 50 states are reporting outbreaks of the blood-sucking nocturnal critters.
Pest control companies nationwide reported a 71 percent increase in bedbug calls between 2000 and 2005. Left alone, a few bedbugs can create a colony of thousands within weeks.
"We never treated bedbugs until 2002. Now we have a dedicated bedbug crew working on this every day," said Luis Agurto, president of Pestec in San Francisco.
Agurto's arsenal includes a vacuum, steam heat to cook the bedbug eggs and targeted spraying of insecticides. It takes three, eight-hour visits and about $500 to $750 to exterminate one room. A whole house would cost closer to $5,000.
Where to begin?
Prior to a recent Asia trip, I needed to obtain a SIM Card for my old Cingular (AT&T) phone that would work while on travel. (I now use a Verizon phone due to our experience with Cingular's poor network coverage - dropped calls on John Nolen Drive, for example).
I called Cingular and explained my requirements: a prepaid SIM Card that would work for 30 days while on travel overseas. The telesales representative explained their different services, including data, worldwide calling and various monthly minute plans.
I provided my credit to close the transaction and a few days later, the Cingular SIM card arrived. I also requested the codes to "unlock" my old phone. Unfortunately, despite our prior long term Cingular arrangement, they insisted that I had to use the phone for 90 days before they would provide the unlock keys. This would prove to be a problem when I found that the SIM card Cingular sold me did not, in fact, work internationally.
Fortunately, a friend let me use an old phone, which would accept any SIM Card - easily purchased in most countries.
I called Cingular upon my return to express my disappointment. Farrah in Halifax was as helpful as could be expected, given their organization. She phoned their "sales" department to see if I could obtain a refund. The "sales" person told her that they "don't sell SIM Cards"! I mentioned that while I'm unhappy with Cingular, I'm glad she had that experience with sales, particularly while I was on the line.
Bottom line: If you are looking for a world phone, look elsewhere. I've heard good things about T-mobile, though your mileage may vary.Middle-class Americans, listen up: the I.R.S. is much more likely to audit you this year. Those caught cheating can expect to pay about $4,100 more on average in income taxes.
Since 2000, authorities at the Internal Revenue Service have nearly tripled audits of tax returns filed by people making $25,000 to $100,000 as part of a broad change in audit strategy.
Audits of these middle-class taxpayers rose to nearly 436,000 last year, up from about 147,000 returns in 2000. For these 61 million individuals and married couples, who make up nearly half of all taxpayers, the odds of being audited rose from 1 in 377 to 1 in 140.
Kevin Brown, the I.R.S. deputy commissioner for services and enforcement, said the audits “were out of whack” in 2000, with far too little attention paid to the middle class and to the very highest income generators, those making $1 million or more. “We try to run a balanced audit program,” Mr. Brown said.
If a "private homestay" is the key to an affordable visit to London, the same is true in Paris and Rome. Different from bed and breakfasts, homestays are the rental of a single room in a house or apartment whose owners are supplementing their income by taking in transient visitors. Such lodgings are available for as little as $35 to $40 per person per night, as compared with at least double that price (and sometimes more) for a room in a modest, commercial guesthouse or tiny hotel.
In my April 1 column, I listed several organizations that make such rooms available in London, such as www.happy-homes.com and www.athomeinlondon.co.uk. Immediately, I received letters requesting similar Web sites for low-cost private homestays in France and Italy.
-- Paris room rentals: The notion of taking a foreign visitor into one's apartment was once anathema to the average, privacy-seeking Parisian. To do so just wasn't "French." In a cultural shift that I won't try to explain, slightly more than 200 Parisian families now have begun renting rooms in their homes or apartments -- and these make up the inventory of three Parisian bed-and-breakfast services (more commonly known as chambres d'hôtes) offered to tourists from around the world.
They called themselves the Arctic Eagles. For years, they flew Alaska Airlines passengers on the lonely routes from here to 20 remote outposts across the nation's largest state. With limited instruments and little air-traffic control, they faced blizzards, bear heads, gravel runways and volcanic eruptions.I flew on one of these Alaska Air flights years ago, it took a few tries to land at the fogged in airport. Sat next to a woman who lost her husband - an air taxi pilot - in a crash.
But after 25 years, the Eagles are being disbanded.
Alaska Air two weeks ago retired the last of its dedicated fleet of banged-up old Boeing 737-200s affectionately known as "mud hens." As the airline expands its routes, it is sending the roughly 60 pilots onto newer aircraft that they'll have to fly to California, Mexico and the East Coast as well as the Alaskan destinations.
Alaska is no longer their exclusive fief, either. Some of the airline's other pilots will be able to fly the Arctic routes as long as they're "checked out" on some of the most demanding airports.
Each passerby had a quick choice to make, one familiar to commuters in any urban area where the occasional street performer is part of the cityscape: Do you stop and listen? Do you hurry past with a blend of guilt and irritation, aware of your cupidity but annoyed by the unbidden demand on your time and your wallet? Do you throw in a buck, just to be polite? Does your decision change if he's really bad? What if he's really good? Do you have time for beauty? Shouldn't you? What's the moral mathematics of the moment?
On that Friday in January, those private questions would be answered in an unusually public way. No one knew it, but the fiddler standing against a bare wall outside the Metro in an indoor arcade at the top of the escalators was one of the finest classical musicians in the world, playing some of the most elegant music ever written on one of the most valuable violins ever made. His performance was arranged by The Washington Post as an experiment in context, perception and priorities -- as well as an unblinking assessment of public taste: In a banal setting at an inconvenient time, would beauty transcend?
The musician did not play popular tunes whose familiarity alone might have drawn interest. That was not the test. These were masterpieces that have endured for centuries on their brilliance alone, soaring music befitting the grandeur of cathedrals and concert halls.
From the press statement posted on Governor Jim Doyle's Web site:
Office of Energy IndependenceGovernor Doyle today signed an Executive Order creating the new Office of Energy Independence to advance the Governor’s vision on energy policy and promote the state’s bioindustry. The office will serve as a single-point of contact for citizens, businesses, local units of government and non-governmental organizations pursuing bio development, energy efficiency and energy independence. The office will also identify federal funding opportunities and serve as the State Energy Office, working to maintain federal designation and funding.
One initial project for the office will be to work with the Public Service Commission (PSC) on a potential multi-utility effort to build a “clean coal” electric generation facility.
Judy Ziewacz will serve as Executive Director of the office, which will be located in the Risser Justice Building.
Task Force on Global WarmingGovernor Doyle signed an Executive Order creating a Task Force on Global Warming that will bring together a prominent and diverse group of key Wisconsin business, industry, government, energy and environment leaders to examine the effects of, and solutions to, global warming in Wisconsin. Using current national and local research, the task force will discuss and analyze possible solutions to global warming challenges that pose a threat to Wisconsin’s economic and environmental health. The task force will create a state plan of action to deliver to the Governor to reduce our state’s contribution to global warming.
In conjunction with the new task force, the Governor directed the Department of Natural Resources, with the assistance of the PSC, to lead an effort to obtain a current estimate of the greenhouse gas emissions in Wisconsin.
The task force will be chaired by Roy Thilly of the Wisconsin Public Power and Tia Nelson of the Board of Public Land Commissioners.
Regional Summit of Midwest Governors
Governor Doyle announced that he has recently been elected to serve as Chair of the Midwestern Governors Association and will hold a summit of Midwest governors in Wisconsin this fall to focus on regional efforts to achieve energy independence and fight global warming.
In advance of this summit, Governor Doyle asked the PSC and Chairman Ebert to explore new technology that may allow us to capture carbon emissions before they go into the atmosphere, and to see how those technologies might be implemented across the Midwest.
Additionally, as chair, Governor Doyle will focus on reauthorization of the federal Farm Bill and promoting the economic vitality of the Midwest. The Governor’s agenda builds upon the work conducted by Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty as chair over the past year.
To prepare for regional collaboration, the Governor asked the PSC to explore potential opportunities to capture and sequester carbon across the Midwest.
Launch of Credit-Trading System Throughout the Midwest to Encourage Renewable Energy
To keep the cost of renewable energy down and to encourage more development across the Midwest, the PSC is launching a market driven regional effort with Minnesota, Iowa, South Dakota, North Dakota and the province of Manitoba to track and trade renewable energy credits. The Midwest Renewable Energy Tracking System will help support and stimulate a trading market to help these regional partners meet their renewable energy standards.
This column by Tom Stills, president of the Wisconsin Technology Council, ran in the Stevens Point Journal:
A joint proposal was filed Feb. 1 by the UW System, UW-Madison and Michigan State University to open a federal energy research lab in Madison. Molly Jahn, dean of the UW-Madison College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, has described the proposal as a strong fit with faculty, staff and student projects related to bio-energy. Those projects are taking place in disciplines that encompass biology, agriculture, engineering, natural resources and the social sciences. . . .It will be months before the next phase of the federal selection process begins, but the collaborative effort should merit a hard look in Washington. If Wisconsin is successful, it could mean several hundred jobs and tens of millions of dollars within five years.
