Newmark's Door

"Current Quality of Life Index"

228 cities from around the world ranked. 

"The Great Self-Deception"

"The nuclear deal with Iran was a charade right from the start."

"Facial recognition for the public: Yandex"

"I believe this is the first generally accessible facial recognition system with a large database. Yandex isn’t designed for this purpose. The trick is to upload photos cropped to a face and it’ll work more or less to find similar faces."

"New 'Achilles Heel' for Blood Cancers Identified"

Could be useful for CLL, ALL, and mantle cell lymphoma.

"New and Improved Economics? Don’t Believe It"

Donald Boudreaux has a complaint which I also have:

The presumption about which I complain is this: economic analysis is grounded in assumptions so flawed – and performed by eggheads so out of touch with reality – that economic science has been either of very little use to humanity or even a curse. But (the presumption continues) don’t despair! The Brilliant Economist who now offers this pioneering new book, or who teaches that radically new-style course, has discovered the Philosopher’s Stone for transforming base and sterile economics into a sure source of brilliant insight and guidance of a sort that the world has until now been denied.

Finally, all will be well with the world’s economies!

"Inequality and the French Pension Strikers"

Theodore Dalrymple tries to explain a paradox: in a country supposedly dedicated to vaunted Equality a whole lot of people oppose an important reform that would make people more (economically) equal.

Two recent bits of life in the Big Apple

"Multiple Subway Lines Delayed After Bed Bugs Found Inside MTA Office".

"Video shows MTA subway train fully covered in graffiti".

"Can student radicals please just publish a League Table of Oppression?"

I agree: this is sorely needed.

To let everyone know where they stand, the NUS must publish a weekly League Table of Oppression.

Obviously at the bottom would be white, British, middle-class, heterosexual men like me. Shamefully, we aren’t oppressed at all. But where does everyone else fit in? Does the NUS rank transgender people above depressives? Are lesbians below the disabled? And what about Muslim men versus Muslim women?

"Economists call this a perverse incentive, but Democrats just call it policy."

Stephen Green on Instapundit offers a very brief smack of Joe Biden.

"Middle Age Misery Peaks at Age of 47.2, Economist Says"

I haven't read the study, but I find such a conclusion baffling on its face. To me, happiness isn't a scalar, it's a vector and the elements of the vector can, and mostly do, change from week to week and year to year. Unless all the elements are moving in the same direction, which strikes me as unlikely, how can one time in a person's life be considered happier than another?

For a minute  I thought that you could judge intertemporal happiness using a tool in the economists' toolkit: revealed preference. You confront a person at age X with the choice between staying at age X or retreating to age X - Y. (If the person chooses X - Y he or she doesn't retain any of the additional knowledge and experience.) Similarly, you could confront a person at age X with the choice of advancing to age X + Y given a lot of detail about what the person's life is like at X + Y. (And with the proviso that if the person refuses to go to to X + Y he or she will retain no memory of the details of that possible future.)

But even if were possible to confront individuals with these choice, I don't think they would suffice to conclude a person was happier at one time than another. To give a specific example: if somebody asked would I rather return to age 20, I think I would say no but not because I am happier now than I was at that age. At age 20, my life was stochastic with many possible realizations. To say that I would remain at my current age just means that I feel that I had quite a lucky, good realization and that I am very risk averse.

So, at least for me, an age of peak or trough happiness will have to remain undefined.

"Amtrak's big lie"

Our federal tax dollars at work.

"How Should Econ 101 Be Taught?"

Professor Boudreaux reviews the new hotness in intro econ: "wunderkind" Raj Chetty's new Harvard course.

"Don’t buy the media hype over the new China virus"

I'm linking to this despite the substantial risk of kina hurra because it's a fine example of something journalists and commentators don't do enough of: provide a meaningful intertemporal or cross-sectional basis of comparison.

As a share of hospitalizations, the regular flu death rate is 8.5 percent to 17 percent, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — considerably higher than for Wuhan. 

(As partial penance for tempting the Fates, here's a sober, rather pessimistic analysis by five academics. Link via Instapundit.)

And if you want to track the spread of the virus in real time, here, from Johns Hopkins, is a map.

 

"Buttigieg’s Hollow Military Bragging"

Why some veterans are not impressed with Buttigieg's military service.

"Missouri charmer led double life, masterminded one of the biggest frauds in farm history"

Organic farm products command a sizable price premium. There is relatively little checking whether a given organic item is actually organic and consumers usually can't tell. Guess what happens.

"Here’s what the Super Bowl ‘Predictor’ sees for stocks in 2020, depending on whether the 49ers or the Chiefs win"

TL;DR: The Super Bowl "predictor" was yet another meaningless ex post correlation.

"The giant institution vs the virus"

Richard Fernandez:

The old model of globalization has paradoxically both speeded up the rate at which events occur and slowed the rate at which behemoth transnational institutions can respond.

The result is a mismatch and failure of institutions is the theme which unites Brexit, the US impeachment and the repeated viral threats from China.

"The Patriots defense has a tell, and the NFL has figured it out"

A lengthy examination--21 minutes--of the play of Stephen Gilmore and the Patriots defense this season. Not schooled in the intricacies of modern NFL defenses, I found it quite interesting.

"Kevin Pollak's Amazing Stories about the Making of 'A Few Good Men'"

An interesting eight minutes.

"Someone on the internet does something good for once"

A nice story.

"She's the One"

The Boss and E Street, live in London, 1975.

"This is easily one of the handful of Bruce videos I would recommend to anyone unfamiliar with him or the band. This is rock ‘n’ roll in its purest form."

"This is one of the most dangerous videos on Youtube. Before you realise it you're an addict ;-)"

"Scientists have confirmed that it is physically impossible to see them and not have a great time."

"The Man Who’s Spending $1 Billion to Own Every Pop Song"

I don't know if he's right or not. All I can say is that when a businessman pays twice as much as the previous "top dollar" for an important input sold in an apparently competitive market, he's either really smart or making a big mistake. 

"The Letter"

Joe Cocker with Leon Russell, live.

A fine way to spend 3 minutes. (I don't know about Leon, but Joe had a good time.)

First day of the semester in CS4620, Intelligent Systems

Sign me up. The prof has a sense of humor.

"Our body systems age at different rates, study finds, pointing to personalized care to extend healthy life"

Very early work. We need more of this type of research . . . stat!

"Microsoft Flight Simulator - Official Gameplay Trailer"

Pretty amazing looking. I remember the first version of Flight Simulator I saw. The Empire State Building was eight or so lines.

"'Processed' Food Causes Obesity It Says, But The Paper Ignores Obvious Confounders"

Ignoring "obvious confounders" is . . . not good.

"Don't abbreviate 2020. It's for your own good"

In case you don't have enough things to keep track of.