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Assorted links
1. Money doesn't matter as much in politics as you might think.
2. How does math look on the new Kindle?
3. Regional variations in Medicare spending, revisited.
4. Markets in everything: monkey-digested coffee (really).
5. Does your Kindle underinspire you? Buy the smell of books, in an aerosol can.
Posted by Tyler Cowen on June 13, 2009 at 02:51 PM in Web/Tech | Permalink
Comments
Money won't do it by itself but you can't do it without real money.
or
You don't need to have the most money so long as you can ante-up to the table minimum.
Posted by: David Sucher at Jun 13, 2009 3:34:03 PM
The luwak, the mongoose-like animal that digests the coffee, isn't actually a monkey.
Posted by: Peter at Jun 13, 2009 3:42:55 PM
Thanks Peter that makes all the difference in the world. :)
Posted by: Rob at Jun 13, 2009 4:15:41 PM
Funny, when I saw how much money McAuliffe received from the unions I switched to supporting Deeds.
Posted by: mattmc at Jun 13, 2009 4:24:25 PM
Markets in one less thing:
~~~
The 22-year-old California virgin who auctioned off her virtue online for $3.8 million has yet to meet her winning bidder in the flesh -- because his wife won't let him.
Natalie Dylan ... got a phone call from the rogue Romeo, a 38-year-old Australian real-estate businessman, who said he had to back out.
"I told him to go back into marriage therapy," sniped Dylan. The Aussie cad then sheepishly asked for his $250,000 deposit back.
Dylan said no hard feelings; it would be returned.
~~~
Posted by: Jim Glass at Jun 13, 2009 7:35:30 PM
Spoke with a Kindle owner yesterday who stroked her v2 model as lovingly as though it were her pet cat while telling me how good it felt to touch it. It's not all about the smell.
Posted by: Larry at Jun 13, 2009 7:46:41 PM
The best part about the Arlington Rap is at 3:21
"We could take the Green Line."
Hahaha
Second best:
"Or the Starbucks, or the Starbucks, or the Starbucks," ad nauseum.
Posted by: anon at Jun 13, 2009 8:16:32 PM
4. Our Balinese friends call it a mongoose, but it's really a civet. Either way it's not a monkey. The idea is that the civet does a better job of selecting the berries, but can't actually digest the beans inside.
Posted by: William at Jun 14, 2009 2:07:09 AM
USA put out a Battle of Falulljah video game, glorifying the killing of an entire city of males. Short the fuck out of USD and leave Obama's legacy as the Banker Prez.
Posted by: Phillip Huggan at Jun 14, 2009 2:47:08 AM
3. Here's a simple question. When people find "no statistical difference" that is not really a conclusion. Do they look at ALL outcomes or just those for specific Medicare patients? Part of funding, maybe all of it, flows into the system, not to a particular billed procedure. An MRI sitting idol isn't much cheaper than an MRI that gets used. However, it has to be used to be billed to a customer. This is why a hospital value-added aspirin costs $20. There won't be a significantly better health outcome due to that aspirin, but the other $19.95 paid for it will flow to other patients. Like or dislike hospital accounting, but account for it.
If I have a car wreck with another guy and the cars aren't quite totaled, wouldn't we expect the car with the highest mechanic bill to still be of lesser quality after being repaired? You can say that someone in Oregon and Louisiana both come in with a heart attack, and thus you have accounted for health level, but complications due to other factors are a huge issue. This is a complicated question, and I would bet that the lack of correlation between spending and quality is due to the inability of doctors to grapple with the complexity. When I hear a politician say "we don't have a clue!" then I'll believe they understand.
I'd be fine if the Feds shed their omnisicience and just said "everyone gets $6000 per person and we have no idea how you should spend it." But, they can't do that, because that gets pretty darn close to pay as you go personal accounts. It seems that everything (e.g. teacher pay/quality) is too complicated to be evaluated, except the things they don't like.
Posted by: Andrew at Jun 14, 2009 9:52:49 AM
There's a grower-operated co-op out of Thailand called Doi Chaang, the president of which is a Calgarian named Shawn McDonald (famous around these parts as the owner-operator of a number of coffee shops and roasteries). Doi Chaang also distributes coffee digested (sort of) by wild civets, and you can check it out at wildcivetcoffee.com (though right now, it seems to be mostly a placeholder page).
Supposed to be "a honey-scented brew that is surprisingly smooth."
Posted by: Garth Wood at Jun 14, 2009 4:32:49 PM
So, if you want to politely, yet truthfully comment, you can tell the boss "Your coffee tastes like Kopi Luwak!"
Posted by: Andrew at Jun 14, 2009 8:26:33 PM
