How Not To Blog ?

The upcoming Asian-African Summit to be held in Jakarta from April 22 to April 23 will be attended by at least 50 heads of state of Asian and African countries.

They're just in time!

Indonesian scientists on Thursday placed 11 volcanoes under close watch after a series of powerful quakes awoke intense subterranean forces and increased the chances of a major eruption.

[Article]

One of the 11 volcanos is Tangkuban Perahu which is very near where they will meet in Bandung.

Would someone make sure Bush gets his invitation? Wouldn't want him to miss those yellow and black people. (Bush: "So, you guys in Africa have black people, too?")

I continue to watch the region for seismic activity. It's fun to watch at least 1 magnitude 5 quake hitting Indonesia at the same depth every day.

Indonesia has more than 130 active volcanoes and endures daily seismic jolts attributed to the Pacific "Ring of Fire". Three continental plates meet in the region, shifting constantly with immense force deep beneath the islands that make up the country.

My money is on the Lake Toba supervolcano.

Following I illustrate what could be a new breed of auction system:

::All bidders in an auction, except for the winner, must pay the highest amount they bid to the winning bidder if they lose.

::The winner of the auction then pays the seller's reserve price (known since the start of auction), and keeps the remainder for his/her self. And, of course, wins the auction item. The reserve price is paid regardless of whether or not a winner's profit will be made. (All payments are made automatically by the system.)

or better yet,

::All bidders in an auction, except for the winner, must pay the highest amount they bid to the seller if they lose.

::The possibility that each person could be the winning bidder and end up paying nothing for something they desired would (hopefully) put upward pressure on the price.

::The seller's sense of risk is decreased by the prospects of receiving much more at the end of the auction than that being sold is worth.

In each scenario, the bid price could be lofted dramatically by each bidder's greed. In the two scenarios, the winning bidder essentially could pay nothing and come out ahead.

In the first scenario, "Winner Takes All", bidding for a $200 item could reach an average of $8-9 across 75 participants, for example. You would probably have more participants bidding the price up than in the second scenario due to the winner's added incentive. Most bidders would bid extremely low at first, but towards the end of the auction would probably bid up the price dramatically in order to win.

In the second scenario, "Winner Slides", bidding for a $200 item could reach an average of $6-7 across 50 participants, for example.

How much is a person willing to risk to get something for nothing (or nothing-plus-risk)?

The number of participants would, of course, be limited so that the prospects of winning are still appealing to each bidder. You would also need an escrow system whereby a person would make deposits and then bid against those deposits.

It is, in effect, an auction lottery.

Ming's post about psychologist Max Bazerman's experiments with his students and a bit of money got me thinking on the above.

This paper, by Jesus Christ, was randomly generated.

Try it out yourself.

Link via one of my favorite websites, Fleming Feunch's Ming.tv, who writes:

Some clever grad students have used an automatic computer science paper generator to create a gibberish paper, which they've gotten submitted to a conference. They now plan on randomly generating a gibberish speech which they can go and deliver there.

Easy! Lease out Alaska for 1,000 years to any entity (or hedge fund bastard) who will want the shit. 365,000,000 acres for only $10,000 each. A steal, especially since the equator will be running through it before you know it. Only 160,000 acres are currently in use. Just move these people to Nevada or something.

The buyer doesn't need to pay cash or anything. It'll be a no-cash deal. We'll just transfer our nearly $8 trillion in IOU's into their happy little pockets. Won't China be looking to expand their territories soon enough? Or is everyone just pretending that 2 billion Chinese will live a country slightly smaller than the US in the year 2050?

In the future, it'll be all about maintaining Chinese happiness.

What would this make me, a journalist?

HAHAHA.

However, more than one-third of respondents had never heard of blogs before participating in the survey, and only around 30 percent of participants had actually visited a blog themselves.

While Americans were concerned about free speech, the survey revealed more moderate attitudes when it compared bloggers to journalists.

Fifty-two percent of those surveyed said bloggers should have the same rights as traditional journalists, while 27 percent did not express an opinion. Free speech rights are protected under the first amendment of the US Bill of Rights, which says the US Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech or of the press. Such rights are not enshrined in the Australian Constitution.