Someone I admire once lead me to subscribing to the Huffington Post. What a mistake. But I did learn something. If you want to write for the Huffington post the headline of your posting can be, or probably is, generated by a simple grammar. Usually these involve a celebrity, say scientists or a reality [...]
One of the standards battles I find most fascinating is how we allocate time. Institutions battle for a share: work, good works, civic life, hobbies, study, family, exercise, networking… The activities that demand rendezvous with others, what we might call social these days, demand coordinated points of rendezvous. I like that one of [...]
For the list of frameworks, the Big Five Personality Traits Emotional Stability: positive adjustment,and seldom negative Extroversion: social, assertive, active, energetic, zeal Openness to experience: imaginative, nonconforming, unconventional, autonomous Agreeableness: trusting, compliant, caring, gentle Conscientiousness: achievement, dependability
Dani Rodrik has a lovely short piece up at Project Syndicate: I was recently invited by two Harvard colleagues to make a guest appearance in their course on globalization. “I have to tell you,” one of them warned me beforehand, “this is a pretty pro-globalization crowd.” In the very first meeting, he had asked the [...]
Sunday, February 19, 2012
This article in the New York times is fascinating. It’s about kidney transplants. We all have a spare kidney. But because donating a kidney isn’t like loaning somebody your car for weekend, so the transaction is a bit more complex. A simple case a child needs a kidney and a parent [...]
The US is no longer the land of opportunity. If you want that, move to the Nordic countries. The vertical axis on this chart is a measure of how likely you are to have an income that differs from that of your parents. The horizontal line is the usual measure of income inequality. So if [...]
Saturday, January 14, 2012
FrackIM is instant messaging bot (using XMPP) that Bob Wyman recently revealed. It tickles one of my long time interests – forward chaining on the Internet; e.g. how are updates propagated from where they occur to those who are interested. The problem is fraught challenges. How to make it private is one. For example [...]
John Dickerson is on the campaign trail and he’s fallen into a nostalgic funk. Back in the good old days it was more fun, or at least funny. So he writes about the how humorless the GOP candidates are. Wit, ah wit. Good fun making up insta-theories(tm) for this. I wonder if the PR [...]
Sunday, November 27, 2011
Over the last few months I’ve been entertaining the question: How exactly does a country exit a currency union? (Have I mentioned that 99 times out of a hundred harboring ideas about how to reform the currency system is a sign of mental illness?) You need to act quickly. Otherwise you get a bank run. [...]
More and more firms have cottoned onto a way to get expert talent almost for free. How? Running a contest and talk about community. If you draw in the right talent you can also pump up brand awareness. Here is a nice straight forward critique, Moleskin running a contest to get a new logo, of one [...]
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