Transaction Costs in Everything: Wooden Puzzle Sharing Platform

This is actually pretty remarkable.

There is small (by proportion, though fairly large in number) subculture of wooden puzzle enthusiasts. Really high quality, die-cut, wooden puzzles.

But of course each puzzle is reasonably expensive, and once it's assembled it's really just....well, a picture with a bunch of squiggly lines in it. Not that much to look at.

A natural for sharing. Enter the Hoefnagel Wooden Jigsaw Puzzle Club!   You keep the puzzle for as long as you want. And puzzles are generally "returned" by mailing it to the the next user, not back to the central facility. And everyone can afford better and more varied puzzling!

A library of wooden jigsaw puzzles delivered by mail.

Browse The Library

Like old-school Netflix, but for puzzles

Unlimited puzzles, keep puzzles as long as you want

30 brands: Artifact, Liberty, Stave, Wentworth

800+ different wooden jigsaw puzzles

And The Little Chimps Will Lead Them....

An excellent example of tool use by chimpanzees.



I don't need no stinking surveillance!  NSA goin' down!

Liberals are WEIRD

Liberals Think More Analytically (More "WEIRD") Than Conservatives 

Thomas Talhelm et al. 
Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, forthcoming 

Abstract: Henrich, Heine, and Norenzayan summarized cultural differences in psychology and argued that people from one particular culture are outliers: people from societies that are Western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic (WEIRD). This study shows that liberals think WEIRDer than conservatives. In five studies with more than 5,000 participants, we found that liberals think more analytically (an element of WEIRD thought) than moderates and conservatives. Study 3 replicates this finding in the very different political culture of China, although it held only for people in more modernized urban centers. These results suggest that liberals and conservatives in the same country think as if they were from different cultures. Studies 4 to 5 show that briefly training people to think analytically causes them to form more liberal opinions, whereas training them to think holistically causes shifts to more conservative opinions. 

Nod to Kevin Lewis

Bad Analogies Cause Even Worse Science

Homicide as Infectious Disease: Using Public Health Methods to Investigate the Diffusion of Homicide

April Zeoli et al.
Justice Quarterly, forthcoming

Abstract: This study examined the spatial and temporal movement of homicide in Newark, New Jersey from January 1982 through September 2008. We hypothesized that homicide would diffuse in a similar process to an infectious disease with firearms and gangs operating as the infectious agents. A total of 2,366 homicide incidents were analyzed using SaTScan v.9.0, a cluster detection software. The results revealed spatio-temporal patterns of expansion diffusion: overall, firearm and gang homicide clusters in Newark evolved from a common area in the center of the city and spread southward and westward over the course of two decades. This pattern of movement has implications in regards to the susceptibility of populations to homicide, particularly because northern and eastern Newark remained largely immune to homicide clusters. The theoretical and practical implications of the findings, as well as recommendations for future research, are discussed.

Suppose murder were like a rutabaga.  Then, it would be mostly dirty and underground, with a green leafy top.  And you could stop murder with herbicide.  If murder were like a rutabaga, that is.  It's not.  But then it's also not an infectious disease.  As Röyksopp  put it, "brave men tell the truth; the wise man's tools are analogies and puzzles."

Nod to Kevin Lewis