Danny's Pathologically Polymathic: June 2009

Labor versus the Greens in inner-city Melbourne - Age

Michael Jackson was a bookworm?! - LAT [via CR]

Dilip Hiro on events in Iran - Tom

slow but sure: Munich's move to free software - WL [via /.]

Canada's house prices are still defying gravity (like Australia's) - Macleans

a nice colour illusion - Discover [via Maltby]

yesterday I went to a presentation of colour and motion illusions by Stuart Anstis

Australia's Internet censorship will block adult games - SMH

since this covers "sites which sell physical copies of games that do not meet the MA15+ standard", pages at Amazon selling e.g. Leisure Suit Larry games will be blocked

German pensioners abduct, abuse financial advisor - SMH

if I worked in finance, I'd be wary of peasants carrying pitchforks

my first encounter with ICANN bureaucracy and acronym soup - ICANN

lessons from Denmark for the US mortgage system - HousingDoom

the key seems to be separating credit risk from interest rate risk

a pointillist study on music, mortality and memory - Hammerklavier [review]

secret Italian censorship list leaked - Wikileaks

as expected, much of it is not child porn

Iran's Guardian Council admits election fraud in 40 cities - PressTV [via Kos]

Edward Tufte sculpts steel as well as information - Aldrich [via Phil]

vignettes from Iran - Informed

it seems unlikely there is enough division within the various security forces to prevent a crackdown succeeding

A Human History of the Arctic World - The Last Imaginary Place [review]

is Facebook attacking Twitter? - TechCrunch

(this post is too long to push to twitter, because of the URL)

torture by the French in the Algerian War - WB [via CT]

this blog is now being tweeted - Twitter

Makhmalbaf speaks for Mousavi - Guardian

self-governance for Greenland - Economist

getting stuck into Strunk and White - NYT - Boston

A Mathematician's Lament - MAA [PDF via /.]

if music were taught the way mathematics is...

Flynn on intelligence - Cosma

a guide to sound in Linux - InsaneCoding [via /.]

on Value at Risk and Bayesian certainty - Cosma

women who own houses weigh more - Canada

feel-good story about befriending elephants in Africa - SMH

we don't have much idea what is happening behind the scenes in Iran - Economist

the NSW state government lurches into protectionism - CourierMail

television impairs infant language acquisition - Time [via MM]

looking back at Patricia Highsmith's Ripley novels - NYROB

Lincoln Heights 90031 would like some Uyghurs - Kos

no Lonely Planet guidebooks will be sold at Heathrow - Economist

BAA gives a bookshop monopoly to WH Smith, who give Penguin a travelguide monopoly

entire suburbs in the US may be bulldozed - Tele

"a pioneering scheme in Flint involves razing entire districts and returning the land to nature"

Indonesia still won't face legacy of 1965/66 massacres - SMH

End Software Patents is collecting info about Aus patents - swpat

to weaken dissent, the Chinese should encourage porn - Guardian

Krugman on economics, sounding almost like Keen - Economist

"most work in macroeconomics in the past 30 years has been useless at best and harmful at worst"

The Story and Science of the Reading Brain - Proust and the Squid [review]

Donald Knuth opposes algorithm and software patents - Groklaw [via OSWALD]

an analysis of the Lebanese election result - Salon

applying Hyman Minsky's ideas to the current financial crisis - Pimco [PDF]

a nice non-technical overview

a Brazilian perspective on the macroeconomic crisis - FT

uncertainty in Hong Kong - Economist

A Novel of the Indies - Faded Portraits [review]

the NSW government has been bought by property developers - SMH

at least one Pirate has been elected to the European Parliament - TorrentFreak [via /.]

the RBA on inflation (and asset bubbles) - RBA

"these models have not been useful because they generally do not handle credit well, if at all... it seems to me that they need to add a healthy dose of Post Keynesianism to their New Keynesian foundations"

can we turn economics into a science? - NewSci

Merkel versus the central banks - FT [via CT]

the Normandy landings were not so good for the locals - BBC

Japanese men are having their allowances cut - Bloomberg

"Pocket money for businessmen, especially fathers, is the first to be cut and last to be raised in Japan"

a history of Star Trek - CBR [via RW]

somehow I missed out on the whole Trek thing, even though I read pretty much every science fiction novel published between 1978 and 1985

lessons from Ecuador's bond default - Salmon

the financial crash has broken some Wisconsin schools - Alternet

science kicks back against English libel law - JackOfKent [via CT]

even bigots deserve freedom of speech - NewMatilda

and states should not legislate history