Welcome Professor Roth

Alvin Roth, one of my favorite economists, is now blogging. Welcome Dr. Roth. (hattip to MR).

I'm So Sure Batman Died

Drudge Report has in column one a story about Batman/Bruce Wayne was murdered at the end of the RIP storyline by none other than his own dad. Yeah, let that sink in - the same man we've seen murdered by Joe Freeze in Bruce's own weary memories a thousand times. Even my 7-year-old knew I was full of it when I told him I had just read Batman was killed off at the end of a story by his own father. Awesomed by Comics has read it and says the whole thing stinks. The worst part about it, to her, isn't even the stupid story, but the random European characters. What's Grant Morrison's problem? I am kind of tired of him.

Crayon Physics Deluxe

Crayon Physics Deluxe is now available (for pre-order). You can get it for $14.95 through paypal. Good luck to this guy. It sure took him a million years to get finished! (not really). I want one.

Another in the "What Did We Do To Laugh Before the Internet" series

From McSweeney. Atlas Shrugged 2.0.

"I heard the thugs in Washington were trying to take your Rearden metal at the point of a gun," she said. "Don't let them, Hank. With your advanced alloy and my high-tech railroad, we'll revitalize our country's failing infrastructure and make big, virtuous profits."

"Oh, no, I got out of that suckers' game. I now run my own hedge-fund firm, Rearden Capital Management."

"What?"

He stood and adjusted his suit jacket so that his body didn't betray his shameful weakness. He walked toward her and sat informally on the edge of her desk. "Why make a product when you can make dollars? Right this second, I'm earning millions in interest off money I don't even have."

He gestured to his floor-to-ceiling windows, a symbol of his productive ability and goodness.

"There's a whole world out there of byzantine financial products just waiting to be invented, Dagny. Let the leeches run my factories into the ground! I hope they do! I've taken out more insurance on a single Rearden Steel bond than the entire company is even worth! When my old company finally tanks, I'll make a cool $877 million."

And it only gets better.

Links

Only two links here. First, 20 stupidest GI Joe vehicles. I had several of these, as did MoLT. At the time, they were anything but stupid. H.A.V.O.C. was probably my favorite GI Joe vehicle for a good year. My favorite caption is for the Cobra Pogo Ballistic Battle Ball (#4): "Oh for crying out loud. This is going to get someone killed." I also laughed when he calls one of the Rattler's weaponry "that gay little turret." The Rattler was also a mainstay in any of my ops against MoLT.

2. Michael Cera has a new comedy/docu-drama coming out about his real-life relationship with girlfriend Charlyne Yi, who played the scene-stealing stoned girlfriend in Knocked Up. Count me there.

Heroes

The writers need to: (a) figure out who characters are and try to maintain at least some consistency and (b) make characters stop having constant psycho-existential crises. It's run its course. Move on.

Update: (c) Stop the spinning camera angle thing. Stop trying to be dramatic and simply tell their stories. Why is that so hard?

HIV Eliminated in a Decade? Probably Not

This study predicts HIV could be eliminated in a decade. Color me skeptical. Color me highly skeptical, that is. If there's anything the papers I've been reading on the impact of improvements in HIV treatment have convinced me of, it's that without a vaccine, improved treatment is going to increase HIV incidence. We're already seeing it. What many epidemiologists do not understand or at least downplay is that AIDS itself was a deterrent to the spread of infection. The fear of AIDS caused people to wear condoms and have fewer partners. One study by Andy Francis even finds AIDS caused homosexual men to switch to having sex with women because the risk of infection was so high (and so fatal) among gay males. As the drugs began to have a real impact - especially with the protease inhibitors - and AIDS mortality fell dramatically, people could remain HIV+ and not reach any stage of autoimmune failure. Maybe never - some HIV+ individuals have been on medications for over 15 years and still don't have AIDS. Recent economic studies, like Lakdawalla, Sood and Goldman articla as well as this paper by Mechoulan found that when these new breakthroughs in treatment came out, both infected and non-infected individuals responded by increasing their risk for transmission. Infected gay males who began receiving treatment, for instance, responded to treatments by more than doubling the number of sexual partners they had recently had. Mechoulan finds similar things among HIV- individuals, including finding them reducing their condom usage. The rise in HIV that is observable in the data shows this, too. Both due to increased survivorship and changing behavior due to changing prices, HIV seems to be at the least not going away, and at worst, increasing.