On the 8 Spot

I think the schedulers were maximizing profits with lots of Ginebra weekend Games!

from pba.ph

The following schedule, in so far as to which shall be the first and second games of any gameday may be changed/reset by the Commissioner for the best interest of the Association. – Section 20(h), PBA Constitution.

I’m watching tomorrows game with last conference’s finals rematch between Ginebra and Air21!!

Go Ginebra!

Great advise from Tim O’Reilly

We don’t know yet how problems in the overall economy will affect our business. But what we can do now are the things we ought to be doing anyway:

* Work on stuff that matters: Assuming that the world does go to hell in a handbasket, what would we still want to be working on? What will people need to know? (Chances are good that they need to know these things in a world where we all continue to muddle along as well.)

* Exert visionary leadership in our markets. In tough times, people look for inspiration and vision. The big ideas we care about will still matter, perhaps even more when people are looking for a way forward. (Remember how Web 2.0 gave hope and a story line to an industry struggling its way out of the dotcom bust.)

* Be prudent in what we spend money on. Get rid of the “nice to do” things, and focus on the “must do” things to accelerate them.

These are all things we should be doing every day anyway. Sometimes, though, a crisis can provide an unexpected gift, a reminder that nobody promised us tomorrow, so we need to make what we do today count.

Thoughts on the Financial Crisis – O’Reilly Radar.

Well at least the electorate is responsive. In the philippines except for the presidensy you can buy your way into any elected seat! And because the president cannot go for re-election and there really is no party system , we have a personality system of government, this means we are screwed!

On its own terms, though this can sometimes produce unfair outcomes (like Jimmy Carter getting booted for problems that were far beyond his capacity to control) I think swing voters’ habit of punishing incumbents for poor performance is an okay satisficing strategy. It’s part of the reason why democracy manages to work despite massive voter ignorance. The electorate may be composed of people who don’t understand the issues or where the candidates stand on them, but the people running the government have an incentive to try to implement policies that work out okay in order to avoid “throw the bums out” sentiment. The trouble is that Bartels’ study of American elections, at least, suggests massive myopia on the part of voters. Economic performance in an election year has a big impact on election outcomes, but economic performance in other years doesn’t get you anywhere. If that carries over to the UK (and, indeed, it seems to) that means that Labour won’t get any credit from voters for the fact that current problems were preceded by a long and impressive string of growth. And by the same token, voters don’t understand comparative issues — the fact that your country is doing better than most other countries amidst a global downturn won’t get you any credit.

Matthew Yglesias » Democracy’s Myopia Problem.