About what I expected, but your mileage may vary.
It puts me in mind of a movie with Josh Brolin I saw--I think it was Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps--and the exasperated protagonist says to Brolin something along the lines of "You're really, really rich. What the heck can you still want?" And Brolin just smiles a little and says, "More."
As I believe I've written here before, Craig Newmark Primary is a mensch.
As Glenn Reynolds (Instapundit) often writes, "Faster, please".
Freakonomics podcast (with transcript). Whenever I visit I sure notice the upbeat employees they mention. I assume this is one reason why:
It employs a lot of real, live people — and pays them above the industry standard: as of 2013, full-time Trader Joe’s “crew members” made about $50,000 a year while “captains” made more than $100,000, also with better-than-average benefits.
Link courtesy of my older daughter.
Sabine Hossenfelder smacks around a fair number of her colleagues:
Nothing is moving in the foundations of physics. One experiment after the other is returning null results: No new particles, no new dimensions, no new symmetries. Sure, there are some anomalies in the data here and there, and maybe one of them will turn out to be real news. But experimentalists are just poking in the dark. They have no clue where new physics may be to find. And their colleagues in theory development are of no help. . . .
How long can they go on with this, you ask? How long can they keep on spinning theory-tales?
I am afraid there is nothing that can stop them. They review each other’s papers. They review each other’s grant proposals. And they constantly tell each other that what they are doing is good science. Why should they stop? For them, all is going well. They hold conferences, they publish papers, they discuss their great new ideas. From the inside, it looks like business as usual, just that nothing comes out of it.
Another view, calmly presented: "Theoretical physics has not gone to the dogs".
Via Don Boudreaux, a marvelous bit from Paul Heyne that begins this way:
The first lesson to be taught is that when we run across a situation we don’t like – “outrageous exploitation of sick people,” for example – we should start by asking how the situation came about and why it persists. What’s actually going on here?
An update on the famous Simon-Ehrlich bet.
Cue Mr. Rogers's voice: "Can you say 'fracking,' boys and girls? I knew you could."
A summary of William Easterly's key contentions.
This one is great and should be engraved on plaques and given to every politician and policymaker: "A few simple, core Econ 101 principles have stood the test of time, and let’s just try to stick to those."
Steven Greenhut expresses the problem with California state government very concisely:
California officials have an incredible knack for proposing dubious, government solutions to problems that don’t actually exist, while ignoring the real problems that are under their purview.
Thomas Hazlett interviews Sowell for Reason 38 years after their first interview. Some things have changed . . . and some things haven't.
Yes. If people are really worried about "monopoly," let them first address all the government supported ones first before they even think about the private sector.
One good place to start would be with the $200 billion or so annual cost for occupational licensing.
Related: "Don’t believe the ‘monopoly’ hype".
Even worse than the 6-year-old is Joan:
The worst case I've encountered was that of a disabled lady, who I'll call Joan. Joan, who was confined to a wheelchair, decided to try to write a book (a children's book) - one of the few things she could physically do.
To Joan's surprise, the book did well and she started receiving royalty checks - roughly $20,000 per year - for a number of years. Every year she contacted Social Security and asked if she could continue to receive Social Security disability benefits given her royalty income. Each time the Social Security officials told her that royalty income was different from labor income and does not trigger the system's Earnings Test, which reduces one's benefits 50 cents on the dollar for all earnings above a threshold.
Ten years later, Joan received a $300,000 bill from Social Security demanding immediate repayment of benefits, which the Social Security Administration "incorrectly," under its revised view, paid Joan over more than a decade.
You can avoid the first three if you're careful about drinking or cavorting in freshwater.
Pretty devastaing review. The only good news here is this:
Fortunately, only a small fraction of CAHSR’s projected cost—$1.4 billion out of nearly $100 billion total—has been spent so far.
I haven't tried a lot of these, but I'll second KFC's honey mustard sauce and the Taco Bell hot sauces.
"“Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die.” And four others.
Related: "In Memory of William Goldman, Who Explained Hollywood While Mastering It".
"The Radical Confidence of Patrick Mahomes".
"Adrian Peterson lives by an east Texas code: ‘Initiate the force of the attack’".
Not "cursed" to my wife an me. We like them an awful lot.
Another one of U2's best.
I haven't read it, but several reviews I've seen really like Daltrey's new book.
Neil is quoted as saying, "I wrote a lot of songs when I couldn't talk."
A lovely story. (Link courtesy of my older daughter.)
"The same taste receptors found on the tongue are in the stomach, intestines and elsewhere, too. What are they doing there? Well, a lot."
I'd quibble that "determines" is too strong. Like most of the genetically "determined" characteristics what you inherit can give you a strong tendency, but DNA--in most cases again--doesn't dictate what you are 100%.
But that's just a quibble. It's quite interesting nonetheless.
And apparently there are at least some folks who take offense if you suggest that it is.