This is clownish bullshit:

This distortion is caused by the top 10% having much, much larger houses, skewing the average (and households have gotten smaller).

The reality is this:

Noah Smith and related econs (emphasis on “con”) cannot admit the above is the common case as that leads to exile from the profession — because the whole point of modern economics is to exalt power and wealth. As a result, nearly all of the economic stats you see are just pure lies.

(And no, this is not sour grapes. I make well above 4x the median individual income, and that does not include any of my quite numerous and profitable stock market shenanigans. I am doing great. Others, not so much.)

The first ten on today’s playlist:

This is completely true.

We kinda created a culture where the only guys who are free to take risks & make mistakes they can learn from are the ones who don’t respect or care about what women say or how they feel.

This is why guys believe women go for assholes. They judge men’s behavior based on the standards women set & notice they have more success with women. It’s not so much that you have to be attractive to get away with it, but that getting away with it makes you attractive

I learned that too. I don’t care about supermodels or models in general, but I figured out that if you ask a thousand supermodels out, eventually one will say yes. Women tell you this sort of thing is not true but of fucking course it is. And as I have noted before, they are the ones who have created this atrocious equilibrium and only they can change it.

And unfortunately, the incels are right: acting more jerkish does in fact attract significantly more women. This is because too many women equate jerkishness with confidence. It’s false but if you try convincing most women of that, they’ll call you an incel too.

The first ten on today’s playlist:

Ukranian soldier fires a FGM-148 Javelin at a Russian vehicle. Hit visible.

Those Javelins are amazing tech. 90% kill rate. Nothing else like them — and we should send thousands more to Ukraine.

People who work service jobs in big, expensive cities like NYC, Boston, and Toronto: Where do you live? Where can you *afford* to live?

I’ve wondered this too. Seems impossible. Here’s one answer:

And people treat it as some unsolvable mystery why homelessness is so prevalent now. It’s housing costs, duh.

The reason we did not emigrate to Canada in one chart (US vs. Canada housing prices, US on left, Canada on right):

Canada is so so fucked. Gawdamn.

Only just. Name one among us who has not pooped in a Pringles can. We used to call it “Canned Heat” or “Product Enhancement” back in my day.

Things like the below are how you can know the current economic statistics are mostly lies:

Even adjusted for inflation, his grandfather’s mortgage was about 1/4 what you’d have to pay now. Economists like to say absolute crap like, “Houses are so much larger and higher quality now!” Which isn’t even really true, but it also ignores that housing is a good for which those standards are not a great measure. Most houses are not at all designed for multi-family living and these days, apartments aren’t that much cheaper (and in certain areas, like Sacramento, are actually more expensive for something comparable). And having a larger kitchen doesn’t matter when the real choice is having a kitchen vs. not having one at all.

I do wonder if economists believe their own lies? I think actually that many of them do. Otherwise, you get forced out of the field and not published.

I guess the loons and doofs will still be moaning about Covid in nursing homes 50 years from now, when no one even remembers what it is.

“Covid, gramma? Who was that?”

“It’s not a ‘who,’ missy. It was a terrible scourge that ended civilization back in my day.”

“Ok, gramma, let’s get you to bed.”

RANT: Microsoft “Enterprise” Support is a Joke.

Indeed. Every time I’ve used this “support” it’s been completely clear I know literally 1,000 times as much about the product in question as the person at the other end. It’s worthless — which causes me to ask why they even bother? Why have this at all? It’d be more honest just not to offer support of any kind.

Hey, remember when all the “smart” people said this was impossible? I do, because it was still occurring only a decade ago.

The first ten on today’s playlist:

War with China is coming and we are not nearly ready. And aren’t even trying.

Apple reportedly has plans for a thinner iPhone, MacBook Pro and Apple Watch.

But why? I don’t want thinner. Most people don’t want thinner. I want a lot of ports, a nice screen, and a battery that lasts as long as a Dane Cook show feels like it lasts.

This quest for device thinness is ridiculous and pointless.