Exasperated Calculator

This take-off of Hotel California from astronomers in Hawaii.

Quite a good singer, which makes this quite a bit better than the average for this kind of joke.

Global warming could lead to coral reefs moving further south.

Last thing the South Coast needs is more tourists, of course. Judging from the last weekend of the year it’s already bursting at the seams.

The Russian SU-30MK can stop and hover in mid-air.

Fun toy. Probably a little pricey.

The Zionist-Conspiracy-O-Matic.

Funny. But don’t forget that some people actually believe this poison.

More medical treatment doesn’t (necessarily) make you better.

Health ‘economics’ is a very tricky area - most of the usual rules of economics go out the window when people start to have near-infinite demands for healthcare. But the underlying idea here is interesting - in the US system you can buy as much healthcare as you or your insurance company can afford. And, as you can’t judge marginal benefits of health treatments very well, this probably means you’ll buy too much. In socialised systems such as the UK there’s a far more brutal attention paid to the effectiveness of treatment, because everything they do for you is less treatment for someone else. Maybe that’s not the worst idea in the world.

Go throw something on a barbie, play some backyard cricket, or complain about the politicians. You know, something Australian.

I’ll be back on Tuesday. Everyone have a great long weekend.

And if you don’t get the long weekend because you’re not in Australia: Why not fix that?

A Brazilian ice-cream company has a competition where you can find an iPod in your ice cream.

Incredibly clever packaging, a good example of someone not letting the fact that an idea is impossible stop them.

A beautiful but silly wine decanter.

Why silly? Because half the purpose of a decanter is to aerate the wine - after all, sediments are pretty rare in modern wines. So if the wine can’t breathe, why bother decanting?

From The Onion’s week of true stories: “Gore Wins Oscar, Nobel Peacce Prize for Slide-Show Presentation.

The deadpan accuracy of the story is probably the funniest bit.

A magician does the table cloth trick backwards.

The whole act is pretty funny, watch the whole thing.

Caricatures are better than realistic sketches for identifying people.

Memory is a pretty strange thing - this study suggests that adapting to the way it works rather than simply forcing people to remember the ‘right’ way might be the most effective way to go.

I was listening this morning to a recent episode of the great podcast Skepticality, and I was very struck by a question host Swoopy asked of interview-ee Michael Shermer, talking about his new book on economics and psychology:

What do we do [...] to make better rational choices and fewer emotional ones.

Dr Shermer gave a good answer about being aware of the tricks marketers play and the findings of economic psychology.

I have a slightly different answer: why should we?

There’s a lot of talk around (especially in the Australian media) about how experimental economics is showing “people aren’t rational”, of limits to rationality. Some of this is very good and interesting. Part of the problem is the word ‘rational’. When most economists use it they’re talking about a very narrow technical definition, that has little to do with the other dictionary meanings. That confuses a lot of people.

But there are also a lot of value judgements tied up in most people’s view of rational. For instance, I want to lose weight, but I also want to eat that chocolate bar. Is it ‘irrational’ if I do eat the chocolate bar? Of course not, it just reflects my preferences or discount rates at the time.

So, if our emotions would lead us to choose one thing, but the ‘rational’ choice is something else, is there any reason to think that it’s always better to choose ‘rationally’? Sometimes, sure. If it makes sense to go to another store for $50 off a $100 iPod, it also makes sense to do it for $50 off a $10,000 TV. But the chocolate bar is still a perfectly reasonable choice to make, even if it’s not what you’d choose from some other circumstance. Preferences don’t have to stand still all the time for people to be rational.

Repbulic, by Charles Sheehan-Miles.

Haven’t read it yet, so don’t know if it’s any good. But I like the genre, so I’m optimistic.

The $US 20,000 halogen-powered siphon bar coffee machine.

No one could possibly think that’s excessive for the public service, right? It would definitely be productivity enhancing.

A jet powered toaster that can toast bread in 50 seconds.

I believe I agree with Homer Simpson when i say: 50 seconds? But I want it now!.

Pen fork and spoon attachments for your pen.

I agree with Gizmodo - the peak of all human achievement has now been reached.

Buy a share of the future income of a baseball player.

Given the direction of the stock market lately, this seems like a really good idea to me. But I’d love to see it expanded - why not have a market for the graduates in the department?

(I’d personally like a bit more information on the performance of the athlete, though).

So, there’s a movie of Watchmen coming out. Probably the greatest graphic novel of all time.

Now, it’s a film based on Alan Moore comics, so it’s going to suck.

But…

Every time I see something from the director’s blog I start to get a little hope that it might be OK. Like these story boards showing a careful adaptation of the imagery of the comic book.

I need to deal with this excessive hope, or I’m just going to be disappointed. But I guess I’ll find out in about 14 months time.

A dispute over whether something is a cake or biscuit could cost 3.5m pounds.

This is exactly what euro-skeptics think of the EU in the UK. How on earth could you say that those are cakes?