Another Reason I Love Flying Southwest

I'm sitting in the Kansas City airport getting ready to fly to Santa Fe after a wonderful surprise visit to see Aunt Ruth (mom and dad were out here too). I just discovered these lounge chairs with plugs for laptops. The Southwest area had similar chairs in Baltimore.

See more reasons I like Southwest Airlines here.

Richard Feynman on "Social Sciences"

Russ Roberts:

He's a skeptic. (HT: G.H. Dericks) He's right.

The Daily Dozen

1. Women hogging diplomas? "Women are now surpassing men in degrees attained in every major category: associate, bachelor’s, master’s, professional and doctorate." This could have large social ramifications as there is an increasing shortage of college-educated men. Even highly successful, college-educated women tend to gravitate towards men of equal or higher education and income level. What happens to family, dating, and marriage when there is an increasing shortage of such men relative to women? Are men increasingly getting left behind?
2. Seth Godin and his unconventional, 6-month, non-accredited MBA program. Sounds like a pretty great idea to me. Makes me wonder if a similar program could be developed for teaching economics? Seems like DC would be a perfect place for this.
3. The anti-macroeconomics roar grows even louder. You mean it's not just me?
4. The Islamic roots of Star Wars?
5. A tiny slice of credit history. "A visual history of the credit card. A written history of the credit card. Now we need a written history of the articles worrying that all the credit cards were going to push us into economic extinction."
6. Surprise benefits of an uncluttered life.
   
7. Does the gender of a judge matter? Only when it comes to discrimination cases.
8. How many Muslims are there in the US?
9. Tiananmen Square, twenty years later. "It is fair to say that individual freedom has increased for the average citizen so long as they are: (1) Han Chinese; (2) not that religious; (3) not interested in joining the Falun Gong or any other civil organization that rivals the Communist Party; and (4) not a lawyer bringing cases against state action. " More thoughts here.
10. Bringing order to the chaos of notes.
11. Writer's block... a thing of the past?
    
12. Would you pay for Hulu? If the increased their content, yes. Particularly if they matched a selection like Netflix. (I think it's only a matter of time before some service provides this. Kind of like Rhapsody for movies and/or TV.) I much prefer being able to stream video at a time of my choosing over broadcast TV where I have to conform my schedule to the network airing the show. I know I could always use Tivo (I used to have a DVR in Orlando and loved it), but I prefer the simplicy and variety of Hulu's navigation to scrolling through a series of menus on my television for shows that I have to have known about ahead of time, programmed my device to record, and limited to only two simultaneous channels. It's like comparing loading an eBook onto a Kindle (seemless) to loading one onto a Sony Reader (lots of steps, connecting to a computer, installing extra software, dealing with cables, etc.). One is easy and requires little hassle. The other works, but is more annoying to deal with.
    

dis my impreshun of u

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The Daily Dozen

1. Palm's Pre takes on the iPhone. Among many of the Pre innovations, one of the coolest is the Touchstone charging stand.
2. It's time for a new relationship with food.
3. Updated Macbooks outperform their unibody counterparts. Does this mean Apple will announce some upgrades ot the unibody Macbooks next week? I hope so.
4. Gay marriage in New Hampshire. That makes six states that now permit gay marriage under state law. Three of these by legislation.
5. How far do you sit from your HDTV? I don't have one yet, so I suppose I have to say very far away...
6. Ever wonder what the net worth was of personal finance bloggers?
7. What Harvard graduates are doing: "The number of seniors entering finance and consulting has fallen from 47 percent in 2007 to 39 percent in 2008 to 20 percent for the current Class of 2009." More info after the link.
8. Another upside to the down economy: "Good news: people who still have jobs are having a much easier time driving to work. Traffic congestion is down as much as 30 percent in 99 of the country’s 100 largest metro areas. In Washington, D.C., famous for gridlock of all kinds, traffic has fallen 24 percent during rush hour. San Francisco saw travel times fall 12 percent this year. Thanks, recession!"
9. Is a "Federalism Amendment" to the US Constitution a good idea?
10. Time to shorten patent terms?
11. Students relying on loans wonder whether debt forgiveness plans will last. This may hit teachers and law students particularly hard.
12. American history in three men. "According to my research, the oldest living Justice right now is John Paul Stevens. He was born in 1920, and at the time, the oldest living Justice was, of course, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., born in 1841 when the oldest living Justice was Gabriel Duvall. Duvall was born in 1752! He was [23] years old when the Declaration of Independence was signed."

That does it, John!

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The Daily Dozen

1. ePaper netbooks are a great idea. I agree. I'd love the option of turning off color in order to get much longer battery life and the ability to use a computer outside. See a video demonstration of it here. I'm very impressed. I just wish the guy recording the video didn't move the camera around so much. This could be a real game changer for mobile technology.
   
2. A visual ideological history of the Supreme Court, 1937-2007.
3. 19 reasons to take a nap.
4. Are all computer crimes now federal computer crimes?
5. In praise of reckless and wanton book-buying. I wonder how long it will be before eBooks make this kind of book collection obsolete? Between services like Netflix and Rhapsody (and a Rhapsody compatible MP3 player), I have access to the video and music libraries matching the best in the world. All for only $30 per month for both services. Will books be next?
   
6. Are B-school economists different? "I don't know of any hard data to establish whether journalists are more likely to cite economists in business schools than those in economics departments, but I can believe it might be the case. I know a lot of economists in both places, and I think it is true that, on average, economists in business schools have a more practical and empirical approach to the field than do those in economics departments." With my MBA, JD, and professional engineering experience, I have often thought a business school might be a good fit for me after I graduate. To really market myself to business schools, I should beef-up on my statistics and finance background.
   
7. Good news and bad news on housing.
8. The last Titanic survivor dies.
9. Downsize and simplify your life. I'm in the process of moving to a new apartment and am rekindling my desire to get rid of stuff again. I find this kind of thinking refreshing.
10. How would the economy look under McCain? Probably not so different.
11. Windows 7 to be released October 22nd?
12. What economics is all about: "To understand and alleviate poverty."
    

Is da vakaoom

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The Daily Dozen

1. The Kindle DX is set for a release date of June 10th. That just happens to be the same day as Apple's next conference? Coincidence or something else?
2. Lifehacker readers pick their five best netbooks.
3. How repugnance inhibits market design.
   
4. Is the world's economic center moving to Asia? Gary Becker and Richard Posner weigh in.
   
5. How the brain responds to music.
   
6. Barack Obama's Facebook feed.
   
7. Economists, auctions, and the politicians that oppose them.
   
8. Motivational posters: Theodore Roosevelt edition.
   
9. Living abroad gives you a creative edge in problem solving. I wonder if working as the only American in a 500-man division of a Japanese company has the same effect?
   
10. The war on the war on abortion.
    
11. Thoughts on the Human Development Index -- a criticism and a defense.
    
12. Quote of the Day: "It is easy to lie with statistics, but easier to lie without them." -- Frederick Mosteller
    

True friends

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Priceless!

Ticket to see "Night at the Museum" with Triya and Ali = $11.
Movie popcorn with free refills = $7.50.
Ali discovering jumbo jawbreakers are not made out of bubble gum = PRICELESS!

The 'Unseen' Deserve Empathy Too

Judges can do the most good by following the law:

One can have compassion for workers who lose their jobs when a plant closes. They can be seen. One cannot have compassion for unknown persons in other industries who do not receive job offers when a compassionate government subsidizes an unprofitable plant. The potential employees not hired are unseen.

One can empathize with innocent children born with birth defects. Such children and the adversity they face can be seen. One cannot empathize with as-yet-unborn children in rural communities who may not have access to pediatricians if a judicial decision based on compassion raises the cost of medical malpractice insurance. These children are unseen.

One can feel for unfortunate homeowners about to lose their homes through foreclosure. One cannot feel for unknown individuals who may not be able to afford a home in the future if the compassionate and empathetic protection of current homeowners increases the cost of a mortgage.

In general, one can feel compassion for and empathize with individual plaintiffs in a lawsuit who are facing hardship. They are visible. One cannot feel compassion for or empathize with impersonal corporate defendants, who, should they incur liability, will pass the costs on to consumers, reduce their output, or cut employment. Those who must pay more for products, or are unable to obtain needed goods or services, or cannot find a job are invisible.

Read the whole thing.

Geoffrey Manne comments:

The point, derived from Bastiat, is extraordinarily powerful, and, as Hasnas notes, the lesson is as important for economists as it is for judges (and for everyone else). Making decisions on the basis of only the most visible effects of behavior under scrutiny is always a recipe for bad decision-making. I’d also add that taking advantage of the relative obscurity of broader effects is the essential root cause of the depredations of politics and politicians, who never miss an opportunity to demagogue about a favored interest or idea to the exclusion of the (usually far greater) broader and longer-term effects.

Someone should write a book about the importance of this one idea.

Good idea!

The Daily Dozen

1. Switch the frogs. "Have a go at this: Switch the frogs to the opposite side within two minutes. (Supposedly a second grade computer test in China.) Click the picture for link."
2. Vernon Smith at CalTech.
3. Mice with a human-language gene.
4. What smartbooks must offer to succeed.
5. Microsoft drops 3-app limit for Windows 7 Starter Edition. That's good news for netbooks.
6. My Constitutional Law prof, Neomi Rao, has a great article asking questions for Sotomayor. (HT Karuna)
7. 30 days to be a better man -- Day 1: Define your core values.
8. Have a total weight limit for football teams? Interesting, but I don't think this would ever take off on several levels. It would certainly lead to a lot of sweating and starvation before recording team weight.
9. Learning about using exposure in photography using the "exposure triangle."
   
10. The fall of the mall. A graphic showing how the recession has affected shopping malls. "The best performers are a dollar store, a movie theater and a pharmacy. The worst performers are Saks, Abercrombie & Fitch, Bebe and some others."
11. Amazing card tricks explained.
12. What does health economics research say about health care costs?

Invisible Bow and Arrow: Free

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