NPR: Fukushima Anniversary Discussions

Monday's On Point was a very interesting discussion. There is a real possibility that Japan will mothball all of its nuclear power because the risk the industry poses to all of Japan had been previously underestimated. Download audio.

Likewise, last Tuesday's Fresh Air. Download audio. This is an interview with Dan Edge, the producer of a Frontline documentary about the disaster.

On Point Discussion: New web privacy policies at Facebook and Google

Today's On Point discusses how both Facebook and Google are changing their privacy policies. They discuss the pros and cons of these changes and completely new offerings. New to the Google mix is the Android phone penetration, which enables phone providers and Google to gather geographic and on-the-spot information.

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Fresh Air: Baratunde Thurston

This was an interesting episode of Fresh Air, an interview with Baratunde Thurston.

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This American Life: Planet Money Team on Euro Crisis

This episode was mostly about the Greek aspect of the European Debt Crisis. Here is the audio split into 5 parts.

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On Point Discussion : SOPA/PIPA

This was a very interesting and timely discussion.

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I liked the comment about the buggy-whip manufacturers. They content providers could lock down their content if they wanted to do it. They're asking everyone else to change to accommodate their outdated business model.

The future of employment in a digital world

What jobs will be left for humans when computers/robots take more ground in manufacturing? This is the debate that began with workers questioning how they could compete with machines that could do their job better and more efficiently than they could. Their response was to throw shoes into the machinery; the root word of sabotage is sabot. The trend gained more momentum with Ford's assembly line at the beginning of the 20th century, and continues to accelerate in this century. It manifests with highly automated factories producing motherboards, cell phones, pharmaceuticals, and anything involving any repetitive task.

I joined today's On Point in the middle. It sounded very interesting and I am going to download the podcast. Let me know if you'd like the audio cached here.

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Interview: Darger family

Radio West:
This is the family that inspired HBO's Big Love: 1 husband, 3 wives, 24 children.

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Interview: Brad Pitt in Michael Lewis' Moneyball

Terry Gross interviewed Brad Pitt today about a new movie, Moneyball.

I want to listen to this sometime soon: (mp3). Let me know if you'd like the audio cached.

Paint Your Wagon...really

Radio West: So rugged and mountainous, this interview by Doug Fabrizio was interesting.

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One tidbit fact: it really was a good idea to paint your wagon. Linseed oil helped to waterproof the canvas.

main title from the 1969 movie

Tea Party Politics: Introducing Rick Parry (or Rick Perry?)

Today's Fresh Air was as scary of program that has been aired on NPR, including earlier this year when Terry had a guest that described the insane Plumb-bob tests in the Nevada desert in the 1950s. This program was at least as scary because it described a planned religious war between Christians and Muslims. The first plank in their platform: tolerance is the greatest evil on planet Earth. You've been warned. Listen at your peril.

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Rosanne Cash interviewed on Fresh Air (rebroadcast)

This interview was very interesting. The interview centered on Cash's interpretation of songs on Johnny Cash's list of 100 essential American songs. Her interpretation of Patsy Cline's She's Got You does it justice. A lot of singers are afraid to touch Cline's music for fear of not measuring up.

Download audio (mp3)

This sparked the question in my mind of what songs would be on my list of 100 essential songs. Don't Fear the Reaper is going to be on that list. More cowbell! Going back to my childhood: Garry Lewis and the Playboys' This Diamond Ring, Bobby Vinton's Blue on Blue, Marty Robbins' El Paso, the Beatles' Hard Days Night are probably the first songs I remember.

Interview with two leading economists on jobs

NPR's John Ydstie interviewed economists Joseph Stiglitz and John Taylor about ways to strengthen the economy.
NPR audio, mp3. Let me know if you'd like the audio cached.

Barack Obama, Sr. (the president's father)

Dave Davies interviewed Sally H. Jacobs about her new biography of President Barack Obama's father, The Other Barack. This was an interesting show- the part about racial issues with immigration forcing him out of Harvard appears to have been a pivotal point in his life.


NPR audio, mp3. Let me know if you'd like the audio cached.

p.s.Here is a post about another interview about Obama's mother.

All About Area 51

Terry Gross interviewed Annie Jacobsen on yesterday's Fresh Air about the secret Nevada test site, Area 51. Area 51 was used for the Plumbbob tests. The most scary thing for me was the nuclear test that involved scattering plutonium around the desert via a conventional explosion. I think this test was to simulate possible accident scenarios, such as, a B-52 crash, an accidental bomb drop of an unarmed weapon, etc. I think that the accident scenarios assume that the conventional explosive detonates, but does not cause a nuclear explosion- a dirty bomb scenario. The explosion scatters the core of the weapon, contaminating a wide area with plutonium particles. People were beyond crazy in this era. For whatever reason, after the army got their test results (which showed, I guess, the extent of the contamination), they did minimal cleanup at the test site. That sets up a scenario for desert dust storms containing very nasty radioactive particles. The author notes that this was a missed opportunity to learn how to deal with possible methods of cleanup. I am guessing that they army realized that it was very difficult to deal with the magnitude of the contaminated area- many square miles. Jacobsen notes that whatever they might have learned would've been useful in some accidents that have occurred since that test. Some accidents were actually very similar to the initial test parameters; the author cites a B-52 crash in Spain. The latest similar accident is the explosion of the spent fuel pool at reactor 3 at the Fukushima nuclear plant. The Fairewinds report stated that nuclear material (spent fuel pellets) have been found a mile or more from the site after one of the large explosions.

On to the UFO claims of Area 51. Those involve Mengele designing bodies which would look alien for the Soviet military. Area 51 houses a crashed flying object, but it's not from outer space; it's a Soviet jet-powered hover craft that was piloted by surgically modified dwarfs. Pause, and let that sink in... This strange idea has some value (I guess) for some world war three attack scenarios. Jacobsen cites cases where both Hitler and Stalin expressed interest in this idea because they wanted to repeat the scenario created during Orson Welles' War of the Worlds radio broadcast, and use it to their advantage. Stalin was especially interested in using the idea to mask a nuclear first strike. The idea is to induce confusion and mass panic preceding or during the attack. If the enemy doesn't know for sure where an attack is coming from, they might delay retaliation. It might make more sense to wait and see, especially when the "end of the world" is at stake, and especially when an attack is perceived as coming from outer space, and not the cold war rival. Actually, George C. Scott's General Turgidsen did the best job explaining this strategy for winning a nuclear war using the first strike strategy. The idea is to severely disable the enemy from the outset. Von Neumann's game theory is at play, too. (Some people also claim that the Dr. Stranglove character is modeled on Von Neumann.) Coincidentally, Von Neumann actually advocated the first strike strategy, especially when the enemy cannot be trusted to not defect and use a first strike strategy. It's a classic 4-square game theory payoff matrix, a slight variant of the classic prisoner's dilemma puzzle.

That Mengele based claim is pretty far out there. I guess when all of the layers are stripped back, then what is left has to be the truth. Still, whoah!

Note: This post required some edits.

First Update:
The author made the rounds on the media circuit, culminating with a visit to Jon Stewart.

Education Debt vs. Employment Wages

This was an interesting report on Morning Edition this morning. It makes the direct statement that education costs should be weighed against potential future earnings in that future profession. That can be a wager in and of itself because of our uncertain future economy. There are enough wildcards that it can become a simple WAG as more and more professions are outsourced to the developing world. Who knows which professions are most likely to continue receiving first world level wages? Audio: (mp3) and cached here.

Also, here is another related discussion. Last week Terry Gross discussed for profit colleges vs. more traditional colleges (universities, community colleges, trade schools, etc.). Audio: (mp3) and cached here:
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Super Sad True Love Story

Terry Gross interviewed Gary Shteyngart on Friday's Fresh Air. I want to read his book in the next couple of weeks.

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Update: 2011-05-21
I've started reading it, enough to get the flavor. It's a dystopian future and it's scary, all right. Unfortunately, his future world is plausible; it's a warning like Orwell's 1984, telling us to do something before it's too late. Set in the near future, the United States debt to China is 65 trillion Yuan-pegged dollars. The country is in the middle of being hollowed out to keep making the payments. Telling China to chill, you'll get your money! isn't working so well anymore. I have discussed the book's major themes on this blog: digital culture, economic trends, privacy, and freedom. His novel blends them all together and simply projects the current trend into the future.The vision is very much comparable to Judge's Idiocracy. People's attention spans have been reduced to the point that they haven't ever read any books. They haven't even read the Cliff Notes version. In the future, all information is streamed. Trying to get a message through that isn't streamed is not possible. It's also important to do things to keep the stream's ratings up- spice it up a little. It helps to intersperse your message (be it politics, cooking, live party streams) with the same characters doing some form of porn. That works with all of those topics- politics plus porn, cooking plus porn- it just keeps the audience's attention much better. Remember, telling your audience to go read anything is a non-starter. Anyone who still reads physical books is shunned. Just what have you got there, grandpa? So, if you really have something serious to say, and it's longer than a tweet, then you're going to have a tough time getting through. Sure, the text version is available online- it's just too long to ever matter to anyone. Dude, can't you give me the tl;dr version?

Personal privacy is a thing of the past. The TSA has run amok. No one cares because they have put all of their information online anyway. Who care's if someone goes through you're bag if you've already given them access to your 24 hour personal stream? Telephone poles display your credit rating when you walk passed them. People like to reveal information so they can find their social status in any given place. Personal devices, the aparat, include a feature to advertise your relevent scores. The data from Rate Me Plus is out there, free for everyone to see and decide if they should interact with you. This page shows the typical output from the aparat.

The government is broke and can't pay its debts and obligations. The fight for oil has most recently led the US Army to Venezuela. The Army was promised a bonus, and the government won't pay, an echo of WW I Bonus Army.. Government functions have been outsourced to corporations. The infrastructure is falling apart. Property with any value is being retrofitted and marketed to foreigners with money. Current tenants are forced out onto the street. Anything and everything will be done to pay off the debt. I am not sure I am going to like the ending...it really could be super sad.

Update: 2011-05-24
Finished reading it -- no spoilers from me. I can only say it left me reeling, not feeling so well.

Update: 2011-05-25
After finishing the book, I turned on NPR and these news stories popped up. They both show the trends of the power of the digital culture and the power of media figures.

• bitcoin


• the oprah

Now that Oprah is ending her show, everyone will need to follow her on Twitter.

DIY: Rockstar

This was an interesting report today from NPR's Planet Money team. It is more evidence that cutting out the middleman is not only possible, it is profitable as well. It used to be that an appearance on Johnny Carson guaranteed stardom. Has the mantle been passed to Slashdot/Reddit/etc. ?

Story: Audio (mp3) and cached here.

I last wrote about this new marketplace here.

Short Joseph Stiglitz Interview

Steve Inskeep interviewed economist, Joseph Stiglitz, on Morning Edition. Audio: (mp3) and cached here.

Interviews today on Weekend Edition

Rob Lowe (mp3) and cached here
Shania Twain (mp3) and cached here

Obama's mother and his childhood

This was an interesting background piece about Barack Obama's mother, and various places that Barack lived while growing up.

The author, Janny Scott, is interviewed on Fresh Air here.

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