We Are Not All Westerners Now

What lends Kupchan’s overall theme a certain conservative and Kennan-like quality is the challenge he poses to the reigning ideological axiom shared by U.S. and Western elites since the end of the Cold War: the notion that the core ideas of the modern West—enlightenment, secularism, democracy, capitalism—will continue to spread to the rest of the world, including to China and the Middle East, and the Western order as it has evolved since 1945 will thus outlast the West’s own primacy.

emphasis mine.

Newsweek shuts print edition, goes gently into digital night — paidContent

It’s early days, of course, but Newsweek Global appears to face an uphill battle for that coveted “mobile, opinion-leading audience.” These readers are already receiving intense attention from the likes of the Economist and The Atlantic, two publications whose brands, unlike Newsweek, have retained their sheen in the digital era. Meanwhile, other tablet-only plays like The Daily have floundered. Is it realistic for a reborn digital Newsweek to muscle into this space?

i say no.  they’re betting on production cost & trying to rely on technology here when they should be heading in the other direction.

double-down.  make a commitment to the content.  i don’t give a shit if you’re digital, no one does.  do i care if you add significant value to my life with expert reporting & insight? 

yes, yes i do.

World of Beercraft: Torpedo and Princes

worldofbeercraft:

As mentioned in my previous post, I did indeed pick-up a 6-pack of Sierra Nevada Torpedo, a double IPA, to keep me company as I roamed the Karasang Wilds yesterday evening. Coupled with a frosty mug, I continued my chug towards level 90 (the max level) and finished up a few quests. Oddly enough…

i’m really happy about this.  i love beer and i appreciate guys who share that interest.  but, this is even better.  a former colleague and friend, will, started writing about a venn diagram of his passions:  when he drinks good beer & plays world of warcraft.  from another post:

My time in the second zone, in which the infamous Stormstout Brewery is located, has had more of a Yeungling flavor so far, though to be fair I’d been drinking a variety of other beers BEFORE heading home and playing. Nothing ground-breaking that I’d write home (or here) about, but the Yeungling actually worked well in terms of the pace: the gameplay in the zone was quick, and the beers followed suit.

i’m not much of a gamer but, for me, this is a great introduction.  i hope he keeps writing. 

What A Hacker Learns After A Year In Marketing

brooklynhacker:

Holy biscuits - did I learn plenty. A year in, I thought it might be helpful to my fellow developers to share what it’s like to turn to the Dark Side and what I picked up in the process.

1) This Shit Is Hard

Like many folks who build stuff, my disdain for marketing as a…

“…the ones who do it well are rare and far less visible because - like good programmers - their work is a lot harder to notice.  Good marketing is a product of the same inputs as good code; long hours, sweating the details, and the judicious application of experience doing it the right way.”

Source: brooklynhacker

Sunk costs

In traditional microeconomic theory, only prospective (future) costs are relevant to an investment decision. Traditional economics proposes that an economic actor not let sunk costs influence one’s decisions, because doing so would not be rationally assessing a decision exclusively on its own merits. The decision-maker may make rational decisions according to their own incentives; these incentives may dictate different decisions than would be dictated by efficiency or profitability, and this is considered an incentive problem and distinct from a sunk cost problem.

Evidence from behavioral economics suggests this theory fails to predict real-world behavior. Sunk costs do, in fact, influence actors’ decisions because humans are prone to loss-averse and framing effects, and in light of such cognitive quirks, it is unsurprising that people frequently fail to behave in ways that economists would deem “rational.”

10/15/04 - 9/1/12.