Category: Web/Tech

Sorry!

by  Tyler Cowen in

Typepad is swallowing some of your comments as spam; I’m working to liberate them.  Our apologies, the problem should be cleared up soon and even right now most comments are getting through.  The bottom line is that there are far many more comments on Ron Paul (and the federal budget) than you might have thought.  I recommend that you read them all, especially the ones critical of me.

By the way I regard Obama as the most intellectual candidate; having been a law professor is part of that.  Of course that needn’t make him the best candidate; Woodrow Wilson was an intellectual but a disaster as President.  There is no doubt that Ron Paul is very widely read and is an admirable defender of individual liberty.  I’ve also met him and I believe his IQ is high.  But if you think that he is intellectual, ask yourself what standards of evidence and procedural rationality he applied when he wrote this.  Sorry people, but I have to call ’em as I see ’em.  As I said in my previous post, I’m still happy with the idea of protest votes for Paul.

And by the way, as long as I’m courting controversy, here’s a study on how much early environment shapes the brain and IQ.

That Cyber #*$! Stole My Credit Cards

by  Alex Tabarrok in

A program that can mimic online flirtation and then extract personal
information from its unsuspecting conversation partners is making the rounds in
Russian chat forums, according to security software firm PC Tools.

The artificial intelligence of CyberLover’s automated chats is good enough
that victims have a tough time distinguishing the "bot" from a real potential
suitor, PC Tools said. The software can work quickly too, establishing up to 10
relationships in 30 minutes, PC Tools said. It compiles a report on every person
it meets complete with name, contact information, and photos.

"As a tool that can be used by hackers to conduct identity fraud, CyberLover
demonstrates an unprecedented level of social engineering," PC Tools senior
malware analyst Sergei Shevchenko said in a statement.

From CNet.  I did warn you.

Thanks on Thanksgiving

by  Tyler Cowen in

Alex and I each have many things to be thankful for today.  When it comes to blogging, we are thankful that we have an audience of readers — namely you all — that earlier economists could only have dreamt of, in terms of quantity, quality, and global distribution.  We are also grateful for what is frequently the best comments section in the blogosphere.

Thank you all for reading and putting time into this venture; if I add you all up, you, collectively, put in much more time than we do!  It is an honor to write for you all.

What does a post under the fold signal?

by  Tyler Cowen in

Lee, a loyal MR reader (by RSS, it seems), writes:

I am also protesting these partial posts! They are mildly inconvenient!

Sadly, when part of an MR post is below the fold, only the top part is fed into RSS.  The vast majority of our posts are full posts, I use partial posts for two reasons. 

First, sometimes I wish to keep a more important or more typical post close to the top of the page.  This signals to new readers what we are about; I don’t want Eric Maskin visiting MR for the first time and thinking it is a blog mostly about romantic piano music.  Keeping an older post toward the top of the page also keeps the comments flowing.

Second, putting a post under the fold signals that the post will not interest most of you.  In equilibrium, only those of you who really care about the post title should incur the cost of either clicking on the bottom part or leaving RSS and visiting the site, and then clicking, to read it.  You are supposed to be put off from reading it (except for the few dedicated Nyiregyhazi fans who read MR, are there any?; it does not suffice to share his addictions).  But perhaps I am naive here, and telling people "this is quirky stuff that won’t interest most of you" in fact generates interest.   

But not today: Ideally, I would have put most of this post…er…under the fold.