Solving the problem of cars: drivers

On a Freakonomics episode from last month they answered listener questions and one asked about driving "like an economist" and cited the difficulty of driving to affect others so they drive better. The questioner mentioned being in a traffic jam and trying to do his part by leaving space between his car and the one in front (to allow for easier merging) but all it resulted in was other drivers cutting in front while others tailgated him. No other motorists were interested in contributing to alleviating their mutual plight.

The answer was that, yes, the inconsiderate or thoughtless drivers made it so there was little an individual could do to influence the situation, as it merely resulted in those others taking advantage. Ultimately the solution would be driverless cars, taking the human ego out of the equation. Would people be willing to give up driving to be able to do other things with that time? They thought people would, but those automated vehicles would need to be dramatically safer in order to capture public approval. Levitt speculated that even if the fatalities from accidents with the driverless cars was a fraction of auto fatalities we have with humans driving that still would be too much. Only if these cars were essentially perfectly safe would people consider them to be worth giving up control.

Some thoughts about the future of TV based on this whole Netflix "House of Cards" model

(Yeah, this really would have been better had I gotten to it a month ago. I know.)
Does the Netflix model of distribution exemplified by how they released all episodes of the first season of House of Cards on the same day subvert the weekly paradigm that television has had since its inception (and radio and other media before that)? Absolutely. Is that intentional? One must presume so. But is that necessarily bad?

Well, it's conceivably bad for networks who have a 24-hour schedule to fill and primetime hours that get quasi-monitored by Nielsen and advertisers to convince to spend large sums of money in order to bankroll the whole venture, but one assumes that if the future of distribution and delivery ends up in a complete on-demand world that those networks will adapt appropriately.

Let's focus on the viewer side.

"Artisanal"

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart

On last Thursday's Daily Show the first segment (which you can watch above) focused on the congressional hold-up of the approval of the new Secretary of Defense over from an Oregon senator over releasing memos about the drone program. The joke that Jon Stewart made (about 2:31 in to the clip) suggested the president should watch out for a strongly worded letter on "artisanal hemp paper" (lampooning the hipster image of that state's largest city).

I enjoyed the humor of the segment, but also that particular joke caught my ear because it included a word that recently had inspired some rumination on its pronunciation: artisanal.

Yeah, that's how my mind works.

Solving the problem of weight loss: Loose pants

If you exercise and lose weight, your pants will start to loosen so that you need to tighten your belt another loop. However, don't worry: You can simply stop working out and eat out a lot and your pants will start to fit better again.

Problem solved, and without having to spend a bunch of money on new pants.

Getting "Better": Listening to the Beatles

I've been familiar with the Beatles since I was a child. I have heard all of their studio recordings more times than I could even aspire to recollect. I have sung along with every song of theirs (with the exception of "Flying"—because that's an instrumental—and "Revolution 9"—because I'm not sure repeating "number nine… number nine… number nine…" counts as singing along). In many respects I interact with their music on a subconscious level.


As is my brain's inclination, the song "Getting Better" popped into my head one morning, and as it "played" and got to the lines "I used to be cruel to my woman/I beat her and kept her apart from the things that she loved" I found myself snap to conscious thinking: Oh yeah, Paul's protagonist admits to being physically and psychologically abusive, and what is "getting better" is how he's "changing [his] scene" about being "mean" and "doing the best that [he] can." Then I think back to the "angry young man" and being "mad at [his] school" mentioned in earlier stanzas, and it's clear that, in short, it's a song about not being as much of an asshole as one used to be, all thanks to the person to whom the line "since you've been mine" is directed.