While most of the world think that Flappy Bird is fairly useless and without redeeming value, some think there is opportunity. Folks, thanks to my son, I bring you Flappy Economist. In it you control the money supply but you have to balance between the economy going between disastrous unemployment or rampant inflation. Of course, …
Time to get real on Comcast-Time Warner
Comcast and Time Warner want to merge their cable operations in the US. They are the two largest Pay TV companies but the merger would result in them having 30 percent of the US pay TV market. That said, competition is, in many respects local, and the argument is that there the shares of each …
Flapping around on the App Store
"I just doubled my high score." "What did you get? 2?" "Yes." That is a typical conversation one might have with others regarding Flappy Bird, the hottest mobile game right now. Here is the words that emanate when you play it: "X%$^##*&**&(*%#" Start Again. Tap tap tap "X%$^##*&**&(*%#" Suffice it to say, don't play this …
The Giant's Shoulders: Suzanne Scotchmer
Sad news today that Suzanne Scotchmer has passed away. She was a professor of both economics and law at Berkeley and one of the most significant figures in applied economic theory over the past few decades. The loss from cancer came as a shock to many of us in the field. I can hardly imagine …
It begins: evolving the blogging/journalism space
Up until recently, there were two "new economy" blogging models. The first was the independent blog (such as this one and the thousands of others that have populated our lives over the last decade). The second was the blog mixed in with traditional media. The latter started to grow with the Huffington Post to Forbes …
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30 Years of Macs
The Mac is 30 years old. Apple has a great retrospective. 5 years ago, I documented all the Macs I had owned up until that point. I have added to it today for the next five years as an indulgence. Turns out there are quite a few a owned. And we won't mention the period 1999 …
Stagnation, the Machines and the Policy Recommendations
My co-blogger Erik Brynjolfsson has a new book out with Andrew McAfee entitled The Second Machine Age: Work, Progress and Prosperity in the Time of Brilliant Technologies. I read it this week alongside Tyler Cowen's Average Is Over: Powering America Beyond the Great Stagnation. Given each had earlier eBooks that were counter-points that is what …
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How will Google adjust Nest?
That's the question I asked myself this morning as I walked past one of my beloved Nest thermostats. When I see my Nest of a morning, I don't have to adjust anything. It is already working just as I want it to do. I can just look at it admiringly knowing that something I used …
Top Posts of 2013
As is often traditional with blogs, I thought I'd list the Top Posts of 2013 according to WordPress stats on the number of hits. They are: Harvard Business School Publishing crosses the 'evil' academic line With Google Reader gone, is Google Scholar next? That Star Trek economy thing Now for some jaw droppingly bad analysis …
Prizes for Teams?
The Nobel prize for physics this year was controversial. It wasn't controversial because of the idea 'wot won it' but the number of people who contributed to that idea. However, the Nobel prize has a rule that there can be at most three recipients in a given year. (That doesn't apply to Peace but it …
Digitopoly 