François R. Velde

Cognitive sciences @ McGill - not sure how closely related that course was, but it was in the Philosophy department

@ McGill (last year)

The timing of last night’s total lunar eclipse could have been timed by a competent student of Ptolemy 1800 years ago, +/- 13 minutes (*). A wrong but shrewd model, honed on centuries of good data, can perform very well.

(*) that was my son’s final exam last year in a Babylonian astronomy class.

WaPo not on the list, though. You should have offered to do a special issue on MT for $40m.

John Cochrane…. a fat finger mistake, as his commentary makes clear.

The birth of coinage - c650BC, five consecutive denominations (each half of the one on the left). Lydian coins, 55% gold and 45% silver. The one on the right weighs 0.3g and could probably buy a few sheep. Not quite small change…

And there’s a coin museum next door!

El archivo general de Simancas has joined the 21st c.! Now we can take pictures from our seats without limit

It’s Saturday Oct 16, 1582 and everyone in Naples is shopping for a new calendar (calendario novamente stampato). The Pope thought he could impose a worldwide copyright for the inventor, but the Catholic King told his viceroy to ignore this infringement on his jurisdiction.

still an improvement over smoggy 20th c.

Congress structured the Fed to limit politicization of monetary policy and prevent Presidents from manipulating interest rates. History of the Eccles-Glass battle proves this point, from Gary Richardson and David W. Wilcox https://www.nber.org/papers/w33174

lady of sophistication @janky_jane Props to anyone who tries to be fashionable in ireland i wore a red beret once in waterford and someone called me super mario Andrew Beatty V @AndrewBeatty Replying to @janky_jane I once ordered a taxi in Belfast for a night out. The driver pulls up to my house and just says "yer not going out like that. Go back in and change, I'll turn off the metre." | swear I was wearing normal jeans and a normal jacket.

Matthew @MrWeir Replying to @janky jane I once wore a silver jacket to college, turned up late for class, said 'sorry I'm late', lecturer said, 'that's ok' then waited til I was halfway across the front of the full class before following up with 'trouble with the spaceship again was it?'. Replying to @janky _jane My sister was in France sporting a new trench coat, thought was so stylish, but went into an Irish bar and got called Inspector Gadget by the first guy that saw her 15:53 • 8/16/21 • Twitter Web App

was wearing my super-fashionable short trench coat. My friend took one look at me wearing the jacket and said, "Where are we off to now. Columbo?" Eoin O Neill @eoinjoneill Replying to @janky_jane Was wearing a vintage nike jacket in a very long que for drinks at a boxing match when a Belfast lad goes "furk me this is taking forever, your man has been here since the 80's"

Loic Wright @dufflest Replying to @janky jane I wore a suit with a matching tie and pocket square to my first day of work at an advertising company (I thought I was going to be in Mad Men I guess) and the staff sent around and signed a communion card for me with a fiver in it. Eóin O Coileáin @L20_MTN Replying to @janky_jane I wore a white, wool turtle-neck jumper to the match once and a fella in the pub said 'Where have you parked the U-boat?'.

nobody does more brutal fashion reviews than the irish

Breakthrough in payments technology: a Swedish coin weighing 19kg (1648) and a note of same value (1666).

Tango and financial history

Because the conclusions are always stated in the introduction - economists are impatient readers, especially with 50-page papers.

Hi there

Banco de la Nación Argentina: register of illiterate clients (with fingerprints), c1900-02. Several Turks, one Arab, one German.

Ah, so the drawings represent the shops rather than the items. That makes more sense.

Then no need for drawings?

How was the illiterate servant supposed to distinguish un bocal di vino from un bocal de tondo?

Shouldn’t the graph be symmetric around the (0,0) point?