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!

Summer Fun

     It has been a few months since my last post, summer is here and I am doing the best I can to not spend it attached to a computer. That is not to say I have avoided being productive however; it's just that a fresh look at my priorities seemed to be in order. My list of summer-to-do items, in order of importance: 


1. Get to the beach multiple times a week
2. Read something for fun
3. Learn something from the IHS Journalism & A Free Society conference in Philadelphia
3. Get the knee surgery I have been waiting years for
4. Forget about being dumped by my girlfriend
5. Go on computer for blogging, editing, learning new tricks etc (basically what I did the whole school semester)


     I stayed faithful to the list with the exception of the "fun reading". I just haven't found the right time to start reading, the pain after my knee surgery (ACL reconstruction) pushed my motivation levels way down. I am hoping to remedy that situation and plow through a few classics in the last few weeks of summer. There are a number of good books out there that I've been meaning to wrap my head around.


    While working on my Undergraduate Research Project (a film about the Great Depression, NCUR accepted!) I decided that journalism is  a field I was interested in. This mild interest started building into a career trajectory after I took Journalism 101 last semester and signed up for a summer conference put together by the Institute for Humane Studies. The seminar was a great experience, it was a week long networking/learning experience, where I met other like minded students from around the country and discussed advanced political topics that you wouldn't normally encounter here at Tech. The IHS features a number of different seminars they run annually. Some focus journalism, while other public policy or just even political theory, the common ground being the analysis using "classically liberal" political theory, known today as libertarianism. Some shots from the event:

Easy to make new friends here

A faculty of working professionals, nice change of pace. (National Review, Reason Magazine, The Atlantic)

The Bryn Mawr campus was breathtaking, straight out of Harry Potter

Dance Party Time...

So it is the end of the year, and my brother is driving out from CT to come visit and then we are taking a road trip back to the east coast. I don't know if I have mentioned this before but I used to DJ at a lot of clubs and raves back east. My brother is bringing some of our DJ equipment out so we can do a show here in Butte! Come and celebrate the end of the school year, here are the details :)

Here is a link to the Facebook event page!

Local Art

Thanks to Chad Okrusch and our Visual Communications class, I was able to find out about an awesome local artist, Shawn Crowe. He gave a very interesting presentation to our class about his artistic process and showed us several examples of his work. I was very impressed by his work, much of it abstract with vibrant colors. His latest series "Modern Myth", deals with retelling some classic Greek mythology. We were shown Athena, The Graces, Persephone and other classic Greek gods in some interesting poses and surrounded by beautiful colors. I personally enjoyed almost every painting that he showed us, each one rich with detail and symbolism. Even though I immediately felt the aesthetic beauty of the pieces, as he explained the motivation and the process, my appreciation for the pieces expanded tremendously. They are are very well thought out and unique. I was particularly impressed by the abstract nature of the work. I thought it was a refreshing take on classic Greek culture, a new twist on the "ideal form" that Plato popularized. The abstract nature of the work is an interesting juxtaposition of that Platonic ideal, giving the classic forms a modern colorful twist. One of my favorite pieces that he showed us dealt with Achilles, although I couldn't post that one here because it is due to be posted in a gallery soon.

If you would like to see more of Shawn's work, the Main Stope gallery on Park St. is showing a few pieces, and a few other pieces are at Jailhouse Coffee on Park St, and at the Blue Luna.

Here a few examples of his work -

  "The Graces"

"Charging Ox"

"TheStormLord"- not full title, I had it and lost it!