The Wheel

Friday, March 20, 2015

Review: 1493

From 1493, by Charles C. Mann:

What happened after Columbus, this new research says, was nothing less than the forming of a single new world from the collision of two old worlds -- three, if one counts Africa as separate from Eurasia. Born in the sixteenth century from European desires to join the thriving Asian trade sphere, the economic system for exchange ended up transforming the globe into a single ecological system by the nineteenth century -- almost instantly, in biological terms."

After the jump, my review.

Winter's Tale (2014)

IMDB

Winter's Tale (2014): Fantasy romance between thief and consumptive heiress. Magic horse. Devil. Miracles. Too many WTF elements to work. D+

Tuesday, March 17, 2015

The Hangover Part III (2013)

IMDB

The Hangover Part III (2013): Surprisingly smart and entertaining, pretty much free of sex and drugs. Nothing filling, just fun escapism. C+

Monday, March 16, 2015

Science vs the World

According to surveys, there's a gap between what the public thinks and what scientists know.

The surveys found broad support for government to spend money on science, but that doesn’t mean the public supports the conclusions that scientists draw.

The biggest gap between scientists and the public came on issues that may elicit fear: the safety of genetically modified (or GMO) foods (37 percent of the public said GMOs were safe, compared to 88 percent of scientists) and the use of pesticides in agriculture (28 percent of the public said foods grown with pesticides were safe to eat, versus 68 percent of scientists). There was also disagreement over the cause of climate change (50 percent of the public said it is mostly due to human activity, compared to 87 percent of scientists).
Source: FiveThirtyEight.

I found myself in disagreement with scientists on only one issue.

Paul Krugman Has Me Pegged

Paul Krugman has me pegged. In the following excerpt from his blog, he's referring to someone else, but I see me all over it.

There's a big difference between just being clever in general and being a guy who really knows what he's talking about...
What matters is a large investment of time and hard thinking -- and also a lot of reading of what other smart people have said, not to mention economic history. Sorry, but just being a clever, facile writer doesn't cut it -- and imagining that you can just brazen it out in this arena is a recipe for serious embarrassment.
Source: Paul Krugman.