Interesting Links for 12-12-2016

[andrewducker]

Confirmation of the topology of the Wendelstein 7-X Stellerator magnetic field to better than 1:100,000 (tags: fusion Technology ) Cats: Helping you read since 8,000 BC (tags: cats books cute ) 11 Habits of Highly Creative People (tags: creativity comic funny ) Revamped Bubble Wrap Loses Its Pop (Could 2016 get any worse?) (tags: packaging )

Comments

[gonzo21]

I was watching some of the chinese news channel this morning, and yeah, they were clearly very concerned about Trump. He came up a lot.

[danieldwilliam]

I worry that Trump does not quite get that part of the "deal" that is being re-negotiated with China is an agreement for both countries not to kill anyone.

[gonzo21]

And ironically the people who should be most worried are the people who voted for him and still worship him.

[danieldwilliam]

It's one of the mysteries of economics why housing restrictions and housing costs don't shift production and therefore employment and therefore demand for housing more than appears to be the case.

Or at least as quickly as one might expect.

[andrewducker]

You mean "Why don't people move to where the housing is cheap?"

I assume the answer is a mixture of "That's not where the jobs are" and "Moving to a new place when you don't have either cash or a support network waiting for you is really hard".

[danieldwilliam]

There's some of that.

And I think there is something in the reason that there are spare / cheap houses in the first place. One of my economic learning points of the last five years is that re-building regional economies after large industries move out or fail is much, much, much harder than economists thought (and I started on the "it's going to be hard and it will need government intervention" end of the spectrum to being with.)

But it seems really difficult to even talk to people about e.g. moving out of London to places like Birmingham or Edinburgh where property prices are not insane.

Perhaps the answer is that Schumpterian creative destruction just takes longer and the way depressed areas recover is that their relative cheapness eventually makes it easier for new industries and new technologies to flourish there. See Aberdeen for a counter example.

[nojay]

Property prices are high in places with good amenities -- London, for example has excellent public transport and is getting billions of pounds of investment in further developments such as Crossrail 2 and the expected expansion of links to Heathrow for the third runway if it is built. These amenities attract more people to come to live there, pushing up the ticket price of homes and property. The result of that population increase is more pressure to improve the infrastructure including new public transport options (like Crossrail 3, 4, n). Step and repeat.

A village on the moors in Yorkshire has cheap housing but only two buses a day on the single-track road to the local town where the shops, pubs etc. are so no-one wants to go and live there or invest in the area. Step and repeat.

[meowpurrr]

"Unhappiness more likely to result from poor mental health or being single"

hmm, how about both, for almost one's entire adult life :D

[andrewducker]

That would lead me to suspect that you're unhappy.

[nancylebov]

The "what if you couldn't have photos" question on the checklist for volunteering abroad reminds me of a piece of financial advice "would you make that investment if you couldn't tell anyone except your accountant?".

[ylla]

It's an odd way of putting it - if I go somewhere new I like to be able to take photos of it. 'Would you still go if you couldn't post about it on social media?' seems to be what they're actually asking.

[cartesiandaemon]

Were people reading 8000bc? Kipling assures me cats were affectionate but annoying since the beginning of time :)

[ylla]

I was sadly disappointed that it wasn't actually about cat footprints on clay tablets or something!

[steer]

Exactly my thoughts.