I’m working on it!

John Quiggin1 Comment

Thanks to everyone who’s suggested possible changes to the WordPress layout. I’m working on them, in between other things. So there won’t be much in the way of substantive posts for a few days.

In any case, the awful news of the tsunami leaves me without a lot to say for the moment. It just keeps getting worse. Please do whatever you can to help.

Update 30/12 I’m going very slowly on this stuff, but I’ve managed to implement a live preview function, which has been the most requested feature so far.

Layout improvements are proving problematic. If there are any WP fans out there who can suggest layouts I can simply copy, I’ll be glad to take a look at them

Australian appeals

John Quiggin6 Comments

Here’s the address of the CARE Australia appeal for aid in the earthquake and tsunami disaster. Via Tim Blair, some more links here

And, thanks to Andrew Bartlett, here’s the address for Community Aid Abroad

Remember that all donations are tax deductible. So, if you’re in the top tax bracket, work out what you can afford to give, then double it – you’ll get half back at the end of the financial year. If you’re in the 30 per cent bracket, you can give half as much again as without the deduction.

Welcome to WordPress!

John Quiggin35 Comments

Hi everyone! Welcome to my new WordPress blog. I’ve switched from Movable Type because of the problems it was causing to my hosts, Textdrive, notably in dealing with comment spam. In addition, WordPress is much less intensive on servers.

I’m now on my third blogging system, my fourth blog and my fifth host, but I’m hoping to stabilize things at this point. I’ve got my domain name for the next ten years, I’m very happy with Textdrive’s service and I have high hopes that WordPress will prove to be the software I’ve been looking for.

As usual in a shift of this kind, some comments have been lost. I had to run in parallel for a little while to get things working. In addition, I’m still dealing with the blogroll. On previous occasions, I’ve promised an attempt to retrieve comments, but not delivered. This time I’m not going to make that promise, but I will try and find a way that those who’d like their contributions accessible can retrieve their comments and repost them.

I welcome comments, particularly from other WordPress users, pointers to designs I could pinch and plug-ins I should adopt, and so on.

UpdateThe MT version of the blog is still accessible here. As Tom DC/VA, the first commenter on the new version observes, mindless reposting of comments could cause trouble. For example, if your comment points out the fundamental logical flaws in a previous comment, reposting it alone may not be helpful. But I’m going to leave that up to the good judgement of my readers. If you think your comment should live a little longer, and makes sense on its own, feel free to repost it (or not).

Tsunami

John Quiggin1 Comment

Another terrible disaster, an undersea earthquake triggering tsunamis that have killed thousands of people in many parts of SE Asia. Although it’s no doubt an illusion, it seems to me as if such tragedies are more common at this time of year than any other. No doubt there will be a relief appeal of some kind: I’ll post details when I can find them.

Christmas as usual

John Quiggin1 Comment

Since Christmas never changes (and a good thing too!) I’m reposting my Christmas Eve post from last year. I did plan more work on it, but haven’t done any. Posting will be erratic at best from now until mid-January. There may be nothing at all. On the other hand, I may get sick of my summer torpor and write ten posts in one day. No promises either way. In anticipation of at least a short break, let me wish a merry Christmas to all who celebrate it, and a happy New Year to everyone (at least everyone who uses the Gregorian calendar).

Read on for my unchanged Christmas message

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Social capital and end-oriented networks

John Quiggin3 Comments

I’m just about to knock off for Christmas, but I have to get ready for a conference at Queensland Uni of Technology early in the New Year where Larry Lessig will be the main speaker. I’m giving a very short presentation, and struggling to improve my understanding of all this, in particular the relationship between the technology of the Internet and notions of social capital. I haven’t come up with anything earthshattering, but I have had some thoughts on which I’d welcome comments.

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The bleeding edge

John Quiggin

There’s a new version of the MT Blacklist program out, fixing a critical error in which deleting one weblog could cause you to lose another. Users of MT & Blacklist will be pleased to know that, in the process of fighting off comment spammers and abusive morons, your intrepid host discovered this critical error the hard way. Jason Hoffman at Textdrive not only saved my bacon with a near-perfect backup file, but reported the bug which Jay Allen has now fixed. I think the grip of the law is gradually tightening on comment spammers, but no doubt they’ll be with us for some time, and morons will be with us always.

A real life ticking bomb problem

John Quiggin13 Comments

A while ago, I looked at the ticking bomb problem and concluded that, whatever the morality of using torture to extract life-saving information in emergencies, anyone who did this was morally obliged to turn themselves in and accept the resulting legal punishment. Reader Karl Heinz Ranitzsch has pointed me to a real-life case, reported by Mrs Tilton at Fistful of Euros. The case involved a threat of torture, rather than actual torture, and the deputy police commissioner involved was convicted and fined. Without detailed knowledge of the circumstances, I tend to agree with Mrs T that this was about the right outcome.

My article in The Economists’ Voice

John Quiggin2 Comments

My article The Unsustainability of U.S. Trade Deficits has just been published in The Economists’ Voice along with a piece on government deficits by Ronald McKinnon. Although relatively new and oriented to a general audience, EV looks like being a high-powered journal, having already published Stiglitz, Posner and Akerlof among others, so I’m pretty pleased to have made it into volume 1. Thanks to everyone here and on Crooked Timber who helped me to sharpen my arguments on this topic.

Blog Problems

John Quiggin7 Comments

OK, this is kind of silly, but bear with me. A couple of people have mentioned that they haven’t been able to reach the blog since the comment spam crisis (thanks again to Textdrive for resolving this!). I’d like to hear from anyone in this position, but obviously this isn’t a great way to reach them. I thought about skywriting, popular here in Brisbane, but it doesn’t seem practical. So if you can read this from one location, but not from others, please email me with info on your setup, browser and so on.

This seems like a good reason to move to WordPress