Category: Web/Tech

1. Jeff Ely will laugh at this.

2. Markets in everything: waiting in line for swine flu shots.

3. John Cassidy blog on "rational irrationality."

4. What does your doctor really think of you?

1. WEIRD subjects and their importance for social science.

2. Rational overoptimism.

3. Andrew Gelman will have a second blog.  I don't yet understand the forthcoming principle of individuation across the two blogs.

4. London Review of Books, full issue on-line.

5. Nouriel Roubini on the new carry trade.

6. From Chris F. Masse, nextbigfuture.com, a new science blog.  Here's their update on space elevators.

7. Will Doug Holtz-Eakin lose his health insurance?

8. Is Earth a habitable planet?

9. Germany's new conservative cabinet.  Not like ours would be.

10. Strictly personal interview with Esther Duflo.

11. Why American health care costs so much.

That's a lot but they're all good links.

1. Greg Mankiw's very good column on health insurance and marginal tax rates; Greg adds comment.

2. Somerset Maugham: the perfect traveler?

3. Ten smelly foods from Asia.

4. Slew of Ayn Rand links.

5. The Lehman failure really was at fault; Arnold Kling adds comment.

6. MR is a start-up, as is Modern Principles.

1. How the public option really will work.

2. Why progress is difficult in economic science.

3. California real per capita spending has gone up.

4. "Economists" category on Jeopardy.

5. Via Chris F. Masse, new Avatar trailer.

6. Funny spoof of MR: "What I've been reading," as if it were April Fool's (and here for Halloween).

1. The cognitive benefits of dyslexia.

2. Free up bone marrow markets!

3. What's the most widely distributed, pro-poor product in the Third World?  Other than food, of course.

4. The composer John Adams has a blog.

5. What kind of precedent is set by "opt out"?

6. Steve Landsburg blogs his new book.

1. The truth about Zora Neale Hurston.

2. Rortybomb on libertarianism and feminism.

3. Soros puts up $50 million to change economics.

4. Brilliant post on the Great Moderation.

5. Why you can't get the swine flu vaccine.

6. "Sichuan Pavilion makes Hong Kong Palace look like Burger King."

1. The danger of personal locator beacons, namely the Tullock Effect.

2. How to stop teapots from dribbling.

3. What if 19th century-level natural disasters were to occur today?

4. Michael Clemens on the brain drain.

5. Mandate opt-out clauses for designated religions: how they work in the Netherlands.

6. How calculated is violence in relationships?

7. The public choice analysis of AARP.

8. Siberian women lobby for polygamy.

Customers offer their suggestions for how to make products better or more useful.

Many of the entries are pleas that firms give up some market power, such as people wishing for more transparent prices and people wishing that Windows wasn't bundled with PC purchases.  Some people don't like trialware.

Other people wish for standardized power cables for laptops.

Why don't they just ask for checks in the mail?

I thank Melody Hildebrandt for the pointer.

1. Paul Krugman on whether health care reform will work and benefit people.

2. Predictors of job performance.

3. #slatepitches

4. The Afghani socialist calculation debate.

5. Another countercyclical asset: runaway youths.

By enlisting Teradata, a
major bank found its credit-card unit was sending pre-approval notices
to individuals being foreclosed on by its mortgage department…

Here is the story (gated, Barron's) and I thank John De Palma for the pointer.  Here is a brief bit on Teradata.

1. Advice for holiday shopping: buy it, don't wait.

2. Rich Germans demand higher taxes.

3. A Georgist approach to financing health care reform: tax water.

4. Don Boudreaux defends insider trading.

5. A simple look at dark pools and high-frequency trading.

6. Essay on Freakonomics and other popular economics books, as they relate to the economics profession.  How fun is economics really?

1. 4500-page Thesaurus: "The draft thesaurus was almost destroyed in a fire in 1978, but despite
the building being gutted, a metal filing cabinet protected the files."

2. Markets in everything: who said resources are not mobile in Germany?

3. Hayek opposed deflation; he said the same in MTaTTC too.

4. Donate your organs by iPhone.

5. Why so few DC residents are married.

I'm still looking for an ideal "economics" link on the Catholic-Anglican development.  Do you have one?

1. How to get a Russian to buy butter.

2. China skeptic of the day.

3. Does beauty enhancement increase societal trust?

4. How to resist delicious chocolate: imagine it as a doorstop.

5. Chapter one from Mark Kleiman's excellent crime book.

1. Lots of opinions about lots of people, including assessments of their relative status.

2. How will Twitter make money? (a request), and more here.

3. Garett Jones: "How much have
cell phones pushed down the cash wages of tedious jobs? Labor supply
increase: parking attendant, janitor, better jobs now."

4. Kerry Howley on freedom.

5. Rules for writing non-fiction.

6. Pay as you wish, for the Goo Game: the results.

1. Blog on Chinese financial markets.

2. Webcast site for my NIH talk, coming on Wednesday noon, on lotteries and randomized control trials in medical research.

3. Very good comments on geo-engineering, with some excellent sentences, and more here.

4. Why the Euro is not the next global currency.

5. Evidence on pedigree effects in academia.

6. Cory Doctorow's publishing experiment.