

♦DiggIt! ♦Add to del.icio.us ♦Share on Facebook
Things I read and found interesting


Bill Easterly: There is an obscure piece of theoretical statistics called “garbage in, garbage out.” Calculating “additional poor in poverty due to crisis” requires (a) knowing what growth would have been in absence of crisis in every country, (b) knowing what growth will actually turn out to be in 2009 or 2010 in every country, not to mention in 2008, since the World Bank’s World Development Indicators do not yet have estimates for that year, (c) having good data on the current level of world poverty, (d) knowing the effect of growth on poverty, (e) projecting the effect of food and fuel prices on poverty, not to mention projecting food and fuel prices.
The reality: (a) is impossible, (b) is almost impossible, (c) Voices of the Vulnerable says the last real global poverty numbers were in 2005, which themselves reflected an upward revision of 40 percent ,(d) is unreliable and volatile, and (e) is impossible.
the rest is here
CHICKENS: The only animals you eat before they are born and after they are dead.
COMMITTEE: A body that keeps minutes and wastes hours.
INFLATION: Cutting money in half without damaging the paper.
SECRET: Something you tell to one person at a time.
SKELETON: A bunch of bones with the person scraped off.
TOMORROW: One of the greatest labor saving devices of today.
WRINKLES: Something other people have, similar to my character lines.
Thanks to RF
-------------------------------------------------
♦DiggIt! ♦Add to del.icio.us ♦Share on FacebookI’m almost done reading shop class as soulcraft; weird but interesting. Other nice motorcycle books I’ve read include Jupiter’s Travel (the author describes a night club in Mombasa (Kenya).. as follows: ”there were arm dealers, ivory poachers, currency swindlers, slave traders, Cuban military advisers and agents of the IMF.”) and Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance. Crappy motorcycle books I’ve read are: Mi Moto Fidel; The Motorcycle Diaries (the movie is much better than the book), and Long Way Round
Here‘s a list from AmazonMy 4-year old daughter: the moon did not come out because the sky is very dark and the moon is scared of darkness
-------------------------------------------------
I read a lot of stuff and I used to forward what I found interesting/fun to friends. Rather than emailing, I am posting the links here. In this “No Original Content” blog there is nothing of my own (at least for the moment), just a bunch of links (mostly in English but I will also try to add Italian/Spanish/French links).
I don’t think that I will express any views here (remember: “No Original Content”), but in case I were to express a view, this should be interpreted as my own view and not that of any institution I am or I have been affiliated with.
About me: My name is Ugo Panizza, my website is here.