Marginal Revolution

Assorted links

1. Own-to-rent: not a good idea

2. More scoop on Romergate

3. The Transparent Society, ten years later

4. Blogging as therapy

5. Why might academics be less happy?

Print Your Own

Need Money?  Print your own here.

Hat tip to Kottke.

Why Popcorn Costs So Much at The Movies

That's the title of the new microeconomics book by Richard McKenzie.  Here is a book trailer on YouTube.  The subtitle is: "And Other Pricing Puzzles."

I am a fan of this book and I wrote a blurb for it.  It is popular economics but it is more extended microeconomic reasoning than most of the other popular economics books.

Donald C, Lavoie, intellectual father of the econoblogosphere

Don Lavoie taught at GMU many years before he passed away in 2001.  Most of Don's work was in comparative systems and central planning, but in the early to mid 90s he spent a few years investigating hypertext.  Don claimed that someday economics would be written in linkable, annotatable form, rather than on paper.  Economics, in his Gadamer-drenched view, would become one big giant conversation rather than a series of isolated papers.  Here is one snippet of his views.  For a few years he talking about the idea non-stop.

At the time I thought he was crazy.

The glasses-cleaning machine

The problem with cleaning your glasses is that the drying action can create new smudge.  So the Japanese have invented a machine to address this problem.  The contraption has two pools of whirring water, at different temperatures.  First you dip your glasses into the vibrating pool of warmer water, where some kind of steam action takes place as well.  Afterwards you dip your glasses into the cooler pool of water, which finishes the action and removes the effect of the steam.

I've never ever had my glasses so clean before.  I found the glasses-cleaning machine, not surprisingly, in one of the underground passageways near Shinjuku.

How to find new books to read

TLV, a loyal MR reader, asks:

I've always been curious about how Tyler goes about choosing new books to read. Most people rely on recommendations from others, but Tyler seems like someone who generates a lot of recommendations rather than relying on them. What is your process?

Children, do not try this at home, but here goes: visit Borders every Tuesday to look for new books, go to a local public library every other day and scan the new books section, subscribe to TLS, London Review of Books, New York Review of Books, noting that you should spend more time with the ads than the book reviews, read the blogs Bookslut and Literary Saloon, read the new magazine BookMark (recommended), read the NYT, FT, and Guardian and their books sections, review lots of books on your blog and peruse the numerous review copies you get in the mail (thanks, you mailers and yes I do look at each and every one; keep them coming!). 

It's rare that I rely on recommendations from other people.

Oh, yes, you should get free shipping on Amazon.com.