• On Life and Love

    Weekly Linkage: Healthcare, Midnight Deployments, and Markov Chaining

    I’ve been all over The Incidental Economist lately, and it’s really hard not to link to every one of their posts that I can make heads or tails of. They’re really prolific by my standards, though, which means it’s a struggle to keep their posts from falling off the 30-day cut-off in Google Reader. Simply put: Marginal cost/benefit – "You’ll consume as much health care as you think worth it for the transaction price (your copayment if you’re insured). The lower the price, the more you’ll consume. You’ll keep using health services until the marginal benefit falls below the price you pay." I'm not sure I agree that people will…

  • On Life and Love

    Weekly Linkage: Passports, Robots, and Monopoly

    This week’s internet cruising: No Moods, Ads or Cutesy Fucking Icons (Re-reloaded) » Extraordinary Claims – Dust off your scientific hats for this one. Watts does an interesting analysis of the responses to a paper showing statistically significant evidence of precognition. Other folks apparently jumped all over the precog article with some borderline dishonest critiques, which Watts chews on. The “…the fuck…” exercise. « intangible.ca – Hear, hear. "Think of the last time you had to write an About Us page. Or a FAQ. Or craft an elevator pitch. The big challenge is coming up with a clear, engaging, and succinct description of your project." Change in passport language is…