This was when he was only 90, during my wandersommer of 2001:
Leopold Hawelka, founder of famous Austrian cafe, turns 100 amid much fanfare – The Washington Post]
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Happy 100th, Leopold Hawelka!
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School Nurses and Econ 101, by Bryan Caplan
Most people flip out when economists suggest relaxing government regulation of medical quality. How dare we point out the trade-offs between price, quality, and access? But Robin notes an amazing example we’ve all known about since kindergarten: the school nurse.
Most states have special laws allowing school nurses to directly manage students as patients. True, school nurses can’t do everything docs can, but nurses who offered these same services to passersby at a shopping mall, without direct doc supervision, would violate medical licensing laws. Apparently, we like the comfort of knowing that medical help is onsite at school, but know that an onsite doctor would be very expensive, and so compromise with school nurses.
Pedagogical gold this pure goes straight into my labor econ lectures. Textbook authors and principles teachers, take note.
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What a Joke
Don Boudreaux:
Suppose that in a mere three years your family’s spending – spending, mind you, not income – jumped from $80,000 to $101,600. You’re now understandably worried about the debt you’re piling up as a result of this 27 percent hike in spending.
So mom and dad, with much drama and angst and finger-pointing about each other’s irresponsibility and insensitivity, stage marathon sessions of dinner-table talks to solve the problem. They finally agree to reduce the family’s annual spending from $101,600 to $100,584.
For this 1 percent cut in their spending, mom and dad congratulate each other. And to emphasize that this spending cut shows that they are responsible stewards of the family’s assets, they approvingly quote Sen. Harry Reid, who was party to similar negotiations that concluded last night on Capitol Hill – negotiations in which Congress agreed to cut 1 percent from a budget that rose 27 percent in just three years. Said Sen. Reid: “Both sides have had to make tough choices. But tough choices is what this job’s all about.”
What a joke.
[From What a Joke]
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What to Look for in a Touring Bike
For those of you interested in getting a new bike for the trip, here is a good guide from the Adventure Cycling Association:
Ditching Collective Bargaining Won’t Control Public School Costs. Here’s What Will…
Please read his whole article, but these two graphs really stand out. [From Ditching Collective Bargaining Won’t Control Public School Costs. Here’s What Will…]
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Floppy drive organ plays tocatta-boingboing
YouTube user FunToTheHead has created a working organ that uses finely tuned wheezing floppy drives to play rather impressive renditions of music. It’s not easy to sequence for four-note floppy-drive organs, but FunToTheHead has done a rather good job with Tocatta and Fugue — a solid choice for any mad-science organ! I love that he’s got the blinkenlights synched with the music.
People have made floppy drives sing before, but this is my personal take on it.
Features two 3 1/2″ drives and two 5 1/4″ drives connected to a PIC18f14k50 microcontroller. It interfaces to any MIDI source via MIDI over USB. Straight MIDI would also be possible with an additional small circuit and some minor firmware changes. This initial version can respond to all 128 MIDI notes, and pitch bends +/- 2 semitones.
As it can produce only four simultaneous notes, and each drive has a different range and tonal characteristics, best results are obtained by arranging compositions by hand. However, it features two modes of operation: in one mode, MIDI channels 1 through 4 are played directly on floppy drives 1 through 4. In the other mode, all 16 MIDI channels are read, and notes are “intelligently” divvied out on a first-come, first-serve basis. “Note stealing” ensures that melody lines sound, but chords are often cut short. One or the other produces acceptable results for many unmodified MIDI files straight out of your favorite media player.
So I built a musical instrument out of antiquated PC hardware… (Reddit)
(Thanks, Evan!)
- Band releases album on “obsolete” 3.5″ floppy disc – Boing Boing
- Floppy disc pillow – Boing Boing
- A portrait of the floppy disk as a USB drive – Boing Boing
- HP’s USB Floppy Drive Key allows BIOS installation – Boing Boing
- Retro Floppy Flash Drive – Boing Boing
- Radio Shack’s 1986 electronic book – Boing Boing
- Game Boy Color mod reads ROMs from floppies – Boing Boing
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The Most Illegal Wrestling Move of All Time!!
If I were to listen to sports radio, I would have to listen to Sean Pendergast, if only for the post that had this video:
[From The Most Illegal Wrestling Move of All Time!! (with VIDEO) - Houston News - Hair Balls]
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Counterclockwise puppy rotation
Thank you, Improbable Research:
If you struggle to remember which direction is clockwise, and which is counterclockwise, here is another instructive example.
Seen from your vantage point, the puppies in this video are rotating in the COUNTERCLOCKWISE direction:
(Thanks to investigator Geri Sullivan for bringing this to our attention.)
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