Research indicates that for a single very hot day — warmer than 86 degrees Fahrenheit — per capita income goes down by $20.56, or 28 percent. The optimum temperature for human productivity seems to be around 13 degrees Celsius or about 55 degrees Fahrenheit, as an annual average in a particular place. When it gets …
Continue reading ‘Heat and economic productivity: follow-up to yesterday’s posting.’ »
Brady Dennis in the August 24, 2016 edition of the Washington Post reports a study done by Zillow, a real estate company, that estimates that rising sea levels could leave nearly 2 million U.S. homes inundated by 2100, a fate that would displace millions of people and result in property losses in the hundreds of …
Last night my wife and I attended a packed Royal Albert Hall to hear Bach’s Mass in B Minor, performed by Les Arts Florissants, a group from France founded by William Christie, an American. This was a Promenade Concert, one performance in the longest annual music festival in the world, lasting two months every year. …
Continue reading ‘One’s spirit lifted by the extraordinary’ »
Politicians exploit our willingness to remember something that appeals to us, regardless of whether it will eventually prove true or unfounded. PolitiFact.com, looked into 158 claims made by Trump since the start of his campaign and found that four out of five were at best “mostly false”. But by the time they have looked into …
Continue reading ‘How the online media are misinforming us’ »
As internet companies have challenged existing business models, from taxi services to hotels, they have rubbed up against existing regulations. They have increasingly lobbied to change them, just like their corporate brethren, but are doing so by recruiting unaware users to promote their cause, using apparently harmless, “one-click-and-you’re-done” methods. When India’s telecoms regulator sought public …
