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Megan McArdle

Megan McArdle - Megan McArdle is a senior editor for The Atlantic who writes about business and economics. She has worked at three start-ups, a consulting firm, an investment bank, a disaster recovery firm at Ground Zero, and The Economist. More

Megan was born and raised on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, and yes, she does enjoy her lattes, as well as the occasional extra-dry skim-milk cappuccino. Her checkered work history includes three start-ups, four years as a technology project manager for a boutique consulting firm, a summer as an associate at an investment bank, and a year spent as sort of an executive copy girl for one of the disaster-recovery firms at Ground Zero … all before the age of 30.

While working at Ground Zero, Megan started Live From the WTC, a blog focused on economics, business, and cooking. She may or may not have been the first major economics blogger, depending on whether we are allowed to throw outlying variables such as Brad Delong out of the set. From there it was but a few steps down the slippery slope to freelance journalism. She has worked in various capacities for The Economist, where she wrote about economics and oversaw the founding of Free Exchange, the magazine's economics blog. She has also maintained her own blog, Asymmetrical Information, which moved to The Atlantic, along with its owner, in August 2007.

Megan holds a bachelor's degree in English literature from the University of Pennsylvania and an M.B.A. from the University of Chicago. After a lifetime as a New Yorker, she now resides in northwest Washington, D.C., where she is still trying to figure out what one does with an apartment larger than 400 square feet.

The Third Dimension

By Megan McArdle
Sep 2 2009, 11:38 AM ET Comment

Yipee!  3D television is coming!  As longtime readers know, I'm a big fan of 3D movies.  If we can get the technology broadly adopted, I don't see why it couldn't replace flat movies in a couple of decades.

Well, I mean, I can.  3D is not quite the same as stereo vision, it's more expensive to produce, and of course the technology lag will be a big barrier.  Plus, at least so far, the goggles slightly dim the color.  And there's the problem of handing out goggles to your guests . . .

Nonetheless, I still think the case for 3D is compelling.  In a way, it's like the transition from black-and-white to color.  Sure, you get all the necessary information from a black and white film.  And in some ways, black and white can be more beautiful than color.  But in the end, most people want to see movies the way we see the world.  In color.  And in stereo.


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