I must have blogged about this before. Oh wait, I have. Twice. Three times. Oh fine, just count it as infinity and let's move on.

Anyhow, brand new book I came upon in an old edition of the New Yorker- Philip Tetlock's Expert Political Judgement: How Good Is It? How Can We Know? First, I love the fact that he's a psynchologist and not a commentator. It's the right perspective to take on this stuff. Second, I love the fact that he's done this on a long term basis, looking at two hundred and forty eight people commenting over 20 years. Big n... Dave like. But the piece de resistance comes right in the second paragraph review:

The accuracy of an expert's predictions actually has an inverse relationship to his or her self-confidence, renown, and, beyond a certain point, depth of knowledge. People who follow current events by regularly reading the papers and newsmagazines regularly can guess what is likely to happen about as accurately as the specialists whom the papers quote.

PRICELESS. So basically, the bum on the street is probably just as likely to give you decent advice as the guy who has been studying the situation for 20 years. Mind you, I actually think this is more an effect of the total seeming randomness to events (Tetlock tested huge society changes like political freedom, economic growth, repressions, recessions) than experts actually being misinformed, but still, it makes you put into context some of the insanity with which we trust someone who gets quoted.

Just one more thing I'd do if I had a talk show. The first thing an expert would have sitting right next to his/her head would be a scorecard of previous predictions and/or quotes from the past. Just so the audience could get a sense how good this guy/gal was.

Here's the book I was talking about:

First, I don't know why I'm surprised, but are you aware that there is a world's trade fair entirely dedicated to office furniture (among other things)? NeoCon 2006!

Second, are you aware they give out Gold & Silver medals for "continuous fixed seating systems" (among other things I presume)? They do. (Good thing that site requires registration... that's got to be some high quality information information about facilities management. You can use my login and password to get in if you'd like: username: "whatseriously", password: "what")

Here's a picture of the award winning continous fixed seating system!

Those people at SediaSystems are geniuses. GENIUSES.

However, let's get to the issue at hand. Chairs. According to this article that's been sitting around on my desk for no less than 3 years, the award winner for 2002 for office chairs is Knoll, with this little bad boy.

Ok, I'm not going to lie to you, it looks pretty good. But somehow, I still don't think it's going to provide the 8 to 10 hours of hard core sitting comfort I'm looking for. You know what I really want? One of those sensory deprivation chambers, but for work. I could just lie there, floating, my head back and legs perfectly supported as I typed away at blazing speed. I wouldn't even have to hold myself up as the viscosity of the liquid would be thick enough that it would allow all my muscles to relax simultaneously. Now THAT'S what I'm talking about. Like that episode where Homer is hovering in the wind tunnel? Ah good times.

While I'm sitting here pouring through government data, a really cool article has been sitting on my desk for a while.

"The Human Factor" from the NYTimes Magazine, 2004-03-28

Unfortunately, one of the best parts of the article is only in the print version. Observe:

Pay to Breathe

How much Americans will spend to avoid one day of each symptom, as estimated for the E. P. A. (in 1990 dollars)

Coughing  ................................. $4.98
Chesh Tightness  .......................... $6.29
Head congestion/sinus  .................... $8.20
Shortness of breath  ..................... $10.57
Allergy (chronic) ........................ $15.72
Eye irritation ........................... $15.72
Throat Congestion ........................ $16.35
Drowsiness ............................... $18.87
Nausea ................................... $22.01
Headache ................................. $25.16
Asthma attack ............................ $32.48
Bronchitis & Emphysema (chronic) ................................ $84.28

Mmmmmmmmmmmmmm mmm! Datalicious!

The really cool part about this is you can now guestimate whether or not it's better to fix something or just pay off everyone who would be affected. Nuclear fallout? Average person in a population of 100,000 affected within 200 miles would pay $700,000 in medical bills. But the cost to clean up would be 10 trillion. Pay them off!

Ok, so that's a bit much. But really, it does make enormous sense. It also guides us what to spend our top research dollars on, based on the population and how these diseases are spread out. Do you think the "drowsiness" costs include coffee?

Read and weap.

US Census Commute Information

This is an incredibly depressing article:

Could rising gas prices kill the suburbs?

Not, of course, because the suburbs should not die. In fact, the suburbs should die. They are wasteful and annoying. I think you should have three choices of where to live.

1. A) Rural - really rural
2. B) City - really city
3. C) Suburbs where you pay a hefty tax for using up all the resources in such an inefficient way that it hurts A and B above.

However, the reason I'm so depressed about it is because the article questions whether or not rising gas prices are going to end the suburbs. Give me a break! The average person spends about 33% more on gas today than they did a few years ago. Assuming a 15 gallon tank gets filled up 3 times a month, his adds up to around $50 a month more. And this is the reason to leave the suburbs? How about the fact that you're stuck in traffic every day for 10 minutes more each way than if you live that much closer. Even if you have a low paying job of $10/hour, that means you're giving up $50 a month. If you make $50k/year (about $25/hour), you're giving up about $150! And that's being extra generous... according to this, the average commute is 139 hours. Good God!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/5245860.stm

Fine, so these savings don't show up in your bank account. I don't know about you, but 10 minutes extra of sleep or watching TV or reading or ANYTHING would be better than sitting in traffic. I guess it just surprises me that people are willing to go so far for a couple of hard dollars when your time is the real casualty in all this.