A tip for Consumers

Here's the reason why you shouldn't order a custom cake from Wal-Mart, from the GinBlog:

Some people that work here had a going away party the other day for a woman that is leaving.
One of the supervisors called a Walmart and ordered the cake. he told them to write: "best wishes Suzanne" and underneath that write "we will miss you". here's the cake that was delivered.

naijablog: The phobic antiblack body

Interesting post on the huge role context plays in our racist tendencies....

naijablog: The phobic antiblack body

How to setup a blog

How to setup a blog and be popular

Aderemi's blog has some interesting ideas on setting up a blog. Read the comments too.
And I should add that you find something you truly enjoy to write about and don't shy away from expressing your opinions even if controversial on your blogs.

It gets discussions going.

Putting Money in the Proper Perspective.

A piggy bank that employs the proper way to teach kids about money.

Most kids grow up not knowing how it works and it plagues them through college and adulthood.

It's so terrible what most people know about money, even some adults could use this...
I wonder if it will work better with some mechanism to automatically assign money to different

sections based on some logic.

Airport Security

Stephen Wiltshire -- Impressive Memory

Stephen Wiltshire is an autistic Brit who can retain images in his head and recreate it almost exactly on paper in drawings...very impressive.

And he happens to be a pretty good artist too.

http://www.stephenwiltshire.co.uk/index.aspx

A New American Foreign Policy Paradigm

A while back, I read Robert Wright's "Nonzero: The Logic of Human Destiny" and have since kept up with some of his writings.

This Times op-ed by Wright, tries to explore a new approach to foreign policy in a post-Bush era. Makes for an interesting read and raises a few questions to ponder.

Every paradigm needs a name, and the best name for this one isprogressive realism. The label has a nice ring (Who is against progress?) and it aptly suggests bipartisan appeal. This is a realismthat could attract many liberals and a progressivism that could attractsome conservatives....

Progressive realism begins with a cardinal doctrine of traditional realism: the purpose of American foreign policy is to serve American interests...
First, the word signifies a belief in, well, progress. Free markets are spreading across the world on the strength of their productivity, and economic liberty tends to foster political liberty.

Yes, the Chinese government could probably reverse the growth in popular expression of the past two decades, but only by severely restricting information technologies that are prerequisites for prosperity. Meanwhile, notwithstanding dogged efforts at repression, political pluralism in China is growing.

A Policy that Both Realists and Idealists Should Fall in Love With.

I love my Peugeot

I grew up in Nigeria riding a Peugeot 504 and 505, and even at some point, driving a 505.
Once in a while, I've seen some older ones been driven here in the States.
I thought they had gone the way of the dinosaur.

Turns out if you're still nostalgic about owning one, there's one place left to buy it, even configure it to your taste: No kidding.

Is Soccer Boring?

To an American, it is easy to compare soccer with basketball-- without the hands. Just like basketball, it uses zone defense, man defense, a team-oriented attack and transition is critical to winning.

At the same time, it is unlike any other American sport since there are no time outs except at halftime. And unlike most American sports where everything is broken into innings, quarters etc, it is a continuous, physically demanding 45 minutes of play without clock stoppage on most out-of-bound plays.

Obviously, scoring is important and in the end it determines the final result, but in soccer the focus is on the buildup and buildup to an American is synonymous with boring.

Boring is of course in the eye of the beholder and is usually whatever you don't comprehend. I watch baseball and see a bunch of people standing around, that's boring to me, maybe because I don't get it.

Soccer however is all about time and space. Offensively, players try to hold on to the ball and get into dangerous spaces. Defensively, you're limiting an opponent's space and taking away their time by tackling the ball and increasing the number of defenders in an area.

Offensively, teammates try to lure defenders out of an area to give teammates more opportunities to get into dangerous positions and enough time to make goals happen with the best teams taking advantage of that transition from offense to defense, recognizing what they can do and then reacting. All this makes it confusing to a novice viewer.

In soccer, no two situations are the same unlike in football, with so many things turning different each time you have the ball including player positions, angles, etc. And that is also the difficulty of the game unlike say football where if a receiver moves in a certain direction, the safety also moves the same way.

While each players duties are comprehensible, it is difficult to appreciate if you have never been there - receiving a pass inside the 18-yard line and instantly assessing where your teammates are, how the defense is set up, whether you should pass or shoot and in what direction.
In essence, the tactics are simple to explain, but difficult to execute. And in many ways, it's a lot like military strategies in which defensively you have a line of retreat, just like an army in battle. Should you get caught unprepared, you use delay tactics until you get reinforcements and can get organization behind the ball.
But if you're in the third of the field near your own goal, you have to deal with the immediate danger with the "safety first" rule. Get rid of the danger, in this case, a shot on goal.
The best teams, with highly talented athletes, of course capitalize on situations in which they don't have numerical advantage, such as a two-on-two, or even a one-on-two attack much like a much more technological advanced army doesn't need large numbers to beat a less advanced army conventionally.

Having said all that, the game will be always be clearer to those who grew up playing it, but with this understanding, all that back and forth will look less random and when someone says something like the France - Brazil (1-0 final score) match wasn't close, you'll get the idea of what they mean. Now there'll be some meaning to the madness.

Are we Getting Our Money's Worth?

Gladwell discusses a recent New York Times column article that compares health care in America to the U.K.

The first conclusion is that Americans are really, really sick compared to the British and it is not because of lifestyle differences.

One interesting observation is also the correlation between income and drinking habits. It concludes that the more money you make, the more alcohol you're likely to consume.

So much for the class assumptions about alcohol.

U.S. versus U.K.

Adeniyi-Jones Thoughts on Nigeria

Worth reading. Describes how Nigeria has found itself in its current state.

‘This is Nigeria’ I feel fortunate to be old enough to remember a time when those same words, with slightly different emphasis, carried a codediametrically opposed to what they represent today. The indignant ‘thatcannot happen here, this is Nigeria, not some banana republic.’ of my youth,has given way to a resigned, ‘Siddon there my friend, this is Nigeria’.

naijablog: Jide Adeniyi-Jones' thoughts on Nigeria

Manufacturing in America
There has been so much noise about the loss of American manufacturing jobs to cheaper labor in Mexico, China and India. In the last couple of years, over 2 million jobs have been lost, many of which will not be coming back.
So is it the end of the manufacturing sector in America? Are we all going to be living in cubicles now, working in an office, staring at computer screens?
Well, the answer is not a straightforward yes, or no. It is both.

Manufacturing as we used to know it may be coming to an end in America for many parts of our commerce. Companies will continually try to maximize profits and make use of economies of scale in those places where they can establish themselves cheaper.

So, just what can America make? Plenty.
We will just have to accept the fact that the future will involve less mammoth facilities of the past that focused on making one thing a million times over. The future will focus on customized, sophisticated products with high tech and design being an integral part of the process.
The future in essence will be about a combination of innovation and customization, not generic solutions.
Companies that will survive will need to realize that their workers are their most important assets, not the huge machines they have in place. Manufacturers will survive at their rates of innovation, and not how well they can stop unions from forming, or how easy they can get government bail outs.

Thus, pricing power will be restored as companies can charge a premium for their highly innovative products. In essence, they will need to redefine what it means to be Made in America.

Rising White Nationalism

The New White Nationalism in America: Its Challenge to Integration
Interesting article