Dynamist Blog
Sun Apr 24 04:21:26 EDT 2011
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Coming Soon: The Future & Its Enemies for the Kindle - Pre-order now for delivery by May 10. (I wanted a lower price, but the publisher wouldn't budge.)...

Progress and Glamour: Does Illusion Drive Economic Development? - Here's a video of a talk I gave at the Kauffman Foundation's annual bloggers conference. You can see the other videos by scrolling down the page here. I think the dynamic described in the talk, and in Colin Campbell's book,...

The Chart Every Journalist Covering the Fukushima Plant Should Read - For the past week, I've been complaining that journalists covering possible radiation dangers from Fukushima plant have abandoned the old convention of putting radiation exposures in context (usually by comparing them to chest x-rays). The result is that all "radiation"...

What Makes the iPad Magical? - When Apple introduced the iPad last year, it added a new buzzword to technology marketing. The device, it declared, was not just "revolutionary," a tech-hype cliché, but "magical." Skeptics rolled their eyes, and one Apple fan even started an online...

Why Do People Watch the Oscars? - My latest WSJ column takes up a perennial question. Here's the opening: The Academy Awards show is ridiculous. Guests arrive in broad daylight wearing the most formal of evening gowns. Presenters, including some of the world's most accomplished performers, read...

Jonathan Rauch on Academic Freedom - Although a few months old, this speech is so good I thought I should share the video. Jonathan Rauch - FIRE's CFN 2010 from FIRE on Vimeo. Buy Jonathan's excellent book, Kindly Inquisitors: The New Attacks on Free Thought here....

Where To Find Me - As you've no doubt noticed, I don't post much here any more. I do a lot of quick, bloggy posting on my Facebook page and on Twitter (@vpostrel and @deepglamour, depending on subject matter). And I still edit a group...

Progress at the Frontier: The Next Big Thing Is a Lot of Little Things - The hardest economic question is, What comes next? What, in other words, are the new sources of economic value? How can businesses grow and our standard of living rise? Sometimes the answer is simply more of the same. Growth comes...

Changing Kidney Donation Norms - People who oppose changing the law to permit financial compensation for kidney donors sometimes argue that introducing money might change the social norms that now encourage donation and actually reduce donations. On Dec. 23, Ronald Herrick gave a kidney...

Federal Regulation vs. Artisanal Industries - This is a story about artisanal cheese and hand-polished wooden toys, organic spinach and exquisitely smocked baby dresses—the burgeoning small-scale economy so beloved by members of the "creative class." But it's also about another, much-discussed growth industry: the production of...

Three Thoughts on Glamour and Politics - The new issue of Reason carries a short item I wrote about politics and glamour. A regular Reason feature, the assignment was to come up with a short, three-item list. It’s not online yet, and the published version was a bit truncated...

Predicting the Apocalypse - Matt Novak of the PaleoFuture blog revisits the future I remember from my childhood. (This is all ancient history for young Matt.)...

In Love with Friedrich Hayek - A joyfully nerdy video from my youngest-ever intern, the lovely and talented Dorian Electra, now a student at Shimer College: See the rest of her YouTube channel here....

Glamour & Politics Video - As if he'd read my mind (or my blog), Pete Calcagno, my host at the College of Charleston, sent me the video file of my talk today. The version below should work in various formats, including those for mobile devices....

Aesthetics and Luxury in GPS Systems - In the AIGA's Voice Paul Patton has an interesting article, quoting me, about how luxury car makers are extending good aesthetics to their navigation systems. The opening: Dragons have begun to appear on our dashboards and sea serpents on our...