voluntaryXchange

Giving Birth to Hurricanes

Warm water on a satellite image, featuring Hurricane Earl:

You can also see that classic from The Weather Channel – tropical waves coming off of Africa.

Via The New York Times via Getty Images via NOAA.

Technorati Tags: hurricane,earl,satellite,water,temperature

A New Sith or Revenge of the Hope

I read Keith Martin’s theory several years ago – it’s a recasting of the Star Wars mythos. It’s a lot more sensible than a surface understanding of the story.

Read the whole thing: R2D2 and Chewbacca are prime agents, and taking out Luke and Leia to keep them from turning out like Anakin is primary.

Via Kottke.

Technorati Tags: star,wars,sith,hope,revenge,keith,martin

A Tiny Little Cite

Best of the Web Today noted the small complaint that I e-mailed in about the use of the term “growth recession” in this post.

In short, both “growth recession” and “jobless recovery” are squishy terms that might be used for political purposes, but the former is at least a term that a macroeconomist might use seriously.

Technorati Tags: growth,recession

Cool Mechanism Animations

Light bulbs going off all over when I watch these:

This is a maltese cross – the red part makes the second hand on a clock tick.

Via Bookofjoe via World of Technology.

Technorati Tags: technology,animations

Go Figure

From Cafe Hayek:

… The Obama administration removed from the Department of Labor’s website that agency’s study that found differences between women’s and men’s pay as resulting, not from discrimination, but from different career choices made by each sex …

Because, really, this is a political issue not an economic one. The economists have known the answer to this for a long time: women tend to choose jobs where it’s unlikely they’ll be killed or injured.

Technorati Tags: gender,pay,equity,obamacare

Double Slit Experiment

A great video of the most basic quantum mechanical weirdness:

I thought the end faded out a bit – it kinds of leaves you hanging when it starts to talk about measurement. I wonder if there is a follow up to this.

Via Bookofjoe via High Existence.

Technorati Tags: quantum,mechanics,double,slit,experiment

What If Congress Doesn’t Split?

Smart money has been on a Republican House and Democratic Senate for about a year now.

But, the betting markets are saying the chance of one party controlling both chambers is still around 60%.

What’s shocking, is that for the first time, that 60% chance is split about 50/50:

Lest you read too much into that, most of the weight for a split Congress has come from a decline in the chance of a Democratic one.

Technorati Tags: congress,2010,voters,odds

Liberty and Democracy Quote

Tim Worstall:

… Liberty and democracy are very much not the same thing: Jim Crow existed in a democracy and Hong Kong had no democracy but an awfully large amount of liberty.

Technorati Tags: quotes,liberty,democracy,worstall

Ultra Slow Motion Women’s Tennis Videos

From The New York Times:

The most amazing thing to me occurs right after this, from about 15 seconds onward, in the Kim Clijsters video.

After she makes contact while sliding (above), she is close to a split. She drops her left hand to the ground, and lifts both feet off the ground simultaneously.

And I thought I was so cool as a teenager when I could do Yannick Noah’s signature shot – running down the ball, vaulting above it, and returning it between my legs.

There are 7 videos, and about 3 minutes in total.

Via Bookofjoe.

Technorati Tags: women,tennis,video,slow,motion

Activists’ Fallacy

The activists’ fallacy is is the name given by Bryan Caplan to a silly syllogism that seems to drive a lot of government policy. It works like this:

1. Something must be done.
2. This is something.
3. Therefore, this must be done.

This is a good one, and will be added to my list of reasons why macroeconomics is hard.

Technorati Tags: activists,fallacy,caplan,macroeconomics,hard