Club Troppo

White to play Zimmermann vs Huebner 18. ? See game for solution. about our puzzles

Continue reading →

I am usually uninterested in the month to month guessing/commentary game around RBA board meetings. It's the financial market version of political race calling. However the decision on Tuesday to hold the current target rate highlighted some issues around the purposes and goal...

Continue reading →

Progressive politics without unions? "If you want progressive policies, the comparative historical evidence suggests it’s very helpful to have a strong labor movement" writes Lane Kenworthy . But in the US unions are weak and getting weaker. Is there an alternative strategy? N...

Continue reading →

One of the heroes of ferreting out the routine criminality at the News of the World is the former Grandiosely titled Minister for Transformational Government, Tom Watson who's been on this case longer than just about anyone and a genuine champion of open government with whom I...

Continue reading →

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YsLBuCp23QA&feature=player_embedded

Continue reading →

Me in today's Crikey It’s a dirty business but someone has to do it. Selling home loans that is. Now after a lifetime of howling protest about the commissions mortgage brokers make, the Australian Consumer Association – AKA Choice – is helping itself to some of those commissio...

Continue reading →

Do women behave more reciprocally than men? Gender differences in real effort dictator games Heinz, Matthias, Rau, Holger A., and Juranek, Steffen Abstract: We analyze dictator allocation decisions in an experiment where the recipients have to earn the pot to be divided with a...

Continue reading →

Yes, folks it's Benford's Law - from Kaggle's website . One fun aspect of working with real data is that you get to observe real-life phenomenon. For example, Benford's Law (also known as the "first-digit law") states: "in lists of numbers from many (but not all) real-life sou...

Continue reading →

As thousands of Norwegians poured into Oslo's streets singing, hugging and waving flowers , Queensland academic Merv Bendle sat at his computer fixated on how leftists and Islamists would try to exploit this latest act of mass murder. Maybe the attacks in Oslo an on the island...

Continue reading →

(see here for part one and two and here for even earlier posts) Where we economists are most useful in climate change discussions is the question of how to change the behaviour of humans and how to organise the production of public goods. Because the climate is a world public...

Continue reading →

The survey of opinion amongst Australian Economists made for some interesting reading for me. I found that I where a clear majority of respondents agreed or disagreed with a statement I did as well, and where they were divided, I also had reservations. I guess this means I 'm...

Continue reading →

The reported death of old-time Sydney crim ''Nervous'' Norm Beves has provoked my nostalgia gland. According to the SMH : Nervous Norm's criminal ineptitude was so legendary that for years ''Norm's form'' was used as the case study on recidivism for police officers studying to...

Continue reading →

" Enormous Penis Located on Google Maps ". Last time I checked, Gawker's illustrated story about the huge penises drawn on school lawns in New Zealand had racked up over 46,000 views. A more recently posted story tells of how "A man in Russia broke into a hair salon and the ow...

Continue reading →

Disappointed Troppo readers everywhere have gradually come to a realisation - upon which I came clean on in a recent thread . Troppo is really an 'eyeballs' play as we say in the trade and things haven't been this good for eyeballs since Tim Blair sent some brownshirts our way...

Continue reading →

Furry Fandom: Anthrocon is the world's largest convention for people fascinated with humanlike animal characters. Held in Pittsburgh, the 2011 convention attracted more than 4,500 'furries' , some of them dressed as their favourite characters. Canadian blogger and fantasy auth...

Continue reading →

AirBnb is a great startup which uses the power of the net to facilitate home sharing. When travelling, rather than stay in a hotel, you pay to stay in someone's home - someone who's somewhere else enjoying the scenery in someone else's home. There are optimists and pessimists...

Continue reading →

Continue reading →

I knew Rob Chalmers who worked in the press gallery for over 60 years and has just died after what they call in the media "a battle with cancer". Cancer won as it so often does. Peter Martin does the honours here including reproducing a fine letter to Rob from PM Julia Gillard...

Continue reading →

Skype spamming seems to be on the up and up. I had about six people yesterday telling me they wanted me to add them to their contacts. I just got my second today. When I tell them I'm busy, they all seem fine with that, and don't keep bugging me - or most don't. But most want...

Continue reading →

A while ago I blegged in search of a new smart phone. Well disposed to Android I thought I'd buy Samsung Gallaxy II S which had had rave reviews . Anyway, some people expressed curiosity about how things would end up, but I ended up taking Neerav Bhatt's advice on the thread a...

Continue reading →