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Archive for April, 2011

What Is Google's "Largest Investment to Date"?

According to the official Google blog, it’s a recent $168 million investment in a solar-power plant:

We’ve invested $168 million in an exciting new solar energy power plant being developed by BrightSource Energy in the Mojave Desert in California. Brightsource’s Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System (ISEGS) will generate 392 gross MW of clean, solar energy. That’s the equivalent of taking more than 90,000 cars off the road over the lifetime of the plant, projected to be more than 25 years. The investment makes business sense and will help ensure that one of the world’s largest solar energy projects is completed.


April 11: The Most Boring Day in History

Using alogrithms that weight values for more than three million facts including historical events, birthdays of significant people, etc, a sophisticated computer program has determined that April 11, 1954 was the most boring day in human history.


The Economics and Genetics of Parenting: A Guest Post by Bryan Caplan

Adoption and twin researchers have spent the last forty years measuring the effect of parenting on every major outcome that parents care about. Their findings surprise almost everyone. Health, intelligence, happiness, success, character, values, appreciation – they all run in families. But with a few exceptions, research shows that nature overpowers nurture, especially in the long-run.


Where on Earth Will All the Cars Go?

Evidence indicates that as national wealth rises, so does auto ownership. So what is going to happen when those in poor nations start buying cars at rich world levels? Can the world afford to have every Chinese and Indian driving a car?


Getting Arrested is Not Pretty

A new paper stipulates that robbers are unusually ugly. That finding makes sense—ugliness might intimidate victims and make the crime easier to commit. So too perhaps for police ugliness intimidating crooks.


FREAK-est Links

The consequences of a donor kidney market, Libyan Revolution graffiti, and what were the odds at the Masters as of Friday night?


The Economics of Gym-Going, Part 2

From a reader named Laura Brown:

I recently joined a gym in a low-income part of Baltimore. For $10 a month, a person has unlimited access to the equipment — including treadmills that have individual televisions with about 20 different channels. For $19.99 a month, they have unlimited access as well as unlimited guest privileges. I’ve only been to the gym twice since I signed up, but both times (in the evening), the gym has been almost to capacity. However, despite the fact that it is almost impossible to find an open treadmill, many patrons don’t seem to be there to workout — most of them are obese, and the majority of the treadmills seem to run on the minimum speed settings — .5 mph — not fast enough for anyone to even break a sweat. I was pondering this yesterday during my jog, and it occurred to me that it is entirely possible that many of these people are using a gym membership (and the subsequent treadmill-television access) as a substitute for cable.


The Economics of Gym-Going, Part 1

A new study finds that unemployment “increases the risk of premature mortality by 63 percent.”  Eran Shor, one of the study’s authors, believes there’s a causal relationship: “In past research on the topic, Shor said it was hard to distinguish whether pre-existing health conditions, such as diabetes or heart problems, or behaviors such as smoking, drinking or drug use, lead to both unemployment and a greater risk of death. In the new study, controls were included to account for those factors.”


How Richard Feynman Thought

I am fascinated by how we can improve our thinking and problem solving and enjoy learning about and from masters of those arts. My interest was therefore caught by the advice on thinking given in a review of Quantum Man: Richard Feynman’s Life in Science. The reviewer, George Johnson, writes:

This triumph came early in his [Feynman’s] career. His later thinking (about solid-state physics, for example, or quantum cosmology) was just as original. Maybe sometimes too original, Krauss suggests. Science usually proceeds by building on what came before. The maverick in Feynman kept him from accepting even the most established ideas until he had torn them apart and reassembled the pieces. That led to a deeper understanding, but his time might have been better spent at the cutting edge…“He continued to push physics forward as few modern scientists have,” Krauss [the biographer] writes, “but he tended to lead from the rear or, at best, from a side flank.”


Trouble in Higher Ed.

The Chronicle of Higher Education is running the second installment of an interesting two-part essay on the declining expectations and level of learning taking place among college undergrads.


Quotes Uncovered: How Lies Travel

I’m back to inviting readers to submit quotations whose origins they want me to try to trace, using my book, The Yale Book of Quotations, and my more recent research.
Smashley asked:

I heard recently that the quote, “A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is still putting on its shoes,” usually attributed to Mark Twain, is not actually by him.  Which is delightfully ironic, if true.


Ten Reasons You Need to Quit Your Job

Contributor James Altucher reflects on a career of disparate jobs in corporate America and Wall Street, and offers 10 signs when you know it’s time to quit that corporate job you loathe.


A Freakonomics Contest, Nostalgia Edition

I was in California the other day and saw someone doing something that I haven’t seen done in a good while. I used to do it myself quite a bit, when I was in college, largely out of necessity. What was it?


FDIC Takes Aim at Bank Arbitrage Profits

The FDIC has imposed a fee that makes it more expensive for banks to borrow in the overnight ‘repo’ market. The intent appears to be to reduce easy arbitrage profits for big banks and smooth credit markets in the long term.


Financial Reform and Conflict Minerals

The Dodd-Frank reform bill includes a provision that prohibits companies from using conflict minerals (gold, titanium, tungsten), the mining of which yields profits that have financed wars in the Congo.


The Return of the Russian Billionaires

After getting crushed by falling commodity prices two years ago, their ranks cut by 70 percent, Russian billionaires are back and more plentiful than ever. According to a recent study, Russia currently has 114 billionaires, more than the 101 it had in 2007.


Why Doesn't SXSW Hand Out Free Water?

A reader named Shira Bannerman writes:

I just spent the week at SXSW, an indie music festival in Austin, TX, that attracted around 230,00 attendees. (Well, first it’s an interactive media and movie fest, but I only went for the music fest portion. I’d also specifically like to mention that my experience is only reflective of the free concerts, as I didn’t pay for a wristband and don’t know if that experience is much different.)


Everything Is Correlated

How do people who love salty snacks like their toilet paper to hang?  Are fans of carbonated beverage more likely to enjoy horror movies?  A new website, www.correlated.org, has the answer to such pressing questions.  Founded by Shaun Gallagher, the brains behind last year’s UnofficialCensus.org, it aims to uncover one surprising correlation a day.


Piers Morgan and PETA Take on GoDaddy CEO (Or the Other Way Around?)

Bob Parsons, CEO and Founder of GoDaddy, faces off against Piers Morgan and PETA in a recent video. The issue is simple: Parsons went to Labola, Zimbabwe and killed an elephant, and proudly posted video and photos online. Why? Parsons claims a herd of elephants were wreaking havoc with the crops of local villagers, and that the meat from the killed elephant could feed an African village (literally). I’m guessing (although I’m not sure I care, and he does not say this) that he also is a hunter, and maybe enjoyed the process of the hunt.


Another Obesity Explanation: Food Addiction

Some people really are addicted to foods in a similar way others might be dependent on certain substances, like addictive illegal or prescriptions drugs, or alcohol, researchers from Yale University revealed in Archives of General Psychiatry. Those with an addictive-like behavior seem to have more neural activity in specific parts of the brain in the same way substance-dependent people appear to have, the authors explained.

More here.


NCAA Mid-Major Success: Is It An Age Thing?

With Butler playing for the national championship for the second straight year, having defeated VCU in the Final Four, everyone’s debating the reasons behind the recent success of mid-major teams in the NCAA Tournament. Evidence abounds: Since George Mason went in 2006, four of the last six Final Fours have included a team from a mid-major conference— defined as any . . .