Category: Web/Tech

1. Tim Groseclose, muckraking hero.  Here’s follow-up coverage from Eugene Volokh.  Here is the Groseclose report.

2. The wisdom of John V

3. Economist Simon Patten on brevity

4. Africa map of the day

5. Was Wikipedia ahead of the betting markets?

To paraphrase my good friend: Robin Hanson and I, good friends who sometimes blog-spar, will tape a bloggingheads TV show this Monday.  What would folks like us to talk about? 

Here are the answers from Robin’s readers.

1. Deep Glamour, a new Virginia Postrel blog, linked to a forthcoming Virginia Postrel book

2. Videos of Nobel Laureates, recent talks

3. Beware what ye do not know, namely peanut butter 

4. Robert Solow takes down Kevin Phillips

5. Smash of Paul Theroux

Jason Kottke reports:

This is a little bit genius. One of the new features of FriendFeed (a
Twitter-like thingie) is "fake following". That means you can friend
someone but you don’t see their updates. That way, it appears that
you’re paying attention to them when you’re really not. Just like
everyone does all the time in real life to maintain their sanity. Rex calls it
"most important feature in the history of social networks" and I’m
inclined to agree. It’s one of the few new social features I’ve seen
that makes being online buddies with someone manageable and doesn’t
just make being social a game or competition.

1. Why don’t all peoples form neat, orderly lines?

2. Japan will label carbon footprints for many items

3. Charles Mann, on our eroding supply of dirt and the economics of soil.  I am a big fan of Mann (he wrote the superb 1491) and this is one of the best magazine pieces of this year if not the best.  On top of all the good economics in this piece, learn how the "black revolution" — putting carbon in the soil — may solve agricultural problems and alleviate global warming at the same time.  Hat tip to Kottke.

4. The latest: "Chile’s lower house of congress has suspended plans to boost a $1,626 gasoline subsidy for each of its members."

5. Vegan-libertarian debate and discussion

6. The new Neil Stephenson book

1. The book boyfriend

2. Should you laugh at UFO research?

3. Is there excess conformity in economics?

4. A new theory of the genetic origins of homosexuality

Eric is very, very smart and knows lots of economics.  Here is his first post; excerpt:

The busy international legal activity that occurred during the
post-Cold War era – the establishment of international courts, the
involvement of the Security Council, the advance of international trade
law – will slow down and perhaps even reenter the deep freeze into
which it was shunted during the Cold War. The irony is that liberal
internationalism could advance only as long as the United States was
the sole superpower and in the mood to advance it.

1. David Leonhardt has a long, thoughtful article on the economic thinking of Barack Obama.

What would you like to hear about?  What questions do you have?  No promises are made, but your chances can only go up.

1. Profile of Art DeVany, via Michael Blowhard.

2. Another excellent David Brooks column: "The System is Winning."

3. Are dreams more negatively biased than reality?

1. The latest in resale price maintenance

2. Paul Krugman’s (unfinished) reading list for international

3. New physics blog, via Razib

4. Lengthy article on Bob Barr

5. The cost of getting ready

1. Six tips for enjoying a vacation, from Gretchen Rubin.  I endorse them all including the point about the almonds.

2. I never tire of reading about quantum weirdness.

3. Via Andrew Sullivan, American cities in the 1950s; beautiful photos.

4. The war on drugs, continued.  This article should be a sobering wake-up for many people.

1. Encyclopedia of Libertarianism, edited by Ronald Hamowy, Amazon link here.

2. Cato forum on global warming; I have yet to read this.  Here is my response to an earlier article by Manzi.

3. No way; not at all plausible.  No way.

4. For sanity on all matters Georgian, check out Matt Yglesias at his new blog location.

1. How artists work

2. Oil and the dollar

3. Where Argentina is headed

4. China restaurant name of the day

5. Markets in everything, China style (food again, photos)

1. West Side Story: the truth

2. Discover your gender, using the web

3. Backyard nukes?  A scary joke, or is it?

4. Quantum mechanics gets even weirder

5. Business cycles: the current frontier

6. Measuring the value of NBA players