From the NYT, the costs and benefits of flexible labor markets.

Is Sioux Falls the next boom town? I was looking at it last year and it has a surprising amount going for it. It needs people, and lots of people from elsewhere are looking for work…

Presenting, the lock-picking cockatoo!

More attention to regional visas! The only solution for Detroit that I can think of.

Stem cells may render root canals moot because it could generate teeth that replace themselves. I have no clue if the science will pan out on this, but if I were an investor, I’d be looking at dental medicine. I think there is enormous potential for growth there.

Slate exposes eight science myths. We’ve been learning the hard way that ideas about the lifespan of certain insects has been misrepresented.

We talk a lot of the American-Mexican border, but the American-Canadian border is seriously weird.

The gender imbalance in China may be distorting real estate prices.

Cops with cameras: Good for civilians, good for cops. It’d be good if they had cameras, since we can be arrested for using them.

The next step up from microapartments: skinny-homes!

The Superhero vs Inflation.

Will Wilkinson, inspired by Tim Lee, ponders how the right and left look at labor compensation.

When you think about it, from a plot perspective, World War II is pretty implausible. I definitely would have written the villain differently.

I still remained baffled by this notion that global warming is going to cause untold disasters, but we should be very cautious about nuclear because… there might be an accident? Germany is making the shift away from nuclear… right back to coal. Is this progress?

Most people (including myself) see gasoline prices rising. Karl Smith explains how they could fall. He also explains our influence on global prices and the state of Peak Oil.

As America gets fatter, non-acceptance of fatness is not abating. Maybe we need to also turn our hadred to mice and marmosets. According to David Sirota, we should certainly start hating on men. (Seriously? Instead of being more compassionate towards women?)

People are worried about the environmental impact of oil pipelines. Maybe we should be more worried about the environmental impact of oil trains.

Why is Obama suddenly trying to argue about the jobs the XL pipeline won’t add? Maybe because of the water contamination a federal study says fracking chemicals aren’t causing. Or maybe he’s worried about the Saudis.

Geek stereotypes may be keeping women out of computer science. This is less flattering to women than geeks, in my opinion. Whatever, though, as long as they don’t force anybody to take down their Star Trek posters.

Buzzfeed’s piece on eight foods allowed in America but banned elsewhere – with the very, very clear implication that whenever we disagree with enlightened countries we are wrong – got attention and praise from people I know that I felt really should have known better. Here is a takedown.

Wired has photos of the world’s scariest border fences.

One of the more interesting things going on with the movie-making industry is the increasing Chinese influence. Maybe.

The Hollywood formula, in a nutshell.

Recent research suggests that housing vouchers do not disperse crime, as previously thought. One thing I find interesting is that the article mentions that these vouchers are putting a lot of recipients in the suburbs. This piece is in Atlantic Cities, which loves to gloat about increasing poverty in the suburbs. If they think really hard about it, they might see a connection here and consider the implications of it.

The Wyoming Senate race has gotten a lot of attention due to Liz Cheney’s decision to enter it. PErhaps more interesting is the ex Neo-Nazi mercenary.

I am presently reading Jonathan Last’s What To Expect When No One’s Expecting, which is about depopulation the the perils of the population bust. I thought I would pass this bit along:

On the western side of the country, the state of North Rhine Westphalia is suffering similar problems [of depopulation]. It has has been strugging to find enough workers to care for its bumper crop of retirees, forcing the state to take some radical steps. For instance, the government instituted a program to convert local prostitites into eldercare nurses. As one official told the British Medical Journal, “It’s an obvious move, since prostitutes possess good people skills, aren’t easily disgusted, and have zero fear of physical contact.”

Salary.com has the scoop. There aren’t any surprises, for those who pay attention to such things. It’s worth noting that the difference here actually has less to do with ROI and more to do with whether you attended public school or private. The “worst” degree, which is communications, still pays for itself 58% of the time for public schools. But less than 1-in-5 does private school do the same. Granted, private school degrees in certain tech fields probably beat that, but outside of a select few majors and a limited number of schools, I’d be willing to bet you fall below 58% relatively quickly.

Which is not to say that public schools are always a good investment. Forbes has a list of schools that arguably aren’t. A fair number of them are public schools. A fair percentage of that, of course, is attributable to student inputs rather than outputs.

Meanwhile, the return-on-investment for private school may not be as bad as previously thought:

“We find no statistically significant differential return to certificates or associates degrees between for-profits and not-for-profits,” they wrote in the paper, which was released last month.
Certificate holders from for-profits tended to fare slightly worse in the job market, according to the study, while associate degrees from for-profits were worth slightly more than those from nonprofit institutions. Hence no clear winner emerged.

The revised paper still included some worrisome findings about for-profits. Those colleges are typically more expensive than their nonprofit counterparts, particularly community colleges. For-profits charged an average of $6,300 more in annual tuition for certificate programs, according to the study’s sample, and $6,900 more per year for associate degrees.
“The return on investment is undoubtedly lower at for-profits,” the paper said.

However, the study’s most significant finding, its authors wrote, was the large variation in wages and labor market returns across majors and academic disciplines. Those program-specific comparisons are probably more valuable than comparing wage data at an institutionwide level.

That last part, of course, undermines the point that I just made. Or maybe it’s referring to outputs (wages) moreso than inputs, which vary an order of magnitude from one institution to another. On the other hand, wages are for life and college costs are fixed. So I’m not sure. I’d also like to know is that for-profits have higher aggregate costs than non-profits, but how does that work if you delineate between public non-profit and private non-profit. Of course community colleges are going to be cheap. But how does the University of Phoenix compare to the University of Tampa (a private institution)?

There’s something noteworthy about both of these articles, though. We hear a lot about how college tuitions are rising because state support is slipping*. Yet, despite all that, public schools still offer huge discounts over private schools. Even out-of-state tuition at public schools tends to beat the privates. The former suggests that there is more at work with escalating costs than falling state aid (and that, before we even talk about increasing state aid, we need to establish that it won’t be used to enable unnecessary spending elsewhere). On the other hand, the latter statistic suggests that state universities are still doing a decent job curbing costs because out-of-state tuition is at least theoretically non-subsidized. Or maybe not, since it’s commonly stated that advertised tuition rates are not usually paid.

Anyhow, when we talk about ROI, we should not just look at the cost to the student costs, but total cost. One of my complaints about the “make college affordable” debate is how focused it is on making it affordable to the student, rather than keeping total costs in check. It’s one of the reasons I am excited about the potential for genuinely low-cost college options. Which our current system provides so little incentive for.

* – Note, I cannot find good statistics on this, though. The oft-cited statistic, which is the percentage of cost covered by the state, is not particularly helpful. The per-student dollar amount is what I want. The reason being that colleges that jack up tuitions to build a new rec center end up costing the student more and lowering the percentage of cost supplied by the state, while a more financially prudent university looks like it’s being more generously supported by the state when it isn’t.

It’s a great speech, though somewhat undermined by the fact that you’re dead for part of the first second after impact.

I do like this commercial for seatbelts:

I remember my father describing to me a commercial about life jackets. It involved a couple of kids sitting on a boatzoomed-in like, holding each other and looking scared. The camera pans out, and you see that they are alone on a boat and their father is floating dead in the water. The argument being “if not for yourself, then for your children.”

It’s a pretty solid concept. One of the effects that fatherhood has had on me is a greater degree of safety-consciousness. Which is kind of a weird way to look at it, but it sort of feels like I don’t have the right to die stupidly, as much as I used to.

Something that kinda makes you feel old: The entire history of the Marvel Universe occurred after 9/11.

Cool concept photos of cloud cities.

The nefariousness of Big Commerce. It makes some good points, but also some contentions that can more easily be explained by something else.

The plan of shooting owls to save owls makes sense, after a fashion.

The legal profession is taking a closer look at bar exam failure rates.

Some matchmakers argue that uptown divorcees are a bit too picky.

Scientists are working at breaking the speed of light.

Critics of the pharmaceutical industry like to point out all that they spend on marketing rather than R&D. But what if the marketing improves the drugs’ effectiveness?

Apparently, password complexity rules. (symbol, number, cap requirement) are not just annoying, but also ineffective when compared to simple length requirements.

Eve Tushnet takes a hard look at shame. Shaming has its place, but Tushnet is right that people are often indifferent to the circumstances that affect its effectiveness, instead looking solely at the distastefulness of the activity they would like to shame.

To get people to move off of Windows XP, Munich, Germany is giving people Linux.

James DiMaggio is at large with an unrelated, kidnapped 16-year-old , after murdering her mother and (probably) her 8-year-old brother.  His ex-wife says he was obsessed with Everquest, and hung around the girl’s mother as a nonsexual friend:

DiMaggio’s former wife, who was married to him for only six months, said he didn’t show any violent tendencies during that period, but instead was a “nerdy” guy who showed a keen interest in video games, in particular, the game “Everquest.”

“I would complain about the virtual reality game he would play all night. It was ridiculous. It was consuming him. It was addictive,” the ex-wife, who wished to remain anonymous, told HLN’s Nancy Grace.

“He is not a materialistic person, and he’s very resourceful,” she said.

The suspect’s ex-wife added that she did not believe there was a romantic relationship between DiMaggio and the slain woman, describing their relationship as a “brother-sister type of deal.”

So here, we have a middle-aged man who is unsuccessful both romantically and financially. He was hanging around a family as a platonic “uncle,” where no man was present. He did them frequent favors, such as driving the attractive teenage daughter to her gymnastics practices. It should have been obvious he was after sex from someone there.

“He said he had a crush on her, but didn’t mean it in an intimate way,” 15-year-old Marissa Chavez toldThe San Diego Union-Tribune. “He said, ‘If I was your age, I’d date you.'”

The comment made the girls uneasy, Marissa added.

She said DiMaggio took Hannah to Hollywood for a week-long “Sweet 16” birthday celebration. The trip was cut short, however, because DiMaggio became upset about the amount of time Hannah spent on her cellphone.

“After that she never responded to his texts and e-mails,” Marissa told the San Diego newspaper.

It sounds as if the family made a couple of common mistakes. First, they were down on their luck financially. So, they were probably eager to accept help, and less likely to critique DiMaggio’s motives. When people are needy, predators sense it.

The second problem I call the “Beemus Illusion,” after my own former immature, older male friend who weaseled into young women’s lives by playing the nonsexual big brother role, then had tantrums and blowups when we didn’t want to have sex with him. In order to label a guy like DiMaggio appropriately, a woman has to make a socially disapproved assessment — even privately — of a friendly-acting male as a loser. Easy for me to do it from behind a keyboard. But when it mattered in my own life, I was reluctant. When I finally did, other people got mad at me. You can see the same illusion in effect with the kidnapped girl’s father — he talked about what a great guy DiMaggio was, how he “obviously just lost it.” No one wants to see the warning signs.

I like to think I wouldn’t fall for it now. When you’re a parent, you’re not supposed to take chances. In the Boy Scouts, the rule is never have fewer than two approved adults alone with a kid. That’s a common rule now for children’s activities. And normal adults don’t like to hang out alone with unrelated children. It sounds like torture to spend a week alone in Hollywood with some friend’s teenaged son or daughter.

My oldest son is old enough where I’m supposed to talk about “stranger danger” with him. This is what I’m telling him: Normal adults don’t talk to kids they don’t know unless it’s their job. And they don’t ask kids for help when they’re alone, they ask them to go get an adult. Normal adults also don’t tell kids their private business. I wish my parents had been clearer about this. For instance, when I told my normally strict dad that “My (male) English teacher is picking me up this weekend for an art show,” why where there no follow-up questions? And we thought it was so cool when he talked in class about his ex-girlfriends, even the one who committed suicide.

James Atlas complains about inequality in the skies:

The choice of “snacks” on some recent flights I’ve taken include blue potato chips, a cranberry-almond bar, a packet of trail mix and — a selection I haven’t been offered before — popcorn. But it makes sense: the cabin already feels like a movie theater at the end of a showing, even though we still have an hour to go. The floor is strewn with candy-bar wrappers and broken headsets, crumpled napkins and cracked plastic glasses. There’s so little legroom that I have to push my knees against the seat in front of me as if I’m doing crunches. Welcome to economy.

During an intercontinental flight, I notice that “on the other side of the curtain” — as the first-class and business cabins are referred to — dinners are being served on white linen tablecloths, with actual bone china. Everyone’s got their “amenities kit” — one of those little nylon bags containing slippers, an eyeshade and a toothbrush. And legroom? Tons. While our seat width contracts — on some airlines by nearly eight inches in recent years — the space up front continues to expand: Emirates Airlines now offers, as part of its “first-class private suite,” a private room with minibar, wide-screen TV and “lie-flat bed.”with actual bone china. Everyone’s got their “amenities kit” — one of those little nylon bags containing slippers, an eyeshade and a toothbrush. And legroom? Tons. While our seat width contracts — on some airlines by nearly eight inches in recent years — the space up front continues to expand: Emirates Airlines now offers, as part of its “first-class private suite,” a private room with minibar, wide-screen TV and “lie-flat bed.”

I am often sensitive to these kinds of arguments. And increasingly so, as I get older. A while back I took the relatively unpopular position that out of simple egalitarianism new cars should have emission tests aside the old. I also do sort of cringe a bit at what Megan McArdle described here at amusement parks, even though many of the same things apply there that apply to the unfriendly skies… where it doesn’t bother me at all.

Why not? Because we fly so that we can get from Point A to Point B. The most important thing is that people get from Point A to Point B. If we all had to fly in “steerage,” the purpose would be accomplished. A whole lot of the complaints aboput the unfriendly skies are ultimately complaints that we have popularized flight. By making flight affordable to the masses, sacrifices had to be made. I cannot look at yesteryear, where fliers were treated well but limited to the upper classes. I don’t want to go back to that at all.

Now, maybe we should do things that would cause us to go back to that – such as implementing carbon taxes that would push the costs of flying out of reach of most Americans – but let’s be clear about what we’re arguing for. It’s not egalitarian. It is something that will allow the upper classes to continue to do things that will become harder for everybody else.

And it’s hard for me to look at the situation and overlook the apparent fact that this is a case of the wealthy consumer subsidizing the cheap seats. Is First Class nice? Heck yeah, it is. But it is also obscenely expensive. The profit margins they make from those seats are profit margins they don’t need to make from the cheaper seats.

Self-selected price discrimination is pretty great. I like that Clancy and I are at the time of our lives that we can afford extra leg room. Maybe some day we will actually be able to afford First Class. But in the absence of that, I want transportation as cheaply as possible. That means cramped seats, limited culinary options, and so on.

A really weird story in Ohio where the Attorney General crack down on prescription… coffee mugs?

I get why the baby dear maybe had to die, but this strikes me as a pretty serious waste of time and resources.

An athlete at the University of New Hampshire gave up his college career to donate bone marrow.

SNL is finally coming to NBC on SLC! It was kind of weird when it was running on The CW. The CW still runs Hannibal, though, in that particular market.

Tyler Cowen looks at Oregon’s “equity plan” for funding college education.

io9 has a followup on the groundbreaking paper about the weirdness of western culture and how it is distorting social sciences.

Despite what we may have been lead to believe, the GOP position on abortion is not particularly out of touch with the populace at large. Of course, it would help the Republicans if they could talk about this issue in ways that don’t actively alienate voters.

International opposition to the death penalty is making it difficult for us to kill people.

Dodger Stadium is using foam to keep beer cold.

A cop in Alabama was fired for speaking out against quotas. The whistleblower in the Zimmerman-Trayvon case who was fired for disclosing the existence of potentially exculpatory evidence is suing the State’s Attorney office.

The audacity of banks surprises even me sometimes. Nobody should reasonably be able to expect what they’re expecting after having closed on the wrong home and wrongly sold off someone’s assets.

An unexpected upside to the patent wars: Smartphones made in the USA.