CapitalistImperialistPig

The NYT has a recent op-ed announcing that speed reading is not possible. Speed skimming can be done - getting a few ideas from an article without reading all the words, but speed reading, no. The trouble is partly in the limitations of the human eye, but mostly in the speed with which the brain can decode language. I don't think this is a shock to any serious reader of nonfiction. Some sample reads. (NYT) OUR favorite Woody Allen joke is the one about taking a speed-reading course. “I read ‘War and Peace’ in 20 minutes,” he says. “It’s about Russia.” The promise of speed reading — to absorb text several times faster than normal, without any significant loss of comprehension — can indeed seem too good to be true. Nonetheless, it has long been an aspiration for many readers, as well as the entrepreneurs seeking to serve them. And as the production rate for new reading matter has increased, and people read on a growing array of devices, the lure of speed reading has only grown...

My job needs protection and so do I.............................Apologies to Neil Young. A lot of human behavior is not economically efficient. I would argue that much of that behavior has sound logical roots in a science more fundamental than economics, biology. Recently, a certain ferocious Mustelid took on India's failed attempt to protect its incipient solar panel industry. Success, he argued, would only have ensured that Indian purchasers of solar stuff would pay more than they otherwise might. That's very sound and Smith/Ricardo, but history suggests that there is more to the story. When the dark satanic mills of Manchester were cranking up, they benefited from trade laws that protected them from competition with Indian weavers and later, when their efficiency was sufficient, free trade at the point of a gun allowed those same mills to turn whole villages of Indian weavers into boneyards, and protectionist schemes protected them against competition from the Colon...

Some time ago, never mind how long precisely, I was sitting in the green room of a local theater, waiting to rehearse one of my scenes. It was a hot summer night, and pretty much everybody was wearing shorts. One of my fellow actors and I were talking to a cute college student props and makeup girl. For some reason, she volunteered that she had placed second in the Girl's State Championship 800 meter race when she was in high school. My friend scoffed and grabbed her leg about mid-thigh. "No you didn't," he said. "You are no athlete." At that point he grabbed my thigh and insisted she do the same. "Ed," he pronounced, "is an athlete." At the time I was in my late forties, at least forty pounds overweight, and the only exercise I could remember doing recently was lifting my fat ass out of the chair. So, anyway, I have my doubts about the thigh test as a fitness diagnostic. It might be genetic. I was really impressed with how it...

It seems the Irish economy actually had a couple of quarters of growth. The economy expanded at a faster rate than expected in the second quarter of the year, putting in its strongest quarterly growth performance since the recession began, according to new data published today. The seasonally adjusted figures estimated that gross domestic product – the widest measure of economic activity - rose by 1.6 per cent between the first and second quarters of 2011. Gross national product, which excludes the profits of multinational firms, increased by 1.1 per cent compared with the first quarter of the year. Even Cowen's usually rather sychophantic commenters can't swallow this one. Examples: Gepap.............So with this grand growth, Ireland will return to its pre-crisis GDP when? 2020? 2025? 2030? Yeah, hurrah for austerity! ..... Benny Lava............“Ireland’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate rose to 14.2 percent in the second quarter from a slightly revised downwa...