The final whistle will tell the final story

I already that knew Rainford "The Master" Kalaba is one of the finest midfielders in the world. Last night's game was only the latest demonstration of that fact. What I didn't know is that he's also a philosopher and a poet:

Football is not played in the papers, it is played on the pitch; 11 against 11 and the final whistle will tell the final story.

Swallows for my son at seven

Jack Mapanje reading (beautifully as always) at the launch of his latest book last month:

Mo Better News

Dr. Mo Ibrahim guest edited the 27 December 2011 edition of the BBC's Today Programme. A very different take on Africa's present and future.

Economical with the Truth

Thomas J. Sargent's speech at the Nobel Banquet on 10 December 2011 was economical with the truth in the very BEST senses of that phrase:

Your Majesties, Your Royal Highnesses, Your Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen:

Chris Sims and I thank you for recognizing the many women and men like us who use statistics and economic theory to understand how governments and markets can improve peoples' lives. I state 7 practical lessons taught by my beautiful subject, which investigates the consequences of time and chance and cooperation and competition and foresight and incentives.

1. Many things that are desirable are not feasible.

2. There are tradeoffs between equality and efficiency.

3. Other people have more information about their abilities, their efforts, and their preferences than you do.

4. Everyone responds to incentives, including people you want to help. That is why social safety nets don't always work as intended.

5. When a government spends, its citizens eventually pay, either today or tomorrow, either through explicit taxes or implicit ones like inflation and defaults on debts.

6. Most people want other people to pay for public goods and government transfers (especially transfers to themselves).

7. It is feasible for one generation to shift costs to subsequent ones. National government debts and the U.S. social security system do that (but not the social security system of Singapore).

Perl(mutter)s of Wisdom

2011 physics laureate Saul Perlmutter's Nobel lecture. Awesome.

An Early Christmas Present

I gave myself one:

The case against a carbon tax for South Africa

As the big global climate change conference to be hosted by South Africa approaches, it's worth taking a realistic look at the various public policy issues involved. Philip Lloyd, a distinguished South African engineer, makes the case AGAINST a carbon tax for South Africa.

Modernity, Majority and Generality

And now for something COMPLETELY different...

Simon Butteriss sings the Modern Major-General's Song from Gibert and Sullivan's 1879 comic opera The Pirates of Penzance:

The illusion of validity and the illusion of skill

Daniel Kahneman is one of my favourite scientists. His work combines simplicity of questions and methods with profundity of results and insights. This recent article, adapted from his latest (and perhaps greatest) book, explores two cognitive illusions that are particularly relevant to these interesting economic times: the illusion of validity and the illusion of skill.

The (Real) Pixar Story

Dr. Alvy Ray Smith's documented correction of some of the myths about the history of Pixar.

The Gruffalo

"A gruffalo? What's a gruffalo?"

"A gruffalo! Why, didn't you know?"

A wonderful recent (last night!) discovery that boys and I loved: The Gruffalo written by Julia Donaldson and illustrated by Axel Scheffler.

Of Particular Significance

Matt Strassler, a theoretical physicist and professor at Rutgers University, recently launched his excellent science- and particle physics-related website Of Particular Significance.

Top 5 reminiscences of Steve Jobs

Following the death of Steve Jobs earlier this month, the Internet has been flooded with reminiscences of the man, very many of them with vanishingly small signal-to-noise ratios. There are a few exceptions though, and in this post I present the best five that I have come across. It's worth noting that not all of the following accounts were written in response to Steve Jobs's death (specifically, Vic Gundotra's wasn't), but in a certain sense none of them were. They were all written in response to Steve Jobs's remarkable life:

1. Steve Jobs, 1955 – 2011 by Steven Levy
   
Steven Levy first met Steve Jobs in November 1983, when he conducted the first of his many interviews of Jobs over the years. I get the disctinct impression that the two men were friends, or least friendly, so this is probably not the most objective obituary. Still, it is the best one I've read.




2. Icon Ambulance by Vic Gundotra
   
This anecdote by Vic Gundotra, Google's Senior Vice President, Social, illustrates Steve Jobs's legendary attention to detail as well as his sense of aesthetics and design.




3. Steve Jobs: A Few Memories by Stephen Wolfram
   
Stephen Wolfram, like Steve Jobs, was something of a wunderkind. Here he shares some memories of his personal and business interactions with Jobs. WolframAlpha, Wolfram's "computational knowledge engine" is integrated into Siri on Apple's latest iPhone 4S.




4. What I Learned From Steve Jobs by Guy Kawasaki
   
Guy Kawasaki had two stints at Apple, in the 1980s as a software evangelist and in the 1990s as an Apple Fellow. Here he distils the 12 most important lessons he learnt from working directly with Steve Jobs.




5. Memories of Steve by Ben Rosen
   
Ben Rosen first met Steve Jobs in late 1977. Rosen was 44 at the time, Steve Jobs, at 22, was exactly half Rosen's age. Rosen's piece is by far the best of these five reminiscences of Steve Jobs. It presents a delicate and tender portrait of the extremely complicated and contradictory man that was Steve Jobs. Rosen writes beautifully. Although he's now 78, judging by his very accomplished and varied career and the virtuosity of this piece, Rosen can readily achieve new success as a writer.

One more thing:
Overall, all of the above reminiscences are extremely positive about Steve Jobs, and with some justification. However, much of the posthumous commentary on Steve Jobs has been little more than unthinking, regurgitated, platitudinous idol worship. (I heard one star-struck fan refer to Steve Jobs as are our present-day Thomas Jefferson. I think he meant Thomas Edison.) This, I am quite certain, is something Steve Jobs himself would deeply disapprove of. After all, if he was anything, Steve Jobs was an iconolast. And it would be entirely inappropriate for the world, after his death, to turn him into an icon (or iCon). So in that spirit, I offer this slightly less flattering appraisal of Steve Jobs's contribution to one of his most celebrated products, the Macintosh:

• Holes in the Histories by Jef Raskin

Acceleration due to Energy

The 2011 Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded "for the discovery of the accelerating expansion of the Universe through observations of distant supernovae." Nobody yet understands what causes this (the acceleration, not the expansion), but the cause, whatever it is, has been given the name dark energy. The UC Berkeley page on Saul Perlmutter (awarded half the prize, with the other half jointly awarded to Brian P. Schmidt and Adam G. Riess) has some interesting discussions on the subject. Among other things, Prof. Perlmutter's passion for physics shines through.

Greatly Insane: Steve Jobs (1955-2011)

The version of this famous ad that went on air is the one with the voice-over by Richard Dreyfuss. Here's the same ad with a voice-over by Steve Jobs:

Insanely Great: Steve Jobs (1955-2011)

Steven Paul Jobs
(24 February 1955 - 5 October 2011)

Einstein and the speed of light

Clifford V. Johnson, a physicist at the University of Southern California, and author of Asymptotia, one of the best science blogs on the Internet, has written about the recent neutrino experiment that appears to contradict Einstein's special theory of relativity.

For the record: My money's on Einstein. But ultimately that doesn't matter, because the wonderful thing about science is that what's right and wrong is not decided on the basis of status. Or whim. It's decided only on the basis of evidence. And so, perhaps the members of the OPERA consortium will be proved right and a significant hole will have been poked in special relativity. Or perhaps not. The trail of evidence will tell.

2011 Nobel Predictions

Thomson Reuters's predictions for the 2011 Nobel science and economics prizes.

The autobiographies of the 2010 science and economics laureates are now online. Those of the two physicists, Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov, are particularly entertaining and enlightening.

Ideas for the 21st Century: A Challenge to the Sata Administration

A new article I wrote for Zambia Online.

Gracious in Defeat

Outgoing Zambian President Rupiah B. Banda (MMD) deserves to be commended for accepting his defeat by Michael C. Sata (PF) with such grace and dignity. He has set a priceless example for future presidents in Zambia and across Africa, including President Sata. You are a class act Sir. We salute you.

President Banda's farewell speech:

I have called this press conference to say a few words. The election campaign of 2011 is over. The people of Zambia have spoken and we must all listen. Some will be happy with what they have heard, others will not.

The time now is for maturity, for composure and for compassion. To the victors, I say this: you have the right to celebrate but do so with a magnanimous heart. Enjoy the hour but remember that a term of government is for years.

Remember that the next election will judge you also. Treat those who you have vanquished with the respect and humility that you would expect in your own hour of defeat.

I know that all Zambians will expect such behaviour and I hope it will be delivered. Speaking for myself and my party, we will accept the results. We are a democratic party and we know no other way.

It is not for us to deny the Zambian people. We never rigged, we never cheated, we never knowingly abused state funds. We simply did what we thought was best for Zambia. I hope the next government will act likewise in years to come.

Zambia deserves a decent democratic process. Indeed, Zambia must build on her past victories. Our independence was hard won, our democracy secured with blood.

Zambia must not go backwards, we must all face the future and go forward as one nation. Not to do so would dishonour our history.

To my party, to the MMD candidates who did not win, the lesson is simple. Next time we must try harder. We fought a good campaign. It was disciplined. I still believe we had a good message and we reached every part of the country.

We travelled to all nine provinces and we spoke to all Zambians. To those who worked every hour of the day, I say ‘thank you’. You have done your best. But, sadly, sometimes our best is not good enough.

Do not be disheartened. The MMD will be back. We must all face the reality that sometimes it is time for change. Since 1991, the MMD has been in power. I believe we have done a good job on behalf of all Zambians.

Frederick Chiluba led us to a genuine multi-party state and introduced the private sector to our key industries. Zambia was liberated by an MMD ideal but maybe we became complacent with our ideals. Maybe we did not listen, maybe we did not hear.

Did we become grey and lacking in ideas? Did we lose momentum? Our duty now is to go away and reflect on any mistakes we may have made and learn from them. If we do not, we do not deserve to contest power again.

The Zambia we know today was built by an MMD government. We know our place in history and we know that we can come back to lead again in the future. A new leadership will be chosen, and that leadership will be from the younger generation.

My generation… the generation of the independence struggle– must now give way to new ideas; ideas for the 21st century. From this defeat, a new, younger MMD will be re-born. If I can serve that re-building, then I will.

I must thank my cabinet for delivering on our promises. We did a lot of good for Zambia. Many of our projects will blossom into bright flowers. Some of you will be back to serve Zambia again – I know you will do your best for your party and for your country.

To the civil servants and government officials, it has been a privilege to serve with you. We have worked many long hours together. We did it not for ourselves but for Zambia. Serve your next masters as you did me, and Zambia will be in good hands.

I must thank my family and my wife. They have stood by me and I cannot ask for more loyalty than that which they have displayed. I love you all dearly and I will always be in your debt.

Being president is hard work, it takes long hours of work. And because of it, I have not always been there for you. Yet, still you were there for me.

Words cannot express the depth of my love for you all. All I ask is that my family continues to serve Zambia as i have sought to do.

But my greatest thanks must go to the Zambian people. We may be a small country on the middle of Africa but we are a great nation. Serving you has been a pleasure and an honour. I wish I could have done more, I wish I had more time to give.

Our potential is great. Our resources are impressive. I urge you all now to rally behind your new president. Yes, we may have different ideas but we both want the same thing – a better Zambia.

Now is not the time for violence and retribution. Now is the time to unite and build tomorrow’s Zambia together. Only by working together can we achieve a more prosperous Zambia.

In my years of retirement, I hope to watch Zambia grow. I genuinely want Zambia to flourish. We should all want Zambia to flourish. So, I congratulate Michael Sata on his victory.

I have no ill feeling in my heart, there is no malice in my words. I wish him well in his years as president. I pray his policies will bear fruit.

But now it is time for me to step aside. Now is the time for a new leader. My time is done. It is time for me to say ‘good bye’.

May God watch over the Zambian people and may He bless our beautiful nation.

I thank you.