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A trio of researchers at Carnegie Mellon University’s Department of Social and Decision Sciences write that New York City's requirement that chains conspicuously specify the caloric content of items on their menu has had no apparent effect on what people order, even when informed about how many calories they should be eating per day. While I don't think that's a reason not to require caloric disclosure (after all, people's poor budgeting choices doesn't mean that prices shouldn't be listed), that is a pretty disappointing preliminary outcome. You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him think.
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The drug built their research HQ on land (famously) taken from New London's Kelo family, lured to the city by the offer of enormous tax breaks for a decade. After eight years, they've announced they'll be leaving within the next two years—just as their tax break ends. Luring businesses through giveaways like this are nearly always a mistake, and this shows why.
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Pranav Mistry's (open sourced) wearable computing device is really amazing. Remember the first time you saw the technology behind the Wii? Or the iPhone? Or Microsoft Surface? This provides a similar "oh, so this is what the immediate future looks like" moment. Mistry has combined a small computer with a video camera, projector, and gesture technology to allow pervasive computing based on an awareness of surroundings. Combine this with GPS (so that it knows it's in a grocery store, for instance) and you've got iPhone 4.0, I hope.
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Farhad Manjoo is running an important two-part series about the Y2K bug. Billions were spent on solving the problem, a collaborate government/business effort, and the result worked brilliantly—the problems were averted, and the only problems were anecdotal. We all anticipated a problem, came together, and fixed it. And then nobody talked about it; if they did it was to complain that there was no problem after all (an inherent peril of solving a problem before it manifests itself). Majoo is looking back at what we did, how we did it, and what might have been.
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Most regulation happens because the businesses want to be regulated, but of course it often happens because of external forces. This is a perfect case of that. Banks got greedy and dumb, eliminating caps (getting rid of "card declined" messages) and charging people exorbitant rates for the resulting overdrafts. This is like parking garages suddenly getting rid of their walls, and then charging people extra to haul their smashed-up cars out of the bushes below.
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Great read on Y2K. Thanks for the link.
Regarding Pfizer… “Luring businesses through giveaways like this are nearly always a mistake, and this shows why.” — one example equals “nearly always?” hmmmmmmm.
Well, no—that’s what an example means—it’s merely an instance, not an argument unto itself.
Sometimes I feel like I.Publius is a Republican, but then he’ll say something favorable for something so patently Big Government as eminent domain, at which point I recall that he’s neither Republican nor Libertarian — he’s Contrarian.
The new Fed rules on the overdraft protection racket is some of the best news I’ve heard in a long time. The only defense I’ve heard for this is that people should know how much is in their accounts and not spend money they don’t have. Well fine then, when the money runs out decline the transaction. Embarrassing? Banks red herring? If you are worried that your transactions might be declined if you run over your limit and are happy to borrow money at 4,000 interest, you should be able to do that.
These debit card overdrafts are often charged to young people. Banks spend billions every year trying to lure new customers. Don’t they know that one bad experience from a new, young college student may end any possibility of their ever being a customer.
The banks stand to lose $30B/yr due to this. Will anyone cry?
Looks like California Pizza Kitchen did away with it’s calorie counts b/c it thinks it makes patrons feel guilty. http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/dailydish/2009/11/california-pizza-kitchen-menu-now-calorie-free.html Me, I’m a big fan of calorie counts (literally. instantrimshot.com). They don’t necessarily keep me from eating something, but I find them *very* useful. 800 calories for a few bites of something that I don’t like all that much? No thanks.
I love the invocation of the rimshot by merely mentioning that URL. :)
I had that experience after going to…oh…whatsitcalled…that burrito chain. Chipotle, I think. I went there about a year ago, because the local one uses pork from a farm I’m partial to. I read afterwards that it had some totally insane caloric count. (Could it have been 1,800 calories? Is that possible?) No more Chiptle burritos for me. It was overpriced anyway.