Category: Web/Tech
Assorted links
Assorted links
2. Lessons for Public Enemy, from Alex.
4. Every book Art Garfunkel has read for the last forty-plus years. He has an interest in Singularity-related ideas.
Assorted links
1. Literary Saloon as a book, I love his stuff.
2. Scott Sumner on liquidity traps.
3. The Chinese are buying up late Picassos.
4. Filipino fast food comes to the United States; reviewed here: "I love the fried chicken at this restaurant with banana ketchup."
Incentives gone bad
NYTimes: Today, when reading the dozens of comments about Deco#MyEyes, it is hard to decide which one conveys the most outrage. It is easy, though, to choose the most outrageous. It was written by Mr. Russo/Bolds/Borker himself.
“Hello, My name is Stanley with Deco#MyEyes.com,” the post began. “I just wanted to let you guys know that the more replies you people post, the more business and the more hits and sales I get. My goal is NEGATIVE advertisement.”
It’s all part of a sales strategy, he said. Online chatter about Deco#MyEyes, even furious online chatter, pushed the site higher in Google search results, which led to greater sales. He closed with a sardonic expression of gratitude: “I never had the amount of traffic I have now since my 1st complaint. I am in heaven.”
Would it surprise you that the owner once worked at Lehman Brothers? Much more of interest at the link.
Note that I added the # to block the name, the NYTimes did not.
Assorted links
1. The most boring day of the century.
2. What the Irish are reading.
3. The economics of Amazon Prime.
4. Meeting European men (video).
5. Via Chris F. Masse, www.academia.edu.
Assorted links
2. More from Henry on the political economy of Ireland, here and here.
3. Krugman should write a book on this (though it is simply wrong — and unnecessary — to claim that articles showing the potency of monetary policy were ever pushed out of the major journals. Somehow he cannot write correctly when the topic of real business cycle theory comes up.)
4. This is wrong (Obama, not Matt), an example of a dysfunctional management style (commenting on everything), and not an admission I would make as a relatively new but now gridlocked President, all in one.
5. America's two literary cultures?
Enlightened blogspam, part II
Kat sends me this link on CAPTCHA arbitrage.
Stephen Smith points our attention to some examples of quite good economics in blogspam. My example was here, and that comment attracted a lot of attention from subsequent spammers (some of that has since been erased). For instance Tiffany1837Jewelry (web site sadly now defunct) reported:
When Google crawls this page, it basically ignores the URL and any links in the the comment text. In order for the spammer to benefit, they have to persuade human readers to follow the link, so contributing meaningful content is perhaps the only way.
Not too shabby.
Savefuel noted:
a spam formed from the fusion of human and machine intelligence….maybe this is part of the evolution of spam. Not sure I am proud to part of that parentage.
The young Stephen Smith, by the way, is the author of the excellent, intelligent, and well-reasoned weblog marketurbanism.com. He tells me that he is looking for a job in journalism and/or think tank-related activities.
Assorted links
1. The modified Out of Africa model, with an intermission.
2. New York Times Notable Book List.
3. Irish banks passed July 2010 stress tests; foreclosed homes in Spain to triple next year.
4. "Defending the undefendable": the Mafia.
5. Claims by Taleb.
6. How do interest rates (not) regulate lending in Austro-China.
7. Ireland's abandoned horses.
The Browser had especially good links today.
Assorted links
Podcast with Tyler Cowen and Jerry Brito
Some time ago I asked MR readers to request podcast questions. The 30-minute podcast consists of Jerry Brito picking out some questions from that list and interviewing me. You can find it here. Jerry sums it up:
Cowen discusses why people will be appalled that we ever questioned intrusive searches by TSA, what should have been done to minimize unemployment and other harm from the financial crisis, how the “famous American formula” for good government is broken, what might force us to sit around opening cans of dog food with our teeth, and which global sites should be connected by Stargate portals to create the most value. He also asks, “Why read books?”, speculates about the value of his blog, addresses price discrimination of chicken McNuggets, talks about a modern day Athens in Asia with good food, suggests that internet comments are a relatively harmless form of stupidity, and opines about the best thing that government does.
Assorted links
2. Economists working at hi-tech firms.
3. Tuataras routinely live to 100, or longer.
4. Markets in everything: dealing with your health insurance paperwork.
5. A dispute over Peter Diamond's district.
6. The world's most powerful economist.
7. Via Ireland, a good argument for a King.
8. Chalmers Johnson has passed away.
9. David Nolan, founder of the Libertarian Party, has passed away; more here.
Assorted links
1. Download all of Bach's organ music for free.
2. New results on British vs. French colonialism.
3. Prophets of the Marginal Revolution.
4. The world's countries, rearranged by population. The U.S. can stay put.
Assorted links
1. Who again is going to cut Medicare spending?
3. We are referred to Charo's Wikipedia page.
4. Ireland may cut minimum wage; they know that AS and AD curves still have their traditional slope.
5. The horse race continues, with news from Portugal: "Pedro Passos Coelho told a meeting of his Social Democratic Party items like state-run companies' debts were not included in the overall public debt, which the government puts at 82 per cent of gross domestic product this year.
He said that the "true" total public debt stood as high as 112 per cent of GDP, while the budget deficit should be at 9.5 per cent of GDP, far above the minority Socialist government's target of 7.3 percent for the end of the year."
Assorted links
1. Earmarks do cause higher spending.
2. Exactly when was Ireland capable of having a balanced budget?
3. Excellent travel photo albums, mostly of Asia and Latin America, by Jodi Ettenberg, a marshmallow enthusiast. Here is why she did it. Here is Q&A (another interview here):
Q: What drives your instinct to travel?
A: A desire to soak up as much as possible, as intensely as possible. I know this sounds broad, but it applies to almost every facet of what I've done these past few years. I am continuously energized by learning new things and experiencing them firsthand.
She skipped undergrad and went right to law school, saving up money for the purpose of later travel and eating street food around the world. Here are her tips for how to pack for a year.