"Taxing Robots Is a Great Way to Make People Poor"

Excellent article by Noah Smith at Bloomberg, h/t the Resolution Foundation email round up.

No point in paraphrasing or summarising, the article is fairly short and to the point.

Pacific Rim

Went to see Pacific Rim. It's cheap night at the cinema, and I wasn't sure whether to go, but for £4 a ticket, seemed worth a punt.

If you're not aware of the plot, it's basically that a bunch of aliens monsters (called kaiju) are coming through a dimensional portal and to counter them, we build a bunch of giant robotic machines (called jaeger) to fight them.

Now, this is a giant robot vs giant monster movie. It's not Chekhov or Tolstoy, so if that's your bag, you might not care for it. But if you like seeing giant monsters fighting giant robots, it is a movie of epic proportions, and well worth seeing. The story does make sense and follow naturally (within the rules of its own universe). It has some interesting sci-fi ideas. The characters are a mix of likeable and fun.

Whether I would want to see it on DVD or Blu-Ray, I'm not sure. It would still be good, but if you want a great night out, find the nearest cinema and go.

Robots have birthdays too