January 2009
17 posts
After death threats, Michael Arrington decides to... →
“The Printed Blog is changing the way people read and consume news and other...”
– The Printed Blog via Megan McArdle
Felix Salmon on Wine Tasting
Robert Hodgson has a paper out entitled “An Examination of Judge Reliability at a major U.S. Wine Competition”. He had the ingenious idea of serving up three identical glasses of wine — poured from the same bottle — to groups of judges; only 10% of the judging panels managed to rank the three identical wines even in the same medal group, even though the wines were served...
31 Laws of Fun OR A Practical Guide to Building a... →
Eliezer Yudkowsky:
7. Timothy Ferris: “What is the opposite of happiness? Sadness? No. Just as love and hate are two sides of the same coin, so are happiness and sadness… The opposite of love is indifference, and the opposite of happiness is - here’s the clincher - boredom… The question you should be asking isn’t ‘What do I want?’ or ‘What...
“Did you know that fair is one-to-one untranslatable into any other language”
– Bart Wilson via Will Wilkinson
Thanks you Google Maps →
via reddit
“Arrange our basic economic institutions to maximize productivity, and then...”
– The growth-maximizing welfare state
What is a "Key to the city" anyway? →
“I exploded into tears as the music burst into beautiful orchestral waves of...”
– I’m late to the game, but I recently started listening to Sigur Ros, and I’m loving them. The Amazon comments on their album () are positive, to say the least…
A Possibly Irrelevent Idea for Stablizing Home...
I’m not sure how much of an effect stabilizing home prices would even have at this point. But since we started hearing about the “housing crises” I’ve been in favor of opening up immigration to boost real estate demand. In the current political climate, though, this suggestions is completely unrealistic. So how about this:
If you buy a house in the US in the next two...
The Atlantic Launches Atlantic Business →
Don't touch when you are shopping
Tyler Cowen writes:
Be careful how you reach out:
A new study suggests that just fingering an item on a store shelf can create an attachment that makes you willing to pay more for it.
Previous studies have shown that many people begin to feel ownership of an item - that it “is theirs” - before they even buy it. But this study, conducted by researchers at Ohio State University, is the...
“In his legal opinions, Chief Justice Roberts has altered quotations to conform...”
– Oaf of Office
7 Best Paternity Results of All Time →
via MRG
Awkward Moment at Work
There’s a new girl on my floor at work, whom I barely know, and as I came into the office we happened to make eye contact. I guess since she was on the phone, I responded by just mouthing the word “mornin’,” which, as I did, I realized looks exactly like blowing a kiss.
Her: Raising her eyebrows to greet me.
Me: Mwah.
First Post & Intellectual Dishonesty
Mikey’s been nagging me to start blogging, and I finally found something that’s been irking me enoug to write a post on it. So here goes…
I usually very much enjoy Nate Silver, but his recent post accusing Greg Mankiw of “intellectual dishonesty” annoyed me. I feel like I’ve been hearing that accusation a lot lately: “Well, if you believe that,...