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Final Post
Posted in Economics on September 3, 2014
So I've been thinking about finishing up with this blog for a while. I have completed my economics degree now and have a lot less to say than I did before, at least without turning it into the type of blog where I repeat myself, which was never its purpose (its purpose was to allow me to think critically through different topics and ideas). I've had about half a million views on this blog over the past 3 years, and over 5000 comments on about 170 posts, all of which I am grateful for (well, almost all of them), but I think the time has finally come to stop using this page. I can't guarantee I won't use it again, but I don't plan to at this stage.
However, don't think that this entails me disappearing entirely. Here's what I will be doing:
- Starting my postgraduate studies in economics.
- Writing for Pieria as before, but I won't cross post to my posts from here.
- Contributing to a new blog/newsletter at IDEAnomics, a new project focused on bringing dynamics to economics and on reforming economics education (I'll be more involved with the latter). This project is headed by Steve Keen, and the blog/newsletter will (afaik) include contributions from Cameron Murray, Ann Pettifor, Michael Hudson and others. Be sure to subscribe!
- Tweeting too much.
- I have uploaded a full-length pdf of my recent series "Is the Economic Crisis a Crisis for Economics?', and have also posted an abridged, listicled (ha) version on Pieria.
- I have written an essay for the new student-led journal Perspectives, started by the Economics Society at King's College London, which is expected to be published in October. It is on the subject of whether economics is – or should be – a branch of science or philosophy. Incidentally, Noah Smith just wrote an article in a similar vein, but mine is more
long windedcomprehensive.
- I will still respond to emails at unlearningeconomics at gmail dot com (hopefully more reliably than I have done in the past – sorry!) Alternatively, feel free to comment on my 'About' page.
- Hanging around the blogosphere.
Thanks to my readers, frequent commenters, and followers of various stripes. I will leave you with a few, similar bloggers you should follow if you like my blog, but who I haven't recommended before (afaik): Cameron Murray at Fresh Economic Thinking; Graham Joncas at Linguistic Capital; Ramanan at The Case for Concerted Action; Squarely Rooted (who wrote this exceptional piece on Piketty); Robert Nielsen; Dan Gay over at Emergent Economics; and Dan Kervick over at Rugged Egalitarianism. Or why not click 'random post' in the top left and see if there's something you haven't read?
So, erm, keep unlearning, or something…
Pieria: The Rise and Fall of Piketty Critiques
Posted in Economics on August 26, 2014
I've been dragged back into the Piketty melee by a review of Piketty from 'New Institutional' superstars Daren Acemoglu & James Robinson. Unsurprisingly, they focus on the institutional aspects of Piketty's work, charging that his framework doesn't pay much attention to institutions. I disagree:
The claim that Piketty's work is ahistorical and ainstitutional is an odd one which is easily belied. For a start, Piketty states that the truth of r > g "depends, however, on the shocks to which capital is subject, as well as on what public policies and institutions are put in place to regulate the relationship between capital and labor." Piketty's obvious awareness of institutions is presumably the reason he spends four chapters documenting the kinds of political institutions that might be put in place to counteract a rise in inequality.
They dispute Piketty's use of 'general laws', but they misinterpret the laws in numerous ways – the biggest mistake is the idea they are even supposed to be 'general laws', rather than empirically established tendencies:
[Piketty] is simply not seeking to uncover general laws of capitalism. What he is doing is identifying the conditions under which inequality will tend to increase, asking whether they are empirically reasonable, and making predictions based on this framework. His first law is just an identity; his second law is an "asymptotic law", subject to a number of qualifiers, which describes the direction in which the capital/income ratio will evolve at any one time. As for r > g, he himself states that it "is a contingent historical proposition, which is true in some periods and political contexts and not in others."
I've been a vocal critic of people who do not read Piketty or read him poorly, and I don't want to be a hypocrite with AR's book Why Nations Fail, which I have not yet read. But I am pessimistic that it follows the theme of their review: posit a theory in which institutions take centre stage; repeat a superficial history of a series of countries in turn, interpreted from that viewpoint; stick some econometrics in. Or, as Branko Milanovic called it, "Wikipedia entries with regressions". I'm genuinely asking people who've read the book to persuade me that this is not the case.
Economists Dissing Economics
Posted in Economics on August 23, 2014
For whatever reason, I found myself compiling a list of 20 or so quotes, mostly from well known economists, criticising mainstream economics. What's most interesting is that although the quotes come from a wide range of economists, with different political views and from different times, they seem to have a lot in common.
The purpose of studying economics is not to acquire a set of ready-made answers to economic questions, but to learn how to avoid being deceived by economists.
― Joan Robinson
Economics is extremely useful as a form of employment for economists.
― John Kenneth Galbraith
The only function of economic forecasting is to make astrology look respectable.
― John Kenneth Galbraith
…the discipline of economics has yet to get over its childish passion for mathematics and for purely theoretical and often highly ideological speculation, at the expense of historical research and collaboration with the other social sciences.
― Thomas Piketty
Too large a proportion of recent "mathematical" economics are mere concoctions, as imprecise as the initial assumptions they rest on, which allow the author to lose sight of the complexities and interdependencies of the real world in a maze of pretentious and unhelpful symbols.
― John Maynard Keynes
We move from more or less plausible but really arbitrary assumptions, to elegantly demonstrated but irrelevant conclusions.
― Wassily Leontief
Existing economics is a theoretical system which floats in the air and which bears little relation to what happens in the real world.
― Ronald Coase
The economics profession went astray because economists, as a group, mistook beauty, clad in impressive-looking mathematics, for truth.
― Paul Krugman
Economics has become increasingly an arcane branch of mathematics rather than dealing with real economic problems.
― Milton Friedman
Modern economics is sick. Economics has increasingly become an intellectual game played for its own sake and not for its practical consequences for understanding the economic world. Economists have converted the subject into a sort of social mathematics in which analytical rigour is everything and practical relevance is nothing.
― Mark Blaug
Economics has never been a science – and it is even less now than a few years ago.
― Paul Samuelson
For far too long economists have sought to define themselves in terms of their supposedly scientific methods. In fact, those methods rely on an immoderate use of mathematical models, which are frequently no more than an excuse for occupying the terrain and masking the vacuity of the content.
― Thomas Piketty
In my youth it was said that what was too silly to be said may be sung. In modern economics it may be put into mathematics.
― Ronald Coase
If economists wished to study the horse, they wouldn't go and look at horses. They'd sit in their studies and say to themselves, "what would I do if I were a horse?
― Ronald Coase
Any man who is only an economist is unlikely to be a good one.
― F. A. Hayek
The study of economics has been again and again led astray by the vain idea that economics must proceed according to the pattern of other sciences.
― Ludwig von Mises
The use of mathematics has brought rigor to economics. Unfortunately, it has also brought mortis.
― Robert Heilbroner
An economist is an expert who will know tomorrow why the things he predicted yesterday didn't happen today.
― Laurence J. Peter
When an economist says the evidence is "mixed," he or she means that theory says one thing and data says the opposite.
― Richard Thaler
The First Law of Economists: For every economist, there exists an equal and opposite economist.
The Second Law of Economists: They're both wrong.
― David Wildasin
The Crisis & Economics, Part 7: A Case of Myopia?
Posted in Economics on August 15, 2014
This is the final part in my series on how the financial crisis is relevant for economics (here are parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 & 6). Each part explores an argument economists have made against the charge that the crisis exposed fundamental failings of their discipline, with the quality of the arguments increasing as the series goes on. This post discusses probably the strongest claim that economists can make about the crisis: they do understand it, and any previous failures were simply due to inattention or misapplication, rather than fundamental problems with the theory itself.
Argument #7: "Economists had the tools in place, but we overspecialised and systemic problems caught us off guard."
Raghuram Rajan was probably the first to take this sort of line, arguing that overspecialisation prevented economists from using the tools they had to foresee and deal with the crisis. But while Rajan's piece also made a number of other criticisms of economics, over time the discipline seems to have reasserted this argument more strongly: not too long ago, Paul Krugman argued that although "few economists saw the crisis coming…basic textbook macroeconomics has performed very well". Similarly, Tim Harford claimed at an INET conference last year that the tools necessary to understand the crisis already existed in mainstream economics, and the problem was simply one of knowing when and how to use them. He compared financial crises to engineering disasters, which were understandable using current knowledge but happened nonetheless, due to negligence or oversight on the part of the engineers.
So how true is this claim? Certainly, a number of economic models exist for understanding things like panics, liquidity problems and moral hazard. The most well known of these are the Diamond-Dybvig (DD) model of bank runs – which shows what happens when banks have liquid liabilities (such as demand deposits) which must be available at any time, but have illiquid assets (such as loans) which are not fully convertible to cash on demand – and the Akerlof-Romer (AR) model of financial 'looting', which shows that deposit guarantees may create moral hazard as investors gamble other peoples' money. If you combine tools like these, which help us understand the financial sector, with tools like IS/LM, which tell us how to escape a downturn once it happens, in theory you have a pretty solid set of tools for dealing with the recent crisis.
The first objection I have to these models is that many of their insights could be considered trivial, or at least common sense. The DD model came to the conclusion that deposit insurance might be helpful way to prevent bank runs, which is hardly a revelation considering it came 50 years after FDR and the general public figured out the same thing. The AR model came to the conclusion that deposit insurance and limited liability might create perverse incentives as banks gamble 'other peoples money', which again must have been obvious to the policymakers who put Glass-Steagal and other financial regulations in place. Perhaps this point is a little harsh, and I don't want to overstate it: on the whole, these papers are asking important questions, and in the case of AR they answer them well. Nevertheless, there's no point in economic theory if it can't tell us things we didn't already know. Even the idea that central banks should provide emergency liquidity to banks in trouble is quite obvious, and it predates modern economic theory by a good while.
However, this is not the most important point. The issue I have with these models is that in many of them everything interesting happens outside the model. In Krugman's favoured IS/LM, a 'crisis' is represented by a simple shift in the IS curve, which in English means that a decline in production is cause by…a decline in production. Where this decline came from is presumably a matter for outside the model. Even the most sophisticated macroeconomic models often follow a similar tack, merely describing what happens when the economy suffers from a shock, without exploring possible causes for the shock. Likewise, the DD model suggests bank runs happen because everyone panics, but what causes these panics is not explored: it is assumed depositors' expectations are exogenous, whether fixed or following a stochastic (random) pattern. Yet studies such as Mishkin (1991) find that bank runs generally follow periods of stress elsewhere in the economy, a fact which DD simply cannot capture.
Economic models are narrowly focused like this because they are generally designed to answer straightforward questions about causality: does the minimum wage cause unemployment; does expansionary fiscal policy cause growth; does a mismatch between illiquid assets and liquid liabilities cause bank runs. But the crisis was an endogenously generated process in which different aspects of the economy – the housing market, the financial sector, government policy – combined to create something bigger than the sum of its parts, and in which it is not possible to isolate a single cause. Consider: the collapse of Lehman Brothers may have triggered the worst of the crisis, but was it really to blame? The economy was already in a fragile place due to systemic trends that can't necessarily be traced to a single law, institution or actor. Just like the murder of Franz Ferdinand in World War 1, we have to look beyond the immediate and focus on the general if we truly want to understand what happened.
To sum up, the economists above want to argue that they are only culpable insofar as they overspecialised and failed to focus on the right areas in this particular instance. However, the reason for this was not just because of personal myopia; it's because their chosen methodology means they lack the tools to do so. A model of one aspect of the economy which takes the effect of other areas as exogenous will fail to detect potential positive feedback loops and emergent properties. A model which takes the crisis itself as an exogenous 'shock' is even worse, and in many ways is hardly a model of the crisis at all, since it offers no understanding of why crises might happen in the first place. Are there alternatives? I have previously written about how post-Keynesian and Marxist models offer more comprehensive understandings of the financial crisis and antecedent decades; I shan't repeat myself here. Other promising areas include network theory, evolutionary economics and Agent-Based Modelling. All of these share that they take the system as a whole instead of focusing on isolated mechanics.
I see the crisis in economics as a shock (!!) which hits macroeconomics hard and reverberates throughout the discipline. Regardless of the pleas of some, such events can be seen coming, and they cannot be handwaved away as part of an overall upward trend. And even if individual economists are not in control of policy, key economists have substantial influence, not to mention the theories and ideas in economics as a whole. Recent developments in macroeconomics still leave a lot to be desired, while previously existing tools suffer from similar problems: a lack of holism; a wooden insistence on microfoundations; and attempt to understand everything in terms of simplistic causal links, often relative to a frictionless baseline. Finally, although many areas of economics are not directly indicted by the crisis, many of them share key problems with macroeconomics, and as such the crisis should prompt at least a degree of introspection throughout the discipline.
The Real Problem with the Broken Window Fallacy
Posted in Economics on August 8, 2014
John Quiggin recently posted on the "Broken Window Fallacy" (BWF), a parable beloved by libertarians, originating from Frederic Bastiat but finding its most modern exposition in Henry Hazlitt. The basic idea is that while breaking a window will seem to stimulate spending by providing work for a glazier, the money used to employ him could have been spent elsewhere, say by employing a tailor to make a new suit. Therefore, as a result of the broken window the community has only a window (what they started with), rather than both the original window and a new suit. We must look at the "unseen" in order to understand the true economic effects of smashing the window.
Quiggin tries to refute the fallacy thusly:
Implicit in the crowd's reaction is the assumption that glaziers are short of work. If (as sometimes happens) glaziers have more jobs than they can handle, then there is no extra window – at best, the shopkeepers order simply displaces some other, less urgent, repair. Similarly, for Hazlitt's riposte about the tailor to work, there must exist unemployed resources in the tailoring industry, so that the shopkeeper's suit represents an addition to output. If not, the additional demand from the shopkeeper will raise the price of suits marginally, just enough to lead some other customer to buy one less suit. So, the story seems to imply that the economy is in recession, with unemployment across a wide range of industries.
Yet "rais[ing] the price of suits marginally" – such that the person most willing to pay receives the suit – is precisely what libertarians have in mind when they envision a market economy functioning nicely. Under the assumption of full employment and no broken window, the shopkeeper purchases a suit while the glazier is put to work elsewhere creating a new window. Under the assumption of full employment and a broken window, the shopkeeper employs the glazier, meaning that somebody who previously would have employed the glazier goes without, while the tailor is put to work for somebody who likes the suit slightly less than the shopkeeper. Aggregate welfare and wealth is decreased, even if the flow of production is the same.
Quiggin attempts to introduce the assumption of unemployment to counter the standard story:
With these facts in mind, we can tell a different story. Suppose that the glazier, having been out of work for some time, has worn out his clothes. Having fixed the window and been paid, he may take his $50 and buy a new suit. To make the story stop here, we'll suppose that the tailor is a miser (a vice traditionally associated with the clothing industry, as with Silas Marner), and puts the money under his mattress. So, in this version of the story, the glazier and the tailor are both paid, and the social product is increased by a new window and a new suit.
But the social product is not increased. If the window were not broken, we'd have a window and a new suit. When the window is broken, we have a window and a new suit. The allocation of the suit has changed, but not the total product. Quiggin will never refute the BWF like this, on its own terms, because if you start with the premise that a window gets broken, you will inevitably end up at the conclusion that the world is worse off than before. Once the window has been broken, we have lost $50 worth of window and will have to replace it. Depending on your ethical presuppositions, you might view the redistribution as desirable, and the employment of the glazier as an end in itself, but this is another debate.
And this is the real problem with the BWF: it's a complete straw man. Noone, anywhere, ever, has claimed that 'breaking windows' is a desirable economic strategy, or that it will somehow add to wealth or welfare. True, you can pick and choose your own auxiliary assumptions to add 'silver lining' to the story. Given that the window is broken, the fact that the glazier then wants to buy a new suit is better than if he just hoarded the money. Perhaps the new window is slightly nicer than the old one. Perhaps, as a commenter suggested, the shopkeeper has an emergency fund which is "psychologically separate" from his other money, so he still buys both the window and the suit. Or maybe the glazier has an apprentice who benefits from the training when he otherwise wouldn't, while the tailor does not. We can do this all day but ultimately, the broken window devotes resources which could have been used – even if they were previously idle – to increasing wealth and welfare.
Should we utilise idle resources? The answer to this question needn't have anything to do with breaking windows. Quiggin, like most critics of the BWF, implicitly recognises this, which is why he stresses that none of what he says "means that it's a good idea to go around smashing windows during recessions." So why start with the assumption of a broken window? We could instead tell an alternative story where there is no broken window. The tailor is unemployed, and there is a kid who wants a shirt but cannot afford it. The government prints $50 and gives it to the kid, who buys a shirt from the tailor, increasing the social product without any broken windows. This story is similarly arbitrary, demonstrating the ease with which we can formulate a parable to come to the conclusion we like. But the question of which story's assumptions (in particular unemployment) are true or not is an empirical matter.
Quiggin, in trying to refute an abstract parable built on arbitrary assumptions by introducing his own, slightly different arbitrary assumptions, is fighting a losing battle. The BWF may or may not be useful for demonstrating a certain point, but it is not a model of the economy and it is not always and everywhere applicable to economic problems. If you are arguing with somebody who thinks repeating 'Broken Window Fallacy' at you will settle the debate, you aren't going to convince them by telling them the 'Broken Window Fallacy, version 2'. You simply need to stop having the debate in terms of Broken Windows, and start having it in terms of what is actually going on in the economy. Otherwise you'll be forever trapped at a useless level of abstraction.
The Crisis & Economics, Part 6: "Oh, You Just Mean Macro"
Posted in Economics on August 4, 2014
This is part 6 in my series on how the financial crisis is relevant for economics (here are parts 1, 2, 3, 4 & 5). Each part explores an argument economists have made against the charge that the crisis exposed fundamental failings of their discipline. This post discusses the argument that the 'crisis in economics' is confined only to macroeconomics, which is actually minority, so attacking all of economics is wrongheaded.
Argument #6: "Sure, modern macroeconomics is pretty weak. But most economists don't even work on macro, so they are unaffected."
Quite a lot of economists consider the debate about the financial crisis irrelevant to what they do. After all, why should a crisis at the macro level invalidate econometrics, game theory or auction theory? Attacking these fields and others for the recession is like blaming mechanical engineers for a bridge collapse. In fact, many economists hold macro in the same (low) esteem as the public: Daniel Hamermesh goes so far as to claim that "most of what the macro guys do in academia is just worthless rubbish", but adds that the kind of field he works in "has contributed tremendously and continues to contribute". Even the discipline's most vehement defenders are willing to concede macroeconomics is bunk.
There is a considerable amount of truth to this view. While there may be critiques of all areas in economics, the claim that the financial crisis is what's thrown them into disrepute is a non sequitur. Critics should therefore be careful to distinguish macroeconomists from their colleagues when (rightly) dismissing the former's failure to deal with the crisis. Nevertheless, there are two major ways in which the failings of macroeconomics are symptomatic of more general problems with economic theory, so the discipline as a whole cannot be let off the hook.
The first is a lack of holism. A large amount of economic theories are built in an abstract theoretical vacuum, with little reference to what is happening around the individual agent. But the importance of the macroeconomy for behaviour in specific sectors or by specific actors cannot be ignored. For example, if you drop the macroeconomic assumption of full employment, this affects theories in areas from public goods provision to labour markets to Walrasian equilibrium. Consumers' and firms' expectations are strongly informed by the macroeconomic and political environment around them. Considering the effects of political institutions such as unions on the labour market, but ignoring their broader political role, can create narrow and misguided conclusions about their efficacy. New Institutional economics often takes 'institutions' as exogenous, failing to consider to two-way interaction between institutions and agents. The in-vogue 'Randomised Control Trial' restricts the economic environment to such a degree that it's questionable whether one can generalise the results at all. And so forth.
Don't get me wrong: there is an obvious case for different areas of economics being separate from one another: taking certain parameters as exogenous to look at a certain area, and using different tools for different areas. But even the most specialised fields should never forget the broader scope and context of their ideas, and this should be reflected in the theoretical approach. Thomas Piketty's Capital is a shining example of how to intertwine theory, history, statistics and politics to build a better understanding of capitalism. Another is the attempt by ecological economists to place the economy in its environmental context, rather than simply taking resource endowments as a given and assuming pollution just sort of…disappears, save for its monetary cost. Minsky's Financial Instability Hypothesis shows one way to make an effective link between the behaviour of investors and broader economic performance, integrating finance and macroeconomics. Overspecialisation may cause economists to miss these key insights.
The second issue is that many of the problems with macroeconomics can be applied to, or are relevant for, other areas of the discipline. One of the key complaints about macroeconomics – that it relies on microfoundations – is a problem precisely because it imports unrealistic assumptions about economic behaviour from microeconomics. The problem of having an abundance of abstract models, each seeking to explain one or two 'things', but with no real way to tell which model is applicable and when, applies not just to macroeconomics but also to behavioural economics, microeconomics, oligopoly theory. Endogenous money, which is central to macroeconomists' lack of understanding of the crisis, also has major implications for finance. To reuse my above analogy, you might well be concerned about mechanical engineers after a bridge collapse if they largely relied on the same methods used by the civil engineers.
Your average economist is probably right to point out that the public's ire should be focused not on them, but on macroeconomics. However, this doesn't mean that they are immune from the serious questions the crisis raised about the methodology, assumptions and ethics of the field. It's a case-by-case matter which areas are impacted and by how much, but any attempt to box off macroeconomic theory entirely should be resisted. There's plenty of room for fruitful debate about all areas of economic theory, much of which will benefit from being informed by the shortcomings of economic theory as exposed by the financial crisis.
The Crisis & Economics, Part 5: "Shhh! We're Working On It"
Posted in Economics on July 24, 2014
This is part 5 in my series on how the financial crisis is relevant for economics (parts 1, 2, 3 & 4 are here). Each part explores an argument economists have made against the charge that the crisis exposed fundamental failings of their discipline. This post explores the possibility that macroeconomics, even if it failed before the crisis, has responded to its critics and is moving forward.
Argument #5: "We got this one wrong, sure, but we've made (or are making) progress in macroeconomics, so there's no need for a fundamental rethink."
Many macroeconomists deserve credit for their mea culpa and subsequent refocus following the financial crisis. Nevertheless, the nature of the rethink, particularly the unwillingness to abandon certain modelling techniques and ideas, leads me to question whether progress can be made without a more fundamental upheaval. To see why, it will help to have a brief overview of how macro models work.
In macroeconomic models, the optimisation of agents means that economic outcomes such as prices, quantities, wages and rents adjust to the conditions imposed by input parameters such as preferences, technology and demographics. A consequence of this is that sustained inefficiency, unemployment and other chaotic behaviour usually occur when something 'gets in the way' of this adjustment. Hence economists introduce ad hoc modifications such as sticky prices, shocks and transaction costs to generate sub-optimal behaviour: for example, if a firm's cost of changing prices exceeds the benefit, prices will not be changed and the outcome will not be Pareto efficient. Since there are countless ways in which the world 'deviates' from the perfectly competitive baseline, it's mathematically troublesome (or impossible) to include every possible friction. The result is that macroeconomists tend to decide which frictions are important based on real world experience: since the crisis, the focus has been on finance. On the surface this sounds fine – who isn't for informing our models with experience? However, it is my contention that this approach does not offer us any more understanding than would experience alone.
Perhaps an analogy will illustrate this better. I was once walking past a field of cows as it began to rain, and I noticed some of them start to sit down. It occurred to me that there was no use them doing this after the storm started; they are supposed to give us adequate warning by sitting down before it happens. Sitting down during a storm is just telling us what we already know. Similarly, although the models used by economists and policy makers did not predict and could not account for the crisis before it happened, they have since built models that try to do so. They generally do this by attributing the crisis to frictions that revealed themselves to be important during the crisis. Ex post, a friction can always be found to make models behave a certain way, but the models do not make identifying the source of problems before they happen any easier, and they don't add much afterwards, either – we certainly didn't need economists to tell us finance was important following 2008. In other words, when a storm comes, macroeconomists promptly sit down and declare that they've solved the problem of understanding storms. It becomes difficult to escape the circularity of defining the relevant friction by its outcome, hence stripping the idea of 'frictions' of predictive power or falsifiability.
There is also the open question of whether understanding the impact of a 'friction' relative to a perfectly competitive baseline entails understanding its impact in the real world. As theorists from Joe Stiglitz to Yanis Varoufakis have argued, neoclassical economics is trapped in a permanent fight against indeterminacy: the quest to understand things relative to a perfectly competitive, microfounded baseline leads to aggregation problems and intractable complexities that, if included, result in "anything goes" conclusions. To put in another way, the real world is so complex and full of frictions that whichever mechanics would be driving the perfectly competitive model are swamped. The actions of individual agents are so intertwined that their aggregate behaviour cannot be predicted from each of their 'objective functions'. Subsequently, our knowledge of the real world must be informed by either models which use different methodologies or, more crucially, by historical experience.
Finally, the ad hoc approach also contradicts another key aspect of contemporary macroeconomics: microfoundations. The typical justification for these is that, to use the words of the ECB, they impose "theoretical discipline" and are "less subject to the Lucas critique" than a simple VAR, Old Keynesian model or another more aggregative framework. Yet even if we take those propositions to be true, the modifications and frictions that are so crucial to making the models more realistic are often not microfounded, sometimes taking the form of entirely arbitrary, exogenous constraints. Even worse is when the mechanism is profoundly unrealistic, such as prices being sticky because firms are randomly unable to change them for some reason. In other words, macroeconomics starts by sacrificing realism in the name of rigour, but reality forces it in the opposite direction, and the end result is that it has neither.
Macroeconomists may well defend their approach as just a 'story telling' approach, from which they can draw lessons but which isn't meant to hold in the same manner as engineering theory. Perhaps this is defensible in itself, but (a) personally, I'd hope for better and (b) in practice, this seems to mean each economists can pick and choose whichever story they want to tell based on their prior political beliefs. If macroeconomists are content conversing in mathematical fables, they should keep these conversations to themselves and refrain from forecasting or using them to inform policy. Until then, I'll rely on macroeconomic frameworks which are less mathematically 'sophisticated', but which generate ex ante predictions that cover a wide range of observations, and which do not rely on the invocation of special frictions to explain persistent deviations from these predictions.
Pieria: The Ethics of Inequality
Posted in Economics on July 18, 2014
New post on Pieria, discussing why inequality could be ethically 'wrong':
What is inequality?
Inequality is a situation where certain people have access to things – places, goods, services – which others do not. Historically, inequalities have often been enforced by fiat, such as aristocracies and guilds, or perhaps based on group characteristics, such as apartheid or slavery. In capitalist societies, we typically use property rights to restrict peoples' access to resources. A poor man who walks into a store and tries to take something without paying will be prevented from doing so by security or the police, while a rich man who pays will not. The same applies to private schools, expensive social clubs or fine works of art. Unless you have a sufficient number of vouchers (money), you are legally and socially restricted from access to the overwhelming majority of resources in society.
Justifying inequality therefore entails arguing why some deserve more of these vouchers, and hence greater access to places, to goods and services, to social opportunities, than others. Defenders of inequality typically rely on one of 3 ethical arguments: just deserts, voluntarism, and grow the pie. I will consider each of these arguments in turn.
As I said on twitter, the article was definitely influenced by Matt Bruenig, but for balance here's me saying similar things quite a while ago. The point is that contemporary debate often has it backwards: it is asked why exactly we should reduce inequality, as if that is some sort of natural baseline. But if you accept that people are born equal (which most do, even if they don't like to say it out loud), then the question is why some are more restricted from pieces of the world than others. Defenders of inequality sometimes proceed as if the 3 ethical arguments above override any other concerns.
The Illusion of Mathematical Certainty
Posted in Economics on July 10, 2014
Nate Silver's questionable foray into predicting World Cup results got me thinking about the limitations of maths in economics (and the social sciences in general). I generally stay out of this discussion because it's completely overdone, but I'd like to rebut a popular defence of mathematics in economics that I don't often see challenged. It goes something like this:
Everyone has assumptions implicit in the way they view the world. Mathematics allows economists to state our assumptions clearly and make sure our conclusions follow from our premises so we can avoid fuzzy thinking.
I do not believe this argument stands on its own terms. A fuzzy concept does not become any less fuzzy when you attach an algebraic label to it and stick it into an equation with other fuzzy concepts to which you've attached algebraic labels (a commenter on Noah Smith's blog provided a great example of this by mathematising Freud's Oedipus complex and pointing out it was still nonsense). Similarly, absurd assumptions do not become any less absurd when they are stated clearly and transparently, and especially not when any actual criticism of these assumptions is brushed off the grounds that "all models are simplifications".
Furthermore, I'm not convinced that using mathematics actually brings implicit assumptions out into the open. I can't count the amount of times that I've seen people invoke demand-supply without understanding that it is built on the assumption of perfect competition (and refusing to acknowledge this point when challenged). The social world is inescapably complex, so there are an overwhelming variety of assumptions built into any type of model, theory or argument that tries to understand it. These assumptions generally remain unstated until somebody who is thinking about an issue – with or without mathematics – comes along and points out their importance.
For example, consider Michael Sandel's point that economic theory assumes the value or characteristics of commodities are independent of their price and sale, and once you realise this is unrealistic (for example with sex), you come to different conclusions about markets. Or Robert Prasch's point that economic theory assumes there is a price at which all commodities will be preferred to one another, which implies that at some price you'd substitute beer for your dying sister's healthcare*. Or William Lazonick's point that economic theory presumes labour productivity to be innate and transferable, whereas many organisations these days benefit from moulding their employees' skills to be organisation specific. I could go on, but the point is that economic theory remains full of implicit assumptions. Understanding and modifying these is a neverending battle that mathematics does not come close to solving.
Let me stress that I am not arguing against the use of mathematics; I'm arguing against using gratuitous, bad mathematics as a substitute for interesting and relevant thinking. If we wish to use mathematics properly, it is not enough to express properties algebraically; we have to define the units in which these properties are measured. No matter how logical mathematics makes your theory appear, if the properties of key parameters are poorly defined, they will not balance mathematically and the theory will be logical nonsense. Furthermore, it has to be demonstrated that the maths is used to come to new, falsifiable conclusions, rather than rationalising things we already know. Finally, it should never be presumed that stating a theory mathematically somehow guards that theory against fuzzy thinking, poor logic or unstated assumptions. There is no reason to believe it is a priori desirable to use mathematics to state a theory or explore an issue, as some economists seem to think.
*This has a name in economics: the axiom of gross substitution. However, it often goes unstated or at least underexplored: for example, these two popular microeconomics texts do not mention it all.
The Crisis & Economics, Part 4: Masters of the Universe?
Posted in Economics on July 7, 2014
This is part 4 in my series on economics and the crisis, which asks whether economics is really responsible for policy, and if so, how these policies may have contributed to the financial crisis. Here are parts 1, 2 & 3.
Argument #4: "Mainstream economics cannot be blamed for politicians inflating housing bubbles/pursuing austerity/deregulating the financial sector; our models generally go against this. Clearly, we do not have that much influence over policy."
This defence really raises two questions. The first is whether or not economic theory has had a major influence on policy. The second is whether or not this influence, if it exists, is culpable in creating the financial crisis.
The first is, in my opinion, easily answered in the affirmative. While it's entirely understandable that the majority of academic economists would scoff at the idea that they effect policy, this doesn't have to be the case for economic theory itself to hold sway among governments. After all, economics graduates are highly sought after and employed in policymaking positions. Famous economists lunch with the president; textbooks and macroeconomic papers are full of policy discussions; prize-winning economists such as Bob Shiller acknowledge that a "problem with economics is that it is necessarily focused on policy, rather than discovery of fundamentals." It's hard to imagine powerful institutions such as Central Banks, the World Bank or the IMF functioning with advice from any but economists, and government organisations are even set up based on new ideas coming out of economics. Economics is the language in which the media discuss policy: demand, stimulus, markets, etcetera. I could go on.
However, as economists like to remind us, there's no reason to believe that advice based on mainstream economic theory should have led to the types of 'free market' policies typically implicated in the financial crisis and its aftermath. Even a basic economics education will leave you with an awareness of things like information asymmetry, moral hazard and externalities, and few economists support wanton deregulation of the financial sector. Modern macroeconomics is loosely pro-stimulus, not pro-austerity. So what's going on?
First, it should be noted that not only 'free market' thinking was implicated in the crisis. Central Banks around the world used inflation targeting, based on the New Keynesian idea that this would be sufficient to achieve macroeconomic stability, which blinded them to problems brewing in the financial sector. What's more, the approach to regulation favoured by economics was, not atypically, quite narrow and didn't favour systemic thinking. For example, I have previously spoken about Value at Risk (VaR) regulation, which forces firms to sell off assets when markets are volatile and hence increase their insurance against risk. However, while this looks good from the perspective of individual firms, it worsens systemic risk because the asset sell-offs result in increased volatility. Overall, the reductionist nature of economic theory tended to blind policymakers to systemic problems and made them focus on the wrong variables, things they might not have done if they'd been familiar with more holistic viewpoints.
Having said this, it's clear that at the heart of the financial crisis were lax regulatory policies, justified by a belief in the self-stabilising power of financial markets. And while a majority of individual economists may not endorse such a view, theoretical frameworks or 'ways of thinking' came out of economics which were used to justify this deregulation. Whether or not efficient markets, perfect competition, rational expectations and other theories which imply financial markets will run smoothly are endorsed by most economists, the fact that they are common knowledge in economics (and usually the benchmark for more complex analysis) is significant. As I've argued before, familiarity with economic theory lends itself to a pro-market view, even if a lot of modern work is done pushing the core framework away from this. And as I've argued before, the nuances of this work are often lost in popular translation, as the elegance of the most Panglossian theories proves too tempting when economists speak to the public. Alternative theories which use different starting points for analysis, such as input-output matrices, sectoral balances, or class struggle, would help to combat the deeply ingrained nature of the neoclassical theories.
This issue does not necessarily fit into a narrow 'government versus market' policy perspective. Instead, the point is that acknowledging different approaches in economic theory can give us a different way of thinking about policy, illuminating rather than obfuscating debates. A key complaint about economics graduates is that they have overly narrow, abstract tools, so the enemy is not so much any particular approach as it is one sided thinking. Providing both economics students and professional economists with an awareness of different theories, as well as making economics more politically, historically and ethically engaged, would hopefully at least temper the zeal and enthusiasm with which pet policies are recommended, and partially dislodge whatever pedestal economics currently sits on as a rationale for policy.


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DEWALT offers a 30-day money back guarantee on all DEWALT accessories, except for pressure washer accessories. DEWALT accessories are fully guaranteed against defects in material and workmanship. The warranty does not cover misuse of product or normal wear and tear.

subset: commoncrawl


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I have keep a running list of attendance for the 802.11/15/18/20/21/22 wireless interims over the last few years (attached). Note that the September count is only pre-registration. We typically get 50-100 walk-ins as well. It does show that if you pick the wrong location (e.g., Australia) attendance suffers. Berlin was a good example of a nNA location that worked. Taiwan in January of 2008 will be a challenge to see if it does attract the Asian members we did not see in Australia (claimed to be an AsiaPAC location). Regards, John On 9/13/07 7:00 PM, "David Bagby" <firstname.lastname@example.com> wrote: > Hi - > > I've been reading a fair amount about how SEC members wish the world were, > but not much discussion about how it is. For me, the recent venue discussion > thread is missing significant points - > > Heinlein may have said it best: > "What are the facts? Again and again and again - what are the facts? Shun > wishful thinking, ignore divine revelation, forget what "the stars > foretell," avoid opinion, care not what the neighbors think, never mind the > unguessable "verdict of history" - what are the facts, and to how many > decimal places? You pilot always into an unknown future; facts are your > single clue. Get the facts!" > > I'd like to form my opinion re non-NA venues from some facts. I think 802 > has the desired data, let's see what it tells us. > > 1) attendance vs. locations - what is the data? > 802 is an organization that depends on volunteer labor. What are the facts > wrt to attendance at various categories of locations? I don't have the 802 > attendance data or I'd have done the exercise myself. I'd like to see some > simple analysis of 802 attendance data. A starting idea: a simple 2 bar > graph - one bar is average attendance at NA location for some period (say > the most recent 5 years) and the other bar is the average attendance at > non-NA locations for the same period. > > I suspect there is a significant difference between the two bars. Further I > suspect that the NA bar will be the higher one (that's just what my > experience over 17+ years of participation tells me I would expect - but > again, what are the facts?) > > 2) what does this data tell us? > Set aside the discussion of how SEC members "want" 802 to be perceived in > the world (and then asserting that this justifies non-NA venues), and let's > spend a little bit of time considering what the membership is telling us > about what they want for locations. > > The requested data is likely to tell us something significant about what the > aggregate membership is (and has been) willing to support wrt to venue > locations. > > For each session the members have voted with their time and dollars - and I > suspect the reality is that there is a real, significant, manpower cost to > non-NA venues. Take the difference in the bars from the graph, and do the > math - add up the delta man-hours and apply an average burdened manpower > rate (between $200 and 4250/hr the last time I looked) to convert to $ - > this will be a first estimate of a real $ cost from venue dependant manpower > deltas. > > If the membership has been willing to pay the direct costs of non-NA venues > for the time period for which we have data, the bars will be very close in > magnitude. If the bars are not close, that also tells us something. > > 802 offers a product - standards. 802's primary customers for the product > are it's members. The members use the product to create products for their > customers. I suspect we have a case of a company's (802's) customers (802 > members) speaking pretty clearly. > > The venue/price issue has elasticity. I personally suspect that a > significant number of members have been telling the organization that they > are not willing to pay the costs of non-NA venues (the Rome situation would > just another example that corresponds to the data we already have). As the > 802 participation costs go up, attendance goes down. As attendance goes > down, organization productivity also goes down (the work doesn't get done by > people that don't show up). > > Perhaps a bit of consideration is also in order as to why we hold sessions? > When I read comments of the form "I've already been to location XYZ", I have > to wonder: Is the 802 business to produce standards products or to provide > interesting travel locations? > > Now I finally come to the sub-topic in this thread which tipped me into > writing this email... > > When you see people staying elsewhere, they are voting with their wallets. > Personally, I've stayed 99% of the time in the session hotel. That is not > usually the lowest cost option. There are reasons this works for me - it's a > matter of ROI - and the balance that works for me may not be the one that > works for others. > > Attempting to "penalize" attendees by charging them what someone thinks they > "should have paid" had they stayed where "you wanted them to stay" (not > where they wanted to stay) is doomed to failure. You won't get the "extra" > $, you'll just eliminate some more attendees - resulting in even lower > income to 802 for that session. That's the nature of the concept of > elasticity. > > Like it or not, the reality is that 802 simply does not have the ability to > reverse the economic forces in play. Increase the costs of attending (time, > hassle and/or $) and less attend - doesn't matter how you allocate the $ > between hotel, reg fess etc. > > 802 doesn't have to like the facts, The facts are simply what they are - and > the facts don't care if they are liked. But.... IMHO 802 management would > be wise to pay attention to what the data says. > > Personally, I think the best business decision is to do what maximizes the > productivity of the volunteer labor pool that creates the 802 product. > > If the DATA supports more non-na venues, so be it; if the data says zero > non-NA venues so be it. If the data says all meeting should be in Timbuktu, > so be it. > > So what does the data say? > > David Bagby > > > > > > -----Original Message----- > From: email@example.com > [mailto:email@example.com] On Behalf Of Carl R. Stevenson > Sent: Thursday, September 13, 2007 4:22 PM > To: 'John Hawkins'; 'Bob O'Hara (boohara)'; firstname.lastname@example.com > Subject: Re: [802SEC] Final venue choices for our March 8-13, 2009Plenary > Session for your review > > > Better judgments/earlier adjustments for attendance can likely be obtained > by making the early registration period open sooner and the "ratchet up > point" occur earlier (with significant steps up for later registration). > > I also liked the suggestion (I think it may have been Buzz's, but don't > recall for sure) to have a 2 tier registration ... With a "surcharge" if you > will that would cover the "fair share" cost of meeting space and other > things for folks who choose not to book hotel rooms in our hotel/block. To > me, that is fair, because those who stay in other hotels are impacting our > costs for other things that are provided (and in EU charged for) by our > meeting hotel. > > Regards, > Carl > > >> -----Original Message----- >> From: firstname.lastname@example.com >> [mailto:firstname.lastname@example.com] On Behalf Of >> John Hawkins >> Sent: Thursday, September 13, 2007 4:43 PM >> To: Bob O'Hara (boohara); email@example.com >> Subject: Re: [802SEC] Final venue choices for our March 8-13, >> 2009Plenary Session for your review >> >> That ability certainly exists. We have a healthy reserve at >> the moment, >> and we have time to add to it if deemed necessary for the Rome session >> (or any other one for that matter). Note that any session defict by >> definition comes out of that reserve. Where else would it >> come from? So >> the trick is being able to predict attendance. This was the case w/ >> London, and will be the case going forward. It's hard to predict how >> many folks will show up, and how many rooms they will book. >> >> john >> >> >> -----Original Message----- >> From: ***** IEEE 802 Executive Committee List ***** >> [mailto:firstname.lastname@example.com] On Behalf Of Bob O'Hara >> (boohara) >> Sent: Wednesday, September 12, 2007 3:14 PM >> To: email@example.com >> Subject: Re: [802SEC] Final venue choices for our March 8-13, >> 2009Plenary Session for your review >> >> Even with all the uncertainty about attendance and cost, I >> support going >> to the Rome venue. >> >> I would like to hear John Hawkins' thoughts on the ability to use a >> growing reserve to partially offset the large meeting registration >> fee. >> >> -Bob > > ---------- > This email is sent from the 802 Executive Committee email reflector. This > list is maintained by Listserv. > > ---------- > This email is sent from the 802 Executive Committee email reflector. This > list is maintained by Listserv. -- John R. Barr (firstname.lastname@example.com) Director, Standards Realization - <http://www.motorola.com> Chairman of the Board, Bluetooth SIG - <http://www.bluetooth.org> (847) 576-8706 (office) +1-847-962-5407 (mobile) (847) 576-6758 (FAX) ---------- This email is sent from the 802 Executive Committee email reflector. This list is maintained by Listserv.


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Christopher Klim Message Board
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Author Klim's Book Reviews
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Description:SNMP-EN Adapter for R6000 UPS series only.Part Number(s)Manufacturer Part# 347225-B21
Overview:The SNMP-EN Adapter is a UPS option that acts as a user interface in a network environment allowing communication between the UPS and the server when the SNMP-based power management software HP OnliNet Centro is installed. The SNMP-EN Adapter provides SNMP functionality including power event alerts network power diagnostics and remote UPS reboot and testing. It also features out-of-band (modem) communications meaning that alerts can be received even if the network is down and pages can be sent in the event of an alarm condition.


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I finished my part and sent it to Marisa and Lorien for QC, whoever has the time:)
PS July 2013 Collab - Planning Thread
Lorien, I think Jessica has the 5 patterned papers and 7 flowers - But I don't see her name after them.
I can do something else in the list -
I am not sure if my post got overlooked or not. My name was not put up for "-4 tematic elements (candies, cupcakes, lollipops, ice-creams, deserts, etc)" but I started working on them and they are completed (I hope that is okay).
I had a blast learning to make the items.
Who should I send them to for QC?
I have received your QC emails and will hopefully get a chance to look at them today.
Should we post our previews when things have been checked out so people can see what we've done? Or should it be a secret?
I would say: show it!
Show it! Ill try to put the previews on the second post, as I did with Dawn´s
I'm going to have to drop out of this project. (I was signed up for 4 thematic elements.) Now that school is over I am swamped with all the things I was putting off taking care of until after school was over.
I'm so sorry I won't get to participate in this! I am excited to see what everyone makes, though.
I can do QC too, email is email@example.com.
I have my part ready for QC. Should I send to Marissa? Please let me know the email to send to.
can I do an alpha?
totally my first time though, so any advice, PLEASE lay it on me!
my idea for the alpha:
Meg, looks like the Alpha will be a perfect addition to any layout - I say go for it! And I admire your spunk in stepping up to do your first Alpha! Way to go. The Tutorial section has a tut by Marisa on doing an Alpha, if you haven't already watched that. There are also some discussion in the forum about saving each individual letter as a separate file - or saving the alpha as one "sheet", so the letters can be "Copied" out and used, as needed. Personally, I save each letter as a separate png file. Hope this makes sense - I'm not good at explanations. I am excited for you!
Here's the glitter preview:
Here's my fasteners/brads preview:
@Meg: Go for the alpha! I am in a hurry now, but will update the assignments posts later.
@Violet: It happens, don´t Worry
@Michelle: Please, send your part to Marisa.
Here's my part: 3patterned papers and well, I made 5 elements instead of 3.
i'll do the papers first and hope that i got the time to do flowers
I have sent my "4 tematic elements" to Michelle for QC
Jessica - Let me know if you don't have time to do the flowers, and I will do them.
Marisa - I love your glitter! Preview is really cool. Love the swirly paperclip.
thanks for the encouragement! I was planning to save them as individual .pngs, hope that's OK with all. If I have time, I'll do a couple different colors combinations
I'm all done where should i send it for qc?
ok, i have options - which do you guys like better?
I like 7 and 8 but then I don't particularly like a messy look. I like the defined look.
@Meg I really like 7 and 8
Though I really think that 1 would be really cute in a little kids/back to school type kit
@Meg, I'm loving #2, it has that doodled stamped look to it, so cool, although you have done a wonderful job on all of them!:)
cool, I'll go with those, thanks for your input! I could also do some other colors, but I'll start there for now if anyone has any requests, let me know!
thanks Sheila! if I have time, I'll produce that one too
Here is a preview of my elements
@ Dawn you passed QC!
@ Jessica you can send to me at firstname.lastname@example.com
@ Lorien I did email to Marisa!! Thanks
hey guys, can someone share a terms of use that I could copy?
Here is my preview (QCéd by Marisa):
Marisa i didn't get the glitters


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1. Re: Merge to Panorama/Photomerge hangs up in PS CCNoel Carboni Sep 3, 2013 9:23 AM (in response to Matthew A Kraus)
Generally speaking, Photoshop places a very heavy load on your computer system when you do a Photomerge.
If your system isn't up to the stress, or if you have it misconfigured - e.g., the Photoshop RAM limit is too high and it starves the OS for RAM, or if your hard drive fills (scratch files can be huge during Photomerge) - then you might see a lock-up.
Are you seeing it actually crash (i.e., with a message), or just become unresponsive? If the latter, have you left it alone for a long time?
2. Re: Merge to Panorama/Photomerge hangs up in PS CCMatthew A Kraus Sep 3, 2013 9:46 AM (in response to Noel Carboni)
Thanks for the reply. It doesn't actually crash, but after about 10 minutes I give up when the cursor is still not moving. Now it is getting hung up and not moving on "align selected layers based on contents". I then go to Task Manager and it tells me PS is no longer responding and I need to shut it down through this as I can't shut it down through the PS window. I have 50 GB scratch disk and 12 GB RAM which I think should be more than enough.
Any other ideas. Again, it works fine with CS^ & CS5.
Matthew Kraus
3. Re: Merge to Panorama/Photomerge hangs up in PS CCNoel Carboni Sep 3, 2013 10:30 AM (in response to Matthew A Kraus)
I don't know how big your pano is, but I've seen Photoshop use over 200 GB of scratch and a lot more than 12 GB RAM to do a pano.
Rather than assume it's not responding, go into the Task Manager and look in the Processes view to see if Photoshop.exe seems active, i.e., RAM allocations are changing, I/Os are happening, etc.
How big are your files, and how many of them are there?
Can you make it work with a couple of small overlapping images?
4. Re: Merge to Panorama/Photomerge hangs up in PS CCMatthew A Kraus Sep 3, 2013 11:00 AM (in response to Noel Carboni)
Thanks again.
Just as a reminder, this strange behavior does not occur when I open the files directly into PS CC and use photomerge. It only occurs when I bring them into PS from LR with Edit in/merge to panorama in PS. And again, it down not occur in CS5 or CS6.
I am trying to merge 5 files that are about 80 MB each when it doesn't work. If I make the files smaller, say 300 KB each, it works. But I don't think 5 files of 80 MB each should overload my system.
When I go into Task Manager as you suggested and look in the Process view, Photoshope.exe does seem to be active, though it says not responding in the Application view. If it helps you, the memory usage is 1,075,556 KB
Matthew Kaus
5. Re: Merge to Panorama/Photomerge hangs up in PS CCNoel Carboni Sep 3, 2013 11:12 AM (in response to Matthew A Kraus)
Chances are good that it's using a lot more resources than you think it should, but I can't say for sure.
Is it the 32 or 64 bit Photoshop that's running? That will matter in how much RAM it can use and how heavily it will use your swap file.
Also, when it seems to stall, look at your free disk space on your scratch drive and see if perhaps it's gotten short.
6. Re: Merge to Panorama/Photomerge hangs up in PS CCMatthew A Kraus Sep 3, 2013 11:46 AM (in response to Noel Carboni)
I am runnign Window 7 64 bit.
How do I look at the free disk space on my scratch drive when it stalls. I can Right lcik on my scratch disk file and go to properties and it tells me it has 45 GB avaialble and 5 GB used, but that's the same as when I'm not running PS, so I don't think that's how to do it. So how can I answer your question?
Matthew Kraus
7. Re: Merge to Panorama/Photomerge hangs up in PS CCNoel Carboni Sep 4, 2013 1:11 PM (in response to Matthew A Kraus)
Just looking at Computer should show you an overview of scratch usage. There's no magic.
I suggest that if you're not seeing more than 5 GB used, then Photoshop has chosen to use another drive for scratch. For all drives other than the system drive, Photoshop will put files in the root folder of the drive of the form Photoshop Tempnnn...n where nnn...n is a number. You should see these files created when Photoshop is run by looking at the folder in Explorer.
8. Re: Merge to Panorama/Photomerge hangs up in PS CCMatthew A Kraus Sep 4, 2013 1:36 PM (in response to Noel Carboni)
I really appreciate your sticking with me and trying to solve this issue
for me and explain what's going on. Unfortunately, you're getting a little
over my head in my knowledge and understanding of computers.
I've double and triple checked my PS preferences and I have the correct
drive selected for my scratch disk.
I'm just having trouble understanding " Photoshop will put files in the
root folder of the drive of the form Photoshop Tempnnn...n where nnn...n
is a number. You should see these files created when Photoshop is run by
looking at the folder in Explorer.
We may be going beyond the time you're able to put into helping me, and if
so, I understand, but any other thoughts would be appreciated. I suppose
the work around is just to open them directly into PS and use photomerge
from there.
Matthew Kraus
9. Re: Merge to Panorama/Photomerge hangs up in PS CCgasknr Oct 18, 2013 9:12 PM (in response to Matthew A Kraus)
I am getting the same behavior from PS CC, if I select my images in bridge and use the photomerge option from there PS hangs on the blending, they align as quick as they should but blending is painfully slow. I do a lot of pano's, mostly with a TSE lens so photoshop should have no problems stitching as there is no paralax. Photoshop CS6 used to just chew through it.
The process does complete eventually, like i said it just hanges for a long time, once it kicks back into action is proceeds at a pace that I would expect. After the align layers based on content is complete and the blending layers .... starts the progress bars fills to about 1/5 then hangs........ 4/5 minutes later (worst case) then its zipp.. off she goes again. Its almost as is Photoshop has cought narcolepsy and has a spell half way through.
I use a hex core CPU and have 64ig of ram and allocate PS 40gig, I use a standalone (PS only) 120gig SSD as the primary scratch then a 64gig SSD as the secondary scratch, after that its the system drive. Monitoring the scratch during the blend the temp files get up around 5gig, the application is "not responding" in the task manager.
I cant believe its lack of resources, my PC was built for photoshop.. I also feel confident its not my system by the way it handles surface blur on large area 16bit images, I can run a 30 pixel radius @ threshold of say 20-30 in approx 1-2min which I think is very fast.
The panos I am attempted are also really quite small, three files from a 5DII, a laptop could handle that!.
Does it matter that I load the cr2 files into photomerge?, although I am sure it never used to so why would that matter now.
Like also mentioned above If i load the files into photoshop as layers then run photomerge (auto align layers) it completes the process in about 15-20 seconds.
I am happy to use the workaround of loading the files into PS, not looking for a solution but rather thought I would post FYI
10. Re: Merge to Panorama/Photomerge hangs up in PS CCNoel Carboni Oct 18, 2013 9:45 PM (in response to gasknr)
Look in the Task Manager when it's running... Is it 32 or 64 bit. If the former, you know what's wrong. Is it possible you're running the 32 bit Bridge?
I do panos directly from .cr2 files myself, and select them via the dialog I get in 64 bit Photoshop when I choose File - Automate - Photomerge.
11. Re: Merge to Panorama/Photomerge hangs up in PS CCgasknr Oct 18, 2013 10:29 PM (in response to Noel Carboni)
I am definetly running 64bit editions for both apps.
When I run the process through file>automate>photomerge I get the same hang as if running it from bridge.
Its very confusing, in the applications photoshop is "not responding" though in the processes I can see that its active, the usage is changing albiet only a few bytes at a time. In the performance the CPU usage is around 7-10% but with some obvious spikes intially in all six cores, and the memory is about 8gig (13%), another reason why I dont think its a resource issue.
Its the blend process, the aligning is just fine. I can use auto align layers and then do a manual blend, but if I auto align the layers and then auto blend panorama I get the same behaviour. At first I thought it might be because I was trying to blend merged bracketted images that had some motion in them and photoshop was having trouble blending but its the same with single images with no motion blur in them at all.
Like I mentioned earlier I use mostly shots from a TSE so they are distortion free so manualy stitching is basically just as fast, I still like to use the automated feature though as it does such a good job. I dont think I would like to be stitching multiple images with paralax with this problem, it would be very frustrating.
12. Re: Merge to Panorama/Photomerge hangs up in PS CCMatthew A Kraus Oct 19, 2013 6:00 AM (in response to gasknr)
I too am still having this problem.
When I start in LR5.2/edit/merge to panorama which open pscc 64 bit, it
takes forever.
If I start in LR/edit all 3 files from LR into PSCC 64 bit and go to
file/automate/photomerge/open files/ it takes forever
But when I start in LR and edit all 3 files in PS CS6 and then go to
photomerge, it works fine.
It seems like it has to be a PSCC problem. Because it works fine in CS6.
Matthew Kraus
13. Re: Merge to Panorama/Photomerge hangs up in PS CCduffyknox Oct 19, 2013 5:38 PM (in response to Matthew A Kraus)
I am also running into this. My system has plenty of resources, and Photoshop CC is setup properly with plenty of memory and scratch disk space, but when I try even a small 2 picture panorma from lightroom 5, photoshop CC stops on aligning the images. I can cancel the action fine, and nothing is frozen but the pano never completes. Photoshop CS6 does not have this issue.
Duffy Knox
14. Re: Merge to Panorama/Photomerge hangs up in PS CCMatthew A Kraus Oct 19, 2013 6:16 PM (in response to duffyknox)
So this certainly appears to be a Photoshop CC bug.
Matthew Kraus
15. Re: Merge to Panorama/Photomerge hangs up in PS CCNoel Carboni Oct 19, 2013 9:51 PM (in response to Matthew A Kraus)
Nope, at least not a bug that's easily reproduced by everyone.
I have a set of 25 raw files that I have set Camera Raw to open to 6144 x 4096 pixels @ 16 bits/channel. I use this set for benchmarking Photoshop.
I have benchmarked stitching these together into a 344 megapixel result since Photoshop CS5. My best time with Photoshop CS6, starting by selecting all the .cr2 files, was 6 minutes 26 seconds. Photoshop CS5 turns in a time of 6 minutes 35 seconds.
I just did them in 6 minutes 15 seconds with Photoshop CC 14.1.2. There are certainly some parts of the process that are single-threaded, but I see no new problem here. Photoshop CC is faster than ever.
My advice is to look for causes that might have something to do with your specific system or setup (e.g., scratch drive assignment, or memory limits).
16. Re: Merge to Panorama/Photomerge hangs up in PS CCgasknr Oct 19, 2013 11:07 PM (in response to Noel Carboni)
yes i think its fair to say its not a global bug affecting all users but it is apparantly quite wide spread, just like the sampling issue with the healing brushes and clone tool. That has not affected everyone but has many and has only since the release of CC.
In almost all case though all was good in CS6 and earlier, if it is indeed a system or resource issue, why now, why not with CS6 and earlier. My biggest regret so far with CC is that I unistalled CS6 before installing CC, now I have no easy recource as I cant reobtain CS6 through the cloud which i would do in a heartbeat if given the chance.
"My advice is to look for causes that might have something to do with your specific system or setup (e.g., scratch drive assignment, or memory limits" If you read earlier posts this has been discussed and unlikely the cause, my settings are identicle to that of what they were in CS6 where all worked just fine.
17. Re: Merge to Panorama/Photomerge hangs up in PS CCNoel Carboni Oct 20, 2013 6:22 AM (in response to gasknr)
gasknr wrote:
now I have no easy recource as I cant reobtain CS6 through the cloud which i would do in a heartbeat if given the chance.
I just downloaded and installed a copy of Photoshop CS6 from the cloud the day before yesterday.
In my case, I went to Adobe.com, drilled down through the various Product links, then found a "Log in to Creative Cloud" link (it was on this page, specifically).
Once I logged in, I saw a screen full of product icons, including [Ps]. Next to it was a [Download] button, which I pressed.
That took me to this page: https://creative.adobe.com/products/photoshop
Note the little version selector at the left side, just under "In this version". It's set to [ Photoshop CC v ], but the little arrow at the right means you can pull it down and change it to Photoshop CS6.
18. Re: Merge to Panorama/Photomerge hangs up in PS CCJeffrey Tranberry Oct 20, 2013 6:28 AM (in response to Matthew A Kraus)
Have you tried restoring Photoshop's preferences and restart both Photoshop and Lightroom?
http://blogs.adobe.com/crawlspace/2012/07/photoshop-basic-troubleshooting-steps-to-fix-mos t-issues.html#Preferences
19. Re: Merge to Panorama/Photomerge hangs up in PS CCduffyknox Oct 20, 2013 9:44 AM (in response to Matthew A Kraus)
Well, I have to take it back. It seems the problem was related to a specific set of pictures for whatever reason. After more investigation I found it to very quickly on other picture sets.
20. Re: Merge to Panorama/Photomerge hangs up in PS CCJeffrey Tranberry Oct 20, 2013 9:46 AM (in response to duffyknox)
If specific files hang it up, feel free to post a set of images that exhibits the behavior so we can investigate.
21. Re: Merge to Panorama/Photomerge hangs up in PS CCepos85 Nov 4, 2013 4:06 AM (in response to Jeffrey Tranberry)
It hangs when aligning and blending, depends how small images is. I also got monitoring of every system resources on a seperate LCD and noticed strange things. CPU only use 10%, GPU 0% and i got 12 GB free RAM, and even then PS CC hangs. This screenshot is after 30minutes of waiting on 10 images from 5D Mark III raws. Also happends if I use jpeg, but thats not a option. I got plenty of hardware power.
i7 3690x 5GHz watercooled, 16 GB g.skill ripjawz, gtx 580 amp2+, 4 velociraptors in raid5 and pci-e ssd.
Im also pretty sure this didn't happend with PS CS6 x64, but I removed that when I got PS CC x64.
Im using x64 os and x64 applications only.
22. Re: Merge to Panorama/Photomerge hangs up in PS CCepos85 Nov 4, 2013 5:05 AM (in response to epos85)
23. Re: Merge to Panorama/Photomerge hangs up in PS CCNoel Carboni Nov 4, 2013 7:42 AM (in response to epos85)
CPU: 11% might indicate it's still working on something in one or more cores, though at 30 minutes it's getting awfully long. I take it the progress bar stops moving?
I suggest that 16 GB of RAM is not enough to be stitching 10 5D images in Photoshop. It should be enough for practically anything but Photoshop is not miserly with RAM when it comes to stitching panoramas. I've seen it use more than that when stitching sets of 25 MP images. It's possible there is part of the Photomerge that is incapable of using Photoshop's virtual memory system. I have yet to have a Photomerge fail or stall with 48 GB of RAM.
If you have a single SSD on a SATA III connection you'll only ever be able to sustain 500 MB/second I/O, by the way. That's because of the SATA speed.
Just out of curiosity, and kind of a shot in the dark... Does the behavior change if you lower your History states in the Performance preferences (e.g., to 10)?
24. Re: Merge to Panorama/Photomerge hangs up in PS CCNoel Carboni Nov 4, 2013 7:39 AM (in response to epos85)
If it can be at all helpful, here's a sequence of what happens in order, and how long each step takes, in the case where it completes successfully. Note that the overall operation to stitch 12 raw files opened to 6144 x 4096 x 16 bits/channel took a hair over 3 minutes to complete, and used 18 GB of RAM and 30 GB of scratch space,.
Selecting the files:
Hitting the [OK] button at exactly 10:20:00:
First thing we see in Photoshop at 5 seconds is the first image being opened:
At 47 seconds all images are opened and aligning begins:
At 1:46 Blending commences on the wider canvas:
At 2:45 into the process, it's creating layer masks.
At 2:57 it's creating a seamless composition:
At just over 3 minutes, it's done. Note especially that RAM usage has risen to 18.3 GB total.
Note also that 30 GB of scratch space was allocated. This was a fresh run of Photoshop.
25. Re: Merge to Panorama/Photomerge hangs up in PS CCJJMack Nov 4, 2013 8:36 AM (in response to Noel Carboni)
Since I have a trial version of CC installed I though I would give it a try. My machine is capable of handling Photoshop CC. When I retired some 10 years ago I treated myself to a trip to New Zealand. I took a series of 13 portrait oriented images there to be stitched. Taken on top of the mount 360 around. Oly e-20 5Mpixel camera so 65Mpixel in all. Photoshop CC Photomerge had no problem stitching the images. Here is a screen capture.
Image on to the Photomerge layered stitched. Middle image stitch was done using different software. Bottom image a copy of the Photomerge image flattened and offset wrapped to match the order on the center stitch. Photomerge started it looks like stitching the first image in the middle of the panorama and wrapping around looking at the image layer names and the position they have been put in the stitched image. The stitch was quite fast and did not use much processor power.
26. Re: Merge to Panorama/Photomerge hangs up in PS CCJJMack Nov 4, 2013 9:16 AM (in response to Noel Carboni)
I was working on my append when you appended your pano. I saw your images were layout the way you captured the images on canvas where mine are not but my FOV is over 360. I chose cylinder layout but have since redone the sitch using Auto same results. I wonder how the Photomerge Script does the layout. Perhaps I'll read the Photomerge scripts code but I don't know that much about javascript. The other thing was your memory use. I watched memory my machine when I redid. I closed all apps. memory use was 4.04GB started CC memory now at 4.44GB when I ran the Photomerge script the usage rose to 6.18GB but most of the growth happen during the blend matching after all the stitching was done. Before the memory use was around 5GB. While my screen capture makes it look like Photomerge did an awful job on seems they are not visible at 100% zoom its the 7% layered zoom vies the so bad. Even the flatten view looks better.
27. Re: Merge to Panorama/Photomerge hangs up in PS CCNoel Carboni Nov 4, 2013 9:23 AM (in response to JJMack)
You can set Camera Raw to open images at a higher pixel count if you want to test with larger images. Mine, as mentioned, were opened at 6144 x 4096 x 16 bits/channel, so as to stress Photoshop similarly to epos85. I suspect if you use larger images with a higher bit depth you'll see the resource usage go up as well.
And yes, I do see the stitch seams as well at zoomed-out resolutions. That's understandable as Adobe only includes a few pixels overlap in the masks, and zoomed-out resolutions average more pixels together.
Somewhere here I have a set of images that go around 360 degrees. I think I'll find them and experiment.
How long did your system take to stitch that pano? And how long if you stitch images the size I described? I'd be lying if I said I didn't crave a couple of E5 Xeons.
28. Re: Merge to Panorama/Photomerge hangs up in PS CCJJMack Nov 4, 2013 9:43 AM (in response to Noel Carboni)
My images were only 1920x2660 8bit 5MP final stitch was 17225x2674 with the blending option and the geometric distortion option it took my machine around 2 minuets and Photoshop's scratch file only hit 9.2GB
29. Re: Merge to Panorama/Photomerge hangs up in PS CCNoel Carboni Nov 4, 2013 9:48 AM (in response to JJMack)
Thanks for that info, JJ. I didn't select the Geometric Distortion option because I figure Camera Raw does that, so we may be comparing apples to, er, PCs to other PCs.
30. Re: Merge to Panorama/Photomerge hangs up in PS CCJJMack Nov 4, 2013 10:12 AM (in response to Noel Carboni)
Thing may be getting a little better the CC bug I submitted has been acknowledge and Adobe wrote it will be fixed. It would be nice to have working scripts again.
31. Re: Merge to Panorama/Photomerge hangs up in PS CCepos85 Nov 4, 2013 3:11 PM (in response to Noel Carboni)
Yeah, but under 5% is PS only. I got a few more applications running in the background. None of them affects photoshop. It actually took >1.5 hr in total the last sequence with 15 images, 45minutes with 10images. It didn't move at all for quite a while. Sometimes PS will crash before it finish without making a errorlog.
There are no problem with RAW and 25Mpix. As I mentioned, I've tried this with PS CS6 and that worked like a charm before. I didn't remember this earlier, but I made a pano of 50 RAWs in PS CS6 without taking over 1 hr. This slowness happends with small and large jpegs\raw's in different degrees. Can't compare to CS6 in speed, so they must have changed something in photomerge after CS6.
My SSD is PCI-e and is the worlds fastest consumer based SSD from OCZ with 1-2GBs link. I got the bench somewhere if you doubt I know SATA3 got 500MB/s, you should read more about PCI-e disks because theyre awesome. http://ocz.com/consumer/revodrive-3-x2-pcie-ssd .. Im actually thinking of running that in raid, if its possible. I doubt the north bridge is faster than 3GBs though.
I'll try it and post the results I'll also going to install PS CS6 again and retry with same group of files.
Btw, excuse my rusty English.. Im from Norway.
32. Re: Merge to Panorama/Photomerge hangs up in PS CCepos85 Nov 4, 2013 4:33 PM (in response to epos85)
At 00:35 GMT+1 choose "merge to pano in PS" in Lightroom. At 00:40 GMT+1 it was finished! 15x 25Mpix Canon raw files, same that took me 1.5 hrs to finish earlier. Guess what.. Cache levels was set to 2 (recommended by PS, not default).
Still, I had no difference in GPU/CPU/RAM usage. ~12% CPU, 0% GPU, approx 7GB RAM and low disk spin. There must be a bug somewhere, just gotta be when you can't see any difference in resource usage when changing those settings. I've tried higher value than 4 (default) but not getting any faster. Setting cache levels to 3 from 4 is like 1/2-1 hr in difference, setting it to 2 is 1.5 hr difference from 4.
Downside is that PS say: Set Cache Levels to 2 or higher for optimum GPU performance. Might notice other problems when retouching now.
History states to default didn't make any difference.
PS CS6 x64 with identical performance settings like when I had problems in PS CC, had no problems at all. Finished in ~5 minutes. It also startet faster and loaded images faster, same procedure. Ive also tried deleting adobe settings file and setting cache level to 2 in PS CC but its still slow.
Someone who can write better English should post a bugreport to Adobe about this. I hope you guys try this and post your results in PS CC. Try setting cache levels to 2 from 4 (or from you cache level to 4) and see the difference. Looks like 4 is the magic number for me if im doing panos. What do you get in time difference, and what gpu/cpu/os do you have?
33. Re: Merge to Panorama/Photomerge hangs up in PS CCNoel Carboni Nov 4, 2013 8:10 PM (in response to epos85)
I stand corrected; I had momentarily forgotten about the RevoDrives. I have a RAID array of OCZ SSDs and know a good bit about about SSD storage, actually. Sorry about the momentary lapse, and to have doubted you. I chose to go the PCIe SATA III controller with traditional disks route myself. I get 1.6 gigabytes/second throughput, though I suspect I may have more total storage than you do (2 TB). If I remember correctly, the RevoDrive actually IS a RAID subsystem under the covers.
Cache Levels should have little to do with how things like pano stitching will work, and more to do with how responsive your display will be. In an oversimplification, you're basically telling Photoshop how many pre-downsized images to create so that when you zoom out the data will already be ready for display at that size, with only minimal additional sizing.
If your Cache Levels setting is greatly affecting your performance, it's possible your GPU driver (aka Windows display driver) isn't playing well with Photoshop. I didn't think to suggest updating your driver before. Go to the web site of the maker of your video card and see if they have an update. Usually the latest is the best.
Glad you're seeing better perforemance now!
34. Re: Merge to Panorama/Photomerge hangs up in PS CCepos85 Nov 5, 2013 3:01 AM (in response to Noel Carboni)
No problem, Its not a standard disk. Even I forget that.
Nice, only 1 TB here I know, but would have been nice to tried PCI-e Raid if that exists
Yeah, its strange. Well, im currently running latest nvidia driver, have tried with older driver also but no difference. Looks like my 2nd workstation have this problem too, so I doubt its only a hardware issue. Im not the only one with issues in photomerge either, I suggest people having problem change their cache levels and retry. People who don't have this problem, no matter OS or GPU/CPU should also try. It might be a nvidia or software issue. Adobe's applications isn't exactly known to lack bugs.
With you MAC(?), what happends when you set your cache levels from 4 to 2? If youre using 2, then try 4. Im just interested to solve this issue since it might be more than just my workstations. (There is a reason for this thread I guess) I hope Adobe read this.
Yeah, but will it solve the issue in total? I don't know yet. I probably gonna notice other performance issues when retouching or stuff like that.
35. Re: Merge to Panorama/Photomerge hangs up in PS CCNoel Carboni Nov 5, 2013 8:41 AM (in response to epos85)
No Mac here; I have a PC workstation (Dell Precision T5500) running Windows 7 x64.
For what it's worth I have always kept my 64 bit Photoshop set to Cache Levels 4, but I just tried 2 and the same stitch as above...
Just as you did, I saw it stall right at the beginning of "Align Selected Layers Base On Content". It doesn't look to be completely stopped, just INCREDIBLY slowed down, since a little green finally did show in the progress bar. But I didn't wait past 9 minutes for a resolution.
Looks like a bona fide bug, triggered by the lower Cache Levels setting.
I've submitted a bug report to the developers (though chances are they've seen this thread already).
Good job isolating the trigger condition! I'll have to remember to mention Cache Levels if others report similar problems here on the forum with stitching or layer alignment functions.
36. Re: Merge to Panorama/Photomerge hangs up in PS CCNoel Carboni Nov 5, 2013 8:48 AM (in response to epos85)
Just for fun, I ran Cache Levels up to 6 to see what it would do with the same stitching job. It came out to 2 minutes, 44 seconds - a sizeable reduction in time vs. my 3 minutes even before. So I can only suggest trying 6 yourself.
I can imagine that maybe the folks who programmed this feature used the downsized images available behind the scenes when Cache Levels is set to a higher number to facilitate quick, rough alignment.
37. Re: Merge to Panorama/Photomerge hangs up in PS CCepos85 Nov 5, 2013 4:11 PM (in response to Noel Carboni)
Thanks for trying out mate. Just proves more there is an issue with cache levels.
It slows completly down, and in some cases PS will quit and not give any errors in errorlog. If you now try with PS CS6 (if you have it), there will be no problem -no matter what cache level setting you use. Thanks for submitting the bugreport. How is your retouching now then? You might get poor performance in other areas, at least when using cache level 6. Im completly noob about these setting and don't know what they do. I just know computers in general and try to isolate problems as you said. So thanks for the coop on this one
I actually have to admit something.. I had this bug earlier and submittet it to a thread on this site, but forgot it since I rarly use photomerge:
http://feedback.photoshop.com/photoshop_family/topics/photoshop_cc_cache_tile_size_bug_slo ws_down_photomerge_maybe_other_functions_too
Chris Cox said he couldn't reproduce then. I find that strange since we have tried on several workstations (3x in this house) and could reproduce easily. You should check and maybe reply to that thread too. Its been a while since I posted there, but I got no reply form him. Don't know if they forgot or still trying to isolate the problem. You and other people who read this thread could click on "I have this problem too", if that speeds things up. Although ,im pretty sure they will read about it again since you submitted a bug report.
I'll try cache level 6 right away. Would have been nice to see what other things will change when we increase that number. Im afraid we loose performance in other sections now. Yeah, agree. I assume they think 10 small images will replicate 10 raw files, and thats not the case every time.
Just keep this tread warm. I'll report back on the cache level 6 results soon as possible. Gonna try some retouching, panos and focus bracketing stiching.
38. Re: Merge to Panorama/Photomerge hangs up in PS CCepos85 Nov 7, 2013 4:24 PM (in response to epos85)
I cant see difference when doing retouching and other things. Have not tried every single PS function. Im using level 6 now. Adobe should still look into it because PS CS6 is much faster than PS CC, not only in photomerge but in general too.
39. Re: Merge to Panorama/Photomerge hangs up in PS CCNoel Carboni Nov 7, 2013 8:48 PM (in response to epos85)
That's interesting that you should say Photoshop CS6 is faster, because I've noticed just the opposite.
For all things Photoshop CC 14.x has mostly been equally fast, if not a little faster - on my system. I've run specific benchmarks to determine this, including several of my own devising. Plus I still have the old versions of Photoshop installed, and can compare them directly. For me Photoshop CC has been the most responsive version yet. But of course we all use Photoshop a little differently from one another.
One notable exception, where Photoshop CC does seem (and measure to be) a bit slower is in painting operations with very large brushes.
Just as an example, here are some benchmark results where I've found Photoshop CC faster, from my logs... I hope this comes out readable...
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ --------------
Photoshop test file operations: CS6 x64 CC x64
Drag 1,736,577 KB PSCS6_large_test_file.psb to unopened Ps: 21.6 seconds 20.8 seconds
Save compressed test file as CompressedSave.psb: 20.4 seconds 20.2 seconds
Drag white dots layer around at 12.5% zoom: 4 FPS 10+ FPS
Drag black dots layer around at 12.5% zoom: 3 FPS 6 FPS
Drag white dots layer around at 100% zoom: 3.3 FPS 5 FPS
Drag black dots layer around at 100% zoom: 2.5 FPS 3.5 FPS
Flatten image: 13.8 seconds 13.8 seconds
Stroke Black soft 1000 pixel brush across top layer diagonally: 1.2 seconds 1.2 seconds
Stroke Black soft 5000 pixel brush across top layer diagonally: 6.4 seconds 12.0 seconds
Drag to Photoshop, time to open in Camera Raw 7.2 RC: 3.0 seconds 2.0 seconds
[Open Image], time to open as 6144 x 4096 16 bits/channel: 7.4 seconds 3.2 seconds
Fractal Sharpen, Med Sharp Low ISO: 1:44 1:20
Start Photoshop
Double click 64 bit Ps CS6: 3.2 2.8
Double click 32 bit Ps CS6: 4.4 4.6
http://clubofone.com/speedtest/: 13.0 seconds 11.0 seconds
CS5 x64: 14.8 seconds
CS4 x64: 16.0 seconds
Panorama Stitch of 25 6144 x 4096 raw files @ 16 bits/channel:
344 MP result: 6:46 6:15
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ --------------


text:
James S Saint wrote:Ultimate Philosophy 1001 wrote:Could be the universe, who knows what the shape of it is.James S Saint wrote:I do. It has no shape.
So you have travelled to the edges of the universe?
Unlike many, I use my mind for such journeys in time and space. I found that at no time could there ever be a limit to the space.
Did you use the book of Astral Projection? Or was this a home brew remedy?


text:
SIP Router Project
FS#196 - rtpproxy timeout functionality via dlg_terminate_dlg mi command
Opened by Nick Altmann (nikbyte) - Saturday, 07 January 2012, 08:34 GMT
Two small patches to add rtpproxy timeout functionality for latest rtpproxy git (2011-03-17) and modules/rtpproxy (3.2.1).
kamailio-3.2.1.patch - bugfix for rtpproxy module (with any rtpproxy timeout patch)
Usage example:
I hope, you include rtpproxy bugfix to the current release and place my rtpproxy patch in wiki for everybody.
You forgot to attach patches.
Sorry, browser bugs.
I see the patch to rtpproxy.c of kamailio's module is rather small, sending the timeout socket address for U command, not based on to_tag. Is it?
rtpproxy "understand" additional parameters only in U command. In other case it sends error. With my patch or without it. Maybe it will be right to write there if (opts.s.s[0] == 'U') && (to_tag.len > 0). I don't know.
Patch to rtpproxy module was applied with condition on U command and to_tag.len>0.


text:
Knox named to national track and field all-academic team
Michael Knox, a member of the Lipscomb University track and field team, has been named to the 2009 Division I Men's All-Academic Track and Field team by the U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association (USTFCCCA).
Knox, a sophomore sprinter from Chattanooga, Tenn., was one of a record total of 327 student-athletes selected, representing 107 NCAA Division I schools. He is majoring in Kinesiology.
To qualify for the team a student-athlete must have compiled a cumulative grade point average of 3.25 and have met either the NCAA Division I Indoor automatic or provisional qualifying standard or the NCAA Division I Outdoor regional or national qualifying standard in their respective event.