Make Me More Social

This article includes links to sites that I find useful but can benefit from becoming more social.

1. The Official Sebastian Vettel Website
   The website provides a lot content that is frequently updated but it looks ancient. There is no opportunity to post comments or publicly like the articles in social media. There is no fan forum. One cannot reach the website administrator in any way to suggest improvements (not even an email address is posted). 
2. CERN
   The website of CERN provides useful information on the progress of CERN experiments. It also has no social media optimization and the design is extremely outdated. It is quite strange considering that the World Wide Web was born in CERN. The website appearently has had no significant redesign since around that time. 
3. The Official Michael Schumacher Website
   It has (far) less content than Seb's website but it does include a blog (which was quite novel back in the days of Schumi's first stint in F1). The website has all the problems of Vettel's -  no social or feedback capabilities. 

A website without social components is no better than a TV channel. The (digital) world is changing, however, and the way PR is handled online should aslo change.

Star Wars and Buddhism I

I have always been a very big fan of Star Wars. I find the philosophical connotations of the "Force" particularly fascinating. Quote 5 in my list of memorable quotes is the following:
"Train yourself to let go of everyting you fear to lose" (Yoda, Episode III)

I have only recently realized how close to Buddhism the teachings of the Force are. Especially with respect to attachment and how it causes pain and suffering.

Everything Works in Midnight in Paris

"Midnight in Paris" is a real treasure. I have never been an ardent fan of Woody Allen - in all his movies where he stars, his characters seem so similar. I should admit even Boris (from another personal favorite "Whatever Works") and Gil ("Midnight in Paris) fit the same pattern for some parts of these movies. What makes the same fabule work better in those, however, is that when there is another actor trying to emulate the same movements and speech, the audience focuses on the performance because it is special for these actors. With Woody Allen, I think, the moviegoers no longer believe that he is not playing himself more than his characters.

"Midnight in Paris" is a very self reflective movie. Among all the mind bending art references in it, even the promotional poster seems curious and multidimensional.On one hand, the image contains an obvious reference to Van Gogh and post-impressionists. On the other hand, Owen Wilson looks so much like the young Robert Redford that one wonders: is this on purpose?

The way that the historic figures are developed is particularly intriguing - it is obvious from the beginning that there are just shadows of Gil's own expectations. Yet, Gil himself so attentive to details in art seems oblivious to this. Quite similarly to his failure to notice the warning signs in his own engagement. Much like to his own characters in his preoccupation with the past, he disregards the present. One can only wonder - is his so blind or he deliberately chooses not to explore the rift in his relationship (and the complete lack of communication) and the one-dimensionality of his friends from the Jazz Age. Ignorance is a bliss but not for a writer: he has to understand his inner demons to understand them. The story twists around and explores and does a good job at representing the torments of the creative writing process.


The cinematography is amazing. The pastel colors and the impressionist tones do a very good job at supplementing the tale for the tortures of being an artist. The editing is the only component that I have slight objections against - it is obvious that because of the limited availability of Carla Bruni, some takes that should be laying on the editing floor were left in the movie. I hope that it is not just to prove the point that the character was indeed important for the picture. Some of the scene with her look odd and would have benefited from a few more takes.


Overall, the movie is definitely on my Top 2011 list, which I intend to publish before the end of the month.



Previous Movie Reviews: (500) Days of Summer, Melancholia, Imagine Me and You, Velvet Goldmine

(500) Days of Summer

A boy meets a girl. A boy falls in love. A boy lets the girl go. So what so special about the movie? Everything. It is magical: funny, sad, confusing. 

The cinematography is amazing. There is so much warmth and color. The beautiful Zooey Deschanel shines in every shot. The storyline might be fragmented and out of order but it flows so smoothly from shot to shot. Like pieces of a little puzzle all the elements feet together so perfectly. 

Joseph-Gordon Levitt's Tom falls in love with a girl that is not hard but is hard to keep. It is not something that he does that pushes her away. It is just time. He met her too early. I will always wander what changes her mind so suddenly and completely because just like Tom we never get to see what happened. But this is how it should be: this is Tom's movie, Tom's memories. If we saw something he didn't this would have been cheating and this movie does not cheat. It delivers on its promise to be special. It is out of order, yet everything seems to make sense. Even though as we see from the movie, sometimes love does not.

This film is great at depicting the small things, the details that make us fall in love. A hand, a tattoo, a smile, a song.


Previous Movie Reviews: Melancholia, Imagine Me and You, Velvet Goldmine

The Recession: Volatility and Positive Feedback

I have been thinking a lot about the recession lately. I understand why they call it the "Great Recession." Because frankly compared with the Great Depression based on its impact on unemployment, growth and consumer confidence worldwide, the only thing which is different this time around is that there is no price deflation. Yeah with the enormous amounts of debt on the balance sheets of all developed countries, you can only have inflation. What some people do not realize is that actually there is deflation: in the real value of wages. When inflation is rising the purchasing power of every nominal dollar drops and nominal wages tend to state the same during a crisis, therefore real wages are decreasing. There is deflation, just not everywhere.


We also have unemployment, especially in the developed countries. The problem with recessions is that they tend to overreact to long growing problems. The truth is that some industry simply do not have a future in those countries: they do not have the competitive advantage to operate them. Politically, however, it is very hard to concede that an entire billion dollar industry is dying and should move somewhere else. So hard that the US government would double itself down with trillions of dollars of debt to save the financial and the automobile industry in the country when they have obvious problems staying competitive. The problem with industrialization and affluence is that you cannot go back: a country cannot suddenly have lower wages to allow it to produce competitively in a lower stage of industrialization. What western governments should be doing is looking ahead, not looking back.


I think saving the financial world in 2008 was a bad strategic decision: it sustained an industry that was not producing value added to the economy but actually was hemorrhaging investments. So much of the money investment in Lehman Brother's stock could have gone into tech stock to product real future value. The way the US financial system is operating is extremely inefficient: it does not hedge against uncertainty, it produces systemic risk by overleveraging. The costs of artificially sustaining this industry when its basic principles are no longer valid is increasing every time around. No, it is not profitable any more, no more than the US car industry is: after billion dollars of bailouts, we still got a small 50 billion dollar trading company evaporating last week. It is also not driving market growth, it is producing volatility in the market. The attempts of the big financial companies to exploit minuscule opportunities with leverage are increasing their exposure to government debt (under the funny assumption that it is a riskless asset). This means that there is not only volatility in the bond market but also volatility in the stock market for the stocks of the financial companies. When one or two of those companies go under we have a chaos in the credit default swaps market and systemic risk. Markets freeze and governments are forced to intervene with bailouts to keep the zombie industry afloat. The problem is that there can be no bailouts these time around. The outstanding government debt is just too much.


So let's see the model. We have low regulation and easy credit in the beginning of the 00s. We also have a lot of credit default swaps that make every default very costly for the entire market. Then all we need is a bankruptcy (Lehman's) and volatility starts. We save other companies from going under by borrowing as a country and when we borrow too much, the outstanding debt produces volatility in our government bonds. Then the volatility moves to stocks. So every step of the way we have more volatility. And uncertainty is worse than market drop because if the market goes straight down at least those that are short on it are making money. When we have volatility, however, wealth evaporates. Companies become overleveraged and increase the volatility. I think it is safe to say that we have a nice positive feedback loop - volatility produces more volatility.


The problem with positive feedback is that it tends to explode. And it is simply not possible to do the same kinds of bailouts as last time if there is another Lehman-sized company or country that goes under.


----To Be Continued-------


Previous Economy Related Post: Economy and Math