Links for 2011-04-08

"To silence the skepticism and to give fans of the list some idea of just how deep the rabbit hole goes, I've decided to flash a little bit of imaginary ankle and walk through a typical Fictional 15 investigation, in this case of Smaug, the fire-breathing dragon from J.R.R. Tolkein's novel The Hobbit and the forthcoming Warner Bros. movies.

Certainly Smaug is depicted as being very rich in the novel.  At one point, Bilbo Baggins, the book's hero, addresses him as "O Smaug, unassessably wealthy" and his gold is described as being "beyond price and count."  But how much, exactly, is that dragon worth? (Forget the "unassessably wealthy" nonsense; I once valued Donald Trump for the Forbes 400, so I'm used to billionaires that blow a lot of smoke.)"

"Virtually every object suggests a time and place. The Monobloc is one of the few objects I can think of that is free of any specific context. Seeing a white plastic chair in a photograph offers you no clues about where or when you are. I have a hard time thinking of other objects that are equally independent of context. Asking friends to propose a similar object, most people suggest a Coke can... but I can tell you that Coke is presented very differently in different colors, in glass bottles as well as cans, with labels in local languages. The Monobloc offers no linguistic cues, no obvious signs that it's been localized. Wherever you are, it's at home."

"The question I'd love to pose to some of the folks who routinely bash the liberal arts in favor of more vocational majors would be why the colleges and universities that have the most elite clientele are so clearly focused on the liberal arts. Are the wealthy really that stupid? Or do they know something?"