Guy Berger

I also predict that he won't be devoured by a 1500 lb hog. Guy

Everything I've read suggests that this is a dubious claim. Guy

Economics focus To do with the price of fish May 10th 2007 From The Economist print edition How do mobile phones promote economic growth? A new paper provides a vivid example YOU are a fisherman off the coast of northern Kerala, a region in the south of India. Visiting your usual fishing ground, you bring in an unusually good catch of sardines. That means other fishermen in the area will probably have done well too, so there will be plenty of supply at the local beach market: prices will be low, and you may not even be able to sell your catch. Should you head for the usual market anyway, or should you go down the coast in the hope that fishermen in that area will not have done so well and your fish will fetch a better price? If you make the wrong choice you cannot visit another market because fuel is costly and each market is open for only a couple of hours before dawn—and it takes that long for your boat to putter from one to the next. Since fish are perishable, any that cannot be sold will have to be dumped into the sea. This, in a nutshell, was the situation facing Kerala's fishermen until 1997. The result was far from ideal for both fishermen and their customers. In practice, fishermen chose to stick with their home markets all the time. This was wasteful because when a particular market is oversupplied, fish are thrown away, even though there may be buyers for them a little farther along the coast. On average, 5-8% of the total catch was wasted, says Robert Jensen, a development economist at Harvard University who has surveyed the price of sardines at 15 beach markets along Kerala's coast. On January 14th 1997, for example, 11 fishermen at Badagara beach ended up throwing away their catches, yet on that day there were 27 buyers at markets within 15km (about nine miles) who would have bought their fish. There were also wide variations in the price of sardines along the coast. But starting in 1997 mobile phones were introduced in Kerala. Since coverage spread gradually, this provided an ideal way to gauge the effect of mobile phones on the fishermen's behaviour, the price of fish, and the amount of waste. For many years, anecdotes have abounded about the ways in which mobile phones promote more efficient markets and encourage economic activity. One particularly popular tale is that of the fisherman who is able to call several nearby markets from his boat to establish where his catch will fetch the highest price. Mr Jensen's paper* adds some numbers to the familiar stories and shows precisely how mobile phones support economic growth. As phone coverage spread between 1997 and 2000, fishermen started to buy phones and use them to call coastal markets while still at sea. (The area of coverage reaches 20-25km off the coast.) Instead of selling their fish at beach auctions, the fishermen would call around to find the best price. Dividing the coast into three regions, Mr Jensen found that the proportion of fishermen who ventured beyond their home markets to sell their catches jumped from zero to around 35% as soon as coverage became available in each region. At that point, no fish were wasted and the variation in prices fell dramatically. By the end of the study coverage was available in all three regions. Waste had been eliminated and the “law of one price”—the idea that in an efficient market identical goods should cost the same—had come into effect, in the form of a single rate for sardines along the coast. This more efficient market benefited everyone. Fishermen's profits rose by 8% on average and consumer prices fell by 4% on average. Higher profits meant the phones typically paid for themselves within two months. And the benefits are enduring, rather than one-off. All of this, says Mr Jensen, shows the importance of the free flow of information to ensure that markets work efficiently. “Information makes markets work, and markets improve welfare,” he concludes. Mr Jensen's work is valuable because studies of the economic effect of mobile phones tend to be macroeconomic. A well known example is the finding in 2005 by Leonard Waverman, of the London Business School, that an extra 10 mobile phones per 100 people in a typical developing country leads to an additional 0.59 percentage points of growth in GDP per person. (He recently repeated this earlier study using a more elaborate model and found that an extra 10 percentage points in mobile-phone penetration led to an extra 0.44 percentage points of growth, a difference he says is not statistically significant.) Calls and effect One criticism levelled at such studies, says Mr Waverman, is that it is difficult to tell if mobile phones are promoting growth, or growth is promoting the adoption of mobile phones, as people become able to afford them. It is easy to imagine ways in which mobile phones could stimulate economic activity—they make up for poor infrastructure by substituting for travel, allow price data to be distributed and enable traders to engage with wider markets, and so on. Mr Waverman uses a variety of statistical tests to try to tease apart cause and effect. But detailed analyses of micro-market data like Mr Jensen's, he says, show how phones really do make people better off. Furthermore, says Mr Jensen, phones do this without the need for government intervention. Mobile-phone networks are built by private companies, not governments or charities, and are economically self-sustaining. Mobile operators build and run them because they make a profit doing so, and fishermen, carpenters and porters are willing to pay for the service because it increases their profits. The resulting welfare gains are indicated by the profitability of both the operators and their customers, he suggests. All governments have to do is issue licences to operators, establish a clear and transparent regulatory framework and then wait for the phones to work their economic magic. *“The Digital Provide: Information (technology), market performance and welfare in the South Indian fisheries sector”, by Robert Jensen. To be published in the Quarterly Journal of Economics, August 2007.

What did Ginobili do that is suspension worthy? I know nobody outside of Spurs fans likes him, but I didn't see him do anything to merit suspension, or even a T or an ejection. Ginobili should be suspended for egregious flopping. Deserved. They definitely outplayed the Jazz -- their interior defense was stifling. If Boozer can't go to the basket, the Jazz have a hard time winning. Guy

Isn't Pope still based down in Philly? Maybe somebody down there could bring up the subject with him, I'd be interested to hear his thoughts. (As well as more info on the Coltrane-Legendary Hasaan connection.) Guy

BTW, I'm probably beating a dead horse at this point, but I exchanged emails with David Wild today on this subject:

Spurs show why they are a championship winning machine. The unstoppable juggernaut of boredom trudges on... Those two technicals on Fisher were completely bogus. Instead, Ginobili should be suspended for the rest of the playoffs. Is Stephen Smith on drugs? WTF is wrong with that guy??? Guy

Walter Davis wrote a fantastic primer on avant-garde jazz for fans of straight-ahead jazz about 10 years ago and posted it to rec.music.bluenote. I am reproducing it here:

I think this is pretty extreme for someone who's not into free jazz. Guy

Has anything happened with the Burton box? It's been about a year since this thread died. Guy

There was an audio recording of Coltrane speaking to an interviewer that was posted on here a few years ago where they talk about Jimmy Smith and Coltrane talks about how Smith's sound on the organ haunted him. Presumably we are talking about the interview with August Blume from 1959? Trane says, "It was Jimmy Smith for about a couple of weeks before I went with Miles--the organist. Wow! I'd wake up in the middle of the night man, hearing that organ. Yeah, those chords screaming at me." I think it's a mistake to interpret this as Smith influencing Coltrane. It seems more like Coltrane thought the organ was really loud. Guy

That entire thread is worth reading, because it pretty thoroughly discusses K1969's question. So is this thread. Guy

Maybe but more to do with developments in the MINDs than in the actual MUSIC itself. Throughout the 80s and 90s contemporary jazz musicians never stopped turning to material by Prince, Radiohead or Nirvana for inspiration, seemingly in spite of Marsalis. It's just that this was no longer perceived as proper jazz. No one had any problem with Coltrane turning My Favourite Things into a jazz standard even though it came from a a dodgy Rogers and Hammerstein musical sang by famed jazz heavy weight Julie Andrews. So why does the establishment have a problem with Nirvana? At least they played their own instruments! I think that the only real difference is that the people who confer "jazz standard' status on music, stopped listening to contemporary music in 1980, the year of the "last jazz standard'. Meanwhile, the label non-obessed world kept listening, borrowing and copying from whatever source around them, just like Coltrane did decades earlier. Perhaps more jazz musicians would've played stuff like Karma Police, Kiss or Come as you are, had the establishment been as ready to give them "standard" status as My favourite things in 1961 It's a bad state of affairs when you have to wait for Paul Anka to give Oasis "Standard" credibility: Perhaps my naming of Marsalis was unfortunate -- I don't think he (or the "establishment") is responsible for this trend, they are symptoms. I think it's worth keeping in mind that jazz standards don't come only from the world of popular music, but also from jazz itself. And there simply aren't many of those post-1970. Guy

Why? It's a nice combination. It gives the album a lushy-mushy sound that I don't like. Guy

I'm guessing that their argument, while somewhat hyperbolic in nature, is pretty much right. This has a lot to do with "developments" in straight ahead post-bop music in the Wynton and post-Wynton era. Guy

Here's a Downbeat article from 1960 where Coltrane talks about his influences. He doesn't mention Smith at all. Guy

Count me as a bit of a skeptic on this. Can anyone explain precisely what aspects of his musical language Coltrane learned from Jimmy Smith? Guy

Good call -- The Shape of Jazz to Come, Turn of the Century, This Is Our Music would be the three to start with

Blue Trane, do you like Coltrane's A Love Supreme? If so I would start listening to Coltrane's '65 quartet recordings chronologically. Other accessible avant-garde or semi-avant-garde dates: Miles Davis, Miles Smiles, ESP, Filles de Kilimanjaro Sonny Simmons & Prince Lasha, The Cry, Firebirds Eric Dolphy, Out to Lunch, Far Cry, Out There, Live at the Five Spot 1 & 2, Outward Bound Mingus, a bunch of stuff Andrew Hill, Point of Departure, Black Fire, Judgment, a bunch of other stuff Bobby Hutcherson, Dialogue, Components Archie Shepp, Four for Trane Guy

Watch out, Allen...

Is Ron Carter's cello playing torture, or just a "coercive interrogation technique"? Guy

I hadn't heard this guy before today... but I put Mister Magic on, and I'll be damned if I didn't enjoy much of it. (I'm probably fortunate in that I didn't grow up in the 70s when this stuff got overplayed.) Nice light jazz-funk. The arrangements are erratic and at times predictable. The strings on "Passion Flower" are pretty cheesy and on the tune "Mister Magic" I would have liked a grittier backing (as well as getting rid of those frickin strings!). But Grover can PLAY and he does. "Earth Tones" was probably my favorite cut on the album, and "Black Frost" is very nice as well. I wonder what this album would have sounded like with either a grittier or more adventurous rhythm section. I'm guessing most of this doesn't count as full-blown smooth jazz but it's clearly only a few stops down the road. Guy

This may seem crazy, but the only PN movies I've seen are The Sting, The Hudsucker Proxy, and Road to Perdition. Guy

I just listened to Electric Byrd for the first time. Nice album! Definitely has a Bitches Brew/In a Silent Way vibe, though obviously shallower and without the genius of the Miles albums. I will have to check out Kofi and Ethiopian Knights. Guy