Email feed restored

A while ago, Google turned off the ability to receive the Grumpy Economist, and all the other blogger blogs, by email. I have now figured out how to restore it. I moved over to follow.it. If the import of the old email feed worked as it is supposed to, you're receiving this in your email once again. If not, you can click on the huge button to the right to get Grumpy by email. (I'll figure out how to make that prettier sooner or later.) I also announce each new blog post on twitter, and if you prefer that you can click the twitter link to follow me there. 

Follow.it encourages me to pass along all the "great additional features" you can use, here. You can now "define filters and more delivery channels, e.g... receive your news via Telegram, news page etc. (many others to follow soon)."

Thanks to several devoted readers who wrote to complain, nudging me to figure this out. If it still doesn't work, either comment here or email me directly. 

If I link "Feedburner alternative" and "Feedburner replacement" to follow.it,  they give me a $10 USD credit. Done!  

More substance on the way soon! 

Update

You will receive an email that looks like this. It invites you to click a link. This is a legitimate email. 

Christmas in Quarantine

 

 

A merry Christmas -- or whatever you celebrate this time of year -- in quarantine, from a favorite band. 

Holiday Cheer

Bigfoot's To-Do list Animatic from Lydia Fama on Vimeo.

Vimeo channel, Youtube, website.

Writing compactly

A correspondent sends a suggested edit of a part of my writing tips for PhD students

With markup

Keep it short

Keep the paper as short as possible. Be concise. Every word must count. As you edit the paper ask yourself constantly, “can I make the same my point in less space?” and “Do Must I really have to say this?” Final papers should be no more than  under 40 pages, drafts should be shorter. (Do as I say, not as I do!) Shorter is better.

 

Clean: 

Keep it short

Be concise. Every word must count. As you edit, ask yourself, “can I make my point in less space?” and “must say this?” Final papers should be under 40 pages, drafts shorter.  Shorter is better.

Well, I did say "do as I say, don't do as I do!" 

Cool video

Nightingale and Canary from Andy Thomas on Vimeo.

Using 3D visualization software and other programs, Thomas breaks down photos of insects, orchids, and birds into their composite parts. He then reassembles the images in a sort of collage and builds trippy animations that react, based on rules he's set, to sound – in this case, archival bird song.

Source: This is Your Bird on Drugs, post by Julia Lowrie Henderson. Video by Andy Thomas

This has absolutely nothing to do with economics, or grumpiness. I just thought it was cool.

Summer Institute Dining

I'm at the NBER summer institute. By quirk of fate I ended up spending a week here, with my son, so we ended up exploring a lot of local restaurants. There's no NBER wiki for "summer institute restaurants" so we'll start one here. There is now a rent a bike stand right in front of the Galleria which makes getting some places a lot easier.

So, here are our best finds. Use the comments to post yours. Perhaps Cambridge locals will have good suggestions or comments on these.

Favorite Book

My favorite book is back, via the University of Chicago press, in both electronic and print form. A consequence of digital technology, books that once were permanently out of print now can be found again. E-books and short-batch print are great innovations. (Most if it is also on Google Books, a great place to sample.)

I won't pretend objectivity -- or that this has much of anything to do with economics or finance.

What's so great about the book? The writing for one. Sit back and enjoy. Read between the lines too for the breathtaking primary-source scholarship.

This is a book about dead white men and their ideas in an unfashionable time -- the Medici as grand dukes, not the republic and early renaissance. Start right in on p.6-9 with the realities of why the republic did not work, in the circumstance of 16th century Florence. But if you didn't like unfashionable ideas, you wouldn't be here.

It's greatest lesson, to me at least, is empathy. It forces you to work hard to understand how people saw things, and not to fall prey to that common habit of reading our own values and judgments on historical characters. Decisions that make little sense from modern sensibilities become inevitable if you really understand the circumstances, knowledge and mindset of people at the time.

Anaphylaxis

My daughter Sally is at the Grand Central Academy of Art in New York. This is one of her still lives (yes, it's a painting). See if you can figure out what it means. Then click on the figure for an explanation. Don't miss "ceci n’est pas une molécule d’histamine." 

Yes, this has nothing to do with economics. It's just cool.

Birthday

Two milestones passed this week, the one year birthday of this blog, and the millionth hit. OK, I'm not in the big leagues yet, but it continues to be a lot of fun. I appreciate all of you who read, and all the comments too. Well, almost all the comments.

(Photo credit: Ty Bellitti Photography)

Happy Thanksgiving

By Eric Cochrane (who also drew the grumpy economist). More here

Mermaids

This has nothing to do with economics or finance, but it's way cooler...If you or your teenage children are into young-adult fiction.

My wife  Beth's young adult novel, Monstrous Beauty, published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux, will be released September 4.

Fierce, seductive mermaid Syrenka falls in love with Ezra, a young naturalist. When she abandons her life underwater for a chance at happiness on land, she is unaware that this decision comes with horrific and deadly consequences. Almost one hundred forty years later, seventeen-year-old Hester meets a mysterious stranger named Ezra and feels overwhelmingly, inexplicably drawn to him. For generations, love has resulted in death for the women in her family. Is it an undiagnosed genetic defect . . . or a curse? With Ezra’s help, Hester investigates her family’s strange, sad history. The answers she seeks are waiting in the graveyard, the crypt, and at the bottom of the ocean—but powerful forces will do anything to keep her from uncovering her connection to Syrenka and to the tragedy of so long ago.

There will be a launch party at 57th street books in Chicago, Tues. Sept. 4, at 6 PM. A second larger coming out will happen at the Plimoth Plantation, Plymouth MA (the book is set in Plymouth, and partly on the plantation) Sept. 7, at 5 pm, information here.

Then Beth will be off on Macmillan's Fierce Reads Tour with three other YA authors.

• September 18: Changing Hands Bookstore, Pheonix
• September 19: Tattered Cover, Denver
• September 20: Left Bank Books, St. Louis
• September 21: Joseph-Beth Booksellers, Cincinatti
• September 22: Next Chapter Bookshop, Milwaukee
• September 23: Malaprop’s Bookstore, Asheville 

For a taste of Beth's mermaid lore, try the extra short story "Men Who Wish to Drown" on tor.com, (cover art to the left).

Monstrous beauty at Amazon and the publisher's website 
 
Visit Beth at her blog and on Twitter

(My plot suggestion, "Syrenka, Libertarian Mermaid" went nowhere. I guess I'd better keep my day job!)