#1, Eh?

My brother was recently admitted to the Vancouver Film School, so he’s moving to Canada. I never realized how highly the city is regarded. It’s been ranked the #1 most liveable city by The Economist for five years in a row: For the fifth straight year, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, bested 139 other cities worldwide in the ratings of “relative comfort,” based on five broad categories: infrastructure, education, safety, culture and environment and health care. Sadly, not a single U.S. city made the top 10. Anyways, I’m excited to have a good excuse to go visit.

Tyler Cowen and The Great Stagnation

I’ve long been a fan of Tyler Cowen’s blog, Marginal Revolution. It’s interesting, off-beat, and is a great source of lesser publicized news stories and research findings, with plenty of thoughtful commentary thrown in. I had been meaning to read Tyler’s recent book, ‘The Great Stagnation’, for a while now. Then the other day, while sitting in an airport, I caught this Business Week article about Tyler, titled ‘Tyler Cowen, America’s Hottest Economist.’ It’s a fascinating article about what makes him one of the more quirky and unique economists, and made me much more eager to read some of his published work. ‘The Great Stagnation’ is about why our economic growth trend has all but come to a standstill, and why

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Music Recommendations? Audiobooks?

I’m leaving in a few days on a cross-country road trip, and am looking to stock up on some new music for the ride. Anyone have any recommendations? Preferably new albums. I’m also thinking about buying a few audiobooks. I’ve never actually listened to one the whole way through. Any audiobook recommendations, with a decent narrator?

Photos of the Week

National Geographic: Inishowen, Ireland National Geographic: Namaqua Chameleon, Namibia EarthShots: Cheetah And I found this timelapse video of the European Southern Observatory’s “Very Large Telescope” VLT to be pretty amazing. Just watch the sky spin in circles.

Flying Lessons from Mr. Fallows

I like James Fallows because he teaches me interesting things about China, beer, flying, and politics. Things I probably wouldn’t learn otherwise. Today Jim* wrote a fascinating post about what we’ve learned about the Air France crash from the recent black box recovery, what new questions it raises, and why most people have no clue what “stalling” means in the context of flying. Here’s an excerpt about what it means when a plane “stalls”: 3) The plane “stalled,” but not in the way you think. The great impediment to accurate coverage of many airplane crashes involves the world “stall.” Its normal meaning, to 99 percent of the reading public, is that an engine has stopped or failed. Engines do sometimes fail on airplanes, and

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Panamania

Earlier today I shot some footage of a ship going through the Panama Canal. I sped it up 16x and added some Van Halen so any viewers don’t fall asleep!

This Seems Sensible

Let’s make dead people pay for Medicare. Kevin Drum via Tyler Cowen: So here’s an idea: why not reform Medicare by means testing it? Conservatives should love this idea. Here’s how it works. Basically, we leave Medicare alone. Oh, we can still go ahead with some of the obvious reforms. Comparative effectiveness research is a no-brainer for anyone who’s not part of the Republican leadership. …. Medicare stays roughly the same, but every time you receive medical care you also get a bill. You don’t have to pay it, though. It’s just there for accounting purposes. When you die, the bill gets paid out of your estate. If your estate is small or nonexistent, you’ve gotten lots of free medical care.

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