EconTech

While I rummage around the brain for something more controversial to blog (that’s nevertheless not too controversial), here, for your reading pleasure, is a talk I gave a couple weeks ago at Google Cambridge. Hardcore Shtetl-Optimized fans will find little here to surprise them, but for new or occasional readers, this is about the [...]
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Two years ago today, Americans watched in horror as a great city drowned, and wondered what had happened to their country. Where was FEMA? Where was the National Guard? Why wasn’t the government of the world’s richest, most powerful nation coming to the aid of its own citizens?
What we mostly saw on TV was the [...]

Suppose a large trading nation is found to export huge quantities of products which have not been subject to proper regulatory oversight at home and create important risks for the buyers. And suppose further that importing nations have had to…
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“PolitiFact.com” will monitor truth in 2008 presidential claims.
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The large majority of teenagers have phones, TVs, stereos, or gaming systems in their bedrooms, and many report falling asleep to the soothing sounds of whirring electronics. But one survey says that it’s not so good for the teens’ quality of sleep.
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Ian Lamont writes “Rural US residents don’t have the same kind of access to broadband services as those who live in urban or suburban areas. According to the federal government, just 17% of rural U.S. households subscribe to broadband service. But the problem is more than a conflict between Wall Street and small-town residents wanting [...]

Suppose, for a moment, that the Heritage Foundation were to put out a press release attacking the liberal view that even children whose parents could afford to send them to private school should be entitled to free government-run education.
They’d have a point: many American families with middle-class incomes do send their kids to school at [...]

jpatokal writes “Singapore Airlines will be rolling out the A380 superjumbo on October 26th, and a surprise awaits in the seat of every passenger: their personal Linux PC, running Red Hat. In addition to running the in-flight entertainment, passengers can also use a full copy of StarOffice, and there’s a USB slot for importing/exporting documents [...]

And the child asked: Q: Where did this rock come from?A: I chipped it off the big boulder, at the center of the village.Q: Where did the boulder come from?A: It probably rolled off the huge mountain that towers over…
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pjhenley writes “Sony has announced that they will add digital TV and DVR capabilities to the PS3 in Europe. TV can also be watched on a PSP using ‘remote play’ over WiFi or via downloaded recordings. ‘The new box will feature two 1080p tuners, which utilize the European Digital Video Broadcasting system (DVB-T) — which [...]

A new study in the September issue of the Journal of Modern History reviews historical evidence, including documents and gravesites, suggesting that homosexual civil unions may have existed six centuries ago in France.
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By BUDDHIKA JAYAMAHA, WESLEY D. SMITH, JEREMY ROEBUCK, OMAR MORA, EDWARD SANDMEIER, YANCE T. GRAY and JEREMY A. MURPHY
Baghdad
VIEWED from Iraq at the tail end of a 15-month deployment, the political debate in Washington is indeed surreal. Counterinsurgency is, by definition, a competition between insurgents and counterinsurgents for the control and support of a population. [...]

ABSTRACT. This paper argues that at least one of the following propositions is true: (1) the human species is very likely to go extinct before reaching a “posthuman” stage; (2) any posthuman civilization is extremely unlikely to run a significant number of simulations of their evolutionary history (or variations thereof); (3) we are almost certainly [...]

STOCKHOLM, Sweden (AP) — Bill Murray could face a drunken driving charge after cruising through downtown Stockholm in a golf cart and refusing to take a breath test, citing U.S. law….
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Politicians often say they support civil unions but not gay marriage. We sort out the difference.
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