Kieran Healy

Google 2001

Though it may have seemed impossibly far off in our hazy youth, these days we fondly look back at the turn of the 21st century and think that was when the world was new and fresh and everything seemed possible. Or searchable, anyway. For one month only, here is Google’s index, c. 2001. It shows that we were present individually though not collectively. Besides nostalgia for this distant past, consider the results of searches such as “housing bubble” or “subprime mortgage lending” or “counterparty risk.”

Workflow Update

My periodically-updated guide to choosing your workflow applications has received one of its periodic updates. It has grown an abstract and more up-to-date stuff on backups and versioning. Plus extra jokes. Click through to read—you may have to reload it if you have an old version lurking in your browser cache. This release is officially named “Dime On You Crazy Shriner” in honor of orgtheory’s favorite pseudonymously-produced, bot-driven, stylistically-elliptical demisemisocblog.

New York, New York

From Overheard in New York:

(family stands facing the empire state building)
Tourist son: Mom, which one is the Empire State Building?
Tourist mom: I think it’s the one with the circley top. (points to the Chrysler Building)
Tourist dad: No, honey, it’s the one way out there, on the water.
Tourist son #2: That’s the Statue of Liberty. [To no one in particular:] I can’t believe I’m part of this fucking family.

Making a House a Whole

At present I’m in a part of Ireland where internet access is about as common as sunshine and clear skies. This means I have only belatedly come across Matt Yglesias’s call for technical assistance from my wife, in her capacity as a trained professional mereologist, to help resolve the thorny question of whether John McCain’s luxury double-condo in Phoenix counts as one house or two. My understanding is that mereological relations are somewhat flexible, and it’s quite acceptable for the same material object to be two condos and one home. Nevertheless, I am a mereologist by marriage only, so my views should not be taken as representing the opinions of a trained and licensed professional. I do think that this issue opens up the possibility of a new kind of political philosophy, though.

Sociology refutes Economics (again)

This morning I was out for a walk and I found a twenty dollar bill lying in the street.

Jumping off the Edge of the American West

Mild-mannered Professor of History by day, Eric Rauchway emerges at night other times of the day in an altogether different guise.

He’s going to swim a mile for charity (presumably in just a few seconds, and while wholly underwater). You can go ahead and donate some money to his cause. Comments are open on the topic of the Rauchfish’s origin story, his unique powers, his faithful sidekick, and the special properties of his suit.