Category Archives: Eclectic Observations

The Sunday Age has a selection of 15 tips to improve your life, including – bizarrely – advice from an economist (#13). What do these dismal scientists think they know about happiness?

I had thought suspected this for some time, but I’d never seen firm evidence. In most elevators, at least in any built or installed since the early-nineties, the door-close button doesn’t work. It is there mainly to make you think … Continue reading →

My father flew with budget carrier Tiger Airways from Canberra to Melbourne yesterday, and had the exciting experience of having part of his window fall out. Fortunately, it was the rim of the inner casing of the window, rather than … Continue reading →

Seen in New Orleans: several economists walking down Bourbon Street, still wearing their AEA nametags around their necks as they innocently weave their way between the packs of drunk football fans, the men and women with strings of beads around … Continue reading →

It’s coming up to Christmas card time again, and I can’t resist sharing the most apt card I’ve ever received. At the end of 2006, a couple of months after writing this paper with Ian Davidoff, the card below landed in … Continue reading →

A particular pet peeve of mine is academics who write sole-authored papers as “we”. So I was amused when A Word a Day dropped this into my inbox this afternoon. nosism (NO-siz-em) noun The use of ‘we’ in referring to … Continue reading →

Like John Quiggin, automatic news and google updates keep me informed of those who share my name. One is Los Angeles screenwriter Andrew Leigh, whose work is sufficiently close to mine that I was recently contacted by a US TV producer … Continue reading →

Earlier this year, I bought a Dell XPS1210 laptop. Generally speaking, it’s been well-behaved, but in late-June, it developed a problem with the memory. I had always thought that when a computer has memory problems, it is simply unable to … Continue reading →

On the way back from my office to my apartment, I came across a line of people sitting on the sidewalk. Some reading, some playing checkers, some talking on cellphones, etc. Curious, I followed the line to the end of … Continue reading →

In an ad placed by the Department of Trade and Industry in the latest issue of the Economist, Britain claims to have invented (among other things) the Internet. Can anyone vouch for this? (On an unrelated note, I’d advise against … Continue reading →

If you could spell serrefine, coryza, and fauchard, and are aged 13, then maybe you too could have won America’s national spelling bee championship.

One of the many joys of being married to someone who understands horticulture is her ability to notice when ‘experts’ are talking mulch. Here’s McGill University science ethicist Margaret Somerville on the 7.30 Report last night. You see I think the … Continue reading →

…and now no emus in Germany, either. Dummkopfen.

Having written 4 referee reports this week, and 7 over the last month (Review of Economics and Statistics, China Economic Review, Journal of Socio-Economics, Economic Papers, European Journal of Political Economy, BE Journal of Economic Analysis and Policy, Australian Journal of Political … Continue reading →

The first round of the French Presidential election is this Sunday. Is it just me, or do the parties on this ballot list remind anyone else of their university student council elections? Olivier Besancenot – Revolutionary Communist League (Ligue communiste … Continue reading →

Ah, American lexicon is a wonderful thing. Today’s New York Times Select email begins with the following: Rooters’ Guide to the Sweet 16

A particularly persistent urban myth is that the Great Wall of China can be seen by the naked eye from space (Wikipedia has details). I mentioned last year the fact that the Chinese are quite happy to propagate this myth. … Continue reading →

I have a couple of thousand old photos that I want to scan in to my computer. Does anyone know of either: (a) a service that charges a reasonable price to scan 4×6’s into jpg’s, or (b) a photo scanner … Continue reading →

Fun facts to drop into the conversation when you’re next chatting to Americans. Q: How many Australian states and territories are bigger than Texas? A: Five (WA, Qld, NT, NSW, SA) (Australian states by landmass here. Texas is 695,000 square km, meaning … Continue reading →

My father has just returned from Aceh, where he went to observe their gubernatorial elections. He mentioned something I hadn’t seen in the media. The person who’s likely to be the next governor of Aceh, Irwandi Yusuf, was apparently the … Continue reading →

One of the great ironies of modern telecommunications is that it’s really hard to speak to your phone company. This evening, I called Optus at 8.15pm to ask about a problem with my mobile phone bill. After a 20-minute wait, … Continue reading →

A friend of mine has just joined the London office of a US law firm, Morrison & Foerster. So her work email address ends with mofo.com. As if to compensate, her home email address ends with virgin.net.

Squalk. So, the infallible guy says he was wrong? Squalk. Arrrgh, y’ll no be talkin like that, me yeller feathered friend.

Surfing for a cute quote to put in an oped, I stumbled across these, from the website of French writer and rockclimber Guillaume Dargaud. Q: How many tech support people does it take to change a light bulb? A: We … Continue reading →

Herald Sun commentator Andrew Bolt today links to a study that finds a positive relationship between listening to sexual music and having sex at a younger age, and concludes that dirty music leads to sex. The hyperlink doesn’t work, so … Continue reading →

I’ve reached the ripe age of 34 today, a point at which “early-30s” seems more of a hope than a description of reality. Also, I couldn’t help noticing in one of the news stories yesterday that when Castro was my … Continue reading →

In an earlier discussion about wi-fi in the US, a commenter posted a question about free wi-fi hot spots in Australia. Hi Andrew, I’m a geriatric granny who visits Australia each year from the UK and brings a laptop which runs … Continue reading →