Category: Web/Tech

1. Felix Salmon also recommends the new Bob Pozen book.

2. Are dreams just exercise for the brain?  I enjoyed this line: “I argue that dreaming is not a parallel state but that it is consciousness itself, in the absence of input from the senses…"

3. Rene Girard on war and apocalypse.

4. How much do (non-related) animals cooperate?

5. Via Kat, why we fall for "fast news."

6. How to improve the health care bill, by David Leonhardt.

1. One calculation of implicit marginal tax rates on the poor.

2. The rise of Andrew Ross Sorkin at the NYT.

3. The problems of health care transition: "drop your bad risks ASAP" is another one.

4. Is there hope for Detroit?

5. "Salvaged [nuclear] bomb material now generates about 10 percent of electricity in the United States…" — read more here.

6. Debunking of Senate vote chart.

7. UK list of best movies of the decade.

8. New Mark Thoma blog at CBS MoneyWatch.

1. Scott Sumner, standing on one (?) foot.  And here is a Sumner podcast with Russ Roberts.

2. The physics of free throw shooting.

3. A mathematician discusses string theory and many other matters.

4. Is older music crowding out newer music?

1. Photos from inside a Colombian prison.

2. How to increase altruism in toddlers?

3. Soviet mathematics as pure status competition.

4. How people count money, across culture (video).

5. Real vs. placebo coffee: people don't know if it's decaf.

1. The vote to defund political science: how it went.

2. Jason Kottke doesn't read books anymore.

3. "Food rewards obsessiveness," the best eater in the United States.  The full article is gated (the link offers only an excerpt), so buy the 9 November New Yorker.  I don't usually link to gated material of this kind, but this was one of the three or four best magazine pieces I'll read in a year.

4. Why Buffett bought that railroad.

5. Weird stuff McDonald's sells around the world.  In the Philippines it is "spaghetti soaked in sugar."

6. Fruitless endeavors, or not?: translating works of literature into games of chess against each other, using a computer program.

7. Were the Neanderthals just unlucky?

8. Françoise Sagan: an appreciation.

1. More lessons from the VHA.

2. Net use does not lead to social isolation.

3. IQ predicts portfolio diversification, at least in Finland.

4. Finish time variation in marathons, across time and across Boston and New York.

5. What your phone might do for you two years from now.

6. John Cassidy on the health care bill.

1. Geithner meets with bloggers, and here: "We were offered a tray of cookies at the meeting, from which I
abstained on principle. Those of you who think that's silly have no
idea how much I like cookies."

2. Assuming a can opener, more on health care costs.

3. More on the multiplier (shout it from the rooftops).

4. Mandates don't stay modest.

5. Lane Kenworthy reviews Create Your Own Economy.

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."