July 2012

Why Do We Ignore Women’s Sports?

Lynne Kiesling I’ve scheduled this to post while I’m out on one of my long rides … this interesting Outside magazine article explores why women’s sports attract so little attention. The article focuses on cycling: The Giro d’Italia Femminile is the biggest race you’ve never heard of. Covering 961.4 kilometers of Italian countryside over nine days, 127 …

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Rob Bradley’s Edison to Enron

Lynne Kiesling Consider the preconceptions that surface in your mind when you read the name “Enron”. What are they? Chances are that they are negative, and not particularly nuanced — fraudulent business activity, tarnishing the idea of free markets by trying to manipulate them using the political process, and so on. If that’s true for …

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Romney Should Defend the Morality of Capitalism … Here’s an Example

Lynne Kiesling In the wake of the “you didn’t build that” discussions of the past few days, David Brooks writes The Romney campaign doesn’t seem to know how to respond. For centuries, business leaders have been inept when writers, intellectuals and politicians attacked capitalism, and, so far, the Romney campaign is continuing that streak. One …

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Does Epsa Support Capacity Markets? For Power Markets, Yes; for Gas Pipeline Markets…

Michael Giberson The Electric Power Supply Association, “the national trade association representing competitive power suppliers,” supports the use of electric power capacity markets to ensure sufficient generation capacity is available to reliably serve peak consumer load. See, for example, EPSA’s policy paper on the topic: Well-functioning forward capacity markets are a critical component of organized wholesale …

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Who Exploits You More: Capitalists or Cronies?

Lynne Kiesling [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kJeuoMh46JY&feature=player_embedded] Matt Zwolinski’s new Learn Liberty video addresses that question, and he does a masterful job of it. He starts with the “compared to what?” question — what’s the likely alternative to voluntary exchange in free markets? It’s regulated and politicized exchange, which is frequently not voluntary. Ask yourself: which of these is …

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NYC Brownouts? But Why?? I Thought They Had Electric Power Capacity Markets

Michael Giberson From Reuters: Amid NYC heat wave, Con Edison lowers power voltage New York energy company Consolidated Edison Inc reduced the power voltage in some Manhattan neighborhoods on Wednesday, in an action known as a brownout, as a brutal heat wave stressed the city’s electric system for a third day. This was the second …

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Creative Destruction (with Emphasis on the Creative), Air Cooling Edition

Lynne Kiesling This Babbage column from the Economist is full of interesting information about the air conditioning that we have enjoyed over the past 110 years. Invented 110 years ago in Brooklyn by Willis Carrier, air conditioning has made indoor climate control of temperature and humidity first possible and then ubiquitous. Such is the now-typical …

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Strava

Lynne Kiesling Wired has a nice article today on Strava, a really good online training tracking site. I like Strava, and have used it for about a year (in addition to Training Peaks). It has a clean design, good features, and a set of members that includes some pro cyclists who are fun to follow …

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