Danny Crichton

Vinod Khosla, writing on TechCrunch in his continuing series on how algorithms are going to replace everything, believes that there are two trends in the future confluence of the internet and the web: decentralization and gamification. His arguments regarding decentralization are accurate (if a tad unoriginal at this point considering the overarching development of the internet), but his views on gamification deserve a closer look. He starts reasonable enough:

[...] I firmly believe that we should embrace [gamification] and harness its best parts to drive the education of our children who grow up with online and mobile games.

But then we reach this sentence later in the essay:

And with points and stars and badges and the like both [types of students: the A and D students] are likely to want to spend more time participating, and will be more motivated when they do participate compared to today's average classroom.

Vinod Khosla is wrong. Dangerously wrong.

I want to start by saying that Khosla is certainly no small figure in the Silicon Valley community, and really, his track record of success is something to laud. I also want to note that some of my closest friends from college are working on mobile games that teach arithmetic skills. I think the work that they are doing is really interesting, worthwhile and useful.

Yet, there is a tremendous difference between having a game on a parent's iPhone or Android and changing the entire U.S. education system to encourage the acquisition of arbitrary "points and stars and badges." It's funny, but this approach has been tried for years in U.S. school districts, without success. Those who want to read about it from an ardent critic can turn to the work of Alfie Kohn who rightly points out the incredible harm

How portable are models of economic development? When people talk of the Washington Consensus or the Beijing Consensus, they are indicating a set of economic approaches toward development that include deep cultural connections. America's approach of privatization and deregulation has brought immense prosperity to the country over the past century (even if we may have moved the edge too far in the past few years). Likewise, China's approach to state-centered economic growth is merely an extension of an extremely long history of bureaucratic development.

One of the economic theories that have been put forward to address this is varieties of capitalism - an approach that seeks to consider countries in terms of holistic systems of production - one in which individuals interact in a system of institutions that all work together in synergy. Thus, the United States has strong patent rights, strong rule of law, entrepreneurship, libertarianism, deregulation, etc. - the change of one of which would be incompatible with the others.

The theory has many problems (namely, reverse causality), but it highlights a true danger in economic development: economies grow organically, and it is nearly impossible to graft on a new industry or approach and expect it to be successful. One only has to look at the demise of Silicon Valley clones around the world to see how difficult copying a set of economic institutions can be.

Daniel Altman (who I seem to beat up a little too much), wrote another article for Foreign Policy in which he discusses the increasing levels of human capital development in Africa. His statistics are quite interesting, but one thing I thought was interesting was the on-going comparisons to South Korea.

For example, in overall human development as judged by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), Madagascar now sits where the Republic of

Markets are quite common throughout Korea, and each has their own reputation for the kind of goods that are for sale. Some markets are known for their fabrics, while others might be known for their imported goods or foods. This tends to mean that there is no one-stop shop for all goods you want, but it does mean that there is incredible selection if you know what you are looking for and go to the right place.

I visited Gwangjang Market a few days ago, which the Korea Tourism agency bills as the "first" market in the country (not really sure on how they define that though). The place is also apparently known for its hanbok wedding gowns (the formal and traditional dress of the wedding couple) and thus it serves up many stores with these gowns available in a dazzling palette of colors. Outside of the shopping, numerous food vendors were dispersed throughout the walkways offering snacks for the shoppers.

In addition to shopping, I managed to get a wonderful picture of large-flake snow falling in Korea. The snow, when it isn't making the place dangerous, can be quite beautiful at times (although it is still not enough to get me to leave California permanently!)

A few weeks ago, I visited Suwon, a fairly large city just to the south of Seoul. The city is famous for Hwaseong Fortress, a castle from the Joseon Dynasty that is today designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Suwon is the only enclosed city in Korea, and the walls of the fortress remain quite visible.

My friend and former intern colleague Andrew Munn has raised quite a ruckus over the laggy behavior experience by users of Android. His original contention has been that Android lacks a dedicated UI thread, and thus is unable to compete with systems like iOS that offer such a thread as part of its graphics architecture. This claim has been rebutted by several critics, most comprehensively by Dianne Hackborn of the Android development team.

Yet, there is something still missing from this discussion. Why is it that Android still seems laggy after years of development? This is not a minor discussion, but goes directly to the quality of the user experience of the device. Dianne's main argument (she has several of them) is that Android's API model ensures that every app is sandboxed, and that the ability to optimize the graphics is difficult because the hardware is just not there.

I don't buy that argument.

Instead, I think she nibbles on the right argument near the end of her piece. In the penultimate paragraph, she describes the similar experience between programming for iOS and programming for Android:

One final thought. I saw an interesting comment from Brent Royal-Gordon on what developers sometimes need to do to achieve 60fps scrolling in iOS lists: "Getting it up to sixty is more difficult-you may have to simplify the cell's view hierarchy, or delay adding some of the content, or remove text formatting that would otherwise require a more expensive text rendering API, or even rip the subviews out of the cell altogether and draw everything by hand."

**There is a more fundamental reason why Android is laggy compared to iOS: culture and tools. **The iOS development culture is built around cool design. The Wow Factor is a major component of being highlighted

Democracy is supposed to provide a means of aggregating diverse views into a coherent, consistent outcome. However, what happens when activists, interest groups, special interests, and other organizations start to understand the policy process so well that government screeches to a standstill? Today, almost every political decision is blasted by some group - making it literally impossible to actually govern.

The response to this environment was in the New York Times:

The remarkably rapid progress of the tax revisions - without a public hearing or town-hall-style meeting - provided the most striking illustration to date of Mr. Cuomo's policymaking strategy: information is tightly controlled, negotiations are carried out behind closed doors and the debate is limited to just a few people.

The tactics, derided by government watchdog groups and some lawmakers, have proved highly effective during Mr. Cuomo's first year in office, as he has pushed, against long odds, to win passage of same-sex marriage, a property tax cap, a reworking of ethics rules and extensive budget cuts. And his efforts appeared likely to be rewarded again this week: The Senate approved the tax code changes on Wednesday night, and the Assembly was poised to follow suit.

While derided as anti-democratic, these sorts of tactics are beyond necessary in a media and political system that emphasizes outrage and focuses on the extreme. Ideally, we elect politicians to solve society's pressing problems through an open and fair process, where every citizen has the right to provide input and shape the final decision. Realistically though, open and transparent government rarely provides the environment needed for politicians to actually do their jobs.

This is one of modern laws of democratic politics: transparency prevents things from happening. If you want to shut down public schools, ensure that the data from those schools are easily

The issue of free trade is a contentious one in Korea. The passage this past week of the US-Korean Free Trade Agreement (FTA) was a win for the sitting presidential administration and the conservative Grand National Party, but led to much anger on the left. That anger became quite palpable in the final moments of the vote in the National Assembly when an opposition lawmaker threw a tear gas canister in the chamber, forcing lawmakers to flee.

Protests in Korea are a relatively common occurrence, and have been known to become quite unruly. Partly for this reason as well as other historical reasons, they are required to be registered with the government ahead of time. Protests related to imports of beef from the United States drew hundreds of thousands if not millions of protesters in Korea, and the verve of the organizing groups has not slowed down. The protest I observed in Kwanghuamun this past week were relatively peaceful when I was there, although later that night almost 50 police officers were in the hospital, having suffered injuries while trying to disperse the protesters. An unknown number of protesters were injured as well.

Normally when I write these Image of the Week posts, I include some snarky comments about random things I have seen/taken photos of in Korea. This week, in unusual form, I am going to avoid making any comments on these wonderful photos from the Seoul Lantern Festival. The Lantern Festival has been around for a few years (supposedly 4, although I can't verify that), and each year has increased in status, length, and sophistication. I have to say, this is one of the best public art displays I have ever seen, and I am glad that I accidentally stumbled upon it.