eating cucumbers without permission...

Fascinating, like a security book by Malcolm Gladwell or Steven Levitt.

The article covers much the same ground as the James Surowiecki piece in the New Yorker a couple of weeks ago, but they get mad props for uploading copies of the original papers.

Waldfogel's main finding is that, in general, people spend a lot more on presents than they're worth to those who receive them, a phenomenon that he calls "the deadweight loss of Christmas." A deadweight loss is created when you spend eighty dollars to give me a sweater that I would spend only sixty-five dollars to buy myself. Waldfogel estimates that somewhere between ten and eighteen per cent of seasonal spending becomes deadweight loss...

Play as the traditional monopolists, or as "competitors" (don't need all properties in a set to build, charge lower rents).

How the .us-.au free trade agreement fucked us over.