Thought of the Day from Albert Einstein
The most incomprehensible thing about the world is that it is comprehensible.
The most incomprehensible thing about the world is that it is comprehensible.
If President-elect Obama wants to know the challenges he can expect to contend with in his first 100 days of office, his “honeymoon period,” he need look no further than the state of Michigan. I’m not talking about what he can learn from Michigan about unemployment, where we are #1! I’m not talking about lessons…
In their book Animal Spirits, George Akerlof and Robert Shiller recount the intellectual battles waged between Milton Friedman and Paul Samuelson, two of the 20th century’s most important economists. Friedman was a huge believer in the power of markets, and in consumers’abilities to make rational decisions. Samuelson also recognized the power of markets, but thought…
A recent Time magazine article by Steven Brill has received a lot of attention, for highlighting some of the crazy ways that hospital set their prices. One quote in particular caught my attention. It had to do with what hospitals call the charge master, which is essentially a big list of what they charge for…
I recently read Margalit Fox’s wonderful book, “The Riddle of the Labyrinth,” which tells the extraordinary tale of how three people, working in parallel, figured out the meaning of what, to me, look like random scribbles on ancient tablets – the language known as Linear B. In trying to deduce the riddle of these scribbles,…
One of the great pleasures of blogging is reaching new audiences and, better yet, interacting with new people. On the other hand, blogging also puts us bloggers into contact with unpleasant commenters. This unpleasantness has compelled me to establish some guidelines for my own on-line behavior. First, I strive always to blog, and to comment…
Early in his book The Power Makers, Maury Klein does a fantastic job of explaining the importance that modern energy systems, like steam and electricity, played in human history: All the achievements of humanity down to about the eighteenth century were constrained by the inability to find more efficient ways to do things beyond the…