How to download any video with Safari

Want to save that youtube video? Want to get a hard copy of that vimeo? Safari can do it without any additional fiddly little programs.

1. Open the page and click play on the video.

2. Press command-option 'a'

3. Scroll down the activity window to the largest thing going on. (Its usually the only thing more than 5MB)

4. Double click on it. Presto! No hassle, no mess!

5. You may have to click on the down loaded file, wait till the name is highlighted and add a .flv extention to the name.

To play .flv (flash) format with quicktime I suggest downloading Perian. It is a painless, free quicktime component that lets you play EVERYTHING right in quicktime.

Bye bye, VLC! (though I do keep VLC around just for its extra loud preamp abilities)

Youtube(like) of the week - The History of the Carbomb

Former CIA agent Robert Baer  reveals how the century of the car turned into the century of the car bomb.

Pic of the Week - Cohiba Maduro 5 Magicos

As exquisite as they look

Middle East Drink Tales

Once upon a time, when I was eleven years old, I ran into my house sweaty and thirsty from a day out in the street playing basketball. I ripped open the fridge door in search of a nice cool drink. Nothing was to be found. I searched the cupboards and again, found nothing. Tap water? Nah, not in Saudi; who knows where it's coming from. Then, I spotted it. A glistening bottle of water perched atop the fridge. The symbols in permanent red marker on the side were of no concern to my thirsty-child eyes. After about three glugs of vertical-bottle chugging the triple x's on the side suddenly made sense. It was pure grain alcohol! Baaaaaahhhhhh! I gaged and coughed and my eyes watered profusely. It took all my strength not to puke it all back up.

My parents came rushing to the scene and cared for me, but laughed quietly for a long time afterwards. They had just bought the bottle from the neighbourhood distillery in our neighbours basement.

*

A friend of mine was just offered a job in Riyadh in educational management. He, a Scot of the finest brand, brought with him some Scotch from his hometown in the highlands. When he arrived at customs in Saudi Arabia the agents immediately took notice of the bottle and confiscated it promptly. He protested and argued with the security agents, particularly the one who held the aged bottle in his authoritative Muslim grip:

"You cannot bring alcohol into Saudi Arabia, sir. It is forbidden."
"It's no alcohol, its Scotch!"
"It is alcohol sir," said the agent, raising his tone to meet that of the angered Scotsman.
"Well, if I can't have it no one can!"

And with that, he grabbed the bottle from the agent and smashed it on the floor sending glass shards and aged whiskey everywhere.

He has been in jail for 3 months now.

*

I live in Abu Dhabi, a good 250 kilometers from Saudi Arabia. In a de jure Islamic dictatorship, I just bought a bottle of 14 year old Oban Whiskey from a nice little liquor store and it was cheaper than I could buy it in Canada. Mmmmm, Oban.

Don't believe people tell you that you can't tap into a fine bottle in the Middle East. You can. Only in some cases you'll need a nice, resourceful neighbour and in other cases you'll have to break the bottle and have three months of time to spare.

Participatory Budgeting?

What is of value to a city?

Citizens of Porto Alegre have been deciding that form them selves since the early 90s when the city first introduced participatory budgeting. This system involves a series of assemblies in each of the city's sixteen districts where the priorities of the people are discussed and decided upon.

The movement grew from 900 participants in its first year to upwards of 30,000 a few years later. During this time the number of children in municipal schools tripled. Hey, even the World Bank likes it.

Of course there are issues with participatory budgeting. If you hate your neighbours you aren't like to agree with them on how to spend community money. But I can imagine that differences are largely based on inequality. We can tackle the roots of inequality can't we? (hm...)

The people who take part in participatory budgeting have the power and the right to set the value of goods in their society. They have the power, the right and the freedom to determine what should be done to make their lives better. This is a step in the right direction. This, I believe, is a step of development.

(Then again, we have this: a clown winning a seat in Congress in Brazil. But municipal and federal politics are different animals, aren't they?)

My newest all-encompassing silver bullet for Development

Tax reform.

Yup, that's it.

Governments that have efficient, working tax systems will be held more accountable for their actions. They are likely to be more participatory for the fact that people are concerned with where their money is going. They will be more responsible to the citizenry because the people are the major revenue stream.

Let's takes a skeptical view of governments - say we label them large, inefficient public corporations. One could argue that they are inherently self interested organizations. (If we begin from this premise we need not rely on altruism.) If a government effectively views the health, education and well being of citizens as a profitable long term investment for its own benefit - for the benefit of the government - incentives are in order and Development is bound to take place

Governments often tap into other revenue sources outside income tax, sources that, towards development, are benign at best and devastating at worst. Rent from extractive industries, or simply from big businesses like MNC, distortive duties, bribery, and untied aid are all markedly worse than revenue from good ol' income tax. Here's a li'l stat I just found from the OECD.

In Africa as a whole, non-resource related revenue increased by less than 1% of GDP over 25 years.

As of right now I have not done any research into the subject beyond that quote. I am putting forward this theory as fresh from my mind ( It likely has a huge literature already that I have somehow missed). Tax systems as indicators, as determiners, as silver bullets.

*

I'm not sure if anyone really knows how to impel effectiveness in governments. I say we can start by putting money into tax systems and a participatory framework surrounding them.

(I was expecting a response about how gov'ts can abuse people through taxation...)

Alex's 1978 LandCruiser dash, feet included

What the!?

This is a $44 bottle of Pabst Blue Ribbon. No joke.

PBR!?

Keep your air fresh

A few years ago Kemal Meattle gave a compelling TED talk entitled "How to grow your own fresh air." To show that we can grow our own air, Mr. Meattle has conducted extensive studies in office buldings in India. His studies have shown that having enough of the right plants around can give ordinary slobs extraordinary powers (such as the power to stave off lung disease!).

For a government commussioned study, an office with 300 occupants was filled with 1200 plants. "... compared to other buildings in Delhi, the incidence of eye irritation reduced by 52%, lower respiratory symptoms by 34%, headaches by 24%, upper respiratory symptoms by 20%, lung impairment by 10-12% and Asthma by 9%. As a result of fewer sick days, employee productivity also increased."

Our experience points to an amazing increase in human productivity resulting from using these plants to be >20%, and energy costs to reduce by an extraordinary >15%.

Mr. Meattle mentions three plants in particular that are best in class:

The Money Plant is a filter like no other. It traps and stores airborne volatile organic compounds, like formaldehyde, while pumping out fresh clean O2. Live in a polluted area? Get yourself a few of these puppies.

The Areca Palm is a fantastic fresh air machine during the day. It is hearty, requires little water and is therefore very easy to take care of. Mr. Meattle suggests 4 per person; I have one.

The Mother-in-law's tongue (sharp!) is the night time expert. It is known to absorb 107 air pollutants including carbon monoxide and nitrogen monoxide. The mother-in-law can also eliminate bad odours, and it never tells you what to do!

The key property of the Mother-in-law's tongue comes from the fact that is that it is a CAM plant. Unlike normal C3 and C4 plants, CAM plants fix CO2 during the night. They store the necessary energy for photosynthesis during while light is available, and carry out the process in the dark. I promise you this; you'll both breath easier if you and your mother-in-law sleep in the same room together (sorry, had to).

Keep your air fresh!

Tim Besley is good, it's got some grit

Here is a nice paper by Tim Besley and Torston Persson called State Capacity, Conflict, and Development (ungated here). In their own words, it is a "first step towards disentangling some of the complex interactions between state capacity, conflict and development" from an academic economics perspective.

It is a nice little model that "shows why we might expect the [fiscal and legal components] of state capacity to be complements and hence develop together, and illustrates why a lower risk of external conflict, a higher degree of resource dependence, as well as lower political stability, weaken the incentive for state building."

More on this soon...