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Deb Roy Births a Word at TED

As I said on Twitter last week, Deb Roy's talk at this year's TED was among my favorites ever. Its mixture of science, data, visualization and personal story touched all my hot buttons, and touched me personally. It's now up on the TED site, and I have embedded it below.

 

Collecting the iPad 2 Reviews

• Engadget: "The iPad 2 isn't just the best tablet on the market, it feels like the only tablet on the market
• NYT/Pogue: "The iPad will still dominate the market"
• WSJ/Mossberg: "Best tablet for average consumers"
• Daring Fireball/Gruber: "Like last year’s iPhone 4, it seems like technology from the near future"

In short, the kids dig it. And, interestingly, some of the biggest raves came for the new Smartcase, of all all things.

 

Field Notes: Food, Copper, Drought, Drugs, etc.

• In silico repositioning of approved drugs for rare and neglected diseases (Source)
• Modeling and simulation of pedestrian behaviors in crowded places (Source)
• New drought record from long-lived Mexican trees may illuminate fates of past civilizations (Source)
• School closes after copper thieves take roof (Source)
• Food Delivery Search Engine GrubHub Raises $20 Million (Source)

 

Where the Trail Ends

Incredible mountain-biking eye candy:

 

Sal Khan at TED Talking Khan Academy

Another very good talk from last week's TED conference. This time it's Sal Khan talking about his Khan Academy, aYouTube-ified short-bite education program offered by a former hedge fund analyst. It's good stuff.

 

Managing Millennials

Clay Shirky in McKinsey Quarterly on managing millennials:

A famous observation about the net generation, the millennials, is, “They’re doing Facebook at their desks on a Tuesday morning,” which is certainly true. One of the reasons for that is that they’re also being asked to use PowerPoint in their homes on a Saturday afternoon. If you went to any manager and said, “Would you offer your 25-year-olds the following bargain: no more Facebook at work, and in return for which, I won’t call you after 6 PM or on weekends or ask you to watch e-mail.” I don’t think the managers would make that deal.

I don't disagree, but it's not only them being asked to do same.

 

Field Notes

• Top 10 Sports Websites (Source)
• Chart of the week: $115 a barrel oil – who suffers and who doesn’t (Source)
• How Do You Measure History? (Source)
• Greek borrowing costs hit record levels (Source)

 

The Economics of Pricing Yourself Out of the Gas Market

A West Covina CA gas station consistently has the highest prices in California, and therefore in the entire U.S. At $4.79 it's lately been more than a dollar per gallon more expensive than another station right across the street. I've noticed it for some time on GasBuddy, but a reporter has finally dropped by to see what is going on.

"Based on our numbers, that's the highest," said Patrick DeHaan, senior petroleum analyst for Gasbuddy.com. "There could be others out there."

...The average gas price in West Covina is $3.62 according to the Automobile Club of Southern California. Industry experts are predicting averages will climb above $4 by Memorial Day.

Business at the Mobil appeared slower than other stations, however. In a half-hour period around noon, only five customers stopped at the station. Another two drove up but then left.

Across the street, a Shell station was selling regular for $3.75 a gallon.

Customers stopping there often complain about the high prices across the street, according to the clerk.

A clerk at the Mobil station referred questions about prices to the owner, Mohamed R. Khidr, who couldn't be reached Thursday.

So, questions:

• Why does this station owner seemingly not care that his station is priced almost out of the market?
• At a few driver per hour in peak periods, is he even covering his costs?
• Is this just a fantastic moneymaking strategy of finding the nitwits who don't check prices?
• Does he have great snacks?
• How are we to explain someone pricing themselves so strangely when a competitor's price is visible across the street at much lower levels?

The floor is yours.

[Update] Apparently someone else has been wondering the same thing.

 

Peak Pirate: Somali Pirates Running Out of Space

You have to hate when good things like this happen to perfectly evil pirates:

Hostage Oversupply in Somalia? Pirates Negotiate Better Deals to Free Up Space

Somali pirates may have reached their limit, at least for now. Security agencies have suggested that Somali pirates are willing to negotiate lower ransoms to release ships they have seized -- because they are running out of room.

Somali pirates have made large swathes of the Indian Ocean a no-go area, but lately they've become victims of their own success. Security agencies report that pirate groups are more willing to negotiate the release of captured vessels lately -- in large part, experts believe, because their ports at Haradheere, Eyl and Hobyo are choked up with ships.

It seems we've reached Peak Somali Pirate.

 

 

From Mad Cows to Crows

Interesting causal connections made in this paper from European mad cows to North American birds and crops. Turns out that European BSE outbreaks drove higher U.S. grassland bird populations.

Population trends of grassland birds in North America are linked to the prevalence of an agricultural epizootic in Europe

Abstract

Globalization of trade has dramatic socioeconomic effects, and, intuitively, significant ecological effects should follow. However, few quantitative examples exist of the interrelationship of globalization, socioeconomics, and ecological patterns. We present a striking illustration of a cascade in which bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE; “mad cow disease”) outbreaks in Europe exerted pressure on global beef markets, subsequently affecting North American hayfields and grassland bird populations. We examined competing models, which linked the prevalence of BSE in five focal countries, volume of beef exports to those countries from North America, and the amount of hayfield harvested and the abundance of grassland birds in North America. We found that (i) imports from North America increased 1 y after BSE outbreaks; (ii) probably because fewer cattle remained, the hay harvest in North America was reduced 2 y after the outbreak; (iii) the reduced hay harvest yielded a positive response in grassland bird populations 3 y after the outbreak.

 

 

Ron Rivest on the History Growth of Cryptography

Ron Rivest on the history and growth of cryptography: "Maybe large prime numbers have a role to play in our democracy..."

 

Anthony Atala Prints a Human Kidney

One of my favorite talks from last week's TED conference was this one by Antony Atala. A moving, smart and revelatory talk that builds as it goes. Super stuff. [-]

 

Field Notes: Oil, Restaurants, Biotech, Clouds, TED, etc.

• Trophies for the biggest biotech venture financings? (Source)
• The worst restaurant in the world (Source)
• Saudi Arabia's `Day of Rage' Lures Record Bets on $200 Oil (Source)
• All talks from TED 2011 rated (Source)
• Cloud Save extension for Google Chrome (Source)

 

The 25 Best Financial Blogs: Moi?

I'm on TIME magazine's list of the 25 best financial blogs. I also wrote something for the list on Zero Hedge. You can read Felix Salmon's comments on my site, plus my comments on Zero Hedge, here.

 

Income in America

[Source]