Assorted links

1. The first robot?, and are real-life Transformers on the way?

2. There is no great stagnation: shelf life of the Twinkie extended from 26 to 45 days.  One email correspondent suggested to me that the de facto shelf life of Twinkies is already two to three years.

3. Which are the most abandoned books?

4. Good review of a good book on drones.

5. New and important critique of high-frequency trading (pdf), though I am not persuaded by their claim that batch auctions will lower the bid-ask spread.

6. New survey paper on trust and economic growth.