Category: Economics
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Google Correlate. Political Operatives Find it Useful.
Morning Edition had a neat tech story about Google Correlate that you can listen to and get the quick summary. You can find the information you need about Google Correlate Compare US states Compare weekly time series Compare monthly time series Documentation Comic Book FAQ Tutorial Whitepaper Correlate Labs Search by Drawing
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The Outlines of a Post-Industrial Global Economy Emerging
I agree with Marc Andreessen, venture capitalist, investor, and co-creator of Mosaic and then Netscape that software apps and broadband access worldwide is going to drive the economy. The old order economy is being disrupted, and will continue to be, and I think I buy into his contention that Wall Street undervalues technology companies and…
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Drunk with Data, Economist at Google is on a Roll
Google also conducted 5,000 search experiments last year, which led to 400 search improvements (and the same again for ads experiments). Such insistent experimentation is an academic means to a capitalist end. Or, as Varian puts it: “Google is like a university, but with money.” It’s a cheering thought – and possibly why, in a…
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PLATO Got me interested in computers
PLATO – Program Logic for Automatic Teaching Operation was installed in the Basement of the G Lecture Hall at UIC, then known as “Circle” when I was attending. I was taking a Microeconomics course, and I was freakedout because I had never taken an econ test, and the teacher did not tell us whether it…
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Nobel Prize Winner Yunus on microfinance gone wrong
Image by Getty Images via @daylife Commercialization has been a terrible wrong turn for microfinance, and it indicates a worrying “mission drift” in the motivation of those lending to the poor. Poverty should be eradicated, not seen as a money-making opportunity. There are serious practical problems with treating microcredit as an ordinary profit-maximizing business. Instead…
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Apple Rotting?
Image via Wikipedia VLC is open and free. So that’s why Apple hates it? In the US, most of us have Flash or VLC alternatives that are not open-source installed on our machines. This isn’t true world-wide. The advantages of VLC are magnified in areas where connections are slow or sporadic, where people don’t have…
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Tim Wu on Monopolies and Information Industry
Info-monopolies tend to be good-to-great in the short term and bad-to-terrible in the long term. For a time, firms deliver great conveniences, powerful efficiencies and dazzling innovations. That’s why a young monopoly is often linked to a medium’s golden age. Today, a single search engine has made virtually everyone’s life simpler and easier, just as…
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eBooks And The Ease Of Self-Publishing
Author tells why it was easier, faster, and can have bigger payback going with epublishing Since professionalism is essential, we hired a cover artist and an ebook formatter. A publisher providing these services takes 52.5% of an ebook’s cover price, and the retailer gets 30% through the agency model. That leaves only 17.5% for the…
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Danilel X. O’Neil’s Primer on City of Chicago Contracting: Derivative Works (DXO)
Forget the foolish focus on “who” will be the new “Mayor Daley.” This focus on the what that goes on with each action and contract cuts to heart of the City’s problems. The wink and then the no bid contract to the friend, political ally, or somebody’s relative. It is not nickle and dime’ing us,…
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Virtual Goods Worth More than Real News: Curmudgeon 08/27/2010
in 2014 Americans will be spending $1.5 billion on online newspaper subscriptions and $5 billion on imaginary objects. Maybe I find this ridiculous because I’m a reporter and my sympathies lie with the newspaper industry. via MediaPost Publications Virtual Goods Worth More than Real News: Curmudgeon 08/27/2010. So this does sound like “amusing ourselves to…
Barbara K Iverson 