Nick's Blog

Patton Oswalt on the origins of religion:

I’m not sure where I’m going with this, but wanted to put some ideas out there.
In Economics-land, people behave rationally and work to maximize their utility.  Whatever that means.
For self-employed people who buy their own insurance, let’s say the average health insurance policy costs $1000 a year.  Healthy people, who expect their medical expenses to [...]

Have you ever found yourself on the road, making great time, minding your own business, and then WHAM you’re stuck in someone else’s traffic jam?
Last week I went up skiing, which was awesome, but got myself caught in the middle of Sacramento’s evening rush hour on the way home.  Aside from Sacramento, I’ve been the [...]

I love a good bumper sticker, especially if it’s funny or shares the driver’s political views.  But increasingly I’m seeing political bumper stickers that are childish, crazy, or just don’t make sense.  I’m all for your free speech, driver in front of me, but I don’t think a lot these do much to advance the [...]

There are two primary methods of accounting for the income and expenses of a business: cash and accrual.  In general, if your company’s revenue is less than $5 million per year, you are free to choose either one.
Cash Accounting
Cash accounting is the more common choice for small business accounting.  Income is not reported until the [...]

I’ve been told there are no such thing as baby carrots, and that the ones you buy at the store are just regular carrots cut and peeled down to “baby” size.
Busted! Well, partially.
There are real baby carrots!  Aren’t they cute?  You can find them in the grocery store next to the baby corn and mini-bananas.

But [...]

I really enjoyed Christopher McDougall’s Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen.  Great read.
Born to Run is a book about the Tarahumara people of the rugged canyon country of Northern Mexico.  But it’s also a book about history, business, nutrition, biology, evolution, individualism and community, motivation, [...]

Gotta love March Madness… all the games, the buzzer-beaters, the upsets, the cinderellas.  And I’ll admit it, unless it’s a Husky game, I don’t even follow college basketball until Selection Sunday.  Then it’s bracketology time!
With some websites offering big prizes for correct brackets, including CNN SI’s $10 million prize, I thought that someone with enough [...]

It turns out the people who don’t care about Jesus (or any other deity) appear to make better choices when it comes to obeying the law.   There is an oft-cited (if outdated) study of the U.S. prison population that found only 0.2% of inmates described themselves as atheist.
Recent estimates put the population of atheist/agnostic/secular/non-religious Americans [...]

Daylight savings time last weekend.  While the lost hour sucks, I’ve been enjoying the extra evening daylight.
Did You Know?
Daylight savings time gained widespread use during World War I as a measure to conserve coal.  The theory was that if it was light out longer, people would burn less power lighting their homes in the evening.  [...]