Among yesterday’s front pages was a data visualisation which, at first glance, was one of the most effective I’ve ever seen: the Independent had made an infographic showing yesterday’s £6bn budget cuts in context - as a fraction of a debt mountain.
Then I looked closer - and something’s very, very wrong.
Can you tell what it […]
About four hundred extra hits yesterday came from five IPs - based, I think, in Amsterdam (the site I use to do more detailed lookups - GeoIPTool - isn’t working). Anyone have ideas why?
As a DDOS, it’s completely lame, as it’s nowhere near enough to take a server offline. All the visits only visited the index, so it’s not five desperately eager new visitors exploring very thoroughly, and it’s not attempted commenting-spamming, as, well, they made no attempt to comment. All five IPs were closely linked, and all used Netscape 4.0. Weird.
I’m mildly curious, so please do post any thoughts. Though (partly) thanks to their efforts, at six weeks old TwentyNothing has 1800 page impressions, 450 unique users. Thanks!
Apologies for the absence of posting - unexpected lack of an internet connection. Hi to all of those who came across the site from StumbleUpon - nice to meet you.
Normal service (i.e. 5 post per week minimum) shall resume Tuesday.
I was going to point this out on here, but Guido beat me to it.
So I’ll just save myself the effort and link to it. Shome Mishtake, shurely?
Parental Advisory: Contains mild to moderate microeconomic references. But no spoilers.
Like some 11 million others, I bought the final Harry Potter book last Saturday. What frustrated me was having to buy it in hardback. Why are books only released in hardback format? Does anyone prefer them?
Hardback books are useful for libraries and similar venues, as they wear more slowly and are much harder to damage - useful when they will be read and re-read by none-too-careful borrowers. However, they are heavier, harder to hold, and more expensive than paperbacks. The durability is not all that useful when even an avid re-reader (such as myself) is only likely to read any one book five or six times.
I’m not just assuming every reader’s like me. A good sign that few private buyers prefer hardback is their disappearance once paperbacks are released. This suggests that once the alternative is available, no-one chooses the hardback. Supporting this is the fact that second hand bookshops (such as Blackwell’s) explicitly refuse to buy back hardback versions of books available in paperback - due to lack of demand.
So why are new books released first in hardback? The library explanation isn’t enough - they’re a niche market. Until recently, many DJs preferred vinyl to CDs, yet new albums aren’t released any earlier on vinyl than CD. The best explanation I’ve encountered comes from Tim Harford’s “Undercover Economist” (now available in paperback). It’s essentially as follows:
Publisher wants to make the most money he can from his book. He’ll make more money per book if he can make people who are really eager to read a book pay more; but he also wants to sell lots of copies, which means dropping the price. Now, if there’s a cheap version available, everyone buys that one. Releasing the expensive hardback version is a form of price discrimination. Keen readers buy the expensive version, released several months early, casual readers the cheap one.
There are two reasons this argument seems flaky, though. One’s a weakness in the argument, the other relates to changes in publishing:
Perhaps it’s this shift in bookselling that will herald the (in my opinion overdue) demise of the hardback - it certainly seems like a format which has had its day. There ends our brief sojourn through the world of publishing economics, which in the interests of full disclosure, I will remind readers is a field I know precious all about.
Deathly Hallows - review in brief: Not bad, certainly an improvement on five and six. Also makes clear why it was necessary to make book six so gut-wrenchingly dull: it does have a purpose, and seven is at least much pacier.
TwentyNothing can exclusively reveal that viewers have once again been misled by the BBC. Another show from a third party producer, HiT entertainment repeatedly presented viewers with an inaccurate portrayal of UK emergency services. The show, “Fireman Sam” features in at least two episodes footage of fire workers rescuing cats from trees.
The fire service does not offer such a service (or, where it does, charges up to £200 for it). Instead, they suggest you contact the RSPCA, who then in turn contact the fire service. Upon arrival, the fire service refuse to rescue the cat as (genuine quote):
In another day or so, it’ll get weaker and fall out
So yes, boo hiss BBC. I expect a full independent inquiry. And yes, “Fluffy” did get stuck up a tree, and yes, we did have to rescue her ourselves. No cats were harmed in the making of this blogpost. Some humans suffered mild injuries, though.
“If you don’t really need to flush the loo, don’t. There are no health implications from not flushing after every visit.”
-Advice to those cut off from the mains due to flooding.
(The man himself)Propaganda-tastic. Received (with thanks) via Marianka. And I really do wonder about ‘fact’ 6. Though I’m (I think) a C1, and I read it…
And a few bonus facts from me: (source of 1-3: here)
“All was well”
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
David Lassman retyped the opening chapters of three Austen classics: Pride and Prejudice, Northanger Abbey and Persuasion…inevitably the submissions were rejected with only one of 18 publishers and literary agents recognizing the work as Austen’s own.
Crikey. More here.
This one’s a bit off-topic (and long), but I felt like getting it online. It’s a piece summarising the arguments against Fairtrade food, hopefully not from anything approaching a “free-market fundamentalist” perspective. It was first published in the Oxford Forum, as was a response by the Fairtrade Foundation.
Of course, it’s all just one view - the other side of the argument can be found here, here, here or here (the last one is very web 2.0) . But, if you’re interested in why Fairtrade mightn’t be the salvation of the world’s poor, please do read on.
I don’t like buying Fairtrade food: it’s a matter of conscience. This isn’t because I don’t care about the plight of third world farmers. It’s because I do. I also care about third world mechanics, housewives, children and factory workers – all of whom are losing out because of Fairtrade. Not just Fairtrade, of course, but as the movement is becoming ever more pervasive ($1.1 billion worth of worldwide sales last year), ignoring it is no longer an option. So I’m going to try to persuade you to boycott Fairtrade too.
The Fairtrade movement has been immensely successful. Having grown and developed as a social movement since the 1960s, the international Fairtrade mark as we know it now was born in 2002. Since then, its growth has been huge – sales have grown tenfold in the
Fairtrade, as I’m sure you know, guarantees a minimum price, above the market level, to farmers. Given that coffee, by far the most common fairly-traded commodity, has such a low market price (it can be as little as 50 cents per kilo), this seems like it can only be a good idea. But many economists will tell you different. The problem is coffee grows almost everywhere. Huge swathes of the earth’s surface can grow the stuff, including many of the planet’s poorer countries.
This means that as and when the price of coffee increases, and coffee farming looks attractive compared to other jobs (if coffee farming is more profitable than cocoa farming, I may switch crops), more people can and will grow coffee. This makes the price drop again, as we’re faced with potentially massive over-supply. Coffee farmers won’t be rich until almost everyone else is.
Furthermore, let’s imagine you’re a car mechanic in
It’s not even a particularly good way to give: profiteering quite certainly occurs on the way. Fairtrade products are significantly marked up over their “unfair” counterparts. Indeed, it’s often the case that less than 10% of markup actually gets back to the producers: if I pay a 10p premium, only 1p of that gets to the farmer. I feel like I’m helping much more than I am.
There are more sound economic arguments about why Fairtrade is undesirable. It’s possible that as Fairtrade products become more common, it could actually cause the price of non-Fairtrade equivalents to drop: helping some in the third world at the expense of others, which would be a truly tragic situation. But there is a lot of scepticism around these issues, and it is seen by many campaigners as an ideologically-driven right wing attack on the movement.
So instead I will come to my real gripe with Fairtrade. It’s just not enough. Even if you believe Fairtrade is benefiting farmers and their families, it is making their previously intolerable lives only fractionally better. Good, committed activists, who once would clamour for political and economic change, instead promote Fairtrade products that mean pennies a week for the beneficiaries. This is a tragic waste of activism, drive and effort, and it is costing the third world dear.
Real change does not come about through what we buy, it comes through what we do. Could any of history’s real struggles have been won through consumerism? Would we have freed the slaves by buying wristbands? Could the civil rights movement been won by buying “black-friendly” products? Would we have lifted apartheid if boycotts hadn’t been matched by heroic worldwide direct action? I’m sure I’m not the only one who has my doubts.
There are real, potentially painful but eminently possible lines of action we can and should take to try to lift the shameful conditions in which too many of the world’s population lives. Investment in infrastructure, education and basic healthcare is sorely needed. The immense corruption which afflicts too many countries must, somehow, be dealt with.
Agricultural subsidies must be dealt with: it is unforgivable that, for example, we subsidise European cows to the sum of $2 per cow every day. This is not only a horrendous waste of money, but it allows European farmers to undercut their international competitors. We keep our (often immensely wealthy) farmers in business at the expense of their third world competitors.
Agricultural subsidies, though, lack the charm and simplicity of Fairtrade. Saving the world by paying more for your shopping is simple, seductive and we can understand how it works. Reforming agricultural subsidies is complex and painful – I don’t deny that it would result in many
The real solutions to these global issues are complex, and have consequences that will affect us in the west. Ultimately, we could all benefit from appropriate reforms and actions, but it would be folly to suggest these actions could be simple or painless. And this is ultimately why I so vehemently detest Fairtrade. I cannot help but feel it is far more effective at salving our consciences when it comes to the problems of the world than it is at solving them: “I’ve done my bit to help the third world – haven’t you seen the contents of my kitchen cupboards? What more do you want?”
This is an unfair charge to level at the real activists who push Fairtrade. I’ve met, and argued with, many of them. They are passionate and committed to finding solutions for third world poverty. However, this focus on Fairtrade misplaces their efforts, and diverts their attention away from pushing for real change. I am not naïve about such reforms: they would not be simple to achieve, but they are far from impossible. This is far from such pipe dreams as nuclear disarmament, or a Liberal Democrat general election win. But as long as the little attention most of us are willing to give to the third world is focussed on Fairtrade, real change is impossible.
That, such as it is, is the reason for my objection to the Fairtrade movement. It has nothing to do with free market fundamentalism, or a lack of sympathy for its motives: doing the wrong thing for the right reasons is still doing the wrong thing. As I am now forced to buy the wretched products when I go to my favourite café, I have resorted to other means of protest.
And so I urge you: next time you’re at the coffee aisle and your hand hovers over the Fairtrade coffee, step to the right a little and grab the Nescafe – if you can bear the taste, that is. Then sign up to Oxfam, research the issue a little, and write to your MP. You’ll not only help save the world – you’ll save yourself a few pence, too.
