News
Entertainment
Science & Technology
Life
Culture & Art
Hobbies
News
Entertainment
Science & Technology
Culture & Art
Hobbies
Thursday assorted links - Marginal REVOLUTION
1. Ireland seems to be relaxing its regulations on modular homes. 2. AI assistance can enhance rather than hinder skills development. 3. The zero-electricity Indian restaurant. Here is their home page. 4. Bari Weiss is correct. 5. Donald Shoup obituary (NYT). 6. NYC congestion pricing may not be disappearing after all (NYT). 7. Why disintermediation […]
Might we end up with a modest stagflation? - Marginal REVOLUTION
CPI inflation has come in at three percent, and there are signs of vulnerability in labor markets, as I discuss in my latest Bloomberg column: What about unemployment? There is a general consensus that the labor market has stayed broadly stable, but hiring is slowing down and people are less likely to quit their jobs. The overall […]
My years in Fall River, Mass. - Marginal REVOLUTION
I lived there from ages 4 to 7, which spans 1966 to 1969. At that time, Fall River about forty years past its textiles manufacturing peak, as southern competition had deindustrialized the city. My father was invited to run the Chamber of Commerce there, with the hope that he could help revitalize things, and so […]
Baudrillard on AI - Marginal REVOLUTION
If men create intelligent machines, or fantasize about them, it is either because they secretly despair of their own intelligence or because they are in danger of succumbing to the weight of a monstrous and useless intelligence which they seek to exorcize by transferring it to machines, where they can play with it and make […]
My excellent Conversation with Gregory Clark - Marginal REVOLUTION
Here is the audio, video, and transcript. Here is the episode summary: How much of your life’s trajectory was set in motion centuries ago? Gregory Clark has spent decades studying social mobility, and his findings suggest that where you land in society is far more predictable than we like to think. Using historical data, surname […]
50 Takes from Kevin Bryan - Marginal REVOLUTION
A very good list from Kevin Bryan. 49 out of 50 correct, excellent ratio. 1) Ukrainians are heroes who suffered a ton. 2) Putin obviously covets Georgia and the Baltics also. 3) EU not in talks because they basically have no hard power; France even lost the Sahel. 4) The far right European parties are bad. […]
Wednesday assorted links - Marginal REVOLUTION
1. Plane crashes are still on a downward trend. 2. 2015 Matt Yglesias on whether American democracy is doomed. 3. 3.1%. 4. Does technology do more to help submarine tracking or submarine autonomy? 5. Good piece on Macca. 6. The actual budget news: House Republicans reluctant to cut Medicaid. And does the bond market believe […]
Monday assorted links - Marginal REVOLUTION
1. What is the meaning of life? 2. Rohit gets The Boss to write a science fiction novel. 3. AI and the Sisyphus Myth. 4. Are there workable mechanisms for fiscal discipline in the current eurozone? 5. Click on the first link here for an incredible account of a romance. 6. Who has cancelled at […]
Which economic tasks are performed with AI? - Marginal REVOLUTION
I have now read through the very impressive paper on AI tasks to have come out of Anthropic, with Kunal Handa as the lead author, including Dario, Jack, and quite a few others as well. Here is the paper and part of the abstract: We leverage a recent privacy-preserving system [Tamkin et al., 2024] to […]
Italy's Superbonus: The Dumbest Fiscal Policy in Recent Memory - Marginal REVOLUTION
Luis Garicano has an amazing post on “one of the dumbest fiscal policies in recent memory.” Launched in Italy during COVID by Prime Minister Conte, the “Superbonus” scheme subsidized 110% of housing renovation costs. Now if one were to use outdated, simplistic, Econ 101 type reasoning one would predict that such a scheme would be […]
An Economic Approach to Homer’s Odyssey: Part II - Marginal REVOLUTION
My three-part essay for Liberty Fund continues, here is the opener: In the previous article, I outlined what an economic approach to reading Homer’s epic, The Odyssey,1 might look like. I also noted that what most strikes me about The Odyssey is Homer’s treatment of comparative political regimes. Looking at the wide variety of regimes Odysseus encounters is the […]
Naming AI models correctly - Marginal REVOLUTION
Are you confused by all the model names and terminology running around? Here is a simple guide to what I call them: o1 pro — The Boss 4o — Little Boss o3 mini — The Mini Boss GPT 4o with scheduled tasks — Boss come back later o1 — Cheapskates’ boss Deep Research — My […]
Does Peer Review Penalize Scientific Risk Taking? - Marginal REVOLUTION
Scientific projects that carry a high degree of risk may be more likely to lead to breakthroughs yet also face challenges in winning the support necessary to be carried out. We analyze the determinants of renewal for more than 100,000 R01 grants from the National Institutes of Health between 1980 and 2015. We use four […]
Kevin Kelly's fifty travel tips - Marginal REVOLUTION
Here is one of them, in part: Here in brief is the method I’ve honed to optimize a two-week vacation: When you arrive in a new country, immediately proceed to the farthest, most remote, most distant place you intend to reach during the trip. If there is a small village, remote spa, a friend’s farm, […]
It's happening at The New York Times - Marginal REVOLUTION
The New York Times is greenlighting the use of AI for its product and editorial staff, saying that internal tools could eventually write social copy, SEO headlines, and some code. In an email to newsroom staff, the company announced that it’s opening up AI training to the newsroom, and debuting a new internal AI tool […]
*Steven Weinberg: A Life in Physics* - Marginal REVOLUTION
A fun book, I enjoyed the read. Here is one bit: There is another contribution to my productivity. While sitting at my desk at home doing physics or preparing classes, or doing some science writing, I picked up the habit of watching classic movies or the History Channel on television. My TV is always turned […]
Germany facts of the day - Marginal REVOLUTION
Germany has lost almost a quarter of a million manufacturing jobs since the start of the Covid pandemic as companies and politicians sound the alarm that Europe’s industrial heartland is suffering an irreversible decline… The contraction of Germany’s industry is evident in the fall of market value in the sector. Together, Dax constituents Volkswagen, Thyssenkrupp […]
Reforming the NIH - Marginal REVOLUTION
It seems the Trump proposal to simply cut overhead to fifteen percent will not stand up in the courts, at least not without Congressional approval? Nonetheless a few of you have asked me what I think of the idea. My preferred reforms for the NIH include the following: 1. Cap pre-specified overhead at 25 percent, […]
Emergent Ventures winners, 40th cohort - Marginal REVOLUTION
Akhil Kumar, 19, Toronto, global health issues and general career development. Janet Shin, Berkeley, neurotech and brain imaging. Diana Leung, San Francisco, AI and bio and machine learning. Kyle MacLeod, Oxford University, economics videos on YouTube. Aarav Sharma, Singapore, high school, to work on exoskeletons and AI. Megan Gafford, NYC, writings on aesthetics, Substack. Alice […]
What should I ask David Robertson? - Marginal REVOLUTION
Yes, David Robertson the conductor. He studied with Boulez and Messiaen, and arguably is the second best Boulez conductor ever. He also is famous for his recordings of John Adams. I find him consistently excellent, for instance his Unsuk Chin, Milhaud, or Porgy and Bess. Here is his Wikipedia page. Here is his TEDx talk […]
Tuesday assorted links - Marginal REVOLUTION
1. Meta’s AI-powered Ray-Bans are life-enhancing for the blind (WSJ). 2. Removal of all NEPA regulations? 3. New betting odds for a Russia-Ukraine ceasefire. 4. Capybaras face vasectomies. 5. Stock market data for Estonia. 6. Andrej on Grok 3. And Ethan Mollick. So far I like it.
o1 pro - Marginal REVOLUTION
Often I don’t write particular posts because I feel it is obvious to everybody. Yet it rarely is. So here is my post on o1 pro, soon to be followed by o3 pro, and Deep Research is being distributed, which uses elements of o3. (So far it is amazing, btw.) o1 pro is the smartest […]
Sundry observations on the Trump tariffs - Marginal REVOLUTION
Brad Setser estimates the costs at 0.8 percent of U.S: gdp. I am not sure if he is considering exchange rate adjustments in that figure. Kevin Bryan writes: The problem with escalating, again, is that Canada is more reliant on US energy than vice versa, US ports than vice versa, US intermediate goods than vice […]
Remember when I said Luka was overrated? - Marginal REVOLUTION
Oh the howls that claim elicited. Basically Dallas did not want to give him a Supermax extension for $345 million (no, Luka did not ask to be traded). So Luka is now gone, here are some notes from ESPN: The Mavericks were motivated to move Doncic because of his constant conditioning concerns, sources told MacMahon. […]
Peace and Free Trade - Marginal REVOLUTION
In The Spirit of the Laws, Montesquieu famously argued that: …Peace is the natural effect of trade. Two nations who traffic with each other become reciprocally dependent; for if one has an interest in buying, the other has an interest in selling; and thus their union is founded on their mutual necessities. Similar arguments were […]
U.S. Infrastructure: 1929-2023 - Marginal REVOLUTION
By Ray C. Fair, an important contribution: This paper examines the history of U.S. infrastructure since 1929 and in the process reports an interesting fact about the U.S. economy.Infrastructure stock as a percent of GDP began a steady decline around 1970, and thegovernment budget deficit became positive and large at roughly the same time. The infrastructure pattern in […]
Letting China into the WTO was not the key decision - Marginal REVOLUTION
We study China’s export growth to the United States from 1950–2008, using a structural model to disentangle the effects of past tariff changes from the effects of changes in expectations of future tariffs. We find that the effects of China’s 1980 Normal Trade Relations (NTR) grant lasted past its 2001 accession to the World Trade […]
What I've been reading - Marginal REVOLUTION
Owen Hatherley, Militant Modernism. A very good short book, defending “left wing modernism,” a much maligned target on the right these days. Hatherley himself is a much underrated figure, a commie who came along at the wrong time but a very good writer and thinker about aesthetics. Stuart A. Reid, The Lumumba Plot: The Secret […]
Saturday assorted links - Marginal REVOLUTION
1. Opportunity cost?? 2. Is Tether the most profitable company in the world per employee? 3. Flow (trailer), the animated Latvian silent movie about a cat, dog, bird, capybara, and coatimundi, is excellent and unique. 4. Patrick Collison interviews Noah Smith. 5. Does more law lead to more economic growth, due to contingent clauses? 6. […]
What should I ask Chris Arnade? - Marginal REVOLUTION
From Wikipedia: Chris Arnade…is an American photographer and writer. He worked for 20 years as a bond trader on Wall Street; in 2011, he started documenting the lives of poor people and their drug addictions and commenting on the state of the society of the United States. He did this through photographs posted on social media and articles in various media… […]
Friday assorted links - Marginal REVOLUTION
1. The Wandering Minstrel (Irish song). 2. My 2008 post on Sarah Palin. A bit too much ahead of its time, but directionally correct. 3. AI models as historians. And how to have a career after o3 drops. And low-hanging fruit in inference-time scaling. 4. Is there a murder gang of Sith vegans? Are they […]
*The African Gaze: Photography, Cinema and Power* - Marginal REVOLUTION
By Amy Sall. I love this picture book, or should I say photo book? Most of it is reproductions of photographs from the “golden age” of African photography, with profiles of each major photographer, plus a section on cinema as well. One very good way to find “a picture book for you” is to visit […]
The new tariffs are bad - Marginal REVOLUTION
Or are they tariff threats instead? Still bad! From the FT: Donald Trump has said he will hit the EU with tariffs, adding the bloc to a list of targets including Canada and Mexico and bringing the US to the brink of new trade wars with its biggest trading partners. The US president acknowledged that […]
The wisdom of Dwarkesh - Marginal REVOLUTION
Perhaps he imbibed a dose of Garett Jones?: Even people who expect human-level AI soon are still seriously underestimating how different the world will look when we have it. Most people are anchoring on how smart they expect individual models to be. (i.e. they’re asking themselves “What would the world be like if everyone had […]
The culture that is German (Roman) - Marginal REVOLUTION
We compare present-day regions that were advanced by Roman culture with those that remained outside of Roman influence. Even when accounting for more recent historical factors, we find that regions developed by Roman civilization show more adaptive personality patterns (Big Five) and better health and psychological well-being today. Results from a spatial regression discontinuity design […]
Thursday assorted links - Marginal REVOLUTION
1. Malthusian migrations: the French diaspora is relatively small because the French had their fertility transition earlier. 2. About 31% of Bitcoin is potentially vulnerable to quantum computing attacks? Here is the associated project. 3. New way to visit an art museum, using o1. 4. New observations on India and America. 5. “The prison admission […]
How did China's internet become so cool amongst America's youth? - Marginal REVOLUTION
That is the topic of my latest Bloomberg column. Here is part of the argument: TikTok was briefly shut down earlier this month, and the site faces an uncertain legal future. America’s internet youth started to look elsewhere — and where did they choose? They flocked to a Chinese video site called RedNote, also known as Xiaohongshu, […]