How Popular Is That? First, Yogi Berra gave us the restaurant that was so popular, it was actually unpopular: ‘no one goes there anymore, it’s too crowded.” Now, NY Times travel writer Bill Pennington gives us the converse. According to Pennington, Maine ski mountain Sugarloaf is “popular because it’s not that popular.” Makes sense to...Read More
“The Hard (Irreducible?) Problem of Human Consciousness” There is nothing about the physics of the material world (quarks, electrons, photons, atoms, etc.), and specifically, the intricate structure of the brain, that gives the slightest clue as to the mechanism of consciousness. –Dr. Eben Alexander, “Proof of Heaven” (2012); p. 154 Parsing Alexander’s claims of encountering...Read More
Sizing Up Twin Cities Malls (the Big & Small of Local Malls) [Editor’s note: my regular gig is residential real estate, not retail or commercial. However, I do have a solid business background, plus a decades-long familiarity with the Twin Cities and local trends. Rough estimates of acreage, land value, etc. are exactly that.] It may not...Read More
How Long After the Holidays to Re-List? With the holidays now past, many would-be home sellers whose properties have been off the market since Thanksgiving (or thereabouts) are asking their Realtors whether it’s time to go back on. The case for doing it this week: it’s easier to stand out from the crowd during an otherwise slow...Read More
Onto Fiscal Cliff #2 (and #3, and #4, and . . . ???) Statistician Nate Silver has advanced an interesting explanation for ever more frequent (and seemingly more acute) attacks of political gridlock nationally — the just-averted Fiscal Cliff fiasco serving as Exhibit A. Namely, politicians on both sides of the aisle have conspired to...Read More
