Saturday Links

Here are the links for this week. Lots of interesting finds this week, and not nearly enough time to blog.

1. Google Fiber offers super-fast broadband to Kansas City. If all goes well, we will get connected in late spring of 2013.

2. Two Thirds of Ocean Life Remains Undiscovered. If they haven't found them, how do they know?

3. "British people - and many others across the world - have been brought up on the idea of three square meals a day as a normal eating pattern, but it wasn't always that way." Breakfast, lunch and dinner: Have we always eaten them?

4. What is the optimal rate of taxation according to the Laffer Curve? Goats hold the answer. Goat Economics: Why the Laffer Curve Is No Joke

5. The print media industry is rapidly morphing right before our eyes. Google Ad Revenue Now More Than U.S. Print Publications Combined [CHART]

6. Cyberspace continues to evolve. Text Messaging Declines in U.S. for First Time, Report Says

7. "It's a common grumble that politicians' lifestyles are far removed from those of their electorate. Not so in Uruguay. Meet the president - who lives on a ramshackle farm and gives away most of his pay." Jose Mujica: The world's 'poorest' president

8. You may have heard that there was a presidential election last week. Here is a map showing how the counties voted, with red being the most intensely Republican and blue being the most Democrat. (Source: The Real Reason Cities Lean Democratic)

9. Speaking of the election, a lot has been written about how the GOP will need to change if they want to win national elections. As a right-leaning guy, I thought this article in Slate, The New Grand Old Party, and Bobby Jindal's article, How Republicans can win future elections, were among the best.

10. China continues working on technological innovations to address its water problems. Industry Special: Desalination tech helps slake nation's thirst for fresh water.

11. The world is going to the dogs. The Dog Economy Is Global—but What Is the World's True Canine Capital?

12. As manufacturing becomes more automated, requiring fewer workers, we see The Emerging Professional, Scientific, and Technical Sector.

13. Nanotechnology just keeps getting more impressive. "The latest invention from Stanford University's Department of Electrical Engineering sounds like something a superhero would have. A self-repairing plastic-metal material has been developed by a team of professors, researchers and graduate students." New Self-Repairing Material Invented at Stanford

14. For the true narcissist, you now can replicate your image in 3D. 3D-printing photo booth gives you a figurine instead of a bad photo

15. Speaking of 3D-Printing, how big a deal is it? "Chris Anderson has exited one of the top jobs in publishing - Editor-in-Chief of Wired magazine - to pursue the life of an entrepreneur, making a big bet that 3D printers represent a massive new phase of the industrial revolution." Chris Anderson: Why I left Wired - 3D Printing Will Be Bigger Than The Web

16. The debate about a historical Adam continues. Peter Enns with another interesting post, Who Needs a Historical Prometheus…uh, I mean Adam?

17. George Bullard asks, When is a Church a Church, and When is it a Flash Mob?

"A flash mob (or flashmob) is a group of people who assemble suddenly in a place, perform an unusual and seemingly pointless act for a brief time, then disperse, often for the purposes of entertainment, satire, and artistic expression. Flash mobs are organized via telecommunications, social media, or viral emails." [Wikipedia accessed 11.12.12] How do you define a church?"

18. This was me thirty years ago (in my dreams!)

19. Ever wonder how Cy Young award-winning pitcher R. A. Dickey manages to throw knuckleballs? Apparently, so do physicists. How a Baseball Star's Tricky Pitch Strikes Out Hitters—and Baffles Physicists

20. I loved these stat brain teasers. 5 Statistics Problems That Will Change The Way You See The World

Comments

[JHM]

Great links this week.

I'm hoping we can get a 3D printer in the not-too-distant future. I'd like to have my students "print" some of their instruments.

I know Google is huge, but it's shocking to me that it's ad revenue is more than all print media combined.

Speaking of Google, I think Google Fiber would be the only reason I'd want to move closer to KCK. I'm jealous.

[Michael W. Kruse]

The Google ad thing is pretty amazing. I find this surprising as well.

We'll see if Fiber lives up to the hype.

[NKR]

Re: #4, a comment on the article you posted sums up the usefulness of such gaudy (or goady?) analysis. ;)

"While the goat example is interesting, it does not appear to come close to accurately estimating the apex of the Laffer curve for the US. Economists estimate the apex between 54 % and 80%, with most estimates close to 70%.

GDP growth data tends to support this. The best real GDP growth in the Reagan years was with a 50% top marginal rate. Growth went down when the rate was lowered to 28%, went up when the rate was increased to 31% under Bush, went up again when Clinton raised the rate to 39.6%, and growth went down when Bush cut the rate to 35%.

What this tells me is that for top marginal tax rates below 50%, changes have little or no impact on GDP growth. And since we are on the upward sloping side of the Laffer curve, increases in the tax rate will increase tax receipts for rates below the apex."

[Michael W. Kruse]

I have no empirical idea where the hump in the Laffer Curve is, though I expect it is north of 25% and south of 75%. I don't think the consensus is all the strong on any number. See Brad Delong's post:

http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2010/08/where-is-the-peak-of-the-laffer-curve.html