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Assorted links
1. America's hot new restaurant
2. Incentives work, n = 1 (and now n=2)
3. The Milky Way; it loads a little slowly but it's worth it
4. Markets in everything: death tourism
Posted by Tyler Cowen on July 20, 2008 at 10:11 PM in Web/Tech | Permalink
Comments
Blue Hill at Stone Barns sounds (and looks) incredible.
Silly aside - I find it interesting how many people (including the author of the article) have trouble spelling the German "ie". Riesling becomes Reisling, Wiener becomes Weiner, and so on. Proofreaders never seem to catch it. I am a terrible speller, but for some reason that's not a mistake I am ever tempted to make.
Posted by: Commenterlein at Jul 20, 2008 10:30:48 PM
Ontario has had something like Blue Hill for a while:
http://www.torontolife.com/blogs/chatto/2006/jun/19/eigensinn-farm/
http://www.reportonbusiness.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20070928.wsb1-stadtlander0926/BNStory/specialSmallBusiness/home
http://www.tribemagazine.com/board/showthread.php?t=15789
Posted by: Andrew Edwards at Jul 20, 2008 10:58:32 PM
Switzerland has a fair share of death tourism, too. Sterbetourismus even made it to the word of the year 2007.
http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/front/detail/Death_tourism_tops_Swiss_word_list.html?siteSect=105&sid=8501442&cKey=1197014609000&ty=st
Posted by: J. at Jul 20, 2008 11:01:42 PM
1. I'd want to eat there too but I highly question calling it "the most important and gutsiest restaurant in America right now" when 90% of the U.S. population (and 99+% of the world population) will never be able to afford to eat in a place like this. And it's not as if farm-to-table has never been done before, they just don't charge $200 and get write-ups in culinary circles.
2. The guy seemed determined enough to have done it without the financial incentives.
4. Somehow the article fails to mention the possibility that the drug can be used to kill other people.
Posted by: Hei Lun Chan at Jul 20, 2008 11:14:47 PM
n=2?
After seeing the mention of "pay someone if you don't lose the weight" here I believe, I made the following bargain with my teenage son. Every Saturday we have an official weigh in. If I haven't lost at least 2 pounds I pay him $100. The deal ends after one year or 100 pounds- about how much extra weight I have.
It's only been 8 days but I was down 7 pounds in the first week. I've lost up to 60 pounds before but I've never been this motivated. My son taunts me all day with offers of high calorie food to consume. After I get to my goal weight I plan to start a new incentive plan to maintain the weight loss this time. So I will soon see if n does equal at least 2 on this concept.
Posted by: TJK at Jul 21, 2008 12:21:54 AM
Pig's snout, eh?
And as for wieners, however, spelled, I have heard Fritz Machlup quoted as saying that
"What in New York is called a hot dog is called frankfurter in Vienna and a wiener in Frankfurt."
Posted by: Barkley Rosser at Jul 21, 2008 12:59:34 AM
An acquaintance has about $6500 on a bet with various friends as to whether he can lose 35 lbs in 4 months. Pretty sure he's going to lose on his own, but I offered to bake cookies and bring them over to his house if the people who bet against him pay me. :)
Posted by: Jacqueline at Jul 21, 2008 4:54:34 AM
I don't know about "The Most Important Restaurant in America", but I can vouch that both the food and the service are incredible.
Posted by: Alex at Jul 21, 2008 7:09:32 AM
Me? Forget the restaurant. Whatever. I liked #3. Not just for the image (fantastic!) but for the motto Tyler coined for our galaxy - "The Milky Way; it loads a little slowly but it's worth it". Now we just need to get it translated into Latin.
Posted by: Jim at Jul 21, 2008 8:11:46 AM
There's something sadly amusing about people piling into their SUVs and driving an hour or so into the countryside in order to save the planet by eating at a "locavore" restaurant. It's much cheaper to bring the food to the city one fully loaded truckload at a time than to bring the entire city to the food one mostly empty carload at a time. You can't feed the population this way, it's a stillborn concept. "Most important restaurant"? Utterly fallacious (fellatious?)
Posted by: at Jul 21, 2008 8:26:05 AM
Orbis Lacteus - appareo lentulus at insestimabilis
Posted by: at Jul 21, 2008 8:55:10 AM
Sounds like the cow in the Restaurant at the End of The Universe.
Posted by: Dk at Jul 21, 2008 9:06:35 AM
Other good space photos.
http://heritage.stsci.edu/gallery/gallery.html
http://hubblesite.org/gallery/album/
Posted by: Marc at Jul 21, 2008 9:38:01 AM
Moffatt had an incentive to reduce his measured body fat, not his actual body fat. You just need to squeeze those calipers a little harder to reduce measured skin thickness by a millimeter.
I suggest he measure waist size: 1 inch = 4 pounds of fat. At 6'2" and 174 pounds he could very well be at 12%. We can't tell whether he is a string bean with a pot belly or lean and muscular.
Posted by: Kim Lee at Jul 21, 2008 2:08:28 PM
"I suggest he measure waist size: 1 inch = 4 pounds of fat. At 6'2" and 174 pounds he could very well be at 12%. We can't tell whether he is a string bean with a pot belly or lean and muscular."
You're going to have to try harder than that to get me to put topless pictures of myself on the internet...
Posted by: Mike Moffatt at Jul 21, 2008 2:22:33 PM
Mike Moffatt, what is your waist size? It should be close to 32 inches by inverting the YMCA formula.
Men's Body Fat % = (-98.42 + 4.15*waist - .082 * weight) / weight.
I used 6'2", 174 lbs, 12% bodyfat. At 30 years old with such a low body mass index you could indeed be 12% or less. But I had my bodyfat tested with calipers, electrical gizmos, and underwater weighing at two separate research facilities. Only the underwater weighing was consistent (and it matched the YMCA formula). Think about it - do you want a thin waist with broad heavy shoulders, thick torso, and rounded ass and legs? Or do you want thin skin?
Posted by: Kim Lee at Jul 21, 2008 3:48:32 PM
"n=2?"
Tim Harford + Mike Moffatt
Posted by: Biomed Tim at Jul 21, 2008 4:28:31 PM
"Mike Moffatt, what is your waist size? It should be close to 32 inches by inverting the YMCA formula.
Men's Body Fat % = (-98.42 + 4.15*waist - .082 * weight) / weight."
It's about 31 - I wear a size 32 but they're pretty loose.
I agree RE: consistency. One of the reasons I wanted a 3rd party testing me is that I thought the results I was seeing on my bathroom scale (around 13%) were, if anything, undermeasuring. Go figure.
I'm trying to get stronger, though - that's my next challenge.
Posted by: Mike Moffatt at Jul 21, 2008 5:01:50 PM
Good for you, Mike Moffatt! Many people deceive themselves about bodyfat. But you might be below 12% (and could be pleasantly surprised by underwater weighing). I doubt your waist will shrink anymore, and you are underweight for such a tall guy. At this point you could reduce bodyfat % more by putting on 10-20 pounds of muscle. It will be a struggle and require lifting heavy weights.
Posted by: Kim Lee at Jul 22, 2008 11:17:47 AM
