Monday 16 November 2009

Nonsense upon stilts

NORML asked for a short piece on the New Zealand Drug Harm Index. The prepub is available below; the full version is in the Spring 2009 issue of NORML News.

Nonsense Upon Stilts
What do folks think of Scribd embedded documents like this? Better than pasting the text? It does save me the hassle of FTPing documents to the University.

8 comments:

  1. I tend to use Scribd for documents started in word processors or pdfs received. It saves tedious work deleting all the format junk from appearing in the post. Good article.

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  2. Like the article. Scribd I'm not so sure about - it needs a tweak or two. I couldn't tell, without more careful reading, that there was a document embedded at all when reading via Google Reader. I had trouble getting out of full screen mode. Even once I'm out of full screen mode my scroll wheel scrolls the embedded document regardless of focus. And in full screen mode I couldn't grab the scroll bar for some reason.

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  3. Full screen does seem a mess, and you're right about Google Reader. Works best opening it up in a new tab by hitting the link at the top. Not sure I'll use Scribd again. Main problem is that Blogger restricts page width based on assumption folks have really low screen resolutions, so there's just a big pile of whitespace on the sides that ought to be used for text but isn't. If this were fixed, it could be read in the main column.

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  4. Re resolution: I view in 1920 X 1200, so lots of whitespace. Google Analytics tells me that a plurality uses 1280 X 800 and about 15% use 1024 X 768, which gives zero whitespace. So recoding would make it look better for me, but unreadable for most others. Oh well.

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  5. I couldn't get the full screen mode to work, had to read it in a new tab.

    What is the professional/academic body of knowledge that BERL are using to inform their analysis if not economics?

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  6. @Aimee: They're using a public health inspired method that counts all costs, whether private or external, as costs of the activity, with no offsetting benefits. The counterfactual is a world where the drugs don't exist and where drug users are assumed otherwise to have labour market and other characteristics identical to the population average.

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  7. Nice piece, quite easy to follow. I second the 'scribd suck' sentiment.

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  8. "Nonsense on Stilts"

    Showing the benefits of a Classical education there Eric ;)

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