A wander half way down my blogroll

Reading blogs is often more fun than writing blog posts. Before I started this blog I naturally did it much more than I do now.  Below are some highlights I selected from a couple of hours wandering down through the first half of my blogroll - I stopped at Marginal Revolution.  I'll do a wander through the other sites at a future date.

Among OECD countries Australia won the recent Olympics using a measure that adjusts both for population and the degree of economic development. Oh yes, Jamaica won the global top spot and the US came 17th.

The value of day-dreaming as an input to creativity.  A wandering mind is in its default state according to this post.  3quarksdaily is a blog I should read more frequently. Recommended.

Adrian’s night shift driving a taxi with interesting statistics and no drunks – a great blog by the way compiled by a man with compassion and intelligence.

Clive James has some impressive clips of the late Sir John Gielgud - the voice of the Bard indeed! Listen!

From the Dog’s Bollocks I learned of a new (apparently very good) web browser – Chrome – supplied by Google.

Stephen Dubner proposes a tax on sex. It’s a joke (I guess) but like a lot of the stuff at Freakonomics it is neither funny nor clever. At the same site Daniel Hamermesh argues the case for the superiority of American toilets. Yuppie economics on a bad sample path! Not my taste at all.

But this was very cute. A Danish chain of gyms provides memberships for free with the only caveat being that you are charged if you don’t turn up. Certainly reduces those procrastination incentives but if their business plan is smart it implies a fairly low view of humanity.

George Borgas draws on a study of 30 billion electronic communications to suggest a 6.6 degrees of separation claim.  I think this is deep.....well.....

Warwick McKibbin has some very useful papers on climate change at his website.  I listened to a paper Warwick gave last week and was impressed.  Not light reading but valuable suggestions for our post-Kyoto future.