Monday, September 06, 2004

Filler

The blogging muse abandoned me for a few days, but I did find a few links worth passing on.

1. Blargh Blog has extended my toilet roll analysis to cover rolls with any diameters for the tube and the whole roll.

2. While searching for something else, I ran across Eric’s blog. Just read the first few entries and you’ll get the idea.

3. Kieran at Crooked Timber wonders why Europeans get forearm crutches while Americans get underarm crutches – and then offers explanations in seven different paradigms. That he misses the simplest explanation only makes the joke funnier.

4. The Craphound explains why your silver-bullet proposal for fighting spam sucks (link courtesy of Tech Liberation).

2 comments:

Amy said...

Glen, dear, you're an economist. You shouldn't be willing to simply accept that underarm crutches are cheaper without questioning whether the reason they're cheaper is that they're more ubiquitous. I see no good reason that the raw materials or the crafting of one type of crutch should make it nearly twice as expensive as the other. However, it makes more sense to me that they'd be cheaper if they're manufactured in the US in larger quantities, whereas the other kind are more common in Europe and need to be imported. It would also make sense if the price for the better forearm version were higher because sellers know that people with lifelong injuries are more likely to pay a higher price for a product that's easier to use. But I don't see any prima facie reason that the underarm version is half the price. Do you?

Glen Whitman said...

I said it was the simplest explanation, not necessarily the correct one. I didn't even follow Radley's link about prices, because my interest in the subject was purely for its humor value. So I have no idea what the real explanation for the phenomenon is.