Pixar's Secret Sauce

Pixar Animation Studios has a long string of firsts to its name, including creating the world's first computer-animated feature film (Toy Story, released in 1995).

To date, Pixar has released ten feature films: Toy Story (1995), A Bug's Life (1998), Toy Story 2 (1999), Monsters, Inc. (2001), Finding Nemo (2003), The Incredibles (2004), Cars (2006), Ratatouille (2007), WALL•E (2008), and Up (2009). All but three, Toy Story, A Bug's Life and Up, are in the top 100 worldwide box office grossing movies of all time. The first two are in the top 200. As for the third, Up, well, it's still in cinemas as we speak and if Pixar's track record over the past decade is anything to go by, it will also end up in the top 100. Up has already scored another first: it became the first animated movie to open the Cannes Film Festival in 2009.

So, what's the secret of Pixar's success?

Well, it probably helps that George Lucas and Steve Jobs were intimately involved with the creation of Pixar, but this alone cannot explain the success story that Pixar has become over the last 30 years.

In an article entitled "How Pixar Fosters Collective Creativity" published in the September 2008 issue (pages 64-72) of Harvard Business Review, Dr. Ed Catmull, Pixar's co-founder and President, reveals all. Catmull has been there from before the beginning--he was recruited by George Lucas from the New York Institute of Technology (NYIT), where he headed the Computer Graphics Lab (CGL), to start up the computer graphics division at Lucasfilm in 1979. In 1986, Steve Jobs bought the division for US$ 10 million and established it as an indepedent company called Pixar, with Catmull as co-founder and chief technical officer.

It's a fascinating article and worth reading in full, but here's my summary of Catmull's key insights on Pixar's principles and practices for managing creative companies:

• It's primarily about good people, not good ideas. Good people are more important than good ideas.
  
• The Nature of Collective Creativity:
• In complex product development, like filmmaking, creativity involves many people from different disciplines working together to solve numerous problems. It is not a solo act.
• Such a working environment requires a tolerance for risk (and possible failure), trust, respect, and a deep sense of community.
• Set and maintain the highest standards of service and product quality.
• Power to the Creatives:
• Creative power and authority must reside with the creative team's leadership, i.e., the film's producer and the director.
• A Peer Culture:
  
• Create internal peer review panels and processes to provide unbiased, unvarnished input to the creative team's leaders, but ultimate power and authority must resides with those leaders. At Pixar, this elite peer group of producers and directors is called The brain trust.
• The practice of working together as peers extends to all levels of Pixar, not just producers and directors. For example, daily reviews or dailies are a process for giving and receiving constant feedback in a positive way. People show work in an incomplete form to the whole creative team and everyone is encouraged to comment. The benefits are: (1) Once people overcome the embarrassment of showing work still in progress, they become more creative. (2) The leaders can communicate important points to the entire team at the same time. (3) People learn from and inspire each other. (4) It avoids wasted efforts. People's overwhelming desire to ensure their work is "good" before they show it to others increases the probability that their finished version won't be what the director wants.
• Technology + Art = Magic:
• Getting people in different disciplines to treat each other as peers is just as important as getting people within disciplines to do so. But it's much harder as a result of various barriers including: natural class structures (some functions consider themselves and are perceived by others as being more valued by the organisation); different languages spoken by different disciplines; physical distances between offices; etc. In creative businesses, all such barriers are impediments to producing great work.
  
• Making constant change, or reinvention, the norm in the organisation and blending technology and art, leads to magical things happening.
• "Technology inspires art, and art challenges the technology"--John Lasseter, Chief Creative Officer, Pixar Animation Studios
• Operating Principle #1: Everyone must have the freedom to communicate with anyone.
• Operating Principle #2: It must be safe for everyone to offer ideas.
• Operating Principle #3: Stay close to innovations happening in the academic community.
• Other barrier-breaking practices: (1) Pixar University--a collection of in-house courses open to anyone in the company and allows for training and cross-training of people. Reinforces mindset that everyone in the company is learning and it's fun to learn to learn together. (2) Pixar's building (Steve Job's brainchild) is structured to maximise inadvertent encounters and interactions. At the centre is a large atrium containing the cafeteria, meeting rooms, bathrooms, and mailboxes.
• Staying on the Rails:
  
• The history of the computer industry has many examples of companies that put together great people who produced great products and then, at the height of their powers, made stunningly bad decisions and faded into irrelevance.
  
• Catmull vowed to ensure Pixar would not suffer this fate by inculcating a culture of introspection and self analysis, systematically fighting complacency and systematically uncovering problems in the midst of success.
  
• The keys are: clear values; constant communication; routine postmortems; the regular injection of fresh blood, and strong leadership.
• Effective postmortems. Nobody likes to do postmortems, left unchecked they will be gamed to avoid confronting the unpleasant. Simple techniques to avoid this include: (1) Regularly vary the way you do postmortems. (2) Ask each group to list the top five things they would do again and the top five things they wouldn't do--this balances positives and negatives. (3) Employ lots of data in the review, including activities and deliverables that can be quantified (e.g., rate at which things happen, how often something has to be reworked, whether a piece of work was completely finished when it was sent to another department or not, etc.) These data show things in a neutral way, which can stimulate discussion and challenges assumptions arising from personal impressions.
• Fresh blood. There are two challenges associated with bringing in new people with fresh perspectives: the not-invented-here syndrome and the awe-of-the-institution syndrome. The former is less of an issue because of Pixar's open culture. The latter is a bigger challenge, especially getting young new hires to speak up. To try to remedy this, Catmull makes it a practice to speak at orientation sessions for new hires and to talk about the mistakes Pixar has made and the lessons it has learned. The purpose is to persuade them that the company haven't got it all figured out and that they want everyone to question why they're doing something that doesn't seem to make sense to them.

Catmull concludes:

For 20 years, I pursued a dream of making the first computer-animated film. To be honest, after that goal was realized - when we finished Toy Story - I was a bit lost. But then I realized the most exciting thing I had ever done was to create the unique environment that allowed that film to be made. My new goal became, with John [Lasseter], to build a studio that had the depth, robustness, and will to keep searching for the hard truths that preserve the confluence of forces necessary to create magic. In the two years since Pixar's merger with Disney, we've had the good fortune to expand the goal to include the revival of Disney Animation Studios. It has been extremely gratifying to see the principles and approaches we developed at Pixar transform this studio. But the ultimate test of whether John and I have achieved our goals is if Pixar and Disney are still producing animated films that touch world culture in a positive way long after we two, and our friends who founded and built Pixar with us, are gone.

Hear, hear.

Mo Ibrahim on Aid

In the FT: Mo Ibrahim, the founder of Celtel, weighs in on the ferocious worldwide debate on the (in)effectiveness of aid to Africa sparked by Dambisa Moyo's recent book Dead Aid.

Gordon Brown: Not Drowning but Waving

Not Drowning but Waving. That's the phrase that comes to mind when I think of the UK's beleaguered Prime Minister. Here we have a man who should drown (figuratively, of course), but refuses to do so. It makes for painful and pitiful viewing.

The phrase is a play on the title and refrain of a poem by Stevie Smith, that she (yes, she) published in 1950s:

Not Waving but Drowning

Nobody heard him, the dead man,
But still he lay moaning:
I was much further out than you thought
And not waving but drowning.

Poor chap, he always loved larking
And now he's dead
It must have been too cold for him his heart gave way,
They said.

Oh, no no no, it was too cold always
(Still the dead one lay moaning)
I was much too far out all my life
And not waving but drowning.

Reading: Things Fall Apart (Classics in Context edition)

In 1958, a highly unusual manuscript arrived at the Heinemann publishing house in London. It was a novel, set in Africa, with Africans as the main characters, and written by a young unpublished African writer. Heinemann took a risk and published the novel. More than 50 years later that novel, Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe, is widely acknowledged to be one of the finest novels of the 20th Century. Indeed, it frequently ends up on lists of the finest novels of all time. Achebe was 28 when the novel was published and several years younger when it was conceived and started.

I'm currently rereading Things Fall Apart in the Classics in Context edition. It contains a wealth of supplementary material including scholarly essays by Professor Simon Gikandi of Princeton University and the late Professor Don Ohadike of Cornell University. This book is a fascinating introduction for anyone who might be interested to learn more about African history and African culture.

Encyclopedia of African Politics: Two New Entries

The two new entries to the Encyclopedia of African Politics both happen to be TLAs-Three Letter Acronyms:

1. GNU (Government of National Unity)
   In other parts of the world, a GNU (pronounced like the antelope) is instituted after a period of hostilities between two parties has been halted and the former enemies agree to work together. In Africa, the GNU is brought on by a disputed election: one or more of the parties contesting the election refuse to accept the outcome of the ballot, normally citing various irregularities. The winning party and the losing party or parties then take the country to the brink of civil war. And then, with great aplomb, steer the nation back to safety using a GNU.
   
   
2. PIG (Party and Its Government)
   PIG is the name given to the almost universal practice in Africa of the ruling party extending its tentacles into the affairs and working of government to such an extent that the dividing line between partisan interests and national interests are blurred.
   

The Phenomenal and the Fundamental

Dambisa Moyo (Foreign Policy, “The Next Big Thing: Africa,” May/June 2009) argues that the current global economic crisis could benefit Africa by reducing the supply of foreign aid to the continent. This is on the grounds that aid is not only ineffective but counterproductive (as so ably shown in her highly stimulating and readable recent book “Dead Aid: Why Aid Is Not Working and How There Is a Better Way for Africa”) and that the removal of aid will force African leaders to find alternatives.

Moyo states that “Africa’s renaissance is firstly economic” and gives a largely economic analysis of the continent’s predicament and possibilities—not entirely surprising perhaps since she’s an economist.

But this approach is somewhat misleading in that it deals with phenomena and not fundamentals.

It is true that the removal of foreign aid will prompt the search for other sources of funding. However, fundamentally, it is not true that these alternatives will necessarily be good, as we see from the recent history of aid-starved Zimbabwe, where hyperinflationary printing of money was used as an alternative source of government funding.

It is true that there have been some improvements in governance, access to telecommunications via mobile telephony, and financial systems in Africa. However, unless these improvements are fundamentally linked with the cultural and institutional entrenchment of democratic values, progress will be ephemeral and short-lived.

This is the basic challenge facing Africa: Not the need for a past-focused African Renaissance to restore lost African identity and pride; but the need for a future-focused African Enlightenment based on the best ideas and ideals, which Africans themselves create, adopt (regardless of historical or geographical origin), cultivate and implement. This is much more involving, but ultimately sustainable, than any other development strategy for it embraces all aspects of that quality that Africa and Africans have been in search of for so many decades: Freedom.

Larry Speaks

You know you've really arrived when you finally join the ultra-exclusive My First Name Is Enough Society. You know, the one with members like Oprah (Winfrey), Tiger (Woods) and Warren (Buffet), and whose latest inductee is Barack (Obama). Larry (Page) joined the club some years ago along with his partner Sergey (Brin). It's been over ten years (ten years and eight months to be precise) since they officially founded Google. A decade is a good time to stop, look around, look back, and look forward. And that is precisely what Larry did on the 2nd of May 2009 when he spoke at the 2009 University of Michigan Spring Commencement. He also collected an honorary Doctor of Engineering degree at the same event.

My favourite pearl of wisdom from his speech:

Have a healthy disregard for the impossible.

You may...

Watch:



Or read:

The Full Transcript

Either way: Enjoy.

Beyond Aid

President Paul Kagame of Rwanda puts the case for a development agenda in Africa that is not driven by aid.

The pro-aid activists will, of course, baulk at the very idea: "African development without aid? Impossible!"

And yet consider the evidence:

• No country in history has ever developed as a result of the injection of aid. (And before anyone throws post-World War II Europe at me, that surely was a case of reconstruction not development.)
• The only available precedents of rapid socio-economic development have all, without exception, been self-driven.
• Heavily aid-dependent countries have regressed not progressed as they've sunk deeper into the swamp of foreign aid.

Could it be that what the pro-aiders really believe, perhaps unconsciously, is that Africans are somehow incapable of doing what Europeans, Americans and Asians have done before them?

UEFA Champions League

Last night: Disappointing but not entirely surprising: Arsenal beaten 3-1 on aggregate by our mortal enemies Manchester United. I hate to admit it, but we were completely outthought and outplayed by our opponents.

Tonight: Surprising but not entirely disappointing: Chelsea beaten 1-1 on aggregate by Barcelona (that pesky away goals rule again--sorry Chelsea) with Barca equalising in the 93rd minute courtesy of a supercalifragilisticexpialidocious (there's just no other way to describe it) volley by the gifted Spanish midfielder Andrés Iniesta (watch out for him in the World Cup next year). The 93rd minute! What a game football is. I know, I know, it's only a game, but my, what a game! Cruel and cool, all at the same time. Unfortunately this match will also be remembered for some atrocious refereeing by this man. But anyway...

Upshot: The appetising prospect of a final between Manchester United and FC Barcelona at the Stadio Olimpico in Rome on Wednesday 27 May 2009.

Lesson: Didier Drogba, who completely lost his composure after Chelsea's defeat, needs to cool down and learn Kipling's If off by heart. As should we all:

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream -- and not make dreams your master;
If you can think -- and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings -- nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run --
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And -- which is more -- you'll be a Man, my son!

Life: Retrospective and Progressive

One of my favourite quotations is: Life must be understood backwards but it must be lived forwards. It originates from an 1843 entry in The Journals of Soren Kierkegaard. Here's what Kierkegaard originally said in context:

It is perfectly true, as philosophers say, that life must be understood backwards. But they forget the other proposition, that it must be lived forwards. And if one thinks over that proposition it becomes more and more evident that life can never really be understood in time simply because at no particular moment can I find the necessary resting-place from which to understand it backwards.

She comes to bury Aid, not to praise it: "Dead Aid" by Dambisa Moyo

Review: Dead Aid: Why Aid is Not Working and How There is Another Way for Africa. By Dambisa Moyo. Penguin, 2009. Pages: xx + 188.

Aid.

The word looks and sounds innocuous enough. Its basic meaning is simple too: “v. & n. help.” according to one pocket dictionary.

But there’s another side to aid apart from humanitarian assistance and charity, an altogether more pernicious side. This kind of aid involves the transfer of money from governments in developed countries to governments in developing countries for the ostensible purpose of fostering economic development. It is, in the memorable words of the eminent development economist Peter Bauer, “a process by which the poor in rich countries subsidise the rich in poor countries.”

Aid has become big business. Over the past 50 years, African countries have received over US$1 trillion in aid. Every year billions more are poured into the aid industry in Africa. The industry employs many thousands of people inside and outside the continent. The World Bank, for instance, one of the largest conduits of aid, has over 10,000 employees, although ironically only 30% of them are based in developing countries; the rest are in Washington, DC and similar places. Many of the aid workers that are in developing countries are expatriates and are handsomely paid for their work. I have seen many an expatriate aid worker in Lusaka’s top shopping malls lavishly spending their hard-earned hardship allowances—this in one of Africa’s safest and most stable countries. The aid industry also employs many of the brightest and best educated citizens of African countries, precisely those whose talents and skills are most needed and would be most productive in government and the private sector.

Yes, aid has become very big business indeed, but with very little to show for it in the way of positive results. In fact, as Dead Aid, Dr. Dambisa Moyo’s new book on aid and African development, shows, systematic aid is not only ineffective, it is harmful. It encourages corruption; it stifles the private sector; it weakens public accountability; it foments conflict and rivalry; it produces negative economic effects (such as reduced savings and investment and increased inflation); and it inculcates a culture of dependency in its recipients. Dr. Moyo sets out to show how aid is at the very root of Africa’s problems, how it must be removed, and how it can be replaced with better alternatives.

Dr. Moyo certainly has the credentials to match her aims. She was born and raised in Zambia. In 1990, her chemistry studies at the University of Zambia in Lusaka were disrupted by political unrest and she left to study in the United States. She earned a bachelors degree in chemistry and an MBA in finance from the American University in Washington, DC. From 1993 to 1995, she worked at the World Bank and was a co-author of its annual World Development Report. She then went on to earn a masters in public policy from Harvard KSG and a doctorate in development economics from Oxford CSAE. From 2001 to 2008, she worked at Goldman Sachs. She sits on the boards of several non-profit organisations and was recently nominated to the board of Lundin Petroleum, a global oil and gas exploration and production company. It is an impressive mix of experience and expertise: academic and professional; public sector and private sector; developing world and developed world.

In the first part of the book (“The World of Aid”), Dr. Moyo makes the case for the ineffectiveness and counter-productiveness of aid. As she readily admits, this case has been made before, first by Peter Bauer (to whom the book is dedicated) and later by others such William Easterly. But the unique perspective and deep passion that she brings to the task makes this perhaps the most compelling case yet. It fell, as it were, to Prof. Bauer and Prof. Easterly to pronounce aid dead, and to Dr. Moyo to deliver a brutally honest funeral oration and see to the burial of the corpse.

In the second and final part of the book (“A World without Aid”), Dr. Moyo proposes a number of market-based funding alternatives to replace aid: international private bonds; financing from China and other emerging economic powers; trade and foreign direct investment (FDI); and microfinancing, international remittances and local savings.

Now that aid is dead and buried, are we potentially on the cusp of a new era of sustainable African development based on the funding alternatives suggested by Dr. Moyo? Are the Dead Aid proposals the final answer to Africa’s perennial problems?

It has been said that to the man (or woman) with a hammer in his (or her) hand, every problem looks like a nail. Therefore, perhaps it’s not surprising that as an economist Dr. Moyo tends to see Africa’s problems and solutions in purely economic terms. If it were true that Africa’s problems were wholly or chiefly attributable to its dependence on aid, then we would certainly be on the verge of a metamorphosis. Sadly, the issue of aid, important though it is, is really only a serious symptom or set of symptoms (i.e., a syndrome); it is not the underlying disease. Or to use a military analogy, aid is a major battle (but still only at the tactical level) and not the war (at the strategic level).

The fundamental problem in Africa is not with the way African governments are funded (as the book asserts). The fundamental problem is with the way African governments are run, that is to say with the nature of government itself. For the most part, African governments act as masters, not as servants (their only legitimate role). There has been much talk about The African Renaissance (the “rebirth” of traditional African identity and culture presumably), but nothing about what’s really required: The African Enlightenment (the creation, adoption [regardless of historical or cultural origin], cultivation and implementation of good ideas and ideals). And so, the approach of the contemporary African government looks (and feels) remarkably like that of the traditional African chief. Government, legitimate government, should be a means, not an end. People should be ends, not means. This order is exactly reversed in many African countries. Not only is government the end, it is literally God, complete with all the divine attributes: omnipresence, omniscience and omnipotence.

Dr. Moyo argues strongly in favour of economic freedom but, regrettably, downplays the importance of other freedoms like political freedom. In one startling passage, she argues that democratic systems of government may be bad for economic development:

The uncomfortable truth is that far from being a prerequisite for economic growth, democracy can hamper development as democratic regimes find it difficult to push through economically beneficial legislation amid rival parties and jockeying interests. In a perfect world, what poor countries at the lowest rungs of economic development need is not a multi-party democracy, but in fact a decisive benevolent dictator to push through the reforms required to get the economy moving (unfortunately, too often countries end up with more dictator and less benevolence). The Western mindset erroneously equates a political system of multi-party democracy with high-quality institutions (for example, effective rule of law, respected property rights and an independent judiciary, etc.). But the two are not synonymous.

This is a mistake. Ultimately, economic freedom, political freedom, and any other freedom, are only particular aspects of freedom itself. In the final analysis, freedom is one indivisible whole. As one of the journals of the Scottish Enlightenment put it:

Be assured that freedom of trade, freedom of thought, freedom of speech, and freedom of action, are but modifications of one great fundamental truth, and that all must be maintained or all risked: they stand or fall together.
-The Edinburgh Review, Vol. LXXVII, No. CLV, February 1843, p. 224.

To her credit, Dr. Moyo acknowledges the importance of democratic institutions (such as the rule of law, private property rights, and an independent judiciary) for economic development. However, she fails to adequately emphasise that ultimately such institutions must be the embodiment of democratic principles (ideas and ideals centred on individuals), and cannot, perforce, be the embodiment of certain personalities (not matter how decisive or benevolently dictatorial).

Fortunately, the absolute necessity of good governance is beginning to be recognised in Africa. For instance, the Mo Ibrahim Foundation, founded by the eponymous Sudanese-born telecoms billionaire and philanthropist, focuses on building good governance in Africa through its annual Mo Ibrahim Prize for Achievement in African Leadership and Ibrahim Index of African Governance.

Dr. Moyo’s gung ho attitude towards Chinese economic expansion (or imperialism, according to some commentators) in Africa is somewhat misplaced. Clearly much of Africa’s economic partnership with China has come at the expense of democratic principles, human rights and good governance. Furthermore, whilst the Chinese government consistently proclaims its policies of not interfering with and not imposing conditions on its African partners, its actions belie its words. For example, in the run-up to the 2006 Zambian presidential elections, the Chinese government publicly threatened to sever all ties with Zambia if the electorate chose the opposition presidential candidate instead of the more pro-Chinese incumbent. More recently, in March 2009, the Dalai Lama was denied a visa to attend a FIFA/Nobel Foundation conference in Johannesburg. This came after the Chinese government “appealed” to the South African government not to allow the Dalai Lama into South Africa, warning that doing so would “harm” bilateral relations. So much for no interference and no conditions.

As a polemical work of literature, Dead Aid is very well written, in clear, supple prose with the occasional burst of linguistic flair.

In writing this book, Dr. Moyo set herself three ambitious goals: first, to write a book that tackles not one but two major themes (the case against aid and workable alternatives to aid); second, to write a book that is both scholarly and popular; and third, to write a book that addresses multiple audiences at that same time (In her own words: “Africans and African policymakers...[and]...those in the West and broader international community who truly wish to see Africa progress.”).

The first goal is a success: Dr. Moyo makes a well-argued and powerful case against aid and for alternative development financing alternatives. (Readers interested in learning more about the wider debate in development economics, especially central planning versus free markets, should consult the works of Peter Bauer, particularly his detailed critiques of state-led development approaches and his monumental and meticulous studies on indigenous entrepreneurship in West Africa and South East Asia.)

Dr. Moyo’s second accomplishment is to have written a book that is scholarly and yet popular. The end notes and extensive bibliography should prove useful to researchers in development economics and other disciplines. And the easy, accessible style should help almost anyone to become acquainted with the real issues around aid. The importance of effectively presenting these issues to the general public should not be underestimated, more so in these times when aid has become, in Dr. Moyo’s phrase, a “cultural commodity”. The proponents of aid now include all kinds of celebrities who are extremely adept at packaging their message for public consumption (e.g. the “Make Poverty History” campaign). Dr. Moyo’s book should do a lot to present the other side of the argument.

The third and final goal was the most herculean of all: to write a single book that speaks effectively to Africans, African policy makers, Westerners and the “broader international community”. Here, Dr. Moyo has not been entirely successful, but not for want of ambition or effort. The advice and prescriptions she offers to Africans and African policy makers, in particular, may be dangerously misleading in various ways. Nevertheless, the valiant pursuit of such a lofty goal should not be lightly dismissed for, as Browning reminds us, “a man's reach should exceed his grasp - or what's a heaven for?”

The book has two notable weaknesses, one, an error of commission, and the other, an error of omission. The first is the erroneous claim that aid is the fundamental cause of Africa’s problems. And the second is the lack of emphasis put on good government.

But this is a small price to pay for such a stimulating and readable book.

Whither Twitter?

It's official: 2009 is the Year of Twitter.

On the public front, this was signalled by Twitter getting a whole Oprah show to itself last week; and by Oprah herself joining the Twitter community. Evan Williams, one of Twitter's co-founders (the other two are Jack Dorsey and Biz Stone) and coiner of the word "blogger", was on hand to guide Oprah through the process. Also, there is a rumour going around about a huge potential takeover bid by Google.

On the personal front, and again last week, a friend told me he was experimenting with Twitter for the first time and asked me whether I had ever used it. Answer: No. And I only had the vaguest of ideas about what it actually was: Something to do with posting to websites from mobile phones, no?

So what is this Twitter that all the world's atwitter about anyway? Very briefly: It's an online social networking service built around answering the simple question "What are you doing?" Clear? Umm-hmm, I thought not. Oh, something else: All tweets (that's what Twitterers--Twitter users--call submissions or status updates posted to Twitter) must be no more than 140 characters long (spaces included). Incidentally, there's a nice big Twictionary to keep you up to speed with Twitterspeak which is growing at a twinormous and twerrifying pace. (OK, I just made up those last two myself.) And yes, it really is 140 characters, not words. Which is why it's also called microblogging I suppose. Why 140 characters? Ah, now that would be telling...

Oh, all right then: The 140 characters is to do with the 160 character limit of a text message or SMS--the other 20 characters are reserved for people's names.

So that's it, that is Twitter.

And no, I haven't gotten around to tweeting yet.

But I will.

One of these days.

Maybe.

Notes

• Evan Williams has a great blog, although it doesn't get updated much these days. He's too busy tweeting it seems--in more ways than one.
  

So what do you wanna be when you grow up?

I heard a fascinating interview on the radio yesterday with Prof. Mark Savickas, a psychologist specialising in the field of career counselling and a pioneer of the narrative career counselling technique. Prof. Savickas explains how the nature of work and careers has changed and how to identify where one belongs. He also demonstrates the narrative counselling technique on the interviewer and some callers. It's very simple and yet very powerful stuff and well worth a listen.

It ties in nicely with Peter F. Drucker's ideas on Managing Oneself in the modern knowledge society.

Rita Levi-Montalcini: 100 not out

On 22 April 2009, Rita Levi-Montalcini the Nobel Laureate (Physiology or Medicine 1986) will turn 100. Her personal and scientific life has been characterised by enormous challenges which she has chosen to meet, very deliberately, with equal courage and determination. Apparently, she will be the first Nobel laureate to reach the age of 100. Hers is a very inspiring story indeed.

Just a Lifetime: Sir Clement Freud (1924-2009)

Clement Freud's voice was the first thing I noticed. (Naturally, when your first encounter with someone is on shortwave radio-- the BBC World Service in this case--the voice will necessarily be the first thing you notice.) It was a slow, low-pitched monotone, almost a growl, with something of the curmudgeon about it. "Lugubrious": the word so often used to describe it, and its owner, that it's become cliched.

It was a complete contrast to the voice of Kenneth Williams (of Carry On fame), another of the original panelists on Just a Minute. That voice was nasal, high-pitched, shrill almost, extremely camp, and delivering words at a rate at least twice as fast as normal or necessary. But still the conveyor of abundant wit and charm.

The object of the game was simple, ingeniously so: to speak, off-the-cuff, for one minute without hesitation, deviation or repetition on a randomly chosen subject. Like this on the subject "CHEEK":

Clement Freud: CHEEK is when someone of diminished responsibility, goes to the British Broadcasting Corporation and elects to be chairman of a panel game on the basis that he might have some idea of how to control people whose multisyllabic words he doesn’t understand, whose meaning he is unable to comprehend, and whose hours and time he is unable to keep. I’ve now said unable three times, and no-one has interrupted me…

Peter Jones: Well I’m not interrupting ‘cos I’m enjoying it…

(Peter Jones was a regular contestant on Just a Minute for 29 years .)

The game has remained largely unchanged for more than 40 years. And Sir Clement Freud (24 April 1924–15 April 2009) was probably its finest and certainly its most experienced exponent.

"Without repetition, hesitation or deviation" seems an apt theme for Freud's own long and colourful life in which he was at various times: a soldier, chef, restaurateur, columnist, actor, author, nightclub owner, food and drink critic, parliamentarian, sporting correspondent, gambler, race jockey, university official, broadcaster, raconteur, wit, and God knows what else.

There are some wonderful anecdotes by and about Freud:

• In 1978, Freud was on a parliamentary delegation to Japan and returned via China with Winston S. Churchill, a Conservative Member of Parliament and grandson of Sir Winston Churchill. On the final day, he asked the Chinese Minister for Information why his junior colleague had been given a bigger hotel suite than his. The Minister, very embarrassed, explained that it was because Mr. Churchill had a famous grandfather. Freud, whose own grandfather was none other than the illustrious Sigmund Freud, observed drily: "It is the only time that I have been out-grandfathered."
• During the Second World War, Freud was called up to serve with the Royal Ulster Rifles. Informed of Freud's origins (Austro-German, born in Berlin, although Freud was also Jewish of course), his Commanding Officer sent for him and inquired: “Mr. Freud, I don’t quite know how to put this, but are you sure you’re on the right side?”
  
• A few days ago, Charles Wilson, Editor of The Times (of London) from 1980 to 1985 who first brought Freud to the paper, received his invitation to a supper for 15 that had been planned for Friday the 24 of April 2009, Freud's 85th birthday. It read: “This is to remind you of the time, date and location - although it may be wise to keep an eye on the obituary column.” Clement Freud: Witty to the very last. (You may cast your eye on the obituaries in The Times, The Guardian, The Independent and The Telegraph.)

When Scientific Ideas Meet Public Policy

Scientific ideas have societal consequences.

AIDS Denialism

A paper entitled "Estimating the Lost Benefits of Antiretroviral Drug Use in South Africa" published in a recent issue of the Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndromes (JAIDS) conservatively estimated the number of HIV-related deaths in South Africa from 2000-2005 due to the Mbeki Administration's policy of AIDS denialism at over 330,000.

The illustrates just how dangerous it can be for governments to base their policies on unsound scientific ideas.

Which brings us to the issue of anthropogenic (man-made) climate change.

A Convenient Falsehood?

In October 2007, the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to the IPCC (the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) and Al Gore "for their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change."

A word that crops up again and again in the climate change debate is "consensus": it is frequently stated that there is consensus among scientists about the validity of man-made climate change and what to do about it. We should note here that some synonyms of "consensus" are "agreement, accord, harmony, compromise, consent, unanimity;" an antonym is "disagreement." The first thing to note is that the scientific validity of any scientific fact or theory is NOT established by consensus. Nor is it undermined by its opposite, "disagreement." Consensus and disagreement are not scientific terms, they are political terms (which is why perhaps the IPCC and Mr. Gore won the Nobel Prize for Peace and not for one of the scientific disciplines). On the contrary, virtually all scientific discoveries are born in the minds of one individual or one small collaborating group of individuals. They are not arrived at or established by consensus. Scientific facts and theories are established by appropriate scientific evidence, the validity of which is completely independent of any attendant consensus or lack thereof.

In any case, the simple truth is that there is no consensus about the validity of man-made climate change as this letter signed by more than 100 eminent scientists, including some leading climatologists, clearly demonstrates.

Some of the scientists who have questioned the "consensus" science and public policy around man-made climate change include:

• Freeman J. Dyson (one of the signatories of the aforementioned letter)
• Peter W. Huber
  
• Bjørn Lomborg (The Sceptical Environmentalist)
• Philip Stott

The danger for the developing world like Sub-Saharan Africa adopting public policy based on man-made climate change is that development will be severely hampered which will result in less prosperity and more poverty, hunger, disease and conflict (over limited and dwindling economic resources).

Listening

Mama Afrika 1932-2008 - Miriam Makeba

A double CD retrospective from the late great Queen of African music. All the classics are here: Malaika, Pata Pata, Thulasizwe (Makeba's South Africanised version of Bob Dylan's I Shall Be Released), and more. The songs are in a number of African languages as well as English and Portuguese.

The music is fascinating, beguiling, moving, soothing.

This release is a beautiful introduction for anyone new to African music and a wonderful re-introduction for anyone old to it.

Bequest of Pavlov to the Academic Youth of His Country

On 27 February 1936, Ivan Petrovich Pavlov, the renowned Russian scientist, discoverer of classical conditioning, and winner of the 1904 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, died. He was in his 87th year. Shortly before his death, he had written a scientific credo to share with young scientists. It was published posthumously in the 17 April 1936 issue of Science (p. 369, Vol. 83, Issue 2155):

What can I wish to the youth of my country who devote themselves to science?

Firstly, gradualness. About this most important condition of fruitful scientific work I never can speak without emotion. Gradualness, gradualness and gradualness. From the very beginning of your work, school yourself to severe gradualness in the accumulation of knowledge. Learn the ABC of science before .you try to ascend to its summit. Never begin "the subsequent without mastering the preceding. Never attempt to screen an insufficiency of knowledge even by the most audacious surmise and hypothesis. Howsoever this soap-bubble will rejoice your eyes by its play it inevitably will burst and you will have nothing except shame. School yourselves to demureness and patience. Learn to inure yourselves to drudgery in science. Learn, compare, collect the facts! Perfect as is the wing of a bird, it never could raise the bird up without resting on air. Facts are the air of a scientist. Without them you never can fly. Without them, your "theories" are vain efforts. But learning, experimenting, observing, try not to stay on the surface of the facts. Do not become the archivists of facts. Try to penetrate to the secret of their occurrence, persistently search for the laws which govern them.

Secondly, modesty. Never think that you already know all. However highly you are appraised always have the courage to say of yourself—I am, ignorant. Do not allow haughtiness to take you in possession. Due to that you will be obstinate where it is necessary to agree, you will refuse useful advice and friendly help, you will lose the standard of objectiveness.

Thirdly, passion. Remember that science demands from a man all his life. If you had two lives that would be not enough for you. Be passionate in your work and your searchings.

Detailed Commentary on Keynes' General Theory by Henry Hazlitt

Back in December 2008, I began a detailed critique of John Maynard Keynes' The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money (1936). One of the reasons I gave for undertaking this task was because "to the best of my knowledge, there is no such commentary available online."

It turns out I was wrong.

Henry Hazlitt beat me to it with The Failure of the New Economics (1959) by some 50 years! Murray Rothbard contributed an excellent foreword to the book.

Mission accomplished (albeit not by me).

10 Demolition Balls of Economic Destruction

These are some of the 10 most dangerous intellectual demolition balls that have been used to wreak economic destruction:

1. An Essay on the Principle of Population (1826, 6th edition) by Thomas Robert Malthus
2. Das Kapital: Vol. I (1867), Vol. II (1885), Vol. III (1894) by Karl Marx
3. The General Theory Of Employment, Interest And Money (1936) by John Maynard Keynes
   
4. The Affluent Society (1958) by John Kenneth Galbraith
5. Silent Spring (1962) by Rachel Carson
   
6. Economic theory and Underdeveloped Regions (1965) by Gunnar Myrdal
7. Neocolonialism: The Last Stage of Imperialism (1965) by Kwame Nkrumah
8. The Little Red Book (1966) by Mao Zedong
   
9. Animal Liberation (1975) by Peter Singer
   
10. Profit over People: Neolibralism and Global Order (1999) by Noam Chomsky

Dishonourable mention:

• The Communist Manifesto (1848) by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels

See also: 10 Pillars of Economic Freedom

The Half-life of Ideas

Good--and bad-ideas are extremely long lived. They have a very long half-life. They frequently outlive their creators.

Reading

Currently reading:

• The Mammoth Book of Best New Science Fiction: 21st Annual Collection (2008) edited by Gardner Dozois
  
• The Letter of Marque (1988) (#12 in the Aubrey/Maturin series) by Patrick O'Brian
  
• The Invisible Boy (2002) by Sally Gardner (Bedtime for the boys)
  

Recently finished:

• Curious Minds: How a Child Becomes a Scientist (2004) edited by John Brockman

• Dead Aid: Why Aid is Not Working and How There is Another Way for Africa (2009) by Dambisa Moyo
• Winnie-the-Pooh (1926) by A. A. Milne (Bedtime for the boys)
  

10 Pillars of Economic Freedom

The global financial tsunami continues to pummel the superstructure of economic freedom. But as long as its infrastructure remains firm, economic freedom should be able to weather the storm.

Here are my personal picks for 10 pillars of economic freedom in the realm of ideas:

1. The Wealth of Nations (1776) by Adam Smith
   
   • Full title: An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations
     
2. The End of Economic Man (1939) by Peter F. Drucker
   
   • Drucker's first book, begun in 1933 a few weeks after Hitler came to power and published in 1939.
     
   • Winston Churchill's review of The End of Economic Man published in The Times Literary Supplement on 27 May 1939
     
3. The Road to Serfdom (1944) by F. A. Hayek
   
   • Condensed Reader’s Digest version
   • The Road to Serfdom in Cartoons
     
4. Economics in One Lesson (1946) by Henry Hazlitt
   
5. Human Action (1949) by Ludwig von Mises
6. Capitalism and Freedom (1962) by Milton Friedman
   
7. Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal (1966) by Ayn Rand and others
   
8. Equality, the Third World, and Economic Delusion (1981) by Peter Bauer
   
9. Basic Economics (2007, 3rd ed.) by Thomas Sowell
10. The Economist (1843-Present)
    

Honourable mention:

• I, Pencil (1958) by Leonard Read
  

See also: 10 Demolition Balls of Economic Destruction

A monstrous success

Parents of young children must regularly make the pilgrimage to the cinema to see the latest and greatest animated movie that's on release.

Mostly, it's dreary fare for the adults. The only compensation being the delight and amusement it seems to give to the children. Occasionally, the movie rises above the dreary. And on even rarer occasions, it soars towards the sublime.

This past weekend, seeing the inauspiciously titled Monsters vs. Aliens by DreamWorks Animation was one of those very rare occasions.

The movie works superbly well for both adults and children. It has a sharp witty script and some wonderful characters. I loved Hugh Laurie's nerdy Dr. Cockroach PhD, Rainn Wilson as the villainous alien Gallaxhar, and Kiefer Sutherland as General W.R. Monger (a play on "warmonger"). Sutherland's voice, incidentally, was unrecogniseable--astonishing given how much of it we've heard in 24, but I guess that's what makes the man a great actor. The movie is full of action and great one-liners, like when the President of the United States (brilliantly played by Stephen Colbert) tells the situation room: "Boys, set the terror level at code brown, 'cause I need to change my pants."

Oh, and it was made in Digital 3D, which makes it an even more fascinating experience. The technology behind 3D movies is pretty fascinating too.

See it.

John Hope Franklin (1915-2009)

Using one's skills to influence public policy seemed to be a satisfactory middle ground between an ivory tower posture of isolation and disengagement and a posture of passionate advocacy that too often deserted the canons of scholarship.

- John Hope Franklin

The historian John Hope Franklin (2 January 1915-25 March 2009) was a towering figure both physically and intellectually.

He was named after the great early 20th century African American educator and political activist John Hope.

John Hope Franklin, the grandson of a slave, went on to achieve numerous distinctions, any one of which would have represented a significant accomplishment for a single lifetime: he revolutionised the study of American history; he became a best-selling author of serious and scholarly books (his 1947 classic From Slavery to Freedom has sold over four million copies and counting, and is in its 8th edition); he made major contributions to the civil rights movement in the United States, such as conducting scholarly research for Thurgood Marshall and the rest of the legal team that successfully argued the landmark case Brown v. Board of Education (1954); he had a long and distinguished academic career in which he earned the respect, admiration and affection of his peers and students; he participated in many major studies and panels, including chairing President Bill Clinton's 1997 One America: The President's Initiative on Race; he won many accolades, including over 130 (!) honorary degrees and multiple awards and prizes; and, most importantly perhaps, he personally embodied the hope of his name for better tomorrows not only for Americans of every complexion, but for everyone around the world. The latter is a remarkable achievement given that historians are by definition concerned with the past.

His life is a testament to the power of moral and intellectual courage. It also exemplifies the power of ideas and intellectual endeavour and discourse as a means for changing the world for the better. Despite the incidence of some pain and one or two controversies, the overwhelming themes of John Hope Franklin's life are about triumph over adversity, the power of hard work and persistence, and, yes, hope. Perhaps nothing symbolises this more powerfully than the state of the United States when John Hope Franklin was born and when he died 94 years later. In 1915, he was born into an America with numerous Jim Crow laws and frequent lynchings of African American men. In 2009, he died having witnessed a man of African descent ascend to the Presidency of the United States earlier that year.

Hope indeed.

See also:

• A poignant personal tribute by one of his colleagues, Stan Katz of Princeton.
  
• The beautifully written obituary in this week's Economist, although I take issue with the characterisation of John Hope Franklin as merely a "historian of America's blacks". He was a historian of America, but I shan't quibble.
• Duke University's online memorial site.

Ayer v. Tyson

Yes, that Ayer and that Tyson.

I suppose the outcome of this encounter has to be adjudged a technical knockout for Ayer:

It was at another party, given a later later in the year by the highly fashionable clothes designer, Fernando Sanchez, that he had a widely reported encounter. Ayer had always had an ability to pick up unlikely people and at yet another party had befriended Sanchez. Ayer was now standing near the entrance to the great white living-room of Sanchez’s West 57th Street apartment, chatting to a group of young models and designers, when a woman rushed in saying that a friend was being assaulted in a bedroom. Ayer went to investigate and found Mike Tyson forcing himself on a young south London model called Naomi Campbell, then just beginning her career. Ayer warned Tyson to desist. Tyson: “Do you know who the fuck I am? I’m the heavyweight champion of the world”. Ayer stood his ground. “And I am the former Wykeham Professor of Logic. We are both pre-eminent in our field; I suggest that we talk about this like rational men.” Ayer and Tyson began to talk. Naomi Campbell slipped out.

Excerpt from p. 344 of A.J. Ayer: A Life, By Ben Rogers, Grove Press, 2002.

Unintended Consequences

Decisions involves two things: making choices and dealing with the resulting consequences. Choiceless decisions and consequenceless decisions are no decisions at all. The intentions of the decisions are secondary; the actual consequences are primary.

The circumstances of, and reaction to, the recent resignation letter by a senior executive from AIG, which was published as an op-ed piece in the New York Times, illustrate the dangers of the woolly thinking involved in linking choices only to intentions and not to consequences.

The letter generated a huge response from readers, most of it negative, some of it even to the point of being scurrilous.

The policy of vilifying and demonising everyone that works in the financial services sector is bound to have the severe and unintended consequence of driving away many talented people from the sector. Which will ultimately be harmful to everyone's interests.

Globalisation and its Malcontents

The protests around the ongoing G20 summit have turned violent.

The protesters appear to be from many disparate groups with many disparate (desperate?) aims. Some just seem intent on causing mayhem, destruction, and worse.

What are we to make of it all?

It's unfortunate, but characteristic, that such protests always produce a lot of heat but very little light.

Even more unfortunate is the fact that some of these protest groups, these anti-something groups, never let the facts get in the way of their good stories. No matter how off-base those stories might be.

Take the anti-capitalist strain.

Despite the fact that free market principles have been responsible for the creation of more wealth, and the concomitant alleviation of more poverty, than any other economic system, the anti-capitalists continue to insist that it must be "abolished" or "reformed". The fact that all the substitutes and modifications on offer have been tried before and failed every time appears to be of little concern to the anti-capitalists. The fact that China, communist China itself, has shifted towards free market principles and prospered as a result is little more than an inconvenient fact that is conveniently ignored.

And it's almost always a bad sign when a group is defined more by what it's against than by what it's for.

What are all these anti-something groups actually for?

The true answer is profoundly disturbing.

Look who's back

Tiger Woods won his first tournament after coming back from reconstructive knee surgery and an eight-month absence from the professional golf circuit.

The Curious Case of the Snooping Dragon

Dr. Shishir Nagaraja and Professor Ross Anderson of the Security Group at Cambridge University's Computer Laboratory document a new type of electronic surveillance attack that they call social malware. The attack involves a combination of social phishing and malware (Trojans, to be precise) The target was the the Office of His Holiness the Dalai Lama (OHHDL) in Dharamsala, Northern India. Researchers from Canada followed up by hacking into one of the attackers' servers, something the Cambridge team could not do due to the UK's Computer Misuse Act of 1990. In this report, hot off the virtual press (29 March 2009), the Canadian researchers identify and expose the large-scale cyber espionage network behind the attack. They assign it the name GhostNet.

Notes:

1. This case illustrates, once again, that information and network security is a game of cat and mouse. Or dragon and mouse in this instance.
   
2. Professor Ross Anderson is the author of the technically excellent, yet highly readable text Security Engineering - A Guide to Building Dependable Distributed Systems (2nd edition, 2008).
3. Coincidentally, the Dalai Lama has been in the news in this part of the world, where he was recently denied a visa to visit South Africa. This was as a result of "representations" made to the South African government by the Chinese government-allegedly. So perhaps not so coincidental after all.
   

The problem of knowledge

The leaders of the G20 (actually the G19 plus the EU) are due to meet in London this week. The agenda of the summit centres on the global financial crisis.

A global economy is an enormously complex real-time, self-adaptive communications and control system which works with a variety of signals: data, information, knowledge, wisdom. Or at least, it's supposed to be.

What happens when you try to substitute one type of signal for another in such a system? For example, if you substitute data with knowledge, or the reverse?

Consider, first of all, that the quartet of signal types (data, information, knowledge and wisdom) form a hierarchy: from simplest to most complex; from the most common to the most rare; from the immediate to the ultimate; from the most accessible to the least accessible; from the possessive to the characteristic; from present-focused to future-focused; from the impersonal to the personal; from the material to the spiritual; from input to output; from having to being; from news to views; from the dispersed to the concentrated.

Signal substitution will hinder the operation of the system.

Can the G20 leaders solve the economic crisis?

Based on the stated aims of the summit, the answer must be no because the aims appear to be a classic case of signal substitution.

The reason is what we might call the problem of knowledge. Will the G20 leaders have sufficient and timely knowledge about the financial crisis to solve it? No, on both counts. The knowledge they, or any one person or group of persons, possesses about all the relevant issues is limited. And even the knowledge they have may out of date. The well-known lag effects in economics will only be exacerbated with increased government intervention.

The biggest danger is that the G20 summit will introduce rules and regulations that will harm and hinder the operation of the global economy.

Note: See also Friedrich von Hayek's essay on The Use of Knowledge in Society (1945).

JFK on TJ

On 29 April 1962, President John F. Kennedy hosted a White House dinner honouring Nobel Prize winners. In his remarks, he mentioned that great polymathic genius, Thomas Jefferson:

I think this is the most extraordinary collection of talent, of human knowledge, that has ever been gathered together at the White House, with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone.

"The People"

It's interesting to observe how contemporary political leaders use the phrase "The People".

It is used to justify all sorts of things: "The People" demand this; "The People" want that; "The People" must have this; this must be done in the interests of "The People". And so it goes on. And on. And on. And on.

Who and where are these "People" exactly?

Curiously this is never mentioned.

Perhaps this is because "The People" almost always refers to only some, even just a few, of the people, including the political leader himself.

Surely this phrase should only be used when it genuinely refers to the real common interests of all the people. The phrase has become somewhat debased since it was first used in its proper sense in perhaps the greatest preamble of all great preambles:

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

The Bright Interior

Thinking about yesterday's Earth Hour, I remembered this (click here for the full-size version):

It's an animated movie created by some researchers at Google showing how the geographical distribution of requests to google.com changed throughout the day on 14 August 2003. (To what end? Details here if you're interested.)

The activity on the map is highly correlated with economic prosperity, education, enlightenment and energy. The interior of the African continent is one of the darkest regions.

An equivalent map for Earth Hour, with light intensity corresponding to switched off (or non-existent!) lights, would show the interior of the African continent as one of the brightest regions.

Absurd or what?

Zamunda: A cautionary tale

Zamunda is the imaginary African kingdom in the Eddie Murphy classic Coming to America. In February 2003, I wrote a short story about leadership in African countries. Claimer: The events and characters in the story ARE based on actual events and characters from Zambian history. To give some context: About a year earlier, in January 2002, Levy Mwanawasa became President of Zambia after 10 years of increasingly corrupt rule by his predecessor. He had been handpicked by the incumbent. The questions that were in the minds of all Zambians at the time were whether President Mwanawasa would be his own man and just what kind of President he was going to be. As things turned out, he proved to be a pretty good one, a saint of a President indeed by African standards. The title I gave the story back in 2003 was Ali Baba and The Forty Thieves, a title somewhat lacking in subtelty and tact it seems now six years on! The story is allegorical. See if you can spot the good old British Empire; Zambia's first President, the freedom fighter Kenneth Kaunda; Zambia's second President, the wily Fredrick Chiluba; and Zambia's third President, the late, great Mwanawasa. The story seems to suggest that it's all cyclical and that progress is only illusory. Such was my pessimistic, and yes perhaps even cynical, view at the time. I hope I was wrong.

Anyhow, here it is, the complete and unexpurgated original text:

Once upon a time, in the land of Zamunda, there were multitudes of chiefdoms: lots and lots of chiefdoms, some small, some big, some isolated, some integrated, trading, warring, intermingling, living chiefdoms. And so they had gone on, century after century. And so it seemed they would continue into perpetuity.

But one day a group of itinerant bandits, forty in number, happened upon the sleepy land of Zamunda. They were led by Zaafira, a fierce and crafty woman, who had earned the nickname 'Bandit Queen'. Zaafira and her men raided the Zamundans continually and robbed them of untold quantities of golden grudas. They stowed their spoils in an immense secret cavern on the periphery of Zamunda.

On one particular occasion as Khalil, a poor Zamundan (indeed all Zamunda had become impoverished), was foraging for food in remote parts, he saw the bandits approaching on horses laden with sacks of grudas. Having concealed himself, Khalil saw Zaafira stop at a certain spot and say: "Open, Maize-ame!" Immediately the door of the secret cavern flew open and the Bandit Queen and her men hid their treasure inside. Once the bandits emerged from the cavern, Zaafira sealed the entrance of the cavern with the magical words: "Shut, Maize-ame!" And the bandits rode off.

When it was safe, Khalil approached the secret cavern and tried the magic words. Once again the cavern door opened and Khalil was able to carry off many grudas. In keeping with the meaning of his name ('friend'), Khalil shared the wealth he retrieved from the secret cavern with all the people of Zamunda. Khalil shared the secret of the wealth with key Zamundan leaders. Eventually, the Zamundans regained their wealth and their pride and they were able to chase away the bandits.

As the years went by Zamundans forgot their past woes, as it seemed their former idyllic existence had been restored. In the course of time, however, they were to face the usual adversities that visit any society. And by this time, Khalil and almost all Zamundan leaders, had forgotten the magical words to open the secret cavern. They tried "Open, Rice-ame!" and "Open, Wheat-ame!" and all manner of grains, except maize. Meanwhile, the Zamundans grew increasingly restless and, once again, came to know poverty. Almost all Zamundan leaders had forgotten the magic words, save for one, that is: Ali Baba. It was he that came to the rescue of all Zamunda. Or so it seemed at the time.

Ali Baba kept the magic words to open the secret cavern all to himself. Once he had ensconced himself at the helm of Zamunda, he formed a group of what he called the forty operatives to extort what few grudas the Zamundans still had. For the first time in its history, Zamunda became a single chiefdom.

One day Ali Baba yawned and realised he had grown quite bored of ruling Zamunda and decided he wanted to become a professional philosopher. He would have liked to install one of his sons as chief in his place, but, alas, they had inherited all of his brains (which is to say very little) and none of his cunning. And so, Ali Baba appointed the aptly named Mustafa ('chosen') instead, shared with him the magic words, and embarked on his philosophical career.

Mustafa, unfortunately for Ali Baba, turned out to have ideas of his own. He wished, in order to consolidate his own position, to be sole possessor of the knowledge of the magic words, and had Ali Baba discredited and thrown into a lunatic asylum for the rest of his days. Mustafa continued his reign until, in his turn, he played Ali Baba to his own Mustafa.

And that, according to legend, accounts for the cyclical history of Zamunda and the poverty we now find ourselves in. My son, it's late. Go to sleep. Get some rest. Mustafa's workhouse awaits us in the morning...

Is Science simply a matter of opinion?

Humanity is confronted with a number of issues whose solutions rest on the answers to scientific questions.

Take just two topical examples: one from the science of climatology and the other from the science of economics.

First, climatology. The issue here is what has come to be known as climate change. Al Gore and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a UN panel of scientists and other experts, shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize "for their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change." In fact, there is currently a global campaign (Earth Hour) to switch off all the lights for one hour this coming Saturday 28 March 2009 at 20:30 local time all over the planet. The purpose is to highlight climate change. There's only one problem: There are other scientists and experts who question the scientific validity of climate change. Who is right? Is it all simply a matter of "everyone is entitled to their own opinion"?

Second example: economics. Noting (and ignoring for now) the view that economics is not a science at all, how is that some economists say "fiscal stimulation" is the only way to solve the global economic crisis whilst other economists say that it will lead to economic disaster. Who is right and who is wrong?

The basic premise of all scientific inquiry is that a natural or artificial phenomenon or system, be it the global climate or the global economy, exhibits order and is capable of being objectively and rationally explained and understood. Understanding forms the basis of prediction, design and control. Science, in its proper sense, cannot simply be a subjective matter. If it is, it ceases to be science.

The first and most important thing to realise on these important scientific issues is that two equal and opposite answers to the same question cannot both be right. Fully accepting this fact naturally leads to the next steps: ascertaining the criteria for assessing truth or falsehood; applying the criteria; embracing the truth and rejecting falsehood.

Truth be told

What is the most incisive and truthful international news programme on TV today?

You have three goes.

OK, first one:

Answer: _________

Nope.

Have another go:

Answer: _________

Sorry, wrong again.

OK, last try:

Answer: _________

Let me put you out of your misery.

It's The Daily Show.

You mean The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, that Daily Show?

Yip, the very same. Besides the US Edition which airs Monday to Thursday on Comedy Central, there is an international Global Edition which airs at weekends on CNN.

But isn't that a comedy show?

Yes, well, actually it's a particular kind of comedy show, it's satirical.

But still, how can that be a news programme, let alone an incisive and truthful one?

Satire has always been more about telling the truth than about making jokes. It has a very long history dating at least as far back as the Ancient Greeks (with Aristophanes being the foremost exponent). Many others have followed in the satirical tradition: Swift, Twain, Mencken, Orwell, Soyinka,...and Stewart.

Any other good examples of such shows?

The BBC's Have I Got News For You is extremely good. It's less scripted and more improvisational though. And it has a two-team quiz format.

Quantitative Euphemising

The English word euphemism is derived from the Greek word euphemismos. The Greek word has three parts: the prefix eu-, which means "well" or "good"; the root pheme, which means "speaking" (or literally "a voice from heaven, a prophetic voice"); and the suffix -ismos, which is used to turn a root verb into a noun and means "the practice, characteristic behaviour or quality, state, or theory of" (and hence vegetarianism, optimism, senilism, and Capitalism respectively). Therefore the word literally means "the practice (or belief) of speaking well or good of". To the Ancient Greeks it meant "speaking words of good omen" or "using auspicious words instead of inauspicious ones".

In contemporary English, a euphemism has come to mean an indirect, opaque or convoluted word or phrase that is deliberately used in place of a more direct, clear and simple one. The motives for using euphemisms vary from the benign (the desire to avoid being unnecessarily offensive or harsh) to the malign (the desire to conceal, mislead or deceive). Describing the death of someone's loved one as "passing away" or "passing on" is on the benign side. Describing the relationship between donor nations and recipient nations as an "equal partnership" on the other end of the spectrum.

The global financial crisis has thrown up a first class example of a world class euphemism.

When President Robert Mugabe and the Governor of the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe print money it is called, well, printing money. When Prime Minister Gordon Brown and the Governor of the Bank of England print money, or President Barack Obama and the Chairman of the Federal Reserve print money, it is called quantitative easing.

In the beginning was the web...

This month is the 20th anniversary of the invention of the World Wide Web by Tim Berners-Lee at CERN. The good folks are CERN have created a (what else?) website to commemorate the event, with some fascinating content including a copy of Berners-Lee's original proposal. Mike Sendall, Berners-Lee's supervisor at the time, wrote on the cover "Vague but exciting" and added at the end "And now?".

"And now?" indeed.

The story of the web is a story of a web, a web of unlikely connections. It's interesting that the web was invented by a British physicist working as a software engineer at a particle physics lab that straddles the border of France (an EU country) and Switzerland (a non-EU country). Of course, it helps to have great tools (thanks Steve Jobs) and great collaborators.

How the Web Was Born: The Story of the World Wide Web (2000, OUP) by James Gillies and Robert Cailliau is probably still the best book ever written on the early history of the web.

Lessons from the end of the earth

The island at the end of the earth.

That is what "Madagascar" means apparently. This stunning photograph shot in 1967 for National Geographic probably shows us why.

Madagascar, a large tropical island off the south-east coast of Africa with over 20 million inhabitants, has been in the news this year for all the wrong reasons. All the wrong, and sadly all too familiar, reasons that keep recurring in both space and time across the continent of Africa.

It has been argued by some that Africa's biggest problem is one of image and that the 24-hour news channels do not reflect the reality on the ground. There's something to be said for that I suppose: I remember asking John, a friend from Belfast, what it was like living in The Troubles (this was before Tony Blair came along with the Good Friday Agreement). "Surprisingly normal," he said, and went on to explain how, most of the time, they just went about their day to day lives without incident.

And yet, and yet. Just how "normal" could life have been in Northern Island with its segregated communities, thousands of British troops on the streets, and hundreds of active paramilitary freedom fighters or terrorists (depending on which side you supported)? The truth is the people of Northern Island had probably grown accustomed to living with the abnormal. So much so that the abnormal had become normal.

And so it probably is in much of Africa today. We have become so accustomed to living with the abnormal that it has become normal. Or rather, the abnormal has remained abnormal and we have become ab-normalised.

Recent events in Madagascar have been tragic and farcical in almost equal measure: a 59-year old duly elected president ousted from power by a 34-year old former DJ who cannot constitutionally become head of state anyway because he's below the stipulated minimum age (40); a supine military aiding and abetting the theft of state power; a pliable judiciary endorsing it; and the restless, mindless, pitiless mood for "change" by the fickle mob. Yes they could, and yes they did: the hapless and helpless incumbent president stepping down after more than 100 civilian deaths and before the many more that were sure to follow if he had dared to resist the inevitable.

Why do such things keep happening in Africa?

Perhaps we're asking the wrong question about the wrong place. Why doesn't this sort of thing happen outside Africa, in Europe say? This casts rather a different light on the matter altogether. For we know that such things were once just as frequent and just as widespread in Europe.

Once.

But not any more.

Why?

Price versus Value

More wisdom from Warren Buffet's latest annual letter to Berkshire Hathaway shareholders:

[T]he market value of the bonds and stocks that we continue to hold suffered a significant decline along with the general market. This does not bother Charlie [Munger] and me. Indeed, we enjoy such price declines if we have funds available to increase our positions. Long ago, Ben Graham taught me that “Price is what you pay; value is what you get.” Whether we’re talking about socks or stocks, I like buying quality merchandise when it is marked down.
[Emphasis added]

Perhaps the U.S. and British governments should take heed as they buy up so-called toxic assets. The cure may literally end up being worse than the disease.

The 10 most dangerous words in the English language

"Hi, I'm from the Government, and I'm here to help."

-According to Ronald Reagan

Five democratic tests

They don't come any redder (in the political sense) than Tony Benn. So we have plenty of ideological differences. But in one of his last speeches in the House of Commons, he said something very wise indeed:

The House will forgive me for quoting myself, but in the course of my life I have developed five little democratic questions. If one meets a powerful person--Adolf Hitler, Joe Stalin or Bill Gates--ask them five questions: "What power have you got? Where did you get it from? In whose interests do you exercise it? To whom are you accountable? And how can we get rid of you?" If you cannot get rid of the people who govern you, you do not live in a democratic system.

That's worth repeating. These are the five tests of democratic leadership:

• What power have you got?
  
• Where did you get it from?
  
• In whose interests do you exercise it?
• To whom are you accountable?
  
• How can we get rid of you?