Month: November 2011

Padded books

Why are there so many well-padded books out there that really ought to be nice, long articles? The subject came up over dinner the other night, and having just wrapped up a nice, long article, I think I may have an answer to this question: journalists, like many non-economists, do not properly understand sunk costs.

essentially all non-fiction books are still produced with the following characteristics:

tons of filler material to reach a desired length
give away most in the introduction
assume readers are cognitively challenged

combine those things and you can get the gist of these books by using the free samples. enjoy!

Marginal transaction costs

transaction costs need to sink to 0 to really grease the economy. and destroying part of the financial industry is just an added social good.

Business Insider interviews Ben Milne, founder of an online payment system called Dwolla that charges a flat fee of $0.25 per transaction (unlike Paypal, Square, credit card companies, which charge a %).

Tuthilltown Spirits

the first new distillery in ny state since prohibition. field trip?

coopted Union

this claim seems counter-intuitive to me. what am i missing?

The merger between AT&T; and T-Mobile USA would create more than 100K jobs in the United States, a major telecommunications union said today, again putting its weight behind the deal.

Pizza artisans

theory, meet practice.

A toaster from scratch

considering it took this writer 9 months to make a toaster from scratch, the maker movement has very far to go. i am a 3d printing fanboy as much as anyone, but really the state of the art allows little beyond toys / frivolous things. actually useful things remain out of reach, probably because of their inherent complexity.

Hello, my name is Thomas Thwaites, and I have made a toaster.” So begins The Toaster Project, the author’s 9-month-long journey from his local appliance store to remote mines in the UK to his mother’s backyard, where he creates a crude foundry. Along the way, he learns that an ordinary toaster is made up of 404 separate parts, that the best way to smelt metal at home is by using a method found in a fifteenth-century treatise, and that plastic is almost impossible to make from scratch.