Top Diaries

That's an English canal longboat.

guaranteed to evoke a violent reaction from police is to challenge their right to "define the situation." --- David Graeber citing Marc Cooper

by Migeru (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Thu May 24th, 2012 at 11:59:41 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Thursday Open Thread (4.00 / 3)

Mind the gap!

_{It is rightly acknowledged that people of faith have no monopoly of virtue
- Queen Elizabeth II}

by eurogreen on Thu May 24th, 2012 at 12:00:08 PM EST
[ Parent ]

A quick guess at the shortlist of places this is most likely to be:
Hay-on-Wye
Oxford
Cambridge
Hebden Bridge

by LondonAnalytics (Andrew Smith) on Thu May 24th, 2012 at 12:09:16 PM EST
[ Parent ]

I know there's one on a canal barge up arround Staffordshire, but I don't know if that's the one. Theres another, that definitely isn't that one that floats around London, regularly visiting camden lock

Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.

by ceebs (ceebs (at) eurotrib (dot) com) on Thu May 24th, 2012 at 12:13:23 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Thursday Open Thread (4.00 / 4)

There's a shot of it here in Market Harborough.

by afew (afew(a in a circle)eurotrib_dot_com) on Thu May 24th, 2012 at 12:20:19 PM EST
[ Parent ]

I'll have to visit and look (it's only 10 minutes by train)

Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.

by ceebs (ceebs (at) eurotrib (dot) com) on Thu May 24th, 2012 at 12:46:05 PM EST
[ Parent ]

I think it's moving round.

The Staffordshire one seems to be called the Book Barge.

by afew (afew(a in a circle)eurotrib_dot_com) on Thu May 24th, 2012 at 02:28:45 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Actually, I'd like to anywhere that has a bookshop! I'd even take a library... yes we are in the middle of no-where. But the idea of a floating bookshop is just heavenly.

Our town is considering this idea, which I think is brilliant.

Little Free Library

by ElaineinNM on Thu May 24th, 2012 at 12:21:57 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Thursday Open Thread (4.00 / 4)

Prolly about anybody on this blog site could just take you into his or her main living room. After stumbling over cats and empty coffee mugs, you could browse for hours...

by asdf on Thu May 24th, 2012 at 02:04:35 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Most of my library is on disk now, although I still have some obligatory piles of wood pulp.

I have no emotional attachment to dead trees and I'm finding that disk access is easier to read, easier to manage, and much easier to dust.

by ThatBritGuy (thatbritguy (at) googlemail.com) on Thu May 24th, 2012 at 02:32:16 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Thursday Open Thread (4.00 / 2)

Are you suggesting that there are people here who have books only in their living rooms?

by gk (g k quattro due due sette "at" gmail.com) on Thu May 24th, 2012 at 03:52:06 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Thursday Open Thread (4.00 / 2)

Heh. Good point; my bookshelves are well spread around.

'tis strange I should be old and neither wise nor valiant. From "The Maid's Tragedy" by Beaumont & Fletcher

by Wife of Bath (kareninaustin at g mail dot com) on Thu May 24th, 2012 at 04:15:02 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Thursday Open Thread (4.00 / 3)

That would be a "no." I was trying to think of which rooms might be useful for reference, and the answer is "all." Actually I don't think there are any books in our linen closet right at the moment, but that is an anomaly...

by asdf on Thu May 24th, 2012 at 06:17:41 PM EST
[ Parent ]

HarmonyVillage's Weblog

I went for a couple of walks at a place called Foxton Locks which has a quite spectacular chain of about 5 or 6 locks that elevate your boat up a large hill affording a beautiful view of farm lands all around at the top. EVen lovelier, there's a pub at the top of the hill and two pubs down below and a general store selling a little bit everything that you might need while floating along. There are also canal boats that sell things like, a floating bookshop!

With photo of same.

by afew (afew(a in a circle)eurotrib_dot_com) on Thu May 24th, 2012 at 12:22:05 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Great name for a town. I'll have to research whether there are canal boats for rent for vacations (pretty sure there are, but my previous research was all for France.) A trip down a canal would make a great mini-meetup.

'tis strange I should be old and neither wise nor valiant. From "The Maid's Tragedy" by Beaumont & Fletcher

by Wife of Bath (kareninaustin at g mail dot com) on Thu May 24th, 2012 at 04:17:14 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Foxton Locks on ET.

by afew (afew(a in a circle)eurotrib_dot_com) on Thu May 24th, 2012 at 04:53:11 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Thursday Open Thread (4.00 / 7)

Found an elderly gent out taking his bird for a walk today

Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.

by ceebs (ceebs (at) eurotrib (dot) com) on Thu May 24th, 2012 at 12:14:39 PM EST

Unintentional truth (none / 0)

And this time it's not from Google translate but (sadly) from the translation staff of ElPais.com in English:

The first capital increase will leave BFA clearly in control of the state in order to gear it up for the second capital hike, which will be that of Bankia, in which private sector shareholders will be invited to take part through subscription rights. The government has chosen to inject public money in order to dispel any doubts about its intention to strengthen the balance sheets of the banks with all the public resources required.

<facepalm>

guaranteed to evoke a violent reaction from police is to challenge their right to "define the situation." --- David Graeber citing Marc Cooper

by Migeru (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Thu May 24th, 2012 at 12:36:47 PM EST

Re: Unintentional truth (4.00 / 3)

Are you sure they don't use Google?

by gk (g k quattro due due sette "at" gmail.com) on Thu May 24th, 2012 at 12:46:59 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Unintentional truth (4.00 / 2)

A few days ago, when there was the meeting of European bankers in Barcelona, Catalan President spoke and his words were published in English translation. Those words were removed soon after: they said "President, Mr. More" [=señor Mas]

by PerCLupi on Thu May 24th, 2012 at 01:36:34 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Unintentional truth (none / 0)

Was Mr. Dragons also there?

by gk (g k quattro due due sette "at" gmail.com) on Fri May 25th, 2012 at 05:03:30 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Unintentional truth (none / 0)

Yes. It was when he said Bankia had to be arranged.

by PerCLupi on Fri May 25th, 2012 at 06:16:44 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Unintentional truth (none / 1)

I've found the original Spanish here.

And to answer gk's question, even Google knows better.

The original Spanish reads:

La primera ampliación persigue el control claro de BFA por parte del Estado, para dotarlo de la capacidad suficiente para suscribir la segunda ampliación, la de Bankia, a la que podrán acudir los accionistas privados mediante derechos de suscripción preferentes.

Which I would translate as:

The first expansion seeks clear control of BFA on the part of the State, to endow it with sufficient capacity to raise funds for the second expansion, that of Bankia, at which private investors may participate by means of preferred stock

With both this and the previous jewel, the problem is an inversion of subject and object, where the subject is what is acted upon and the object is what is acted upon.

And I'll give my consent to any government that does not deny a man a living wage-Billy Bragg

by ManfromMiddletown (manfrommiddletown at lycos dot com) on Thu May 24th, 2012 at 01:35:21 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Fires in NM (4.00 / 9)

Taken by a friend last evening from a spot a few miles West of our town, toward the setting sun and smoke from a 70,000 acre fire that is burning about 150 miles away. The fire is in the Gila mountains, close to the AZ/NM border and burning in steep, inaccessible terrain. It's very windy and the fire is totally out of control. Fortunately, a large desert and a mountain range separate us from this fire. It's going to be a bad fire season in the Southwest US.

by ElaineinNM on Thu May 24th, 2012 at 12:56:14 PM EST

Kosher chocolate chip change causes controversy | The Jewish Chronicle

Jewish cooks across the US have been left distraught after a popular brand of chocolate chips was stripped of its "parev" label.
The Trader Joe's semisweet chocolate chips have long been a staple of the kosher kitchen, with people using them to whip up all manner of milk-free desserts.
But due to a change in the factory equipment last month for cost-cutting purposes, the product is no longer certified as kosher. Although the recipe is the same, a spokeswoman for the company explained that after the cleaning process used was altered recently, Trader Joe's was compelled by the Food and Drug Administration to label bags with a warning about milk allergies, thus affecting the product's parev status.
Shoppers have reacted to the news by seizing any packets that still have the old label, with one customer in Chelsea, New York, buying 90 bags on one visit.

Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.

by ceebs (ceebs (at) eurotrib (dot) com) on Thu May 24th, 2012 at 03:44:34 PM EST

All is fair in war and finance (none / 0)

guaranteed to evoke a violent reaction from police is to challenge their right to "define the situation." --- David Graeber citing Marc Cooper

by Migeru (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Thu May 24th, 2012 at 04:08:37 PM EST

I don't understand what the axes mean.

by asdf on Thu May 24th, 2012 at 08:07:51 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Top: number of weeks in the last 80 years in which the FDIC took over a given number of banks, vs. the number of banks taken over in a given week.

guaranteed to evoke a violent reaction from police is to challenge their right to "define the situation." --- David Graeber citing Marc Cooper

by Migeru (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Fri May 25th, 2012 at 01:29:52 AM EST
[ Parent ]

If plotted on a linear chart, it would show that there are very small number of cases where lots of banks failed. It is interesting that it curves like that; what sort of distribution is it? One might expect an exponential. I wonder if the non-linear shape is an artifact of how weeks are counted?

by asdf on Fri May 25th, 2012 at 01:12:43 PM EST
[ Parent ]

I'm looking for a power law distribution, with heavy tails. That would explain why there are a few weeks with very large numbers.

guaranteed to evoke a violent reaction from police is to challenge their right to "define the situation." --- David Graeber citing Marc Cooper

by Migeru (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Fri May 25th, 2012 at 01:15:35 PM EST
[ Parent ]

What about this scenario: Reports that tend to trigger failures are reported on quarterly fiscal schedules. If all banks used the same fiscal calendars, then there would be a spike in the curve at the quarter period (12 weeks). But different banks have different fiscal calendars (is this even allowed?). They aren't aligned, so there is a spread out bump centered at 12 weeks.

Sort of seems to fit the picture...

by asdf on Fri May 25th, 2012 at 02:14:28 PM EST
[ Parent ]

You're reading the vertical axis wrong. 12 means "there are twelve individual weeks in the sample where the number of banks on the horizontal axis failed". That is, in the 78 years since the FDIC exists, on 12 occasions it has resolved seven banks in the same week.

guaranteed to evoke a violent reaction from police is to challenge their right to "define the situation." --- David Graeber citing Marc Cooper

by Migeru (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Fri May 25th, 2012 at 02:23:32 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Ok, I see.

Also I just noticed that you're using a log-log graph. I bet if it were a semi-log graph with a linear abscissa, it would be a straight line.

by asdf on Fri May 25th, 2012 at 02:33:35 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Approximately, yes. But what I actually should be plotting is value against sample rank. This gives the empirical cumulative distribution function of event size.

guaranteed to evoke a violent reaction from police is to challenge their right to "define the situation." --- David Graeber citing Marc Cooper

by Migeru (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Fri May 25th, 2012 at 02:53:34 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Is the tail you're thinking about the ones on the lower right corner? Surely that's the result of using a one week minimum reporting period...

by asdf on Fri May 25th, 2012 at 02:15:37 PM EST
[ Parent ]

There is no one-week minimum reporting period. The FDIC closes banks on a Friday and opens them on a Monday, so the smallest possible time step is the week, not the day.

guaranteed to evoke a violent reaction from police is to challenge their right to "define the situation." --- David Graeber citing Marc Cooper

by Migeru (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Fri May 25th, 2012 at 02:20:30 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Right, so those points out to the right are various flavors of bad weeks...

by asdf on Fri May 25th, 2012 at 02:25:20 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Right, the dozen or so worst weeks in the 80-year sample.

guaranteed to evoke a violent reaction from police is to challenge their right to "define the situation." --- David Graeber citing Marc Cooper

by Migeru (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Fri May 25th, 2012 at 02:31:16 PM EST
[ Parent ]