Club Troppo

I've got to say I wasn't expecting Ivanchuk's next move . But then I'm not Ivanchuk.

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You've got to hand it to them. What a great range of opinion they bring us on Fox News.

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Satisfaction 2.0. HT Craig Thomler .

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This book sounds like a lot of fun. A history of science with a touch of humour and a good flavour of the characters involved. Reviewed here . In order to structure his big, sweeping book about such issues, Mr. Holmes uses two exploratory voyages as bookends. The first, a trip...

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I've wondered why it wasn't coming. Maybe it is .

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In the July Monthly , Noel Pearson zeroes in on one of the key structural issues underlying the recent crisis; why did so many corporations (especially financial ones) act in a manner so disastrously contrary to their own self-interest? His short answer? "The cause of Greenspa...

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Christopher Joye rang me recently and asked if I'd sign a statement supporting a comprehensive financial system inquiry. I agreed for reasons that are explained in the statement. So did Joshua Gans, Stephen King, John Quiggin and Sam Wylie. In short, as people with a bit of no...

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Hi all, Apologies for not having posted here for a while. I've been flat out , but already have some posts I want to write - now to get the time . . . Meanwhile I would greatly welcome Troppodillian's views on which design(s) are best for the Government 2.0 taskforce - both in...

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Frank Devine passed away on Friday morning. He enriched the lives of many people, whether or not they agreed with his views on politics, religion or anything else. An early tribute can be found in The Australian, from Bernard Lane . The Weekend Australian tomorrow will carry s...

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About 10 days ago all State and Territory Attorneys-General agreed to enact uniform anti-bikie gang laws . The new uniform national regime will be modelled on the Victorian regime which is broader than three very similar laws recently enacted in South Australia and New South W...

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One of the most widely accepted tenents of tax theory is that it is most efficient to tax immobile factors of production such as land. Such taxes cannot be avoided, and so they do not distort behaviour. Consequently, most economists would argue that an annual land tax is prefe...

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I can't think of a single song of his that is a really big favourite of mine. But has there ever been any big star who was more of a genius as a dancer? Surely not. Not even Fred Astair comes close.

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This plane is a very fast plane. It has flown from New York to London in 1 hour 54 minutes 56.4 seconds , which is more than I can say I have done. All of which reminds me to ask Troppodillians why, when the big supersonic passenger planes failed, there weren't a few supersoni...

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Australia is in the midst of a flat-screen TV crisis, says Clive Hamilton . Driven by an insatiable desire for "stuff", we spend more time chasing money and less doing the kinds of things that would really make us happier and more fulfilled -- spending time with friends and fa...

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I read Disgrace before seeing the film; thanks to that, once again , the film didn't have much impact in its own right. It was well made, as expected, and faithful to the novel. So the principal interest was in judging its merits as an adaptation, discovering small points of d...

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Troppo's Paul Frijters, too self-effacing to push his work on Troppo, has a new paper on the effect of the internet on quality news content. I discovered it on a newsletter of new papers. Looks interesting, so I'll have to have a closer squiz when I get the time. Is the Intern...

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[caption id="attachment_8804" align="alignleft" width="417" caption="Like Fred Reinfeld says, White's next move is "one of the most beautiful ever played on the chess-board.""] Click diagram to see the game[/caption]

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Several years ago I posted a graphic plotting countrys GDP per head against mean lifetime and drawing attention to the tragic loss of life in southern Africa, mainly due to AIDS. There is a fantastic data visualisation tool called GapMinder that tells this story and other stor...

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I subscribe to Learn out loud's newsletter and so receive lists of books that you can get audio files of to podcast to yourself. You generally have to pay for these files, and because I have more than enough ways of spending my time including listening (well trying to listen)...

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