Listening to the latest EconTalk Podcast, on the economics of organ donations, the following exchange caught my ear. Russ Roberts: “Markets tend to organize themselves, that’s the marvelous thing about them, if you leave them alone.” Richard Epstein: “If you leave them alone or better, if you know what’s going on and participate in them.”
Author Archives: Garrick van Buren
Advice to Web Developers: Forget the Password
This weekend while wandering down the aisles of our local Super Target, we found a dinner table and a side board we though would go great in our living/dining room. After checking out, a couple of teenage boys wheeled the still flat-packed pieces to our awaiting PT Cruiser. Now, after flattening the inside of the …
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Trackbacks – A Better Reason to Not Have Comments
Seth Godin’s been getting some heat for not allowing comments on his blog posts (despite trackbacks being turned on. Seth’s reason is something about not having time to respond to and “curate” each an every comment. Eh. Sure. But there’s a better reason. One consistent with Seth’s position and the fact that trackbacks, as I …
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Born Rich? Take the Pill Instead.
We watched Born Rich tonight. Props to Jamie Johnson for putting it together…but that, as someone not born rich is all I can give him. Or, maybe it’s that I’m not 21 any more…or maybe it’s because I’ve always known (or had some inclination) of what I’ve wanted to do with my life…I have a …
Rooting For Redfin
“While companies like Zillow and Trulia fight for the online table scraps otherwise known as advertising revenue, Redfin is busy pushing the fat guy out of the chair and taking his seat at the table.”- Aneil, PostBubble.com In TopofthePod #13, Mark and Rob ask which media will get disrupted after the movie industry. I’m saying …
The Lack of Intention Economy
“Since the clicks will likely look legitimate, it comes down to intent – did the user click the ad just to click it, or did they have a genuine interest in the advertisement? It’s not so easy to tell…” Mark Cuban dissects click fraud. The quote above is from the comments following Mark’s post. Good …
Tim Quirk Blogging Pop-Ed
One of the best songwriters in the world is finally blogging. Tim Quirk (Too Much Joy, Wonderlick, The Its) and his cohorts at Rhapsody have kicked off Pop-Ed: The Rhapsody Staff Blog. Though I’d prefer his writing put to music, I’ll take what I can get at this point.
Much Love to the St. Anthony Village Muni
After working inside all day (still too much construction noise to move the office outside) I took a the 7-block walk up to the Chipotle in our nearly a year-old Silver Lake Village (spot of the old Apache Plaza mall donchaknow). In addition to burritos, crack stone creamery, and a handful of other less than …
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Pondering a Name Change
Hi, my name is Garrick. It’s a good name. One I’m happy with – now. As a kid, it was a frustrating name. Relatively long, unfamiliar, and without an easy nickname. Though, in the end, those attributes don’t really matter. Persistence does. Continual usage over decades made me more comfortable with my name and by …
Ad-proaching a Singularity
This weekend, stuck in the land of dial-up, I paged through a print motorcycle magazine and compared the articles against the advertisments. All the ads were for gear, motorcycle shops, or vehicles to haul your motorcycles. Essentially, indistinguishable from the articles themselves. You can do the same with any reasonably niche dead tree publication. The …