You would not think that accounting could be an entertaining and illuminating subject to study, but then most of you did not have the opportunity to learn it from Uwe Reinhardt. I did have that opportunity and pleasure twenty-nine years ago. One of the lasting memories from my college days.

Today, whenever I run across something by Reinhardt, I take time out to read it, knowing that I will learn something useful and important.

Uwe Reinhardt Is a Real Health Economist.

I'm not a real health economist--although I have occasionally played the part of one in venues like the White House's Roosevelt Room or Capitol Hill. Uwe Reinhardt is a real health economist. And he has written a very good Primer for Journalists [pdf] (and others who want to understand what the issues are) willing to think at a level higher than Bush-speak.

[Brad DeLong's Semi-Daily Journal: A Weblog]

5:46:00 PM •  • comment  

The wonderful thing about the net is all the neat stuff you can find to play with instead of doing something productive.

Celestia: Real-Time Space Simulation.

A coworker tipped me off to this cool space simulation that allows for three-dimensional travel of the universe. From the website:

Unlike most planetarium software, Celestia doesn't confine you to the surface of the Earth. You can travel throughout the solar system, to any of over 100,000 stars, or even beyond the galaxy. All travel in Celestia is seamless; the exponential zoom feature lets you explore space across a huge range of scales, from galaxy clusters down to spacecraft only a few meters across.

I'll admit that I can't even grasp everything that one can do with this. In my short travels, I got lost somewhere outside of the Milky Way, did a demo, checked out constellations, and tried unsuccessfully to find a comet to follow.

Celestia runs on Windows, Linux/Unix, and Mac OSX. Additionally, ambitious sorts can create their own scripts for customized tours.

(Word of warning: If you don't have a great graphics card (less than 16 megs), you'll want to download the low res version.)

Visit Site [Forever Geek]

4:55:04 PM •  • comment