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<title>My RSS Feed</title><link>http://www.brosen.com/index.html</link><description>Hot News&#x21;</description><dc:language>en</dc:language><dc:creator>ben@brosen.com</dc:creator><dc:rights>Copyright 2009 Benjamin Rosen</dc:rights><dc:date>2009-12-19T12:23:06-05:00</dc:date><admin:generatorAgent rdf:resource="http://www.realmacsoftware.com/" />
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<lastBuildDate>Mon, 20 Oct 2008 21:50:35 -0400</lastBuildDate><item><title>New Blog Site</title><dc:creator>ben@brosen.com</dc:creator><category>None</category><dc:date>2009-12-19T12:23:06-05:00</dc:date><link>http://www.brosen.com/files/8013395669978030b67e4f2d5b8e8e8a-58.html#unique-entry-id-58</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.brosen.com/files/8013395669978030b67e4f2d5b8e8e8a-58.html#unique-entry-id-58</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[The location for current posts on Through Rosen-colored Glasses is here at http://benrosen.com


The posts below are archival from November 2007 through June 2009.]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Until Later...</title><dc:creator>ben@brosen.com</dc:creator><category>None</category><dc:date>2009-06-02T10:44:26-04:00</dc:date><link>http://www.brosen.com/files/52a1708676d3487ba01e1608cc82162a-57.html#unique-entry-id-57</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.brosen.com/files/52a1708676d3487ba01e1608cc82162a-57.html#unique-entry-id-57</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[After posting 41 entries since initiating this blog in late 2007, I've decided to take a break of several months to, as they say, recharge my batteries.   Later today Donna and I leave for 10 days in Venice, a trip prompted by the Biennale, which opens later this week.


Close to a century ago, humorist Robert Benchley was dispatched by his newspaper to Venice.   Upon arriving, he cabled his editor, "Streets flooded, please advise."


Back to you later.
]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>One Mistake of the First 100 Days</title><dc:creator>ben@brosen.com</dc:creator><category>None</category><dc:date>2009-04-28T11:10:19-04:00</dc:date><link>http://www.brosen.com/files/ee9c462aa3475db86aad8c22f550371f-55.html#unique-entry-id-55</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.brosen.com/files/ee9c462aa3475db86aad8c22f550371f-55.html#unique-entry-id-55</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[The Secretary has to have demonstrated in the last two years a record of comprehending the financial system&rsquo;s (1) high risk, (2) deteriorating capital base, (3) innovation dangers, (4)soaring leverage and (5) increasing instability.


...For me, the most valuable part of the article was pointing me to the speeches that Geithner delivered during 2007 when he was president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, by far the most important and influential of the 12 Federal Reserve regional banks. 

...Remember, the subprime mortgage mess was getting into full swing and it was just over  a year before the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers, the forced merger of Merrill Lynch into Bank of America, and the beginning of the world economic system&rsquo;s falling off a cliff. 

...This seems to have reduced concern about future fundamental risk, in terms of the potential damage of future shocks and in the ability of governments and central banks to both avoid the policy errors of the past and to competently manage some daunting longer&ndash;term policy challenges&hellip;


...Is there any reason to believe he understands the   unintended consequences of  subsidizing and supporting too-big-to-fail banks, insurance companies  and automobile manufacturers; of throwing trillions dollars of taxpayer money at the economic problem;  and of buying banks&rsquo; toxic assets with highly leveraged public-private purchases.
]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>It&#x27;s Time for a Change</title><dc:creator>ben@brosen.com</dc:creator><category>None</category><dc:date>2009-04-01T14:00:54-04:00</dc:date><link>http://www.brosen.com/files/55c8beaecd89badabacc05fb28debf37-54.html#unique-entry-id-54</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.brosen.com/files/55c8beaecd89badabacc05fb28debf37-54.html#unique-entry-id-54</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[He describes the administration&rsquo;s proposal to deal with the ailing banks as one that replicates &ldquo;the flawed system that the private sector used to bring the world crashing down&hellip;overleveraging in the public sector, excessive complexity, poor incentives and a lack of transparency&hellip;


...As I mentioned in my December piece, Stiglitz was shut out of the administration&rsquo;s economic team because of longtime bad blood between him and Summers (the same issue that has kept Paul Krugman on the sidelines).  

...However the industry emerges from its current dysfunction, is there any reason to believe that there&rsquo;s anyone in charge today who knows the first thing about running a successful auto manufacturer; someone who can design and build cars that people want without rebate incentives; someone who can recapture the two generations of youth that have eschewed the American automobile? 


...Speaking of the auto industry and of Wall Street, the then family-owned Ford Motor went public on January 17, 1956, in one of the largest IPOs ever (to that date).  

...His unforgettable takeaway line that summarized the entire 436-page book, the phrase that captured the essence of Hollywood, and now the single best explanation of why we&rsquo;re in such an economic mess: &ldquo;Nobody knows anything.&rdquo;
]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Healthcare&#x2c; Academia&#x2c; Perps</title><dc:creator>ben@brosen.com</dc:creator><category>None</category><dc:date>2009-03-10T16:32:58-04:00</dc:date><link>http://www.brosen.com/files/f4df99a4f834fe6bc74e8bf9eb4c7568-53.html#unique-entry-id-53</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.brosen.com/files/f4df99a4f834fe6bc74e8bf9eb4c7568-53.html#unique-entry-id-53</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[In Britain and France, the socialized health care systems came about directly from the roles the governments were forced to play in World War II and shortly thereafter, when the entire populations of  their ravaged countries were already being cared for out of necessity by the central government.  


...&ldquo;For the past year, I haven&rsquo;t had a single Massachusetts patient who has had to ask how much the necessary tests will cost; not one who has told me he needed to put off his cancer operation until he found a job that provided insurance coverage. 

...Perhaps it&rsquo;s because when you&rsquo;ve been nearly destroyed by a hundred-year hurricane, the closing of one school within a university tends to get subsumed by the enormity of losing 80% of a city&rsquo;s housing stock and two-thirds its population (now one-third).


...My guess is that without the art sales or other extraordinary revenue sources, Brandeis would have to do what Tulane did &ndash; cut into the core of its academic mission and close a school or two.  

...Well, there&rsquo;s a lot of yelping in the art community, but that yelping doesn&rsquo;t help solve the problem of how do one run a university and fulfill its academic mission when a force majeure has struck, the budget is hemorrhaging red ink, donors are wounded, and the endowment has collapsed.  
]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Fear of Flying</title><dc:creator>ben@brosen.com</dc:creator><category>None</category><dc:date>2009-03-04T23:30:02-05:00</dc:date><link>http://www.brosen.com/files/49390fb8d3ce74ecc3d20de6e12190cf-52.html#unique-entry-id-52</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.brosen.com/files/49390fb8d3ce74ecc3d20de6e12190cf-52.html#unique-entry-id-52</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[Though it was the first fatal domestic airline crash in 2&frac12; years, it still served to reignite fears in those who view flying as unnatural and dangerous. 


How safe flying is:  But instead of evoking hysteria, it should have served as a reminder of how safe flying is &ndash; both absolutely and relative to other forms of transportation.  

...Yet on that same day in February, a hundred other Americans died in automobile crashes, but these deaths received no TV coverage and no front-page newspaper articles.  

...You&rsquo;re 40 times as likely to die driving in a car than flying in a plane for the same distance.  

...Motorcycles -- incredibly dangerous:  Well, if I&rsquo;ve convinced you that cars are much more dangerous than planes, let me now tell you about an even more perilous way to get from Point A to Point B &ndash; drive a motorcycle.  ]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Three Visual Treats</title><dc:creator>ben@brosen.com</dc:creator><category>None</category><dc:date>2009-02-28T12:11:58-05:00</dc:date><link>http://www.brosen.com/files/6964f31773b8e6c64dc92192d3f6fcb9-48.html#unique-entry-id-48</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.brosen.com/files/6964f31773b8e6c64dc92192d3f6fcb9-48.html#unique-entry-id-48</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[But I&rsquo;ve never seen them in the detail that&rsquo;s available so readily and revealingly on my computer display. 

...Although GigaPan images have been commercially introduced by Sports Illustrated, Golf.com and Google Earth, my first awareness came about from the astonishing panorama of the Presidential inauguration that has circulated on the Internet since then.  

...From the panoramic photo that extends all the way from the Capitol building to the Washington Monument and that encompasses a million and a half people, you can drill down anywhere on the image to a remarkably granular level.  

...The Metropolitan Opera, under the almost three-year-old leadership of general manager Peter Gelb, has introduced a host of initiatives to make the opera experience more ubiquitous, more theatrical, more musical, and more exciting &ndash; HD telecasts, directors from the film and theater worlds, open dress rehearsals, Times Square broadcasts, et al.  

...In addition to many hundreds of conventionally televised productions, the service includes all the high-definition videos that have been created as a byproduct of the hugely successful HD telecasts.  ]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Inaugurating a President</title><dc:creator>ben@brosen.com</dc:creator><category>None</category><dc:date>2009-01-24T15:54:51-05:00</dc:date><link>http://www.brosen.com/files/c006e673eefaf0d551e81ff6f97c7fef-47.html#unique-entry-id-47</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.brosen.com/files/c006e673eefaf0d551e81ff6f97c7fef-47.html#unique-entry-id-47</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[Depression-era song, Obama-era suggestion:  As a fan of film and theater, I was amused by the following advice he offered (without attribution) in his speech to those suffering in this economic crisis:


...After  contributing and raising a lot of dollars for the campaign, after giving money to the transition committee, after buying VIP tickets for the ball, and after getting dressed up in black tie and arriving frozen, we were  greeted (if that is the term) with a cash bar. 

...As has been reported since in newspapers and a lot of angry blogs, tens of thousands of ticketed attendees were unable to get through the Purple Gate (or the Blue Gate on the other side of the viewing area, which had the same problem). ...  Too many tickets were issued, gates opened too late, too few screening magnetometers were in place, there were too few police or security people, and fewer still who had a clue as to where we should go.  


...So here&rsquo;s our plan: On January 20, 2013, we&rsquo;ll be sitting in front of our widescreen TV with drink in hand in our warm apartment and we&rsquo;ll toast the president &ndash; from 200 miles away.  ]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Inaugurating a New Year</title><dc:creator>ben@brosen.com</dc:creator><category>None</category><dc:date>2009-01-12T18:11:54-05:00</dc:date><link>http://www.brosen.com/files/424cc34a935cae4e69b37adf5c5cd192-46.html#unique-entry-id-46</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.brosen.com/files/424cc34a935cae4e69b37adf5c5cd192-46.html#unique-entry-id-46</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[The bad news is that to walk there on inauguration day (cars are out of the question), the hotel concierge has warned us not to leave any later than 5 AM or else we may not make it though the crowds and security checks in time for the ceremony or the parade.


...Modest national turnout:  Another surprise to me was that contrary to earlier expectations &ndash; stemming from the huge crowds at Democratic election rallies &ndash; the national voter turnout of eligible voters was only modestly higher in 2008 than it was in 2004, 56.8% versus 55.3%. 

...One can quibble with a few of the tough parts of this movie, as Donna did with torture and other upsetting  scenes early in the film, but overall I agree with Wall Street Journal film critic Joe Morgenstern who termed the movie &ldquo;genuinely new and immensely entertaining.&rdquo; 

...Even The New York Times&rsquo; Charles Isherwood was  won over:   &ldquo;Ferociously funny&hellip; engrossing&hellip; a big box of fireworks fizzing and crackling across the stage from its first moments to its last&hellip;&rdquo;  (That&rsquo;s known as a money review.)


...But more interesting to me, particularly because of my involvement in a number of not-for-profit organizations, is the disclosure that a surprisingly large number of not-for-profits have made significant contributions to the Clinton Foundation. ]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Archeos and Elyn Zimmerman</title><dc:creator>ben@brosen.com</dc:creator><category>None</category><dc:date>2009-01-03T12:41:24-05:00</dc:date><link>http://www.brosen.com/files/731d188e4588656b2337a13af05e6963-43.html#unique-entry-id-43</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.brosen.com/files/731d188e4588656b2337a13af05e6963-43.html#unique-entry-id-43</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[Three years ago we commissioned Elyn Zimmerman to create a site-specific work at The Falls, our home in Litchfield County, Connecticut.  

...The story of Archeos 2005 is one of how an artist conceives a work of art and then brings it to fruition. 

...She is perhaps best known for her use of stone, often in association with water and landscape elements.    Born in Philadelphia and educated at UCLA, Elyn is a resident of New York City, Rockland County, New York, and Ojai, California.


...Note:  If you have a PC and are unable to view the video, try downloading QuickTime from http://www.apple.com/quicktime/
]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>On... a Lot of Topics</title><dc:creator>ben@brosen.com</dc:creator><category>None</category><dc:date>2008-12-08T15:10:06-05:00</dc:date><link>http://www.brosen.com/files/8ab4f31594902611990764cbdda6c200-42.html#unique-entry-id-42</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.brosen.com/files/8ab4f31594902611990764cbdda6c200-42.html#unique-entry-id-42</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[&ldquo;Stiglitz, more than anyone on the Washington scene, was the biggest fly in the ointment of &ldquo;free-market fundamentalism&rdquo; pressed on the world in the 90s by Summers, Geithner and their mentor, former Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin &ndash; advice that has now contributed to the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression.&rdquo;


...Yesterday, even the New York Times&rsquo; Frank Rich, who has been wildly supportive of Obama, chimed in:  &ldquo;In our current financial quagmire, there have also been those who had the wisdom to sound alarms before Rubin, Summers or Geithner did.   

...Then a week ago,  Randall Stross of the New York Times piled on with a snide, negative view of the company&rsquo;s prospects. (&ldquo;&hellip;woefully immature technology&hellip;don&rsquo;t-even-ask expensive&hellip;not much more than a functioning concept car&hellip;&rdquo;)


...Fed up with outside criticism about  his managing of the Department, he offered this observation:  &ldquo;I always liked bird dogs better than kennel dogs myself &ndash; you know, the ones that will get out and hunt for food rather than sit on their fannies and yelp.&rdquo;  


...But then the December 2008 Harper&rsquo;s Magazine arrives in the mail, and, being right on top of the breaking news, it carries a piece on the New York Philharmonic&rsquo;s historic February trip to North Korea -- only 10 months after the fact! ]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Election Prediction</title><dc:creator>ben@brosen.com</dc:creator><dc:subject>Older Posts&#x2c; Ben Rosen Blog</dc:subject><dc:date>2008-11-03T16:09:54-05:00</dc:date><link>http://www.brosen.com/files/9b62b65b5995f2323bc1d187725dba4c-41.html#unique-entry-id-41</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.brosen.com/files/9b62b65b5995f2323bc1d187725dba4c-41.html#unique-entry-id-41</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[Because there are so few pundits proffering opinions on the outcome (hah!), I thought that I&rsquo;d help fill the vacuum by sharing my thoughts with you.  

...If the exit polls indicate momentum one way or the other, that should be a pretty useful harbinger for the other battlegrounds.    (This, of course, assumes that the exit poll accuracy will be better than those data from 2004, when there were some seriously misleading signals.)


My prediction is that Virginia will go to Obama by at least the margins forecast by the polls (see below).  ...  This, then, would augur well for eight other key battleground states:  Colorado, Florida, Indiana, Missouri, Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio, and Pennsylvania.
]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Driving the Tesla Roadster</title><dc:creator>ben@brosen.com</dc:creator><dc:subject>Older Posts&#x2c; Ben Rosen Blog</dc:subject><dc:date>2008-11-03T12:39:09-05:00</dc:date><link>http://www.brosen.com/files/cf074da85fe741405157e32c7c02261d-40.html#unique-entry-id-40</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.brosen.com/files/cf074da85fe741405157e32c7c02261d-40.html#unique-entry-id-40</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[Two weeks ago, the evening before we were to leave our Manhattan apartment on a 10-day trip to London, we received a phone call informing us that our Tesla Roadster would arrive the next morning at our Litchfield County home. 

...Clearly the company&rsquo;s PR campaign has had an impact &ndash; e.g., 60 Minutes last month, Time Magazine this week, which in its 50 Best Inventions of the 2008 feature selected the Roadster as the No. 2 invention.


...Energy source:  The reason for the remarkable acceleration, which compares favorably with the highest-price, most powerful sports cars in the world, is that the Tesla is  powered by a 185kW (248 HP) electric motor, with the energy stored in 6,831 lithium-ion batteries. 


...We who came up through the high-tech industries, and at one time had our sights on taking on the auto industry, tend to underestimate the ability of the auto industry to make very-high-volume products with very high functionality at very low cost. 

...A year later, when we had the beachhead established &ndash; broad corporate customer base, established channels of distribution, high-volume and low-cost manufacturing capability, in-depth engineering team, worldwide supply chain, international brand name &ndash; we could then move on to compete head-on with IBM in desktops.  ]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Letter from London</title><dc:creator>ben@brosen.com</dc:creator><dc:subject>Older Posts&#x2c; Ben Rosen Blog</dc:subject><dc:date>2008-10-20T08:37:27-04:00</dc:date><link>http://www.brosen.com/files/c087f41f76fd17d52b81ad1f16506f39-39.html#unique-entry-id-39</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.brosen.com/files/c087f41f76fd17d52b81ad1f16506f39-39.html#unique-entry-id-39</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[If ever you were thinking of giving the Turner Prize a miss, not rushing down to the show at Tate Britain, not tuning into the televised ceremony, then 2008 is the ideal year. 

...Although we live in New York just a few blocks from the Broadway theater district, and attend shows frequently, we feel this compulsion twice a year to fly to London to soak in the British theatre scene.  

...Maybe it&rsquo;s because so many of the British actors train at RADA (Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts) instead of film or television, maybe it&rsquo;s because so many of their r&eacute;sum&eacute;s are larded with Shakespearean roles, maybe it&rsquo;s because theatre is their first profession rather than their fill-in, maybe it&rsquo;s because they have such great accents, or maybe it&rsquo;s just because we&rsquo;re Anglophiles.  

...Brief Encounter:  Evoked by the 1945 David Lean movie, which in turn was based on an earlier No&euml;l Coward play, this love story cum music-hall-revue cum farce cum movie misses often, but hits frequently enough to leave you with a smile on your face for most of the evening.  

...Remarkable performance by (Argentinean) Elena Roger as the Little Sparrow, who sang all the songs in French, who inhabited Piaf in a stunning emotional display, and who received (what is fortunately unusual in London theatre) a standing O.  ]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Reflections</title><dc:creator>ben@brosen.com</dc:creator><dc:subject>Older Posts&#x2c; Ben Rosen Blog</dc:subject><dc:date>2008-10-06T18:52:31-04:00</dc:date><link>http://www.brosen.com/files/3974695198d22685b884b0202a7b86ac-38.html#unique-entry-id-38</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.brosen.com/files/3974695198d22685b884b0202a7b86ac-38.html#unique-entry-id-38</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[&ldquo;Too bad for the theory, things don&rsquo;t seem to work out that way&hellip; Really understanding what&rsquo;s going on means going beyond equilibrium thinking and getting some insight into the underlying ecology of beliefs and expectations, perceptions and misperceptions, that drive market swings.


&ldquo;Surprisingly, very few economists have actually tried to do this, although that&rsquo;s now changing &ndash; if slowly &ndash; through the efforts of pioneers who are building computer models able to mimic market dynamics by stimulating their workings from the bottom-up&hellip;


...It&rsquo;s true that rocket scientists on Wall Street have contributed to a wee bit of havoc in recent years by creating some esoteric derivative instruments, but perhaps nuclear physicists working in economics models can make a more substantive contribution. 

...In any event, I think you&rsquo;ll be amused by the following extensions of the Mozart effect to the benefits of listening to music by other composers &ndash; whatever your age.  

...So it would seem to me that if a team is interested in winning, rather than not losing,  the number of fourth-down attempts would be a lot greater than the 2007 average of one per team per game.
]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Potpourri</title><dc:creator>ben@brosen.com</dc:creator><dc:subject>Older Posts&#x2c; Ben Rosen Blog</dc:subject><dc:date>2008-09-24T20:08:16-04:00</dc:date><link>http://www.brosen.com/files/0fb10921d4f8b82ddb659e8e10070b32-37.html#unique-entry-id-37</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.brosen.com/files/0fb10921d4f8b82ddb659e8e10070b32-37.html#unique-entry-id-37</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[As we enter this New Era of financial reform, we&rsquo;re faced with one really dangerous law that our nobody-knows-anything economic leaders will incorporate into the new legislation/regulation/fiat that is being foist upon us.  

...When it comes to choosing the people whose thoughts and actions will decide the fates of millions, then we suddenly want someone just like us, someone fit to have a beer with, someone down-to-earth&mdash;in fact, almost anyone, provided that he or she doesn't seem too intelligent or well educated.


...In fact, I got so antsy waiting for it &ndash; it&rsquo;s a year and a half late -- that I recently bought a Segway &ndash; the two-wheeled Human Transporter that was the most hyped product of its time. 

...It is, however, an amusement for outdoor parties in the summer, though I do get concerned about the adequacy of my insurance coverage when first-time users try it out, especially after they&rsquo;ve had a libation or two.


...It turns out that the prize&rsquo;s sponsors had as a goal not an elegant and low-cost scientific mission to the moon, but rather an absurd goal of commercializing space &ndash; e.g., mining the moon, beaming power to the earth, and other such dubious ventures.  
]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Tabula Rasa No. 1 -- A Conversation with Edmund Morris</title><dc:creator>ben@brosen.com</dc:creator><dc:subject>Older Posts&#x2c; Ben Rosen Blog</dc:subject><dc:date>2008-08-18T16:14:42-04:00</dc:date><link>http://www.brosen.com/files/c15cf5e82995c0429497d29298c31499-36.html#unique-entry-id-36</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.brosen.com/files/c15cf5e82995c0429497d29298c31499-36.html#unique-entry-id-36</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[I&rsquo;ve always been fascinated by the process that allows talented people to start with nothing more than a tabula rasa, then apply their creative abilities and end up with a contribution to society.  

...Over the years, Donna and I have been fortunate enough to make acquaintances with quite a few remarkably creative people, with their achievements originating from both sides of the brain &ndash; painters, sculptors, writers, composers, musicians, inventors, engineers, scientists, physicians, playwrights, producers, directors, actors, singers, et al.


I&rsquo;ve begun to prevail on some of them to share their experiences with me on video &ndash; what they created, how they did it, why they did it.  ...  We may or may not infer how creativity is effected, but at a minimum we should enjoy watching talented people talk about themselves and their work.


...Kenyan-born, Edmund lives with his biographer wife Sylvia (Edith Roosevelt, Clare Boothe Luce) just a stone&rsquo;s throw from chez nous in Litchfield County, Connecticut.
]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>North Korea and the N. Y. Philharmonic: The &#x22;Why?&#x22; Question Gets Answered</title><dc:creator>ben@brosen.com</dc:creator><dc:subject>Older Posts&#x2c; Ben Rosen Blog</dc:subject><dc:date>2008-07-26T11:38:47-04:00</dc:date><link>http://www.brosen.com/files/fa5a6fc52485495d162acf409ddf7d4b-34.html#unique-entry-id-34</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.brosen.com/files/fa5a6fc52485495d162acf409ddf7d4b-34.html#unique-entry-id-34</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[When we accompanied the New York Philharmonic on its historic trip to North Korea for its February 26 concert, the question that we were asked most often was, &ldquo;Why?&rdquo;  

...Remember, North Korea is one of the three countries, along with Iraq and Iran, that President Bush characterized in his 2002 State of the Union address as members of the &ldquo;axis of evil.&rdquo; 

...Perry suggested &ndash; against the conventional wisdom -- that the parties are beginning to realize that they are &ldquo;likelier to reach an agreement in this final year of the Bush administration than to wait for a new president in 2009.&rdquo;


...&ldquo;North Korea agreed to disable its main reactor by the end of October and allow international inspections to verify its nuclear disarmament in a deal reached Saturday at the end of six-nation talks.


...&ldquo;US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice met North Korea&rsquo;s top diplomat Wednesday in Singapore, ending a four-year hiatus in Cabinet level contacts between the Bush administration and Pyongyang over its nuclear program.&rdquo;
]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Revisiting &#x22;The Gates&#x22;</title><dc:creator>ben@brosen.com</dc:creator><dc:subject>Older Posts&#x2c; Ben Rosen Blog</dc:subject><dc:date>2008-06-10T17:43:03-04:00</dc:date><link>http://www.brosen.com/files/60b722c573df8b48075cfed88a6fe9c1-32.html#unique-entry-id-32</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.brosen.com/files/60b722c573df8b48075cfed88a6fe9c1-32.html#unique-entry-id-32</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[Three years ago, renowned artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude electrified the art world -- and particularly New York City -- with their creation of The Gates in Central Park.    Like all their previous large installations, The Gates was on display for only a limited time (16 days), and then it was dismantled and destroyed -- all 7,503 gates and their saffron-colored fabric panels.  

...For me, the work had an impact beyond its artistic one;  it provided me with the subject of my very first video not involving grandchildren.    Now I love my three grandchildren, but if this septuagenarian fashions himself as the Grandma Moses of the film-making world, he has to engage in subjects of more provocative interest than his children's children, however engaging the little tykes are.


...Undiscouraged and certainly not bowed, I have since moved on to larger and more professional high-definition camera equipment, immersed myself in powerful editing software, and and am ready now to write, direct, edit and score my magnum opus.  ]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Met Opera -- A New Act</title><dc:creator>ben@brosen.com</dc:creator><dc:subject>Older Posts&#x2c; Ben Rosen Blog</dc:subject><dc:date>2008-06-10T09:36:28-04:00</dc:date><link>http://www.brosen.com/files/4b6a14a397973bb2a90d63a73a0dc7f4-31.html#unique-entry-id-31</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.brosen.com/files/4b6a14a397973bb2a90d63a73a0dc7f4-31.html#unique-entry-id-31</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[To turn the ship around &ndash; i.e., fill the house -- three major initiatives were undertaken: (1) improve the product, (2) create a major marketing effort, and (3) add new sources of revenues and audience development.&nbsp;


...For example, in the last two seasons, the images of superstars Anna Netrebko and Natalie Dessay were featured all year in advertising, brochures, tickets, bus signs, telephone kiosks &ndash; you name it, their faces were all over New York City. 

...It would have been easy, for example, simply to program a full season of audience pleasers and ignore the more obscure or contemporary or challenging works that are so hard to sell. 

...The upshot is that the list of new marketing initiatives in the last 24 months is almost endless: Times Square opening-night live telecasts, opera sets displayed in Saks Fifth Avenue windows, red carpet opening nights, free opening-performance dress rehearsals, creation of an art gallery, and Met signs and banners and posters everywhere.&nbsp;


...By the way, even though the telecasts are shown a month or so later on PBS, there is simply no comparison between seeing them in the theater and on a home TV system -- the giant screen imparts a totally different experience.
]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Dinner with Barack</title><dc:creator>ben@brosen.com</dc:creator><dc:subject>Older Posts&#x2c; Ben Rosen Blog</dc:subject><dc:date>2008-06-05T09:34:14-04:00</dc:date><link>http://www.brosen.com/files/20571157aacce142f64921a03d3f14e1-29.html#unique-entry-id-29</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.brosen.com/files/20571157aacce142f64921a03d3f14e1-29.html#unique-entry-id-29</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[Paul and a day in Washington, D.C., at the Senate and at AIPAC, the Senator arrived at the fund-raiser in a private Manhattan home to greet and dine and thank and schmooze with a hundred supporters who contributed a lot of money to have dinner with him.


...And as I blogged at the time, the difference I noticed immediately between him and Bill Clinton, whom I had met once, was that in conversation, Clinton lectured; Obama listened.


...But what took me aback was the presence of at least two hitherto - until yesterday -- strong supporters of Hillary Clinton, and at least one with the (perhaps dashed) hopes of scoring a top cabinet post in a Clinton administration. 

...What it proved: There is a big pool of money out there available for Obama that extends well beyond the Internet machine that has proved so successful in his campaign.   And unlike the primary cycle, where there was a $2,300 limit per person, the creative minds of the political world have found ingenious ways to multiply that upper limit more than ten-fold for the general election. ]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>A Good-News Katrina Story</title><dc:creator>ben@brosen.com</dc:creator><dc:subject>Older Posts&#x2c; Ben Rosen Blog</dc:subject><dc:date>2008-05-16T17:54:55-04:00</dc:date><link>http://www.brosen.com/files/3be63c8cab1c688f0fc59c688ccf28f1-28.html#unique-entry-id-28</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.brosen.com/files/3be63c8cab1c688f0fc59c688ccf28f1-28.html#unique-entry-id-28</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[Three months after the waters of hurricane Katrina receded, the unflooded part of the city, comprising only about 20% of the land area, was back in business -- the port, much of the commercial area, the French Quarter, the Garden District, a large part of uptown, Tulane University (the city&rsquo;s largest employer), and a few other areas. ...  In fact, one could visit New Orleans, confine yourself to just the functioning parts of the city, and not even be aware that one of the nation&rsquo;s worst disasters happened within a few blocks of where you were standing. 


...But the charter school that most interested us during our visit, the one with the most imaginative specialization, was the Edible Schoolyard of New Orleans (ESYNOLA).  

...But according to a study  of the Berkeley, California, Martin Luther King Edible Schoolyard by the Harvard Medical School, as cited in the New York Times magazine last year, &ldquo;After one year, students at King, compared with a control group at a similar middle school, showed improvement in behavior and fewer emotional problems&hellip; their overall grade point averages improved.&rdquo;


...And unlike many of the &ldquo;large&rdquo; charities to which we and many of our friends traditionally direct our philanthropy, where large donations sometimes have only a modest impact on the organization, a small donation to the Edible Schoolyard will have a big-time impact. ]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Science&#x2c; Technology and America&#x27;s Future</title><dc:creator>ben@brosen.com</dc:creator><dc:subject>Older Posts&#x2c; Ben Rosen Blog</dc:subject><dc:date>2008-05-15T12:04:42-04:00</dc:date><link>http://www.brosen.com/files/a1ee991ce6986bb6bb133e85a7eaf240-27.html#unique-entry-id-27</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.brosen.com/files/a1ee991ce6986bb6bb133e85a7eaf240-27.html#unique-entry-id-27</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[It is probably true, as Zakaria points out in his book, the way that the Chinese define bachelors degrees is less rigorous than our definition -- they include many who have engaged more in vocational studies than in true four-year university engineering degrees. 

...In an earlier day, American industry supported some of the great basic and applied research laboratories in the world &ndash; Bell Telephone Laboratories, David Sarnoff Laboratory at RCA, General Electric and IBM research laboratories, and many other smaller but very productive centers of basic and applied research. 


...Indeed, virtually all basic research today is funded by the federal government, with the majority of it coming from the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation, both of which have been under severe funding pressure in recent years. 

...So despite Fareed Zakaria&rsquo;s optimism about the future of American science and engineering education, it&rsquo;s clear to me that we are slipping competitively.  

...It would be nice to believe that we could recognize our need today without the necessity of a shock or wake-up call, but it&rsquo;s hard to be optimistic, particularly given the discouraging level of discourse at the political level. ]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>The Merger That Worked:  Compaq and Hewlett-Packard</title><dc:creator>ben@brosen.com</dc:creator><dc:subject>Older Posts&#x2c; Ben Rosen Blog</dc:subject><dc:date>2008-04-09T12:24:01-04:00</dc:date><link>http://www.brosen.com/files/430fed1618e6b4800087ae86eabffc89-26.html#unique-entry-id-26</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.brosen.com/files/430fed1618e6b4800087ae86eabffc89-26.html#unique-entry-id-26</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[Quoted in the New York Times of February 1, 2002, Walter Hewlett said, &ldquo;The Compaq merger is a dangerously risky, a very costly, step&hellip; The risk is great that trying to meld two disparate companies and cultures together in the computer business will come to grief.&rdquo;


...Loomis opined: &ldquo;This was a big bet that didn&rsquo;t pay off, that didn&rsquo;t even come close to attaining what Fiorina and HP&rsquo;s board said was in store.   At bottom they made a huge error in asserting that the merger of two losing computer operations, HP&rsquo;s and Compaq&rsquo;s, would produce a financially fit computer business&hellip;.   It must deal with both the relentless competition in computers and its own particular need to battle on two fronts, against both IBM and Dell&hellip; Let&rsquo;s just say one thing: No matter the outcome, the aggressive presence of Dell in the marketplace cannot be good for HP&hellip;. 

...Second, they typically apply conventional wisdom (e.g., all big mergers are bad) rather than analytically looking at whether there is a real fit between the two merging companies. ]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Spin Me to the Moon</title><dc:creator>ben@brosen.com</dc:creator><dc:subject>Older Posts&#x2c; Ben Rosen Blog</dc:subject><dc:date>2008-03-25T16:52:26-04:00</dc:date><link>http://www.brosen.com/files/87fe7b185f0be2a0fab10ff2a498a4f0-25.html#unique-entry-id-25</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.brosen.com/files/87fe7b185f0be2a0fab10ff2a498a4f0-25.html#unique-entry-id-25</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[The Southern California Selene Group (SCSG) has attracted an all-star team of space scientists and engineers, one of whom is Deborah Castleman, a former deputy assistant secretary of defense for communications command and control, and also, by the way, the wife of Harold Rosen.


...After Sputnik was launched by the Soviet Union October 4, 1957, many people in the U.S. started thinking about not only how to compete with the Soviets, but what could be done productively in space.  

...In a May 1945 article in Wireless World, Clarke proposed a system of the three satellites orbiting at 22,300 miles above the Earth, an altitude that would put their period of revolution around the Earth at 24 hours -- the same period, of course, as the Earth's rotation.  

...So a system had to be developed to keep the satellites from drifting out of their orbit; drift is caused by the earth's non-spherical shape, by solar pressure, and other perturbations.   

...Two of the most difficult problems to solve in this new competition are how to land the payload on the Moon (without crashing) and how to get it to roam on the Moon's surface. ]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Letter from North Korea -- Part 4</title><dc:creator>ben@brosen.com</dc:creator><dc:subject>Older Posts&#x2c; Ben Rosen Blog</dc:subject><dc:date>2008-03-11T17:00:30-04:00</dc:date><link>http://www.brosen.com/files/da127c5daf2baad75a7dd575689019fb-23.html#unique-entry-id-23</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.brosen.com/files/da127c5daf2baad75a7dd575689019fb-23.html#unique-entry-id-23</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA["Why North Korea Will Not Change" is the subtitle of an article in the current issue of Foreign Affairs And, oh, by the way, as a reminder of the government&rsquo;s absolute and repressive control, last week (just days after we left the country) it publicly executed 15 people, including 13 women, who tried to escape to China.


...Toward the end of the 48-hour Philharmonic trip, I learned about a new university being built in North Korea -- the Pyongyang University of Science and Technology (PUST).  

...International faculty:  Realizing that the requisite talent for science and technology pedagogy and lies outside North Korea, most of the professors will be recruited from South Korea and elsewhere.  

...David Kim, a vice president of the university, is another South Korean with an American passport and a Ph.

...But seeing how much James and his associates have achieved so far in such difficult circumstances, and judging also by the success of Yanbian University, it&rsquo;s hard to believe that his dream won&rsquo;t be realized.
]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Letter from North Korea -- Part 3</title><dc:creator>ben@brosen.com</dc:creator><dc:subject>Older Posts&#x2c; Ben Rosen Blog</dc:subject><dc:date>2008-03-02T22:20:05-05:00</dc:date><link>http://www.brosen.com/files/e469434848a4e432382e30569361a470-22.html#unique-entry-id-22</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.brosen.com/files/e469434848a4e432382e30569361a470-22.html#unique-entry-id-22</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[Not only did 200 hundred Americans descend on Pyongyang en masse (many more than are typically allowed in the country in a year), but we were accompanied by over 60 members of the world press swelled by a huge contingent of South Korean media.  

...So we face a leadership change at some time in the future and of uncertain direction; I guess that&rsquo;s not overly helpful, but may be something to cling to.


...Anthony Tommasini, the chief music critic of the New York Times, who didn&rsquo;t make the trip (though the Times was well represented by other of its journalists), began his review of the broadcast with:  &ldquo;It would have been fascinating to attend the New York Philharmonic&rsquo;s concert at the East Pyongyang Grand  Theater in North Korea.&rdquo;  

...Well, as a board member of the Philharmonic, I&rsquo;m chagrinned that not a word of support or congratulation or &ldquo;hey, well done, Philharmonic&rdquo; has yet come forth from our mayor, our governor, or either senator (well, one of them has been a little preoccupied of late).    You know, it&rsquo;s fine to give tickertape parades to football teams (especially since the winning quarterback went to my high school in New Orleans), but I don&rsquo;t think the Giants&rsquo; win is going to help make the world any less divided.  ]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Letter from North Korea -- Part 1</title><dc:creator>ben@brosen.com</dc:creator><dc:subject>Older Posts&#x2c; Ben Rosen Blog</dc:subject><dc:date>2008-02-26T22:19:55-05:00</dc:date><link>http://www.brosen.com/files/a880c26467e5c364e1e6a222a82a920d-21.html#unique-entry-id-21</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.brosen.com/files/a880c26467e5c364e1e6a222a82a920d-21.html#unique-entry-id-21</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[There were 260 of us &ndash; the musicians from the New York Philharmonic, orchestra staff, board members, patrons, and 60 members of the world media with cameras and microphones at the ready.


...About 30 minutes later, we boarded buses for the 25-minute trip to downtown Pyongyang and our hotel The drive to the hotel, with the roads virtually empty of vehicles and few  people spotted along the way, was another surreal experience.


...Although warned ahead of time by a Western diplomat posted in Pyongyang about their sensitivity to photographs, I was able to shoot freely with both my still and video cameras.  

...Mind you, press and patrons were swarming all around them, and not one of them ever looked up at these people who were disrupting their classes.  

...Even if the Philharmonic visit helps build the first bridge to understanding, we still have the issue of dealing with a population that has been educated to follow a party line and has so little in common with our views of the world.
]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Letter from North Korea -- Part 2</title><dc:creator>ben@brosen.com</dc:creator><dc:subject>Older Posts&#x2c; Ben Rosen Blog</dc:subject><dc:date>2008-02-27T22:20:00-05:00</dc:date><link>http://www.brosen.com/files/9de4f40914ea92792dd93f862b6d135d-20.html#unique-entry-id-20</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.brosen.com/files/9de4f40914ea92792dd93f862b6d135d-20.html#unique-entry-id-20</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[Leading off with both nation&rsquo;s national anthems and concluding with a traditional folk song from Korea (North and South), the program evoked a surprisingly emotional response from both the audience and the orchestra.


...Can a concert conceivably have any impact on the six-party talks that are attempting to get North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons?


We were encouraged by a discussion we had this evening with a high-level adviser to the talks who happened to attend both yesterday&rsquo;s inauguration of Lee Myung-bak as South Korea&rsquo;s new president and tonight&rsquo;s Philharmonic concert.  ...  First, the parties are beginning to realize that it is likelier to reach an agreement in this final year of the Bush administration than to wait for a new president in 2009 to get up to speed on this exceedingly complex and delicate negotiation.  

...And finally, this observer said that what the talks need now are a tipping point, one that will be brought about by the opposing parties&rsquo; reducing their distrust of each other.  ]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Pre-Pyongyang:   Japan and China</title><dc:creator>ben@brosen.com</dc:creator><dc:subject>Older Posts&#x2c; Ben Rosen Blog</dc:subject><dc:date>2008-02-24T02:58:00-05:00</dc:date><link>http://www.brosen.com/files/863598295acb31f996086f651ca67150-15.html#unique-entry-id-15</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.brosen.com/files/863598295acb31f996086f651ca67150-15.html#unique-entry-id-15</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[In the last week, we've attended Philharmonic concerts in Shanghai and Beijing.  ...  The Ping Pong diplomacy of 1971 may -- or may not -- be emulated by the Philharmonic diplomacy of 2008.  ...  But in the meantime, Donna, I and the other 258 visitors are in for an experience that we'll not soon forget.


Prior to our arriving in China, we spent a week in Japan.    So before we get to the serious stuff in our next blog, here are some random photographic impressions of our stays in Tokyo, Kyoto, Shanghai and Beijing.  
]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>On Reading Books:  A Better Way?</title><dc:creator>ben@brosen.com</dc:creator><dc:subject>Older Posts&#x2c; Ben Rosen Blog</dc:subject><dc:date>2008-02-19T04:27:25-05:00</dc:date><link>http://www.brosen.com/files/930cf127f9524330317aa654245dca8a-14.html#unique-entry-id-14</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.brosen.com/files/930cf127f9524330317aa654245dca8a-14.html#unique-entry-id-14</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[A three-week trip, with lots of long airline (and bullet-train) trips that lend themselves to catching up on reading that pile of books that has been sitting for months on the bookstand shouting &ldquo;read me.&rdquo;


...Instead of horsing 10 to 20 pounds of physical books and trying to find room for them in carry-on bags, I had the equivalent stored in my new 10-ounce Kindle.


...Choice &ndash; It&rsquo;s always nice to have War and Peace on call, just in case you get the urge to re-read it for the first time since high school.   

...Cost &ndash; While the price of the Kindle reader gets your attention (especially if you buy it on eBay), the price per book is heavily discounted, with many of my purchases costing less that ten dollars, and well below their physical counterparts.


...A few other shortcomings &ndash; Occasionally my page in the book would mysteriously get lost, and searching for it was cumbersome in the extreme&hellip; A number of the books I wanted to buy weren&rsquo;t available, particularly some popular travel guides, forcing me to tote along six city and country paper guides&hellip;  Maps in one book were almost illegible&hellip;  Color renderings are not possible.
]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Eclipse Takes Off</title><dc:creator>ben@brosen.com</dc:creator><dc:subject>Older Posts&#x2c; Ben Rosen Blog</dc:subject><dc:date>2008-02-13T19:41:57-05:00</dc:date><link>http://www.brosen.com/files/4b67f1852b81fc25767e0cb7bc08e104-13.html#unique-entry-id-13</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.brosen.com/files/4b67f1852b81fc25767e0cb7bc08e104-13.html#unique-entry-id-13</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[Tesla has raised over a hundred million dollars (so far) to put into production its Roadster, an all-electric sports car with Lamborghini-like performance.  

...And then, a few days ago, I visited the Albuquerque headquarters of Eclipse Aviation, one of the most exciting (and expensive) start-up gambles in the aviation business.  

...Later, he let himself be seduced away by Mitch Kapor and me to become EVP for sales and marketing at Lotus Development (and thereby give up all his Microsoft options &ndash; but that&rsquo;s another story).  

...With 1,800 employees in 600,000 square feet, it&rsquo;s small by Boeing standards but large by comparison with a-couple-of-guys-in-the-garage start-ups.


...DayJet has ordered over 700 Eclipse 500s, taken delivery on a few dozen, and has recently begun operating its air taxi service in the southeast.  ]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>On to Pyongyang -- Part 2</title><dc:creator>ben@brosen.com</dc:creator><dc:subject>Older Posts&#x2c; Ben Rosen Blog</dc:subject><dc:date>2008-02-03T15:48:24-05:00</dc:date><link>http://www.brosen.com/files/07f2150242631051cc6161b00dfcd62d-12.html#unique-entry-id-12</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.brosen.com/files/07f2150242631051cc6161b00dfcd62d-12.html#unique-entry-id-12</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[In three weeks, Donna and I will take off from Beijing, along with the New York Philharmonic, 60 members of the world press, several more board members and a number of other interested parties in a chartered Asiana 747.  

...What started as an invitation out of the blue from the North Korean Ministry of Culture last summer will culminate on February 26 with a concert performance by the Philharmonic in Pyongyang.


...The concert will be televised worldwide by an international consortium of broadcasters and shown live in those countries with convenient time zones, and on tape in the others.


...The program will begin with the national anthems of both countries, followed by a Wagner overture, Dvorak&rsquo;s New World Symphony and An American in Paris.  

...Staff members of the Phil who have made preparatory trips to Pyongyang report that everyone is &ldquo;minded&rdquo; while there, that everyone they have contact with is fluent in English, and that liberal helpings of Scotch whiskey helped break the ice after evening meetings with the hosts.
]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Movies Are ??? Than Ever</title><dc:creator>ben@brosen.com</dc:creator><dc:subject>Older Posts&#x2c; Ben Rosen Blog</dc:subject><dc:date>2008-01-26T15:27:05-05:00</dc:date><link>http://www.brosen.com/files/0dbc9e16802b517112f999c87159d7a7-11.html#unique-entry-id-11</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.brosen.com/files/0dbc9e16802b517112f999c87159d7a7-11.html#unique-entry-id-11</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[Well, Oscar sure thing or not, the principal accolade it got from me during its two hours and thirty-eight minutes was my most-glances-at-my-watch-during-a-movie award.  

...Mayer (or Harry Cohn, or Jack Warner, or any of the studio bosses) would tell the director that he&rsquo;s got this much money and that many people to bring in a 90-minute movie, and that&rsquo;s it.


...To attempt to answer this question other than anecdotally, I decided to look at the lengths of Academy Award nominees in recent years (2003-2007)  and compare them with lengths of movies made 70 years ago at the height of the studio system (1933-1937).  

...So to the extent my samples are representative of the entire industry,  movies are longer than they used to be, 23 minutes longer.  

...I mention it here only because in the early 1950s, when television began to exact its devastating toll and movie attendance went into free fall, Hollywood responded with the slogan, &ldquo;Movies are Better Than Ever.&rdquo;
]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Democratizing Art</title><dc:creator>ben@brosen.com</dc:creator><dc:subject>Older Posts&#x2c; Ben Rosen Blog</dc:subject><dc:date>2008-01-17T17:15:57-05:00</dc:date><link>http://www.brosen.com/files/e2f7ec14753602c78002c36a42e053de-10.html#unique-entry-id-10</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.brosen.com/files/e2f7ec14753602c78002c36a42e053de-10.html#unique-entry-id-10</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[A work of art that is housed in a museum can only be seen by physically visiting the museum, then hoping it is on display &ndash; most museums show only a small fraction of their works &ndash; and then often coping with crowds to actually get a good view of the piece (which increasingly is protected from vandals by glass).


...One of the world&rsquo;s finest works of art, or maybe just the finest Velasquez, or surely a really fine painting &ndash; how many people actually get to see it?  

...Would the viewer of Las Meninas The Copy have a different aesthetic experience from the one viewing Las Meninas the Original if he were not told which was which?  

...So consider the following scenario:  the museum makes an an exact reproduction of one of its top showpieces, sells the original for millions of dollars (to a collector who must own the original), and exhibits the exact copy.  

...Or consider this:  The museum sells an original (perhaps at a lower price), but makes 100 exact copies, and sells each for a modest amount to 100 other museums around the world.  ]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>I Coulda Been a Contenda</title><dc:creator>ben@brosen.com</dc:creator><dc:subject>Older Posts&#x2c; Ben Rosen Blog</dc:subject><dc:date>2008-01-14T18:52:17-05:00</dc:date><link>http://www.brosen.com/files/6089c851ef3adbd8676370cc7926603e-8.html#unique-entry-id-8</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.brosen.com/files/6089c851ef3adbd8676370cc7926603e-8.html#unique-entry-id-8</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[I was a technology analyst for Morgan Stanley in the late 1970s, about the same time that personal computers were introduced to the world by Apple, Radio Shack and Commodore.  

...The first PCs had few applications available other than games, but I was determined to demonstrate to all who would listen that many more practical tasks were possible.  ...  Remember, this was before any decent word processor or database applications, and a year before invention  of the VisiCalc spreadsheet, the program (with its successors) that did so much to legitimize the PC industry.


...But soon after I left Wall Street for venture capital, my PC-based restaurant application had become but a faint memory as I focused my efforts on creating technology start-ups. 

...Having had this idea a year before Zagat started, I should have given up Wall Street, I should have foregone venture capital and instead entered the restaurant-information business.  
]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Car-Pooling -- An Idea Whose Time Has Come -- and a Solution</title><dc:creator>ben@brosen.com</dc:creator><dc:subject>Older Posts&#x2c; Ben Rosen Blog</dc:subject><dc:date>2008-01-12T13:23:41-05:00</dc:date><link>http://www.brosen.com/files/b72d3103addfa477eb150c0b64a9b5e0-7.html#unique-entry-id-7</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.brosen.com/files/b72d3103addfa477eb150c0b64a9b5e0-7.html#unique-entry-id-7</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[This means that if the universe of users is large enough, there is a very high probability of matching a rider and driver (schedules, locations, personal preferences) at any time &ndash; even if the driver has to work late, or leave early, or gets sick.  

...For drivers opting into the system, state and local governments could reward them through a variety of financial incentives:  cash, tax abatements, a share of congestion-pricing revenues (in New York City, assuming it&rsquo;s implemented), lower congestion-pricing fees, toll-booth  fee reductions.

...Also, employers of more than 250 employees in the South Coast Air Quality Management District (all or parts of Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside and San Bernadino counties) are required to implement a ride-sharing program.

...Whenever employees were hired, she would put their names, addresses and phone numbers in the folder and tell them, if they were interested, she would try to match them with riders or drivers.  

...If we were to increase multiple-occupancy vehicles from 10-20% in rush hour to just 30-40%, the results would be dramatic &ndash; rapidly flowing traffic, little congestion, more parking spaces, and the concomitant environmental benefits.]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Obama -- A Personal Take</title><dc:creator>ben@brosen.com</dc:creator><dc:subject>Older Posts&#x2c; Ben Rosen Blog</dc:subject><dc:date>2008-01-05T17:07:59-05:00</dc:date><link>http://www.brosen.com/files/0d74afd9f1d0ddd2f16946a2cdc4c0db-5.html#unique-entry-id-5</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.brosen.com/files/0d74afd9f1d0ddd2f16946a2cdc4c0db-5.html#unique-entry-id-5</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[Among them are FDR (yes, I&rsquo;m that old), JFK, Adlai Stevenson (a two-time loser, but a charismatic speaker), and Colin Powell (whom I witnessed having CEOs and factory workers eat out of his hands; but then he declined the call).


The "something" that was going on in New Hampshire in early 2007 had nothing to do with his policy on this issue or that, or his votes in the Senate, or anything as specific as that.    Rather, the &ldquo;something going on,&rdquo; at least in our view, was that this could be a candidate who could unify this unbelievably polarized country (just as I thought that Colin Powell, a Republican, might have done).


...We then read Obama's books, we did some further research, and we soon got in touch with the Obama exploratory committee and said we&rsquo;d like to raise money for him &ndash; even though he had not yet declared.


...We learned in the process that many of our friends were behind Hillary, that a lot were Republicans, some were Biden fans, a few supported Richardson, and a lot were simply unwilling to commit to anyone that early.  ]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>On to Pyongyang -- Part 1</title><dc:creator>ben@brosen.com</dc:creator><dc:subject>Older Posts&#x2c; Ben Rosen Blog</dc:subject><dc:date>2008-01-02T17:06:36-05:00</dc:date><link>http://www.brosen.com/files/f7b6cda36b290cd1e3fc5b75b42dbbbd-4.html#unique-entry-id-4</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.brosen.com/files/f7b6cda36b290cd1e3fc5b75b42dbbbd-4.html#unique-entry-id-4</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[And Donna and I will be there also, along with some fellow board members, a few other curious parties, and 50 members of the world press.


...So the question arises:  Will this cultural exchange in February be a harbinger of improved relations with North Korea, much as the 1971 event presaged a new era of U.S.-China relations?  

...First, the Philharmonic trip is being strongly supported by Christopher Hill, the Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs and our chief negotiator in the Six-Party agreement regarding the North Korean nuclear program.  

...But the benefit to us in starting a dialog with the guys we&rsquo;re at odds with seems like a good step in narrowing our differences.  

...&ldquo;It horrified me--no other word is strong enough--to see them [the Philharmonic management] sitting next to the smirking representative of Kim Jong Il, the dictator of a brutally totalitarian state in whose Soviet-style prison camps 150,000 political prisoners are currently doing slave labor.&rdquo;  ]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Hurricanes -- Whither Thou Blowest?</title><dc:creator>ben@brosen.com</dc:creator><dc:subject>Older Posts&#x2c; Ben Rosen Blog</dc:subject><dc:date>2007-12-27T17:03:36-05:00</dc:date><link>http://www.brosen.com/files/fea1bcad039b1350995964531ec3cdf4-3.html#unique-entry-id-3</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.brosen.com/files/fea1bcad039b1350995964531ec3cdf4-3.html#unique-entry-id-3</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[I&rsquo;m not going into the various theories that are actively being studied by climatologists and meteorologists around the world, particularly the impact of climate change and warming ocean water temperatures on hurricane frequency and severity.    I&rsquo;m not going into them because (a) it&rsquo;s not my field, and (b) the theories are still just that &ndash; they&rsquo;re yet to be proved.  

...In 2005, the devastating year of Katrina and Rita, NOAA&rsquo;s May report predicted &ldquo;&hellip; a 70% chance of above-normal hurricane season... with 3-5 major hurricanes.&rdquo;  

...Then, in 2006, the May forecast called for another horrific season, with &ldquo;&hellip; an 80% chance of an above-normal hurricane season&hellip; and 4-6 major hurricanes.&rdquo;  

...Looking ahead to the 2008 hurricane season, beginning in five months, we&rsquo;ll get a new NOAA forecast in May that may or may not be prescient, and we&rsquo;ll have 157 of historical data that may or may not be useful.
]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Car of the Future</title><dc:creator>ben@brosen.com</dc:creator><dc:subject>Older Posts&#x2c; Ben Rosen Blog</dc:subject><dc:date>2007-12-25T17:03:06-05:00</dc:date><link>http://www.brosen.com/files/81026c7350bde3f123dffbacf1cbdc12-2.html#unique-entry-id-2</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.brosen.com/files/81026c7350bde3f123dffbacf1cbdc12-2.html#unique-entry-id-2</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[Fifteen years ago, my brother Harold, (father of the geostationary communications satellite) and I (father of two sons) started a company to build a hybrid-electric powertrain for passenger automobiles.  

...The pioneering General Motors EV-1 battery-powered car of the 1990s failed, among other reasons, because the range was limited by its use of lead-acid and later nickel-metal-hydride batteries. 


...Indeed, start-up Tesla Motors will start shipping its Roadster, with just under 7,000 lithium-ion batteries powering it, in the first quarter of 2008.


...Based on the two-seat Lotus Elise sports car, the Roadster will incorporate whiplash acceleration (zero to 60 in four seconds), ticket-garnering high speed (130 mph, electronically governed), and an acceptable 245-mile range.  

...But if one were to convert the energy used by the coal or natural gas at the central power plant to generate the electricity for recharging, it would be the equivalent of 135 miles per gallon.  ]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Horses vs. Humans -- Improvement of Which Breed?</title><dc:creator>ben@brosen.com</dc:creator><dc:subject>Older Posts&#x2c; Ben Rosen Blog</dc:subject><dc:date>2007-11-30T17:01:44-05:00</dc:date><link>http://www.brosen.com/files/da25a616f26b5079d77d29060e0b9644-1.html#unique-entry-id-1</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.brosen.com/files/da25a616f26b5079d77d29060e0b9644-1.html#unique-entry-id-1</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[If we look at all the race times in the last 57 years (the blue line), there has been essentially no improvement in speed.  

...By the way, the one real outlier in horse-racing in the last century, Secretariat, won in 1973 at a record 1:59 2/5 (119.4 seconds). 


So after countless generations of selective breeding of only the &ldquo;best&rdquo; with the &ldquo;best,&rdquo; after multimillion dollar prices paid at the Keeneland yearling sales for the progeny of the &ldquo;best&rdquo; sires and the &ldquo;best&rdquo; dams, after great improvements over the years in tracks conditioning, in nutrition, in veterinary, and in training -- the horses still can&rsquo;t run any faster than they did decades ago!  

...No Jockey Club, no highly regulated industry, no adhering to closely guarded rules as to who may breed with whom, the human is a product of mostly random couplings.  

...But that&rsquo;s the topic for a forthcoming blog, one that doesn&rsquo;t make horse-human comparisons, but rather man-woman, with at least one surprising observation.
]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Male vs. Women Swimmers</title><dc:creator>ben@brosen.com</dc:creator><dc:subject>Older Posts&#x2c; Ben Rosen Blog</dc:subject><dc:date>2007-12-05T17:01:21-05:00</dc:date><link>http://www.brosen.com/files/f3f1a6e3f34aa6f01d6585bd2fe1f69b-0.html#unique-entry-id-0</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.brosen.com/files/f3f1a6e3f34aa6f01d6585bd2fe1f69b-0.html#unique-entry-id-0</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[Well before the 1972 Olympics, in which he won seven gold medal and set seven world records, Mark Spitz (left) established the world record for the 400-meter freestyle (an event he didn&rsquo;t swim in the &rsquo;72 Olympics).  

...Today, some 40 years later, the men&rsquo;s 400-meter swimmers are still faster than the women, but the gap has narrowed by about four seconds -- the fastest male is just 22 seconds faster than the fastest woman.  

...But here&rsquo;s a fact that&rsquo;s far more interesting:  Today&rsquo;s record-holder in the women&rsquo;s 400-meter freestyle, Laure Manaudou of France, swims the event faster than Mark Spitz did when he initially set his world record in 1967!


...In a sport where records are usually broken by small fractions of a second, a woman today can swim over eight full seconds faster than the men&rsquo;s champion did not too long ago. 

...If this holds true in the future, look for the records of Michael Phelps (right), today&rsquo;s version of Mark Spitz and the greatest male swimmer in history, to start being eclipsed by women sometime around 2040.  ]]></content:encoded></item></channel>
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