Blog of the Day

Backpocket Coo

Bluefin Tuna Fact of the Day

"The BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, one of only two known Atlantic bluefin spawning grounds, has only intensified the crisis. By some estimates, there may be only 9,000 of the most ecologically vital megabreeders left in the fish’s North American stock, enough for the entire population of New York to have a final bite (or two) of high-grade otoro sushi. The Mediterranean stock of bluefin, historically a larger population than the North American one, has declined drastically as well. Indeed, most Mediterranean bluefin fishing consists of netting or “seining” young wild fish for “outgrowing” on tuna “ranches.” Which was why the Greenpeace craft had just deployed off Malta: a French fishing boat was about to legally catch an entire school of tuna, many of them undoubtedly juveniles."

-Tuna’s End

Why Arabs love Turkish soaps?

If this seems like a triumph of Western values by proxy, the Muslim context remains the crucial bridge. “Ultimately, it’s all about local culture,” said Irfan Sahin, the chief executive of Dogan TV Holding, Turkey’s largest media company, which owns Kanal D. “People respond to what’s familiar.” By which he meant that regionalism, not globalism, sells, as demonstrated by the finale of “Noor” last summer on MBC, the Saudi-owned, Dubai-based, pan-Arab network that bought rebroadcast rights from Mr. Sahin. A record 85 million Arab viewers tuned in.

That said, during the last 20 years or so Turkey has ingested so much American culture that it has experienced a sexual revolution that most of the Arab world hasn’t, which accounts for why “Noor” triumphed in the Middle East but was considered too tame for most Turks. Even Mr. Sahin wonders, by contrast, whether the racier “Ask-i Memnu,” a smash with young Turks, threatens to offend Arabs unless it is heavily edited.

“You have to understand that there are people still living even in this city who say they only learned how to kiss or learned there is kissing involved in lovemaking by watching ‘Noor,’ explained Sengul Ozerkan, a professor of television here who conducts surveys of such things. “So you can imagine why the impact of that show was so great in the Arab world and why ‘Ask-i Memnu’ may be too much.

“But then, Turkey always acts like a kind of intermediary between the West and the Middle East,” she added.

-Turks Put Twist in Racy Soaps

What should you teach Artists?

On five Saturdays this month and next, Mr. Barman, Mr. Hinojosa and 54 other artists are attending a class paid for by the City of New York that is intended to help them turn their creative works into money.

“Does everyone have Excel?,” Peter Cobb, a lawyer and administrator at the New York Foundation for the Arts, which runs the program, asked the class last Saturday. “For next week, your assignment is to make a list of all your expenses for 2009.”

The sighs and complaints that followed were proof of the challenging task Mr. Cobb and his colleagues have taken on: trying to teach people who like to color outside the lines about drawing up business plans, budgeting and making a sales pitch...

“Artists are not taught to plan,” said Jackie Battenfield, a painter and the author of “The Artist’s Guide: How to Make a Living Doing What You Love.” Too often, she said, they’re “going in circles, and that’s very demoralizing.”

This is the first time the city has financed such a program, though others, like one at the Bronx Museum called Artists in the Marketplace, have long strived to help artists manage their careers.

-Creative Types, Learning to Be Business-Minded

Interesting Blogs

Artandads

Advertising is Good for you

Tanya Khovanova’s Math Blog

edlieze.blogspot.com

Grattitude Journal- Lets be grateful we are not deaf

8 Month Old Deaf Baby's Reaction To Cochlear Implant Being Activated

via David Henderson

We're pattern seeking animals!

People that are put in a condition of feeling out of control are more likely to see something in this, which is allegedly patternless. In other words, the propensity to find these patterns goes up when there's a lack of control. For example, baseball players are notoriously superstitious when they're batting, but not so much when they're fielding. Because fielders are successful 90 to 95 percent of the time. The best batters fail seven out of 10 times. So their superstitions, their patternicities, are all associated with feelings of lack of control and so forth.

-The pattern behind self-deception

The Economics of the Game

Play the Fantasy World Cup

McDonald's FIFA World Cup Fantasy

Economists need to follow the accountants lead

A great source for accounting students- Open Tuition.

The Art of Defining Marriage

The unit’s lore is worthy of its own reality TV series — sham couples caught red-handed, yes, but also quirky ones whose authenticity surprised everyone. The gay man who claimed he had suddenly found his female soul mate (denied); the recovering alcoholic who had lost his memory (approved); the man who volunteered that he had erectile dysfunction in an attempt to explain why his mate did not know the location of his nine tattoos (unsuccessful); the elderly citizen who lost an arm in a subway accident, but found happiness with a young Caribbean wife (successful).

“We can’t impose our definition of marriage, especially being in New York,” said Maria Guerra, a Stokes supervisor. “We’ve seen it all.”

-Do You Take This Immigrant?

Book Cover Art- Thanks for Coming

Thanks for Coming: One Young Woman's Quest for an Orgasm (P.S.)

World Cup 2010

Our favorite blog for World Cup is Goal from NYT

“The meaning of life is that it ends”- Kafka

Just finished reading the book 'How Doctors Think' by Jerome Groopman.

Came across two moving stories from the NYT- I recommend the book to every one.

Floyd Norris talks about his cancer treatment.

I am undergoing radiation and drug treatment for cancer.

The drug is Erbitux, which at least is something I had heard about. (You may recall that was the drug involved in the Martha Stewart lying-to-the-S.E.C. case.) It has made my face look worse than anyone’s face ever looked when I was in high school.

I know that it is not news that radiation treatment can be miserable. I did not do all the homework I could have done, so perhaps I should have been better prepared.

But the pain involved is more than I have ever experienced. It is virtually impossible for me to eat. I am losing weight at an impressive rate, to the dismay of the radiation doctor. I have little energy, which is probably both because of the radiation directly and because of the lack of nutrition...

It is not fun, but it has been inspiring. In a way, I am happier about my life than at any time I can remember. Clint Eastwood once asked, “Do you feel lucky?” My answer is a shouted yes...

I am 62, and have had the honor of being a financial columnist here for more than 20 years. I have been happily married for 26 years, and last Friday saw our son graduate from high school. He will be attending an excellent college in the fall.

I hope to have a lot more years. But I’ve had a lot already, and they have been better than a lot of people have any reason to hope for. I am grateful.

A Scare, a Scar, a Silver Lining;

This is trite but also so, so true: A brush with mortality turns out to be the best way to appreciate how blue the sky is, how sensuous grass feels underfoot, how melodious kids’ voices are. Even teenagers’ voices. A friend and colleague, David E. Sanger, who conquered cancer a decade ago, says, “No matter how bad a day you’re having, you say to yourself: ‘I’ve had worse.’ ”

Related:
My surprising inspiration (death!)

Random Blogs

YogaDork

it's all yoga, baby

Our Dinner Table

Chess Game of the Day

Veselin Topalov vs Viswanathan Anand

Related:
Chess and mixed strategies

Another way to limit draws in chess

Chess, football and the Bilbao Rule

"I am chaotic and lazy"

SPIEGEL: Do you go out for a drink at night too sometimes?

Carlsen: Rarely. I prefer to chat with friends on the Internet or play poker online.

SPIEGEL: For money?

Carlsen: Of course. For what else?

The Gambit Blog

Creative Gardening Ideas

Growing Vegetables Upside Down

Upside-down gardening, primarily of leggy crops like tomatoes, cucumbers and peppers, is more common partly because of the ubiquity of Topsy Turvy planters, which are breathlessly advertised on television and have prominent placement at retailers like Wal-Mart, Walgreens and Bed Bath & Beyond. According to the company that licenses the product, Allstar Products Group in Hawthorne, N.Y., sales this year are twice last year’s, with 20 million sold since the planter’s invention in 2005. Not to be outdone, Gardener’s Supply and Plow & Hearth recently began selling rival upside-down planters. “Upside-down gardening is definitely a phenomenon,” said Steve Wagner, senior product manager for Plow & Hearth.

The advantages of upside-down gardening are many: it saves space; there is no need for stakes or cages; it foils pests and fungus; there are less, if any, weeds; there is efficient delivery of water and nutrients thanks to gravity; and it allows for greater air circulation and sunlight exposure.

Related:
cheapvegetablegardener.com

urbangardencasual.com

instructables.com

Future Shock

“What the statistics point to is a rise in Facebook, a decline in blogging, and before that, a decline in personal Web pages. The trend is clear, she said — Facebook is displacing these other forms of online publication'

-World’s Largest Social Network: The Open Web

Artist of the Day- Tsilli Pines

According to Pines, the piece she created for this issue of the magazine, above, titled, "Corporations," isn't just about the way accounting practices are "wacky on such a large scale for so many businesses." To her, "everything, from the way we are trying to make up for personal losses to the way the economy is being propped up, feels like it's being put back together imperfectly

This series is about the topography of money in human consciousness, the constant parade of numbers in everyday life. The figures are at once imaginary and very real. I’m interested in the power numbers have in our lives, and how much they dictate, both psychologically and actually.

Here's the artist on Flick

How much do you think the following is worth?

In an overflowing salesroom at Christie’s, six bidders vied for “Nude, Green Leaves and Bust,” which depicts the artist’s mistress Marie-Thérèse Walter, reclining naked. When the canvas last changed hands, in 1951, it sold for $19,800. But this time, “Nude, Green Leaves and Bust” brought $106.5 million.

-At $106.5 Million, a Picasso Sets an Auction Record

Education and Economics

What do you think of the following program at Teacher's College, Columbia University?

This program is intended for individuals who want to acquire advanced training in the theory, methods, and practices in the economics of education. It is a selective program to prepare individuals for leadership roles in teaching, research, or administrative settings.

The coursework for this program consists of three parts: core courses, courses in research methods, and courses in a specialized area of study. The available specialized areas include: education and economic development, education and transition to work, educational finance, economic evaluation and cost analysis in education, economics of urban and minority education, economics of educational technology, teachers markets, and others.

Examples of Specializations:

* Education and economic development
* Education and the transition to work
* Educational finance
* Economics of urban and minority education
* Economic evaluation of education
* Economics of new educational technology
* Teacher markets


How to Apply- Teachers College

Cool Minimalist Hotels

The Business Model;

“In the old days, the bigger the space in a hotel, the more luxury you had,” said Simon Woodroffe, the chain’s founder. “But very, very rich people stay in reasonably small spaces on luxury yachts, and very, very rich people travel in extremely small spaces on Learjets.”...

But these new hotels are even smaller, almost like chic youth hostels, said Lalia Rach, dean of the Tisch Center for Hospitality, Tourism and Sports Management at New York University. The emphasis on style over space — one way to make the economics work for a budget hotel in an expensive urban center, Dr. Rach said — appeals to out-of-towners who want to feel like New Yorkers, right down to fleeing a shoebox to experience the city’s culture and nightlife.

“This is attractive to a very large market,” she said, referring to travelers ages 16 to 30. “They want to live the destination, not live the hotel.”

At the same time, the theory goes, these hotels need to be destinations for the locals — or at least to feel as if they could be — for guests to sense that they are tapping into the real New York. So Yotel, whose futuristic rooms feature purple mood lighting and private monsoon showers, plans to turn part of its fourth floor over to a restaurant, bar and 20,000-square-foot outdoor patio.

Pod Hotel;

The Pod Hotel offers hip, convenient, and personalized accommodations for the stylish and spendthrifty traveler

Yotel;

"I was lucky enough to get an upgrade to the sleeper bed in British Airways first class. I went to sleep with the conundrum of how to make a Japanese capsule hotel acceptable in the west and woke up realising the solution was around me: all I needed to do was find the designer of the BA first class cabin and ask them to help me design a hotel."

Room Mate Grace
The Ace
The Jane
Morgans

Related:
Nominal Design Hotels
StyleHive
GLAM

Sex, Bombs & Burgers

The talk will focus on the main theme of the book, which is how the military, porn and food industries have been the biggest drivers of technology over the past century. The links between these three are not immediately clear, but they are all rooted in humanity's basest instincts. In essence, my book is about how the worst parts of human vice have resulted in some truly incredible achievements

It's no secret that porn is a major force on the internet - an estimated 25 per cent of all search requests are for adult content, while about one third of all websites are pornography-related. About 28,000 people are watching porn of some kind online , spending about $89 doing so, every second.
Porn, despite being commonly thought of as a negative by-product of one of our basest instincts (the need to have sex), has been a big force for innovation over the past century.

Cultural Sex Fact of the Day

Kissing as part of sexual foreplay is common in the West but virtually unknown in other parts of the world (Ford & Beach, 1965). There are some cultures where penetration was the key element to intercourse, and neither foreplay nor afterplay was recorded. Ford and Beach pointed out that physical pain and biting are sometimes permitted as part of sexual foreplay and, therefore, such behaviors are likely to be readily incorporated into the sexual repertoire

-Cultures of foreplay

Is Marriage good for you?

Contemporary studies, for instance, have shown that married people are less likely to get pneumonia, have surgery, develop cancer or have heart attacks. A group of Swedish researchers has found that being married or cohabiting at midlife is associated with a lower risk for dementia. A study of two dozen causes of death in the Netherlands found that in virtually every category, ranging from violent deaths like homicide and car accidents to certain forms of cancer, the unmarried were at far higher risk than the married. For many years, studies like these have influenced both politics and policy, fueling national marriage-promotion efforts, like the Healthy Marriage Initiative of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. From 2006 to 2010, the program received $150 million annually to spend on projects like “divorce reduction” efforts and often cited the health benefits of marrying and staying married.

-Is Marriage Good for Your Health?

Artist of the Day- Matthew Willey, 'Not a day without a line'

Mr. Willey, who grew up in Virginia and Massachusetts and received a bachelor’s degree in fine arts from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston and Tufts University, has done all sorts of painting: a rendering of the Last Supper for a juice stand, in which a smoothie occupies Jesus’s position and fruit stands in for the disciples; koi ponds on cement floors; and fallen flowers so lifelike that people stoop to pick them up.

“With murals, people think of the post office, they think of Diego Rivera and civil war and epics,” he says. “I paint on walls intimately within your home, whatever those needs are.”...

A few years ago, after he and a friend started a company called TellmeOmuse, which sells products related to Greek myths and epics, he finally did, painting the winged horses on his walls.

They are the horses of Helios, the Greek sun god, Mr. Willey explains. In Greek mythology, Helios leaves his palace in the east in the morning and charges into the sky, descending to his palace in the west at night.

“The part I love is that he gets up and does it again tomorrow,” Mr. Willey says. “That is what a painter’s life is like, it’s how arduous. There is a quote by van Gogh, ‘Not a day without a line.’ You don’t always know what is going to happen, but if you don’t get up and climb the horses out of the palace, how are you going to ever know?”

-In the East Village, a Muralist’s Tiny Sanctuary

Photo Blog of the Day- Island Hopper's Diary

via Island Hopper's Diary

Why humans sing?

According to David Attenborough;

It's tempting to think that human beings very early in their history used music in a similar way. And there can be little question that a male with a good singing voice in our own society today is still a source of sexual attraction and excitement. What else is a serenade? Watch a pop concert! And just as among the great reed warblers, quality counts. Females have been selecting males with a versatile larynx since way back in our ancestry.

Today young men sing together to generate camaraderie, and religious people use song to generate the deepest and most profound emotions among themselves and their listeners. But the prime function of song is something else. Shakespeare wondered if music was the food of love. Well, vocally at least, it certainly was. And what is more, it still is.

Be sure to check our Carnival of Podcasts.

Cool and Creative Assorted

Top 45 Creative Anti-Smoking Advertisements

Google Calendar's Smart Rescheduler: Great for Sneaky Secretaries or Lazy People

The Design Inspiration

Google Fast Flip

Google Fusion Tables

Google Reader Play

Kinetic Shadows

The Apartment Therapy

Art podcast of the Day- Edvard Munch

From BBCs In Our Time;

First exhibited in 1893 in Berlin, The Scream was the culmination of Munch's magnum opus, a series of paintings called The Frieze of Life. This depicted the course of human existence through burgeoning love and sexual passion to suffering, despair and death, in Munch's highly original, proto-expressionist style.

His titles, from Death in the Sickroom, through Madonna to The Vampire, suggest just how directly and unironically he sought to depict the anxieties of late-19th century Europe.

But against all Munch's images, it is The Scream which stands out as the work which has seared itself into the Western imagination. It remains widely celebrated for capturing the torment of existence in what appeared to many in Munch's time to be a frightening, godless world.

Munch himself endured a childhood beset by illness, madness and bereavement. At 13, he was told by his father that his tuberculosis was fatal. But he survived and went on to become a major figure first in the Norwegian, then the European, avant-garde.

He became involved with two of the great playwrights of the period. He collaborated with his fellow countryman Henrik Ibsen and became a close friend of the tempestuous Swede August Strindberg. He admired the work of Post-Impressionist painters such as Paul Gauguin and Vincent van Gogh and the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche, all of whom influenced his art.

Munch's own influence resonated through the 20th century, from German Expressionism to Andy Warhol and beyond. His work, particularly The Scream, remains powerful today.

Download the podcast

Related:
Painting by Words- a Tyler Cowan review of The new edition of van Gogh's letters;

Time and again, the reader wonders just how much van Gogh and his brother trust each other. In the letter of August 14, 1879, for instance, he complains that Theo has advised him to give up his quest to be an artist. "And, joking apart, I honestly think it would be better if the relationship between us were more trusting on both sides," van Gogh suggests, before apologizing for the possibility that so much of the family sorrow and discord have been caused by him. These look and sound like letters to his brother, but in essence we are reading fund-raising proposals....

So what did van Gogh see as his own strengths and weaknesses? In an early letter to Theo (May 8, 1875), he quotes Renan: "Man is not placed on the earth merely to be happy; nor is he placed here merely to be honest, he is here to accomplish great things through society, to arrive at nobleness, and to outgrow the vulgarity in which the existence of almost all individuals drags on." This is a vision he lived. But at what cost? In one of his late letters to his brother (July 2, 1889), van Gogh says that he was "infinitely too harsh . . . in claiming that it was better to love painters than paintings." The reader now has to ask similar questions. Van Gogh becomes less likable and more lovable, more familiar and yet somehow ever stranger. In reading and studying these books, we can at once achieve both ends.

LOGICOMIX

Christos Papadimitriou at Google


Related;
Logicomix

Algorithm and Blues

The Survey- The Mop Wars

A review of effectiveness of mops from NYT;

Casabella Swivel-It Roller Mop / Eclipse / O Cedar Microfiber Cloth Mop /Smart Mop /Swiffer Sweeper / Method Home’s Omop /Lanier

For Feedback: So what is your favorite mop and why?

The purpose of architecture in cities?

Like many of his generation — Mr. Nouvel is 64 — he retains a stubborn, some might say naïve, belief that architecture should make us alert to the conflicts that shape the modern city rather than conceal them.

That attitude is apparent in the mixed signals the building sends. Seen from across the West Side Highway, the tower’s twinkling facade, with its hundreds of irregularly shaped windows tilted at odd angles to reflect fragments of sky or the surrounding city, offers a striking counterpoint to the soft, sail-like curves of Mr. Gehry’s creation. Rows of older brick buildings flank them to the north and south, and the contrast between glass and masonry, straight and curved lines, creates a nice rhythm along what was once a bleak strip of decrepit offices and warehouses.

-At the Corner of Grit and Glamour

If you’ve ever had a child, we want to know about your experience.

Please help Betsey and Wolfers by doing the survey.

Chutes and Ladders in Harlem

A highly recommended podcast from EconTalk with Katherine Newman,a sociologist at Princeton.

Random Artists

Source: NYT


Andresen, Charles;

I stumbled upon my method of “throw painting” in 1987 while still a student of figurative art. Plopping various amounts of black and white acrylic into a spoon and hurling the contents would yield unpredictable patterns on the canvas. It was like assembling a puzzle, of which the image could not have been foreseen beforehand.

And discovering imagery was my primary interest. Although this method of paint application had previously been identified with formalist abstraction, I utilized it for its image making potential. I was excited by the hallucinatory early James Ensor, early and late Jackson Pollock and the recent work of Malcolm Morley. In these artists scenes emerged from the materiality of the paint, in a fluctuating dance between surface and depth. If I were to simply state my goal, I’d echo Morley’s remark that he wanted to depict reality as if “ the world were made of paint”.

Boynton, Christopher
Downs, KevinEskenazi, Jason
Franke, Kevin
Hoffmeister, Peter
Laughner, Jack
Lemakis, Emilie
Padwe, Phil
Steely, Barry
Varley, Mike
Weber, Owen
Yoda, Yoichiro

Schelling Quote- The Very Basics of Game Theory

"If I go downstairs to investigate a noise at night, with a gun in my hand, and find myself face to face with a burglar who has a gun in his hand, there is a danger of an outcome that neither of us desires. Even if he prefers to just leave quietly, and I wish him to, there is danger that he may think I want to shoot, and shoot first."

via David Henderson

The Lesson: 'in thinking through various actions you might take to have an effect on B, ask yourself how you would respond to such actions if you were B. In other words, put yourself in the other person's shoes, not to get a touchy, feely, we're-all-in-this together Kumbaya moment, but to come up with your most-realistic analysis'

I'm Winston Wolfe. I solve problems.

Even Presidents' needs cleaners- public management lessons from Pulp Fiction.

In his memoir Speech-less, Matt Latimer, a speechwriter for both Rumsfeld and Bush, describes Gates as "our Winston Wolf," the Harvey Keitel character in Pulp Fiction who comes to dispose of the bodies and take care of the bloody mess after an accidental killing. "Wolf was a case study of robotic efficiency, overseeing an elaborate cleanup while calmly drinking a cup of coffee," writes Latimer. "That's what President Bush wanted — a cold-blooded competent cleaner."

-The Winston Wolf of Public Management

The Revenge of the Artist

Ion Barladeanu;

"I feel as if I have been born again," he said, as some of France's leading collectors and curators jostled for position to see his collages. "Now I feel like a prince. A pauper can become a prince. But he can go back to being a pauper too."...

Barledeanu describes himself as a "director" of his own films and considers each collage to be a movie in itself. While many are light-hearted, others are darker, infused with black humour and often focusing on the man he calls his "greatest fear". "I knew that if he knew about my work Ceausescu would not sleep in peace in his grave," he said. "If people had found out about my work they could have chopped my head off … But this is my revenge."...

Whatever the world thinks, Barladeanu says he will carry on working regardless. "It's like eating pie or sandwiches. It fulfils me," he said in his fast-paced Romanian slang. "If I were reincarnated in another life I would still be making collages, and if I could take them to the moon I would."

Random Science Blogs

Thoughtful Animal

The Loom

Maxwell Demon

Maths Students Read

Big Thinkers from Yahoo- The Economists

Richard Thaler

Kenneth Arrow, "Facing a Long and Uncertain Future"

Al Roth, "What Have We Learned from Market Design"

Paul Milgrom, "Economics of Combinatorial Auctions"

Daniel Kahneman on Happiness

Daniel Kahneman reveals how our "experiencing selves" and our "remembering selves" perceive happiness differently

Blind Artist of the Day- John Bramblitt

John Bramblitt didn’t start painting until he lost his sight. It was a difficult time. Bramblitt was in his late 20’s and unaware that his sight was seriously degrading until he was sideswiped by an unseen car. He was also worried about having the severe epileptic seizures that had already taken their toll on his vision. And he was angry. In fact, he believes that taking up painting after losing his sight was mostly an act of defiance....

According to Bramblitt, “White feels thicker on my fingers, almost like toothpaste, and black feels slicker and thinner. To mix a gray, I’ll try to get the paint to have a feel of medium viscosity”.

-Painting By Touch

How Artists Think- 'they are epiphany machines'

Picaso's method;

"I have never made trials or experiments. Whenever I had something to say, I have said it in the manner in which I needed to be said...I can hardly understand the importance given to the word research in connection with modern painting. In my opinion to search means nothing in painting. To find is the thing."

All You Need is a Nudge

Maths Podcast of the Day

Kurt Gödel and the limits of mathematics

Make Games Not War

A great book- highly recommended; The Art of Game Design: A Book of Lenses

Free Chapters;
Chapter 6: The game begins with an idea.
Chapter 9: The experience is in the player’s mind.
Chapter 23: The designer usually works with a team.

Book Review: The Art of Game Design

How to Bargain with the Devil

BARGAINING WITH THE DEVIL: When to Negotiate, When to Fight
Robert Mnookin

Book Recommendation

In an essay in his just-published Natural Experiments of History, Jared Diamond puts the question the way you want it to be asked – comparatively. He examines the histories of Haiti and the Dominican Republic, the two halves of the island of Hispaniola, the first place Columbus stopped in the New World. Natural Experiments is an exemplary book, short and graceful, conveying a broad swathe of the most interesting work going on today around the world in departments of economics, political science and anthropology, under the heading of comparative political economy. The story of Haiti is especially compelling.

- David Warsh

Jared Diamond's Natural Experiments of History- podcast

Contents:
* Prologue: Natural Experiments of History
Jared Diamond and James A. Robinson

1. Controlled Comparison and Polynesian Cultural Evolution
Patrick V. Kirch
2. Exploding Wests: Boom and Bust in Nineteenth-Century Settler Societies
James Belich
3. Politics, Banking, and Economic Development: Evidence from New World Economies
Stephen Haber
4. Intra-Island and Inter-Island Comparisons
Jared Diamond
5. Shackled to the Past: The Causes and Consequences of Africa's Slave Trades
Nathan Nunn
6. Colonial Land Tenure, Electoral Competition, and Public Goods in India
Abhijit Banerjee and Lakshmi Iyer
7. From Ancien Régime to Capitalism: The Spread of the French Revolution as a Natural Experiment, Daron Acemoglu, Davide Cantoni, Simon Johnson, and James A. Robinson
* Afterword: Using Comparative Methods in Studies of Human History
Jared Diamond and James A. Robinson

Niche Design

He has hewed to the old decorating dictum that says that the more stuff you put in a room (albeit artfully arranged stuff), the bigger it seems.