The Technocrat Online!

SO after a couple weeks of obsessive web editing, The Technocrat website is finally done and ready to be used! Come down and check out all our new articles for the week, be sure and add us to your bookmarks! If you want to take a look at the articles I have written so far, take a look here.


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Journalism

Me covering the summit

So its official, I'm finally a paid journalist! I got a job with The Technocrat doing Electronic Content Management and writing pieces from time to time. I am trying to get the Technocrat website updated and also covering national politics and economics. Expect a lot of news from us, things are coming along nicely, we should have a nice interactive web presence up and running fairly soon.
If you take a look at the September 15th issue, you can read a couple of articles I have written. The topics are the Iraq War and student debt, topics I am sure I will be revisiting down the road. If any readers out there have ideas for stories, be sure and let me know!
The Montana Economic Summit was an interesting experience. I was there to hear Warren Buffet and Steve Ballmer, as well as several different foreign ambassadors. The topic of the day was jobs, and that was mostly what we heard about, but there was some interesting points made throughout the event. Ballmer gave an evangelizing talk on the future of information technology, and Buffet was reassuring the masses that the American economy would not enter a "double dip" recession. Not sure I agree, but it was fun to listen. I would highly recommend that anyone interested in doing business in Montana check it out next time around.

Jonah Lehrer on Creative Insight

Jonah Lehrer: Creative Insights from PopTech on Vimeo.

Author Jonah Lehrer explores the power of outsider intelligence. At PopTech 2009, the best-selling author of How We Decide and Proust Was a Neuroscientist, notes that, paradoxically, lacking expertise on a subject can be an asset. 

    I posted this because I found it deeply fascinating. The idea the an outsider's perspective can be a huge advantage is an idea that appeals to me. The less emotional investment you have in a situation, the more rational you can be in your thinking about it. If you are interested more in Lehrer's work, he blogs at Wired Magazine and has written a couple of books about Neuroscience. His book "How We Decide" was a bestseller and was " The first book to use the unexpected discoveries of neuroscience to help us make the best decisions."

Economics

I have always been interested in history, and curious about the forces that shape our society. This lead me to an interest in Economics, which was going to be my major for a little while, but the math requirements got the best of me. I still retain a deep fascination with the subject. We all feel the effects of good or bad economic policy, so it seems to me we should all have an interest in making sure our leaders pursue sound economic policy. However, economics is called "the dismal science" for a reason, it can be rather confusing and depressing at times. My interest in the field is mainly focused on the Austrian School of Economics. I attended a week long seminar in the summer of 2009, which gave me a crash course on the subject.
There has been a lot of interesting news for Austrian Economics recently. The first bit of good news -

Today a Ph.D.-level seminar in Austrian economics commences at the University of Missouri. What is so important about this event is that the course is not part of a niche Austrian program dependent on external funding, but is part of the regular curriculum of a mainstream program at a major research university. This is a clear signal that Austrian economics is beginning to be taken seriously by mainstream economists.

This is very exciting because the field has been marginalized for a long time, it is good to see it finally getting some recognition. The other interesting piece of news was a recent Wall Street Journal article about Peter J. Boettke, a professor at George Mason University who is emerging as the "intellectual standard-bearer" for Austrian Economics. That makes two prestigious organizations that are giving credit to the Austrian movement in the same week, wild stuff! 


My interest in economics has caused me to follow the current financial crisis closely. This video I would like to share is about 45 minutes in total length and gives a good breakdown of what happened. I have a personal connection to this video in a couple of ways. it features interviews with Peter Schiff of Euro-Pacific Capital and Megan McArdle of The Atlantic. Peter just lost his dark horse bid in the Republican Primary for the upcoming Connecticut Senate race. I almost got involved on his campaign, but I came out here for school just as it was ramping up. This summer I heard Megan give an awesome lecture about blogging and the future of journalism at the Journalism & Free Society seminar in Philadelphia this past summer.


OVERDOSE - An ABC - Four Corners documentary about the coming economic crisis, featuring Gerald Celente and Peter Schiff. Original air date: 23rd August, 2010.

Higher Education?

Hi there, I was watching my favorite TV show, The Colbert Report, when a segment came on about for-profit colleges. The clip details the difference between the non-profit schools and the newer for-profit places, like Kaplan and Devry. One thing I found very intriguing was the fact that Goldman Sachs has a 38% ownership stake in the second largest school. It's pretty safe assume that Goldman Sachs will only get into businesses that are ripping people off somewhere! I thought that some of this information might be interesting, so I figured I would share the clip.

Stephen Colbert has to be one of the greatest political pundits of all time. I love the satirical edge of his show, makes me laugh every time. I really do not know how he manages to keep a straight face throughout his bits. His writers have to be some of the best in the business. I prefer Colbert to The Daily Show, but I think that is a preference thing. I am not much of a "progressive", so many times I find Jon Stewart to be a little too preachy. Hope you all enjoy the clip!

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Stephen Colbert University - Andrew Hacker
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes 2010 Election Fox News

Fractals

  Being the "design" guy that I am, I was really impressed when I came across this short video that uses fractal animation. It gives you an idea of the infinite nature of the patterns by using extreme zooms. I watched a documentary on Benoit Mandelbrot a couple years back and I was really amazed when I found out how recently fractals had been discovered, 1975! Without fractals there would be no video games, because the fractal math is absolutely essential to render graphics on screen. Enough about fractals, lets get to the video.

Mandelbox Zoom from hömpörgő on Vimeo.

From the creator -

"The end part a single frame took 18 minutes to render, and the whole 1:27 minute video needed 12 days nonstop rendering. I felt thats more than enough at the time. It was just my first experiment with Mandelbulb 3D, a freeware program, I'm not a film director or something...And as I heard its a kind of 3D version of the mandelbrot set. A new discovery that found nearly 1 year ago."

Music

Our first dubstep show

My brother and I have been listening to electronic music since the late 90's. After I graduated from high school, I took up the hobby of DJ'ing. I started buying vinyl records from the UK, and landed some gigs and raves and clubs around New England. It wasn't long before my younger brother Justin got interested in DJ'ing as well. He played a style of music called Drum n Bass, and I generally played electro house and techno. About a year and half ago we decided to join forces and start a project called The Swagger Jackers. We play a variety of music now, from electro to dubstep to indie rock, anything we like.We DJ and put out mixtapes, produce remixes and originals, blog, organize and promote concert events and other music industry type stuff. 

Working the controls

This summer we got to play a few good shows, I figured I would share some photos and a couple videos. This summer we have really been getting into the dubstep style of dance music. These photos are from our first all dubstep DJ set. We also have a dubstep mixtape called "War of the Worlds" that is online and available for free download. Here is a short video from our first dubstep DJ set in July.




EDIT: I have another video to share!