Is Airport Food Always This Bad?
My demand is quite inelastic, and the near monopolist at this smaller airport is taking advantage of that. I know that the price in the main part of the airport is lower for the same quality food, and the average quality is better too. I wonder: is this generally true? Read More »
When Earth Attacks Mars
NASA research suggests that there may be life on Mars after all — but that, up ’til now, we’ve been destroying it when we visit. (Does this hurt the case for space exploration?) As New Scientist tells the tale, The Phoenix Mars lander, which NASA uses to search for organic compounds on the red planet, may have been mistakenly burning up those very compounds. Read More »
Precision Hacking
Take a look at the final vote tally in Time magazine’s online poll of the most influential people.
It doesn’t take long to come to the conclusion that things didn’t turn out quite as one would expect; I’d never even heard of a handful of the folks who ended up near the top of the list, including the winner, Moot, who both has way more votes than anyone else and a much higher average rating. Read More »
Is Pain a Moral Good?
I learned of this article via Market Design, the blog of the always-interesting Al Roth. His headline was striking: “Anesthesia Was Once Repugnant.” There’s no way, I thought, that he could be right on this one (even though he has always been right in the past). But after reading Jay’s article, I was thoroughly convinced. Like most good arguments, it is not only convincing but humbling: how could we not have seen this earlier? Read More »
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