A Great Local Establishment

This post is a thank you to Pete, the owner of J&P Carryout of 1538-40 Light St. If you live in South Baltimore anywhere near J&P, you probably know Pete. He's a friendly guy, always willing to stop and have a conversation with you. Plus, he makes a damn good cheesesteak.



One of Pete's greatest business decisions was to close at 3 AM on Fridays and Saturdays, because bars in Baltimore close at 2 AM. It was just such an occasion last weekend that I happened into Pete's establishment. Now, I had just come from a marathon "Round the World" party that had lasted something like 8 hours. And I had my brand-new, extra-expensive camera with me. It had made it with me through 6 house parties and 3 bars, but the second my pizza fries were ready, my attention was elsewhere.

About half an hour later, with my late-night junk food craving sated, I prepared for bed and thought "Wait? Where's my camera?!?" I sprinted back to J&P and was lucky enough to catch one of the cooks closing up. She informed me that they were closed and I shouted in a panic "I left my camera here a little bit ago!" I could tell by the look on her face that not only did she know what I was talking about, but that they might even have my camera. Sure enough, not only had they noticed that I'd left an expensive camera in their establishment, Pete had locked the camera up in the safe, figuring that I'd be back for it in the morning.

So here's to Pete, honest and friendly proprietor of a great local business. I completely recommend them to anyone in need of some late-night snacks.

Good While it Lasted

Well folks, it was good while it lasted. From September 28th through October 5th, no one was murdered in Baltimore. That's right, for the first time in two years the city went a full week without a homicide. That ended on Friday night, as homicide number 232 was logged on Eutaw Place.

So, based on the latest information, 234 murders (as of 10/7) in 291 days is 0.8 murders/day (or 4 murders every 5 days). But from that point on, there are only 76 days left in the year, which puts us on pace for 293 to 294 murders. Sadly, that's good news, as Baltimore was widely predicted to reach 300 murders this year.

The acting police commissioner and the mayor have been jumping all over the lull in the violence (see video from WJZ story), claiming that their new policies are having an effect. Personally, I'll believe it when I see it. Actually, I lead a very charmed life for Baltimore, so I don't really see it. There's been 1 murder in my neighborhood (researched using this website) in the last two years and that was on the other side of the neighborhood at that. There are blocks in Baltimore with multiple homicides this year!

When you look at that Sun article, the most amazing thing is the list of murder-free streaks for 2006 and 2007. Twice we've gone six days, and 8 times we've gone five days. That's it, in the last 21 months, 630+ days, there have been only 11 periods of five or more days without a murder. I can't imagine what it's like living in the rougher neighborhoods of this city, imagine the stress of knowing that a shooting could take place any minute. How much longer can people live like that? What's the next step?

Return of the Blog...with Pictures!

Now that the ultimate frisbee season is over for the year, I'm looking to have some more free time to write about things. Hopefully that translates into more blog entries. I've also spent a fair amount of money and purchased a Nikon D40x, so I will hopefully have some pretty cool pictures to post as well. For now, enjoy a couple of random Baltimore scenes...



Hmmm... Blogger seems to compress these pictures quite a bit. Here are links to full resolution versions (well, they're not full resolution, I cropped and compressed some from my camera's 10 megapizel output):

Baltimore Sunset
Harborview Condo Tower

Can a Headline Tell You Anything about an Article?

Furthering Slate.com's reputation for frivolous economic analysis*, Tim Hartford asks the question "Can physics explain why poor countries remain poor?" Want to know the answer? Well you won't get it from me.

It's not that I don't want to tell you the answer, it's that the subject of the article has nothing to do with the title. Apparently a couple physicists worked with some economists to produce an abstract map of economic space to see how different goods are connected (by the assumption that because if a lot of countries that export good A and good B, then somehow it is easy to move good A production to good B production and the productions of these two goods share some sort of connection).

Tim Hartford reads a lot into this (or maybe he just reads the authors' conclusions, I'm not excited enough about their pretty picture to read their actual research article). His point is that he doesn't know what physics is.

Just kidding, his point is that perhaps resource-rich poor countries can't diversify their economies because oil is fairly disconnected and far away other things on the map of abstract economic space. I'm not convinced that this map is any proof of anything. I think you're looking at a chicken-and-the-egg situation; has this illuminated a fundamental principle of economics (that switching from a resource-gathering activity to another economic activity is too woefully complex for poor countries to manage) OR is it telling us what we already know - that most countries rich in oil are run by corrupt assholes that don't bother to diversify their economies, thus skewing the data to show that oil production is not related to anything?

So, in summary, I would say that while I don't think they've proven that physics can explain why resource-rich countries can stay poor, I do think that you could use economics to explain why two physics PhD's would do economic analysis.

* - And highlighting a new publication of frivolous economic analysis - the magazine Science! Can someone tell me how this study got published in Science? I mean, it's sciencey, sure. They totally use some scientific analysis in economics, but I can't imagine how this is so ground-breaking as to deserve to be published in such a top journal. Maybe I'm going to actually have to read this article...

EZPass for Charity

Every so often I have a great idea. One of those ideas where the light bulb really blinks on above my head and I know, I've just had a good idea. So what's the point of having a blog if you don't post your great ideas so that some day in the far future you can launch a patent lawsuit?

So, here's my idea: EZPass for Charity. It's simple, but brilliant. First, you are a charitable organization. Next, you get an EZPass reader and you set up a little gateway. Say you're a church, for example. You'd set that baby up in your parking lot, set the value of the machine to $0.25, put up a sign saying "EZPass for the Soup Kitchen" and then let it work it's magic. Maybe you get a local business to put it up in their parking lot so that it gets more traffic.

So here's why this idea is great: it'll increase charitable giving. It will be the ultimate impulse buy. "Well, I've got EZPass, and I'm already in my car...why not drive through that little gate and give $0.25 to charity?" Everyone has EZPass or the regional equivalent (ok, I don't have EZPass, but I know that I should get it) and best of all, EZPass dollars are not real money. Go ahead, ask someone with EZPass how much it costs to drive across the Susquehanna River on I-95 North. They can't tell you because they never see the cost. It gets deducted right off their credit card and it's probably small in comparison to their income, so they never notice.

This is the future of charity fund-raising. It's completely unmanned, private, operates 24 hours a day, and could even be mobile. Imagine taking this to the county fair, or Raven's stadium on game day, or getting Wal-Mart to set it up in their parking lot for the Friday after Thanksgiving.

I'm telling you, this is a great idea! Now someone go out there and build an EZPass for Charity gate and start raising money! (I won't mind if you mention that I inspired you ;)