Links for 2011-11-29

“Let us consider a simple economy with three individuals. Alice is a restaurateur; she has fed herself, and has just prepared a delicious turkey dinner, at some cost in materials, fuel, and her time. Dives is a wealthy conceptual artist, who has eaten and is not hungry, but would like to buy the turkey dinner so he can “feed” it to the transparent machine he has built, and film it being “digested” and eventually excreted. To achieve this, he is willing and able to spend up to $5000. … Huddled miserably in a corner of the gate of Dives’s condo is Lazarus, who is starving, on the brink of death, but could be kept alive for another day by eating the turkey. The sum total of Lazarus’s worldly possession consist of filthy rags, of no value to any one else, and one thin dime… Assume that everyone is a rational agent, with these resources and preferences. What does economics tell us about this situation?

[T]hat is the morality tale of Black Friday. Yes, there will be mall riots over flat-screen TVs. But maybe, just maybe, people are shopping on Black Friday because they can’t afford the prices that greedy corporations charge on a regular basis–saving up to buy things like shoes on deep discount. And, of course, people who are suffering under the weight of economic inequality would like to have nice toys for their children and decent electronics (electronics are arguably a necessity to participate in 21st century western society) and the only time of the year they can afford such things is during the super-sales pushed on us by mega-business on Black Friday.

How many basketball players in pickup games around New York City still have a killer two-handed set shot? Bob Gold does. He’s 71 years old and has been playing for 40 years in a year-round weekly game in Greenwich Village that he calls the longest continuous running pickup game in the city.

Saw this as a fake motivational poster with the tagline “TEDDY BEARS: Protecting children from monsters under the bed since 1902.”

“Tom Brady and Peyton Manning are quite possibly the greatest anti-blitz quarterbacks in the history of football. And when your team doesn’t have one of those guys — or, in the case of the 2008 Patriots and the 2011 Colts, if they’re injured — you’re not so much worried about whether the backup can run the offense or learn the playbook or even hit the open receiver. You’re worried about third-and-7 in the fourth quarter. How will he handle some convoluted blitz involving three defenders all attacking the same gap while the pass defenders aren’t where he thought they’d be. To succeed under that kind of pressure, you need something more than arm strength, superior height, and even that coveted kind of on-the-fly fluid, athletic intelligence. Instead, you need, well, what is it exactly?”

There’s a little Uncanny Valley thing going on with the characters, but this is still better than anything Lucas has put out in about twenty years. I’d definitely watch more of this.