J. Bradford DeLong's Blog, page 2314

I Think the Last Line I Have Quoted Is the Funniest Thing I Have Ever Heard...

James Iry:

One Div Zero: A Brief, Incomplete, and Mostly Wrong History of Programming Languages: 1801 - Joseph Marie Jacquard uses punch cards to instruct a loom to weave "hello, world" into a tapestry. Redditers of the time are not impressed due to the lack of tail call recursion, concurrency, or proper capitalization.

But it was multi-threaded...

1842 - Ada Lovelace writes the first program. She is hampered in her efforts by the minor inconvenience that she doesn't...

Preparing for Econ 1

And now that one semester is... dead and staked... it is time to start preparing for the next one.

U.C. Berkeley: Fall 2010: Econ 1 starts it's journey down the slipway...

Instructor: J. Bradford DeLong, delong@econ.berkeley.edu, 9257080467.


Head Section Leader: Michael Urbancic.

Books:





Partha Dasgupta, Economics: A Very Short Introduction

Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (available for free on the web or free for Amazon Kindle or...

Winston Churchill Liveblogs World War II: May 8, 1940

Winston Churchill: May 8, 1940:

On the second day, May 8, the debate, although continuing upon an Adjournment Motion, assumed the character of a Vote of Censure, and Mr. Herbert Morrison, in the name of the Opposition, declared their intention to have a vote. The Prime Minister rose again, accepted the challenge, and in an unfortunate passage appealed to his friends to stand by him. He had a right to do this, as these friends had sustained his action, or inaction, and thus shared his...

Market Failure!

Free to Choose is not available for the Amazon Kindle.

That is all.

links for 2010-05-07

Barry Eichengreen: The Greek crisis: It is not too late for Europe

BE: "First, the IMF and the European Commission can encourage Greece to reach a social consensus on restructuring and reform by showing that the creditors will also contribute.... Second, Portugal and Spain must do more to convince the markets they are not Greece.... Third, to give the Iberians time, the ECB will have to support their bond markets.... Fourth and finally, the Germans need to...

Winston Churchill Liveblogs World War II: May 7, 1940

May 7, 1940:

The many disappointments and disasters of the brief campaign in Norway caused profound perturbation at home, and the currents of passion mounted even in the breasts of some of those who had been most slothful and purblind in the years before the war. The Opposition asked for a debate on the war situation, and this was arranged for May 7. The House was filled with Members in a high state of irritation and distress. Mr. Chamberlain's opening statement did not stem the hostile...

Note to Self: Stray Thoughts on Some Undergraduate Majors Here at Berkeley that I Do Not Influence at All...

Listening to the graduating students...

Those majoring in peace and conflict studies, development studies, and rhetoric...

It seems, reading through the lines of what they say, that the modal teacher in those programs approaches their educational mission as though they have a dire and urgent need to deprogram young minds that have been enslaved to the harsh market-ueber-alles doctrines of neoliberal capitalism and classical economics.

The problem is that these nineteen year olds...

May 7, 2010: At Least I Have a Strong Immune System...

Staggering around Davis, California all day begging everyone I see for some methamphetamine precursor. It was sad...

U.C. Davis CEGE Annual Conference: Financial Shocks and the Real Economy

Aaron Tornell is now speaking. And while I can log on to Davis's wifi network with my iPhone and with my laptop, the iPad refuses to do so.

Which makes me envious of Mark Thoma, fifteen feet away across the table, with his brand new 3G-enabled iPad...

Not Yet Morning in America; But Methinks the Morning Star Is Rising...

Barry Ritholtz:

The Bonddad Blog: Blow Out Jobs Report: That is one good looking chart. Simply put, this is one hell of a good report.

I am a happier camper than I was seven hours ago...