Newmark's Door

Noted economic historian Gregory Clark has about 2/3 of the lecture notes for his economic history of the world course posted.

Get an early start on fixing your Y2038 problem.

That titan of integrity and fiscal probity, Henry Blodget, snarkily comments on Ben Bernanke's financial holdings. In the midst of the snark, Blodget observes that Mr. Bernanke directly holds only a single stock, Altria. Blodget notes that it's outperformed the S&P for many years but claims it's a "mystery" why Bernanke owns it.

Yo, Henry, take another look at the chart. A little better than buying Pets.com, wouldn't you say?

Google Base is coming. Make your own "All Your Base Are Belong to Us" joke.

My older daughter's boss, Kevin Hassett, briefly reviews, approvingly, the new study by Paul Rubin and Joanna Shepherd that concludes tort reform saves lives.

Beldar pays tribute to the Socratic Method.

Via Richard Deitsch at SI, I got to the blog "Fire Joe Morgan". The authors made sharp, funny comments about sports commentators. While I think their criticism of Bill Simmons, The Sports Guy, is off the mark, a lot of their observations are entertaining. Here's a bit of their reaction to a piece by renowned sportwriter Mike Lupica:

Lupica:

The 2003 Red Sox lost a crushing Game7 against Aaron Boone. The 2004 Red Sox came back from that, then got knocked down as hard as you can, down three games to none, and three outs away from elimination with Rivera on the mound.

They came back and won.

They had been through something together and it made them stronger.

FJM:

Nearly every sportswriter and commentator wants to make a neat little narrative out of every single thing that happens in sports. Often these cute fables reinforce virtues like resilience, harmony, hard work, and effort. Often they're bullshit.

The 2004 Red Sox added an excellent starter and a lights out closer while retaining a high-scoring offense. That is why they were better than the 2003 Red Sox. Not because they had been through something together.

Plus, that has nothing to do with the Yankees. It just doesn't.

First it was "effortless perfection". Now it's High School Stress.

Girls have it rough.

Rural Oregon has the world's largest hotspot. Wi-Fi is coming everywhere.

Paramount Pictures is being sued by some net profit participants who wonder how it's possible for Frazier to run 11 seasons and gross 1.5 billion dollars and still be unprofitable.

This really puzzles me. It's been known for at least 25 years--and widely publicized--that "net profit" participation in Hollywood is worth about as much as an option to buy the Brooklyn Bridge. Who are the idiots that keep signing up for it?