Priceonomics

>At the time a very famous statistician (Fischer?) maintained that we couldn't actually tell whether it was causal or not.

It was Fisher, here's a fantastic summary of the whole episode: https://priceonomics.com/why-the-father-of-modern-statistics-didnt-believe/

My statistics professor showed us gruesome pictures of what was done in the 70s due to lack of conclusive evidence that smoking causes cancer. They forced dogs to smoke.
https://www.theguardian.com/media/greenslade/2012/may/20/thepeople-investigative-journalism

Then monkeys.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/6782600/

Now that we have conclusive evidence that smoking causes lung cancer, have we stopped ? Here's a zoo in China that forces a baby monkey to smoke in an apparent attempt to dissuade future smokers.
https://metro.co.uk/2021/11/05/china-baby-monkey-forced-to-smoke-for-zoo-public-health-campaign-15552034/

I'm reminded of the Hunt brothers attempt to corner the silver market in 1980 [1].

> But as the high prices persisted, new silver began to come out of the woodwork.

> “In the U.S., people rifled their dresser drawers and sofa cushions to find dimes and quarters with silver content and had them melted down,” says Pirrong, from the University of Houston. “Silver is a classic part of a bride’s trousseau in India, and when prices got high, women sold silver out of their trousseaus.” [2]

Price seems to be able to make material availability very elastic. If there is a huge demand for lithium and our collective resources are bent toward obtaining it (or finding a substitute) I think you can trust "The Market" to find a way.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silver_Thursday

[2] https://priceonomics.com/how-the-hunt-brothers-cornered-the-silver-market/

The links between Hollywood, the CIA and the Bond movies are pretty well-known and discussed, and it's hardly just the Bond movies. For example:

https://priceonomics.com/how-james-bond-introduced-the-cia-to-1950s-america/

> "The agency’s director at the time, Allen Dulles, loved the Bond novels. Despite the derision most agents held for the series, Moran notes that he had a signed copy of each and every novel. Dulles and Fleming struck up a relationship that at times seemed mutually beneficial. Dulles peppered his public remarks with references to Bond, while Fleming dropped positive mentions of Dulles into the mouths of his characters."

Given the climate of the era, anti-communist blacklisting in Hollywood and so on, it seems fairly obvious that the Bond movies were given a clandestine stamp of approval.

I thought this could be about the Monty Hall Problem, which I think is my own personal favourite. It isn't, of course, but I'll share some info here as no one else has raised it so far this thread :-)

It's an interesting probability question in its own right, as it has a hugely counter-intuitive correct answer in my opinion. But the sh*storm it caused is equally interesting. Hence I will share this article which covers both aspects:

https://priceonomics.com/the-time-everyone-corrected-the-worlds-smartest/

A major takeaway - statistics and probability can be really tough sometimes and even world class practitioners can be caught out when intuition and mathematics clash. And a little humility is perhaps wise when trying to "correct" people, just in case...

Related: https://priceonomics.com/can-you-buy-a-license-to-speed/

"The answer is the state highway patrol -- the men and women that most people interact with only when getting ticketed for speeding. A number of the frames read “CHP 11-99 Foundation,” which is the full name of a charitable organization that supports California Highway Patrol officers and their families in times of crisis. Along with engraved mugs, jackets, and leather wallets, the foundation gives out the license plate frames as tokens of thanks to donors who become “Lifetime Members.” Donors receive one license plate as part of a $2,500 “Classic” level donation, or two as part of a bronze, silver, or gold level donation of $5,000, $10,000, or $25,000."

You might be interested in learning more about Priceonomics (http://priceonomics.com/), a company does price comparisons for a bunch of stuff. I don't know what their engine is written on but it's certainly something custom, and that's most likely the way you want to go.

They also have an amazing blog (http://blog.priceonomics.com/) where they showcase products and nifty stuff they do with them. They use Tumblr for this part of the site but you might as well go for Wordpress or whatever you prefer.

No matter what you choose, you want to separate both parts of your site, and the comparison engine will most likely be a custom solution (Ruby, Python, PHP, doesn't matter).