Opportunity Cost view of rating movies

How I rate a movie depends on how badly I wanted to watch the movie, and what my situation is. This leads me to believe that the "opportunity cost" of watching the movie has a large part to play in how I rate movies. If it's a middling movie and I'm bored, I am entertained enough for it to be worth my while. If I'm really busy and I find a movie even marginally less than superb, it will get a relatively bad rating from me.

This is also why I may not trust other people's judgement (unless it's a consensus view). Wisdom of the crowds may remove this effect though, through regression to the mean.

Work-Driving as bad as Drink-Driving

... according to NYTimes.

A Kinder, Gentler take on Success and Failure

This TED talk advocating a softer approach to judging oneself and other people, is quite a gentle but effective thought-provoker.

A case against the kind of meritocratic snobbery we all indulge in.

trip trop nyc - public transport visual map of nyc

This tool can tell you approximately (visually) how far and accessible a place is from any given address in NYC. I think there's an equivalent for London too. Quite nice.

Indian Democaracy and Hunger

Alex Tabarrok (Marginal Revolution) had this to say after his TED talk:

A lot of people say that India has been held back by its democracy. But let’s remember that despite being a poor country India’s democracy meant that its government never let millions of people starve. No politician wants to starve potential voters. In the long run, I think India is going to benefit from its democracy and not be harmed by it. Democracy is, in a sense, like markets. It provides information and feedback, it leads to a more open system and it constrains government from the worst kinds of abuses. I think that the more China proceeds along the wealth path, the more difficult they will find it not to have a democracy.

Of Fortune Cookies and General Tso's Long March

This entertaining TED talk explores the roots of American-Chinese food.

Child Hunger In India

I read this piece on BBC. I was alarmed at how bad it is (statistically). I was even more alarmed that I (I like to consider myself relatively well-informed and conscientious) didn't think it was this bad. We can lead pretty insular lives sometimes.