What is it about being a tourist that makes you want to do crappy tourist things? I lived in Philadelphia for a year and a half and never went to see the Liberty Bell, or take a horse drawn carriage ride around the Old Town. I live (near) San Francisco and I've never been to the MOMA, taken a cable car ride (in 12 years), or hung out on the Golden Gate Bridge. 1. Being a tourist makes you want to do things that are "unique" to the area even if you don't derive much pleasure from them. 2. Without knowledge of the area, a tourist's activities are limited to touristy things. Most locals don't want tourists blending in so they are deliberately unfriendly. This is being mitigated somewhat by websites like Couchsurfing 3. When you live somewhere the opportunity cost of visiting the Fisherman's Wharf this weekend is lower. 4. It's easy to do what the pamphlets in the lobby and your Rough Guide tell you to do. I'm not too convinced by these reasons. When I'm somewhere new I inevitably spend most of my time walking from place to place, checking out the parks and main drag, or hiking to the top of a big hill nearby. After midnight is an especially good time for sightseeing.

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The story has lots of potential but I thought the execution could have been much better. "Telling the truth" in this movie means two things; one, you say whatever's on your mind all the time, and two, you believe everything people hear all the time. Even before he starts lying, Ricky Gervais's character is blessed with a sort of super-awareness that everyone else seems to lack; they take direct remarks in stride, while he reacts like a normal person would to being called fat, or grimacing when someone else is verbally abused. Anthony Lane is correct that this movie is about Gervais lamenting the one thing that he can't change; his physical appearance (this is also a theme in Extras). Even when he becomes rich and famous, the girl he loves turns him down because, as she tells him, she wants her children to be fit. To be honest, most of the truth-telling in here doesn't make it past the subconscious. Women would tell a fat guy no, but they might not be consciously aware that their reason for doing so is an evolutionary stable strategy. Similarly, if you fear another person in real life, it will show up in your mannerisms and choice of conversation, which is telling the truth in its own way. Many times people do things without being aware of why they're doing them. We might tell ourselves we bought a shirt "because it looked good," when in reality the mere act of purchasing makes us feel better and signals to those around us that we're being cared for. I wish Gervais would take this movie a bit more seriously; the subject lends itself to humor, and it's great to get some laughs out of it, but it's possible to do so in a way that's not over the top, or reliant on visual sight gags, like rolling out of bed with a beard and sandals, and with the bedsheet still on, resembling Jesus. The soundtrack is awful and the all-star cast (with cameos from Philip Seymour Hoffman, Jason Bateman, Jonah Hill, Tina Fey, Jeffrey Tambor, Stephen Merchant and Barry from East Enders, among others) is sometimes wasted. Gervais is trying to make points about theism, and the relations between men and women, but sometimes throws them away for a cheap laugh. The "truth," as Gervais shows, is that we want to be lied to. We want lies that comfort us, that insinuate that the world is within our control. For instance, the idea that a woman would decide at the end of the night, or the next morning, whether or not she likes a man, when most evidence shows that women know within about thirty seconds of meeting someone whether they want to sleep with them.  Or that handing your resume to the HR people at the career fair counts for anything, that average guys can get beautiful women, like they do in movies, or that we'll go on to heaven after we die; I could go on and on. How do we know those people are being honest? Most of the time, we don't. We lie to comfort others, or rationalize to comfort ourselves, and they do the same for us. Lies pervade our culture and make living more pleasant. I wish they'd gotten a more thoughtful treatment.

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Just off the Royal Mile in Edinburgh, my friends and I came across Oink!, a small restaurant with a simple business model. They are very successful as a restaurant by making the one item they sell perfectly. Here's how they lure people in: Here's their menu. You can order a Hog Roast Roll or a "Crackling" Hog Roast Roll. If you want to get something else, try a different store. One pig, two items on the menu, three possible condiments. That's it. And it was delicious, as you'd expect in a 1-item restaurant. When they sell only one thing, they're forced to do it well. If they're not getting repeat customers, they know exactly why.

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All other things being equal, what's the benefit of having a 20% admission rate vs. an admission rate that's 30% or higher? The classic reason I can think of is that selectivity signals a school's quality, but that's poorly correlated to a school's actual quality. 1. The school can be more choosy about removing potential discipline problems, and rejecting marginal students like children of alumni that can't cut it. This is beneficial because these students have spillover effects and bring down the total amount of learning. However, at most selective schools, around 80% of the applicants are academically qualified to do the work. 2. The "school pride" argument - because it was tougher to get in, students feel better about themselves for getting in, and the increased confidence helps them out later in life. Alumni also give more money, which may be linked to better education. Tenuous. 3. The quality of student research, etc. will go up because the students are more talented. This assumes that if a school is more selective, it's because it's getting better quality applicants to apply, not just large numbers of people at the tail end of the distribution. There is a positive spillover effect from being around other talented people, like in Italy in the 1500's. However I assume that if our school didn't admit these talented people, they would be admitted someplace else; they are zero-sum. I'm not terribly convinced. On the flip side, my guess is that a lower admissions rate enforces homogeneity among the student body; the cost of diversity rises when you can admit fewer applicants, and schools can't take as many high-risk, high-reward students on. Am I missing anything? Selectivity may indicate that the economy's doing well, because students can afford application fees and lots of them want to go to higher education. But on the flipside it means more students are not getting into their first choice school. The arguments get more tenuous

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A captive audience is valuable; firms and shop owners around the globe work desperately to get people to give them "just 10 seconds." This is why Super Bowl commercials are so pricey; they're shown to a huge audience of captive viewers. That said, Terminal 3 at Heathrow Airport takes the cake for the biggest consumer trap in the world. If Swoopo.com is in the lowest circle of rent-seeking hell, Terminal 3 is in the one just above it. It's the only airport terminal I've ever seen where the rents are so high that even McDonald's can't compete. Terminal 3 does one simple thing that I've never seen at any other airport: they don't tell you what gate your flight leaves from until a few minutes before you're supposed to board. The passengers have to sit in the terminal lobby, in front of all the duty free shops, until their plane's ready (for me, this was 4 hours). And these are rich, international passengers, Saudi oil princes and high-power business executives, in the world's busiest layover. There's nothing to do in this lounge that doesn't involve spending money, besides using the bathroom. People are generally ready to spend money in airports; Terminal 3 has all of the popular upscale Western brands (all the alcohol you want, D&G, Burberry etc), and travelers might have forgotten to get gifts while abroad. Furthermore, the "duty free" tag is a popular lure, even though the pound and the high rents pretty much eliminate any savings from buying there. I'm surprised, and grateful, that this business model hasn't spread to other airports.

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Monogamy may not be the most natural arrangement of man and woman. Sebastian Horsley slept with over 1300 prostitutes, and finds the arrangement satisfactory:

The great thing about sex with whores is the excitement and variety. If you say you’re enjoying sex with the same person after a couple of years, you’re either a liar or on something. Of all the sexual perversions, monogamy is the most unnatural. Most of our affairs run the usual course. Fever. Boredom. Trapped. This explains much of the friction in our lives—love being the delusion that one woman differs from another. But with brothels there is always the exhilaration of not knowing what you’re going to get. The problem with normal sex is that it leads to kissing and pretty soon you’ve got to talk to them. Once you know someone well the last thing you want to do is screw them...What I hate are meaningless and heartless one-night stands where you tell all sorts of lies to get into bed with a woman you don’t care for. The worst things in life are free. Value seems to need a price tag. How can we respect a woman who doesn’t value herself? When I was young I used to think it wasn’t who you wanted to have sex with that was important, but who you were comfortable with socially and spiritually. Now I know that’s rubbish. It’s who you want to have sex with that’s important. In the past I have deceived the women I have been with. You lie to two people in your life; your partner and the police. Everyone else gets the truth. [...] Having an instinctive sympathy for those condemned by conventional society, I wanted to cross the line myself. To pay for sex is to strip away the veneer of artifice and civilisation and connect with the true animal nature of man. Some men proudly proclaim that they have never paid for it. Are they saying that money is more sacred than sex? But one of the main reasons I enjoy prostitutes is because I enjoy breaking the law—another reason I don’t want brothels made legal. There is a charm about the forbidden that makes it desirable. When I have dinner every evening in Soho I always think: isn’t scampi delicious—what a pity it isn’t illegal. I’m sure I am not alone in this. Even Adam himself did not want the apple for the apple’s sake; he wanted it only because it was forbidden.

Then, Michael Skapinker writes about the social (and economic) benefits of cigarettes:

But I have not been able to track down any research on one of the most striking aspects of workplace smoking groups: their heterogeneous make-up. Companies spend money on activities such as Outward Bound adventures and cookery classes, hoping to encourage bonding between different departments. Smokers already cross those boundaries. Look at any group congregating for a cigarette: you will see senior executives and security guards, marketing and IT support. Does smoking produce business benefits? "There's no doubt in my mind that it inspires cross-departmental collaboration," one FT commercial manager (and smoker) told me. "You get to know people who you otherwise wouldn't, and get a feel for what they do. If you've half a spark of creativity about you you'll doubtless stumble across an idea you hadn't thought of before. It also allows for the 'off the record' conversations between departments that grease the wheels of business. I'd be pretty lost without them."

Smoking is also an excellent social bonding tool - you consume the cigarette for a fixed amount of time, but unlike a drink there's a culture of borrowing and lending smokes and a lighter. Furthermore, it gives you something to do while you talk, which is important for guys. If you drink all the time while you talk your drink is done within about five minutes. In foreign countries, try to find a friend who smokes (who can introduce you) although expect dirty looks when women realize that you yourself don't indulge. We should probably take pause before judging or condemning those who smoke or frequent the whorehouse.

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"There have been no papers linking how leverage is positively related to expected returns [for businesses], even though this result would have been consistent with a Nobel-prize-winning theory."

That's from Eric Falkenstein's Finding Alpha: The Search for Alpha When Risk and Return Break Down.

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Why the 24-hour media cycle is rewarding outrageous, dumb comments by politicians. WashPo wants average people to write short opinion pieces, and put the winning entry on its opinion page. Or the writers could, you know, start blogs. I hope Jim Henley's entry wins. Costco's focus on providing excellent products at low prices, explained. Which city will win the Olympics? I use "win" loosely - it's an expensive boondoggle that most residents can't afford. After Cash for Clunkers ran out, auto sales fell off a cliff.

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