december, 15, 2003 archives

local maxima

eugene volokh over at the volokh conspiracy tries to address an assertion that blogs tend to be right-of-center by looking at the data from truth laid bear traffic rankings. others have pointed out the fundamental flaw of that data (it only tracks blogs that uses sitemeter blogs). i think the question ignores the fact that an overwhelming number of blogs don’t discuss politics at all. just like an overwhelming number of people.

of the top 10 blogs in the technorati top 100, only a few regularly discuss politics. of the most watched at blo.gs, none of the top 10 regularly discuss politics.

something i notice more and more is how much people tend to overgeneralize their own day-to-day experiences and activities. geeks all assume that everyone reads /. (except the übergeeks, who assume that everyone else stopped reading it two years ago like they did). the warbloggers assume that everyone reads instapundit. people seem to forget that the vast majority of the world is not like them, does not speak the same language, and does not experience the same culture. whether that means they watch survivor while you’re watching friends or they’ve never seen a television set.

more flecktones

i caught béla fleck and the flecktones: live at the quick on pbs the other day, and victor wooten’s rendition of amazing grace on the bass is simply awe inspiring. he is an amazing, amazing bass player. the whole group is probably the single greatest collection of musicians i’ve ever seen play together.

speaking of normal

the motley fool has a nice article on what a typical (average) “consumer unit” (household) spends and makes per year. it shouldn’t be a huge shock to learn that the norm appears to be a negative cash flow. they don’t discuss any historical trends of this data, which would be interesting. but don’t worry, we’re in the midst of an economic recovery. we’ll make it up in volume.