Boston tech scene could be more inviting to students.

Scott Kirsner of the Innovation Economy blog, as well of the Boston Globe says that:

“To me, the biggest way to make Boston more competitive and innovative right now is to do a better job connecting students with our innovation economy. Which is why it pains me that our trade associations and networking groups make it so hard for students to get involved.” (from Innovation Economy)

He goes on to grade a variety of formal and informal groups who put on meetings regularly in the greater Boston area. It’s a really good post, I recommend that you check out “Boston’s Biggest Trade Associations Flunk the Student Test”

A few of my own observations:

• Notice that the meetings that are graded lower tend to be the old-school trade associations, who probably have a standing staff and buraucracy of some kind. Not generally the more interesting meetings to go to.
• In addition to associations, colleges and universities can also do more. Not to generalize, because I don’t have the data, but I have an impression that undergraduates in Computer Science and related fields focus on academically sexy topics (programming in Scheme) and don’t do more in preparing students for the actual tech scene (entrepreneurship, intellectual property, open source, agile methodologies.)

Invest in Innovation.

Jim Manzi (of Lotus fame) has an interesting article in “The Nation” about our need, as a nation, to invest just a little bit more in innovation:

“But with only a little bit of extra funding, foresight and determination, it may be possible to kick-start an innovation revival. Especially at the federal level, we see an opportunity for a modest investment to create a whole new generation of idea-growing, job-creating technology hubs all across the country–perhaps even an “automotive Silicon Valley” in otherwise moribund Detroit.” (from Invest in Innovation)

A good article, with several memorable phrases, starting with “automotive Silicon Valley” (’…In such a hub, just as in Boston and Austin, a virtuous cycle of innovation and product development might be generated.’). Also “hegemon tax” (’…the 50 to 60 percent share of R&D the US spends on warfare innovations…’)

Good article, worth reading.

Finally!.

I can’t put my feelings, seriously, into words: http://nytimes-se.com

It�s even worse than you think.

Michael Lewis writes a great article in Portfolio online about the, let’s say, inevitability, of what’s happened to economy, or wall street, or the markets — take your pick. You can file this under “if you’re so smart why aren’t you rich”, or, my personal favorite, “it seemed like a good idea at the time.”

Michael Lewis is the author of two of my favorite non-fiction books, Moneyball and Liars Poker. Moneyball is about the use of modern statistical and quantitative methods in managing baseball, and Liars Poker about his experiences on Wall Street at 24. This is from the Portfolio article:

“Iâ��d never taken an accounting course, never run a business, never even had savings of my own to manage. I stumbled into a job at Salomon Brothers in 1985 and stumbled out much richer three years later, and even though I wrote a book about the experience, the whole thing still strikes me as preposterousâ��which is one of the reasons the money was so easy to walk away from.

I figured the situation was unsustainable. Sooner rather than later, someone was going to identify me, along with a lot of people more or less like me, as a fraud. Sooner rather than later, there would come a Great Reckoning when Wall Street would wake up and hundreds if not thousands of young people like me, who had no business making huge bets with other peopleâ��s money, would be expelled from finance.”

The article gets quite technical and I didn’t follow more than 50% of the financial chicanery but the overall message is comes through loud and clear:

That�s when Eisman finally got it. Here he�d been making these side bets with Goldman Sachs and Deutsche Bank on the fate of the BBB tranche without fully understanding why those firms were so eager to make the bets. Now he saw.

There weren�t enough Americans with shitty credit taking out loans to satisfy investors� appetite for the end product. The firms used Eisman�s bet to synthesize more of them.

Here, then, was the difference between fantasy finance and fantasy football: When a fantasy player drafts Peyton Manning, he doesn�t create a second Peyton Manning to inflate the league�s stats.

But when Eisman bought a credit-default swap, he enabled Deutsche Bank to create another bond identical in every respect but one to the original. The only difference was that there was no actual homebuyer or borrower.

It’s a good, but depressing article.

Garrison Keillor: America is cool!.

A neat article in Salon, by Garrison Keillor - America is cool:

“The world expects us to elect pompous yahoos and instead we have us a 47-year-old prince from the prairie who cheerfully ran the race, and when his opponents threw sand at him, he just smiled back.

He’ll be the first president in history to look really good making a jump shot. He loves his classy wife and his sweet little daughters. He looks good in the kitchen. He can cook Indian or Chinese but for his girls he will do mac and cheese. At the same time, he knows pop music, American lit and constitutional law. I just can’t imagine anybody cooler.

Look at a photo of the latest pooh-bah conference — the hausfrau Merkel, the big glum Scotsman, that goofball Berlusconi, Putin with his B-movie bad-boy scowl, and Sarkozy, who looks like a district manager for Avis — you put Barack in that bunch and he will shine.” (from Salon, America is cool)

Yeah, Putin, what’s with that B-movie bad-boy scowl?

Do you like this building?.

I came across this ad in the New York Times magazine. I should say, I was riveted by this ad. Is this a real building? Is it built yet? You have to take a look at some of the images on (what I think is) their main site.

But really the ad in the magazine is the one that is still the most impressive.

Which leaves me with the question, is this thing a good idea? I wonder?

Just quickly looking around some of the stuff I read online about it leaves me with the question of whether this is an architectural/engineering/construction tour the force which in the end will not much improve the world.

What is Art For?.

A really good article in the New York Times Magazine today about Lewis Hyde. I had not heard of Lewis Hyde before. First of all, the article makes me want to pick up his book, The Gift:

“â��The Gift,â�� the core argument of which depends on establishing an analogy between the making of art and how objects accrue value in traditional â��gift economies,â�� has been praised as the most subtle, influential study of reciprocity since the French anthropologist Marcel Maussâ��s 1924 essay of the same name.” (from What is Art For?)

The article tries really hard to summarize Hyde’s work and views but admits that it’s impossible. There are threads about open source, and creative commons, and art, and copyright law, and the constitution, Thoreau, Emerson and much more:

“For Hyde, redressing the balance between private (corporate, individual) and common (public) interests depends not just on effective policy but also on recovering the idea of the cultural commons as a deeply American concept.

To that end, he excavates a history of the American imagination in which the emphasis is not on the lone genius (Thoreau scribbling hermetically in the Massachusetts woods) but on the anonymous pamphleteer, the inventor eager to share his discoveries. In an essay that offers a preview of his book (posted, fittingly, on his Web site), Hyde posits that the history of the commons and of the creative self are, in fact, twin histories. �The citizen called into being by a republic of freehold farms,� he writes, �is close cousin to the writer who built himself that cabin at Walden Pond.

But along with such mainstream icons goes a shadow tradition, the one that made Jefferson skeptical of patents, the one that made even Thoreau argue late in life that every �town should have � a primitive forest �, where a stick should never be cut for fuel, a common possession forever,� the one that led the framers of the Constitution to balance �exclusive right� with �limited times.� It is a tradition worth recovering.� (from What is Art For?)

Good stuff.

Ever hear of teratomas?.

Here’s a truly weird article, which a sticks in my mind a week after reading it:

“Clark had seen teratomas. They were common in the reproductive tract, often found accidentally in the course of an operation or on a scan done for some other reason.

These strange cysts have been a source of fascination since their discovery in the 19th century because, although smooth and normal-appearing on the outside, on the inside they often contain hair and teeth and other tissues not normally seen in the reproductive system.

The name â��teratomaâ�� is derived from the Greek word for â��monster,â�� because of their creepy contents. These cysts rarely cause trouble and are usually removed only if they get too large or cause pain. This cyst was the size of a peach pit. Could a small growth do all this?” (from Brain Drain)

Bummer for Whole Foods.

Not than anyone is buying any stocks these days (are you?) but I happened to have a very small number of Whole Foods shares, so this bit of news explains why Whole Foods have been tanking (other than the general lowering tide which lowers all boats)

“… Whole Foods has had a cult like following amongst upscale urban
professionals. Aspirational shoppers even mocked their own spending by
nicknaming Whole Foods:  â��Whole Paycheckâ��.  Given the economic
instability though, customers are staying away from Whole Foods in
droves….” (from Seeking Alpha, Whole Foods in a Whole Lot of Trouble)

Bummer for Whole Foods.

Not than anyone is buying any stocks these days (are you?) but I happened to have a very small number of Whole Foods shares, so this bit of news explains why Whole Foods have been tanking (other than the general lowering tide which lowers all boats)

“… Whole Foods has had a cult like following amongst upscale urban
professionals. Aspirational shoppers even mocked their own spending by
nicknaming Whole Foods:  â��Whole Paycheckâ��.  Given the economic
instability though, customers are staying away from Whole Foods in
droves….” (from Seeking Alpha, Whole Foods in a Whole Lot of Trouble)

Bummer…