Posts from ‘September, 2007’

It’s 1 Am and I’m too lazy to add links, maybe later Tyler Cowen, Discover Your Inner Economist. Paul Collier, The Bottom Billion. Explain how large deposits of a valuable resource (diamonds, oil) can hurt the economies of a poor country. Dean Smith, The Carolina Way – Read to get better at coaching.

Apparently a degree does not bestow logical thought to the people pursuing it, as this article from today’s Daily Pennsylvanian shows. This writing is unacceptable, not only because it’s biased but because the main argument has no basis. The number of swimming pools people own is also positively correlated with longer life, more community service, [...]

Give me your tired, your poor. Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free. My economic success may depend on it, as some towns that passed anti-illegal immigration laws are now realizing. These towns banned illegal immigrants, yet are having second thoughts, because their economies are now suffering. This article isn’t really rigorous but the point [...]

Abdi Farah, Penn sophomore and basketball player, is an exceptional artist. Check out his work here.

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I have these four books in my room, maybe I’ll have time to read them, maybe I won’t: The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable, by Nassim Nicholas Taleb. This book is about how bad we are at predicting unpredictability. Malcolm Gladwell has more. The Persistence of Poverty, by Charles Karelis. More at [...]

“The differences in spending on clothing, jewelry, and cars, for example, can explain half of the differences in wealth between the races (conditional on permanent income) and a significant share of the differences in education and health spending.” From Marginal Revolution. The purpose of this post is reasonable discussion, not “See I told you so.” [...]

Here is the text of President Bush’s speech last night. I am convinced that politics is 95% persuasion and image, and 5% about doing your job well, or being qualified. Note how Bush emphasizes how the battle is between the USA and Iraq on one side, and al-Qaeda on the other.

Google just announced a $20 million prize to the first organization that can send a robotic lander to the moon, go for a walk, and beam back photos. I feel the benefit to humankind from such a robotic visit must be larger than $20 million. Prizes are a far more efficient way of getting results [...]

Ichirosan says funny things to dumb reporters.