Links: The Future of the Left, Tech Intellectuals, Self-Serve Gas Stations, Etc

  • Simon Winchester, My First Mistake.

  • An article by Peter Beinart on the future of the left.

  • Paul Berman argues for music lessons.

  • Is anyone else as confused as I am about how it’s possible that a new ligament in the human knee was only just discovered?

  • Interesting interview with literary agent Andrew Wylie.

  • On The Onion

  • Wow, interesting case: a scientist criminally prosecuted and placed under house arrest for misleading statistical interpretation in a press release. [h/t Tyler Neylon]. Some thoughts: (1) we should be vary wary of criminalizing speech; (2) wouldn’t civil prosecution be more appropriate anyways; (3) there certainly are big problems with statistical shenanigans; (4) figuring out the right incentive structures for science + capitalism when it comes to medicine is hard; and (5) this notion that p = 0.05 is the magical threshold is problematic for a lot of reasons, and as they point out perhaps the drug could work for the right population; but (6) later studies seemed much more inconclusive.

  • Henry Farrell on the tech intellectuals

  • Good points by Matt Yglesias on iPhones

  • Mary Beard on the deciphering of Linear B

  • Matt Yglesias on New Jersey’s ban on self-serve gas stations. He fails to mention another drawback: for millenial members of the New Jersey diaspora who don’t own a car and rarely drive (all good things that Matt Yglesias, proponent of public transit and cities, would agree with), NJ’s ban makes it possible never to have pumped one’s own gas. This elicits pangs of anxiety whenever the Zipcar gets close to the 1/4 tank level, and your correspondent (who doesn’t recall if he has ever pumped his own gas, though he did help his NY-to-NJ transplant mother do it in Minnesota once, when she’d forgotten how) starts planning how he’ll have to go on youtube and watch a video explain how to pump his own gas. (Or perhaps he can just rely on the memory those Seinfeld American Express ads.)

  • Now online, the first volume of the Feynman Lectures. Someday, I’ll learn physics.

  • It seems obvious to me that a financial product that could help people hedge against drops in real estate prices would be a good thing. So why doesn’t it exist?

  • On Orwell