VIRGINIA POSTREL: Two Cheers for ‘First World Problems.’

PUBLIC SHAMING? What do you do when a law review breaks a promise re publishing dates?

A DATA STORAGE DISK THAT’S GOOD FOR A MILLION YEARS.

AT POPULAR MECHANICS, A SNOW STORM PREPARATION GUIDE. Hey, this is just the first big storm of the winter.

INDEED: The light bulb ban provides a useful window into the mindset of liberals: the debate has nothing to do with which bulb is better, but rather who gets to decide.

But you can, for a while, decide for yourself by stocking up.

ISN’T IT ROMANTIC? NYC’s new mayor to replace Central Park horse carriages with EVs [w/poll]. I’m sure tourists will flock to New York City for this.

UPDATE: From the comments at the linked post: “Why do journalist continue to ignore the money? You forgot to mention that one of the largest donations for his candidacy came from Steve Nislick and he has been eyeing the property where the stables are for years. Is this really about the animals or to pay off a donor?”

Yeah, that’s a real poser.

ROGER SIMON: The Party Of The Rich Flogs Income Inequality.

MICKEY KAUS: The Big Inequality Problem Isn’t Income, But Respect.

TAXPROF: The IRS Scandal, Day 239.

PETER WOOD: CELEBRATING 2013 IN EDUCATION.

MEGAN MCARDLE: Another Problem ObamaCare Won’t Solve: Health Costs.

Does giving people health insurance help control costs?

Conventional wisdom holds that it should, by diverting them from expensive emergency room use to less-expensive visits to doctors and nurse practitioners. This argument was very popular with advocates for health reform in 2009, and it remains a sort of folk wisdom among educated people; I’ve heard some version of this argument in virtually every discussion I’ve had about health care in the last decade.

To health-care economists, though, the question is more complicated. Health insurance does theoretically let you go to a primary care physician rather than relying on ER docs who are legally required to treat you. On the other hand, it also reduces the cost of going to the ER. And as the basic laws of economics tell us, when you reduce the price of something, people usually want to consume more of it.

Which of these effects is stronger? There’s only one way to find out: test it. And thanks to the state of Oregon, we finally have a good test.

And the answer is, sadly, of a piece with all the other ObamaCare promises.

YOU AIN’T SEEN NOTHIN’ YET: “Bill de Blasio’s inauguration as New York mayor is already in the history books as perhaps the rudest transfer of power for a major U.S. political office anyone can remember. A parade of speakers trashed outgoing mayor Michael Bloomberg and delivered doses of divisive racial rhetoric.” Getting it good and hard. . . .

21ST CENTURY DIETING: “The $100 HAPIfork vibrates in your mouth when you eat too fast and wirelessly reports your good (or bad) habits to your smartphone.”

AT AMAZON, New Year’s Deals in Home, Kitchen & Garden.

Plus, 20% off on select Irwin hand tools.

Also, up to 50% off in winter storm preparation gear. Some of you will wish you’d hit this link the last time it was up, but winter isn’t over . . . .

And, today only: Save Up to 51% on Select H&R Block Tax Products.

TRAIN WRECK UPDATE: Have a baby and want to add it to your ObamaCare plan? Tough luck!

TABLETS AND CELLPHONES: “Mobile Germ Warehouses?” “Because our electronics are constantly within our grubby grasp, they can get pretty gross. They are taken into public restrooms, handed to runny-nosed toddlers, passed around to share photos and pressed against sweaty skin in gyms. Repeated studies show what accumulates is germy nastiness worse than what is on the bottom of your shoe.” Maybe that’s actually good, providing ongoing immune-system stimulation. . .

WHEN REALITY MOVES BEYOND PARODY: Will The Colorado Marijuana Inspectors Have To Pass A Drug Test? Plus: “One of the chores the inspectors will be tasked with is making sure the ‘legal registered pot’ and ‘illegal black market pot’ streams don’t cross, which… you know, do they realize it’s called ‘weed’ for a reason? How many new marijuana-related offenses did legalization create, anyway?”

IT LOOKS LIKE SOMETHING BUCK ROGERS WOULD CARRY: Remington Announces New R-51 Pistol. I like an art-deco gun.

LAW AND LIBERTY at 30,000 Feet.

SCIENCE: Advanced Imaging Reveals A Computer 1,500 Years Ahead of Its Time.

X-rays and advanced photography have uncovered the true complexity of the mysterious Antikythera mechanism, a device so astonishing that its discovery is like finding a functional Buick in medieval Europe.

In 1900, some divers found the wreck of a Roman vessel off the Greek island of Antikythera. Among the other treasures remanded to the Greek government was an unassuming corroded lump. Some time later, the lump fell apart, revealing a damaged machine of unknown purpose, with some large gears and many smaller cogs, plus a few engraved words in Greek. Early studies suggested it was some type of astronomical time-keeping device – researcher Derek J. de Solla Price laid the groundwork by establishing initial tooth counts and suggesting that the device followed the Metonic cycle, a 235-month pattern commonly used to predict eclipses in the ancient world. . . .

The findings, published in Nature, are probably best described as “mind blowing.” Devices with this level of complexity were not seen again for almost 1,500 years, and the Antikythera mechanism’s compactness actually bests the later designs. Probably built around 150 B.C., the Antikythera mechanism can perform a number of functions just by turning a crank on the side.

Using nothing but an ingenious system of gears, the mechanism could be used to predict the month, day and hour of an eclipse, and even accounted for leap years. It could also predict the positions of the sun and moon against the zodiac, and has a gear train that turns a black and white stone to show the moon’s phase on a given date. It is possible that it could also show the astronomical positions of the planets known to the ancients: Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn.

Fascinating.

GUN CONTROL — ANOTHER JOB-KILLING PROGRAM FROM THE LEFT. Magpul Is Moving. “The company began a nationwide search for a new base of operations after legislation was enacted in Colorado that dramatically limits the sale of firearms accessories – the core of Magpul’s business. Magpul plans on initially transitioning 92% of its current workforce outside of Colorado within 12-16 months and will maintain only limited operations in Colorado.”

ERIC POSNER: The Pomposity/Quality Relationship in Legal Scholarship.

DAVID GELERNTER: The Closing Of The Scientific Mind.

Related thoughts from Ed Driscoll.

THE HILL: Eleven state attorneys general slam Obama healthcare fixes as illegal.

The attorneys general specifically criticize President Obama’s executive action that allowed insurance companies to keep offering health plans that had been canceled for not meeting ObamaCare’s more rigorous standards. “We support allowing citizens to keep their health insurance coverage, but the only way to fix this problem-ridden law is to enact changes lawfully: through Congressional action,” the attorneys general wrote in a letter to Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius. “The illegal actions by this administration must stop.”

They say the healthcare fix was “flatly illegal under federal constitutional and statutory law.”

HHS did not respond to a request for comment.

Related: Poll: 59 percent report negative experience with ObamaCare.