Freakonomics

I just finished reading Freakonomics and I want to highly recommend it as a very interesting book. I may be a little late to the game, for it just became the second-longest book to ever be on the New York Times Bestsellers list without ever making it to number one, at 92 weeks. Number one? The Art of Happiness, by the Dalai Lama. But no matter.

Freakonomics is a rather loose collection of six chapters that all deal with very interesting and unconventional questions, such as How is the Ku Klux Klan like a group of real estate agents? Well, read the book and find out. One of the chapters, Why do drug dealers still live with their moms?, is actually very nicely summarized by Steven Levitt himself, at another great installment of the TEDTalks, which I cannot recommend enough. Check out this video to get a good feel for what Freakonomics is all about:



To get an even better idea of what you might find in the book (really an extended discussion of the topics in the book), you can also check out the Freakonomics Blog, which is a treasure trove of randomness. Through it, you will come across some real jewels...



...and some rather odd stuff, such as this parody from the Columbia Business School:



Good stuff. Some of it profound, some of it trivial, but almost all of it highly interesting.

One more thing. . .
Will it blend? Don't ask. . .

 

A weekend in the sun

We spent last weekend at The Palmilla House on St. Thomas. It was a really good time, even if St. Thomas is a fairly dirty place, which may be what makes it real. It seems to me that the island is completely designed around ushering cruise ship passengers with blinkers on through guided tours or keeping people in resorts that are attached to particular beaches. There are indeed some gorgeous spots on St. Thomas, but do not venture beyond those because you will run into insane traffic, overflowing dumpsters, and dead cats killed by marauding iguanas.

And so it was that we spent two of the three full days that we were there on neighboring St. John. Don't get me wrong, St. Thomas is nice, and we had some good times at Magen's Bay, which was extremely close to our house, and Sapphire Beach, where we first went snorkeling, but in the end I think that St. John just has more to offer.

Snorkeling was by far my favorite activity; I'm not much of a beach-sitter. Before the trip, I had bought a waterproof case for my little digital camera, with which I had a great time. I think the picture to the left makes for a great desktop picture (click on it to download the full-size version), but the picture gallery below has loads more. If that is not enough for you and you would like to access the full-size versions of all pictures and videos that you see linked here, you can download everything (480 MB!) here.

St. Thomas

I also managed to take some fun little underwater videos, of which I'll post two here. The stingray was certainly the most exciting underwater creature I encountered, and there is another video of him (her? it.) here, but the schools of fish were also fun; I especially like the little blue guys below, but here and here are some more.





There were, of course, some interesting species above water, too. The most interesting of these was certainly the one shown in the video below. He would spontaneously do pull-ups (or push-ups or sit-ups), then complain about the adverse external conditions that prevented him from doing more. In this, he reminded me of the male crested anole, also known locally as the tree lizard. Whether he did this to warn off competing males, attract females, or protect his drinking grounds we may never know for sure.



Let me then give the last words to Grayson (who else?), who summed up our trip somewhat more eloquently than his sister, who was not given the proper instructions, to be fair:



Well said.

One more thing. . .

The Economist reported Wednesday on a potential merger that would have far-reaching implications. With Ash Wednesday behind us and Lent in full swing, this may not be the best time to seal the deal, but it's never to early to start thinking about the future.
 

Three's a crowd

Now that the February Fertility Festival is over and stores are busy putting up their Easter decorations, I'll be gone for a few days, so I thought I'd leave you with a short post to tide you over.

Chrysler
I found an interesting map of the American car makers' misery. As I said before, I was thoroughly unimpressed with the Ford Focus I had test-driven recently. And GM's cars never did much for me at all, but I had always thought that Chrysler stood out a bit from the rest of the big three. After all, their recent bold designs seemed like a promising approach. Well, the above map seems to suggest otherwise, and it now looks like Daimler might let go of Chrysler. This seems to be part of a trend in the industry, a lesson painfully learned. Now the only question that remains is: who would want to buy Chrysler?

One more thing. . .
Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, forever locked in an epic battle? Welcome to iWorld.

Monday's (digital) Music

DRMed music
The big news this week were of course Steve Jobs's thoughts on music. Big news, and more free marketing for Apple as all the major news outlets leapt for the story. Even the Economist made it one of its leaders this week. In the meantime, other heavyweights have weighed in. Perhaps things will change? Perhaps not.

Free music
While it is nice to own your music, how often do you really listen to the same songs over and over again? Why not try a great radio station and discover something new? I know, it sounds so very 20th century, but it still rocks. If you want to listen to personalized playlists of a certain flavor, you should definitely give Pandora a shot. Very cool.

iPod oblivion
In case you hadn't heard, last week New York state senator Carl Kruger introduced a bill to deal with what he calls iPod oblivion. The New York Times have a nice selection of online comments on this. What's there to add? Well, this just in:


One more thing. . .
Good news, it looks like Rev. Ted Haggard is no longer homosexual. In fact, he is now completely heterosexual, according to his buddy Rev. Tim Ralph. I think he still looks kind of gay, but if Tim says he isn't, who am I to judge?

Congratulations, Ted, you did it.

Now we can all breathe a sigh of relief.
 

Mapping the world

A bunch of researchers, mostly from the University of Sheffield, have started a pretty awesome project. As it says on their website,

"Worldmapper is a collection of world maps, using equal area cartograms where territories are re-sized on each map according to a particular variable."

So if you are looking at the most familiar variable, land area, you get a familiar-looking world map like this:

But if you start to look at other variables, things can change dramatically. Take, for example, GDP wealth:

Or, going the other way, how about mortality of 1 to 4 year olds?

Pretty dramatic difference, isn't it? Check out their website for almost 400 maps tracking all kinds of variables. Very interesting stuff.

One more thing. . .
This project reminded me of another one, Gapminder, that tries to bring data to life in a unique way. These are not cartograms, but the end result is perhaps even more compelling. Co-founder Hans Rosling does an amazing job bringing seemingly boring data to life in this excellent TEDTalk:

RSS: Subscribe to this blog and other websites

If you find yourself frequently checking the same websites for new content, such as on this blog, for example, an RSS reader might be for you. RSS is basically a simple way for websites to announce whenever their content has been updated. If you are not familiar with what it is, you can read more details about it in this c|net review. Most sites nowadays have RSS feeds to which you can subscribe and then check all your favorite sites from one convenient location. So how do you do it? Well, a good start as always, is a Google search. But here are some recommendations.

Web-based
The easiest way to subscribe to RSS feeds is to use your internet browser. Here is an example of what happens if you direct Firefox (if you are using Internet Explorer, click here) to an RSS feed:
The "Live Bookmarks" feature allows you to add a dynamic bookmark to your list, which will automatically be updated with all the latest available content.

As you probably have noticed, it will also allow you to subscribe to the feed via a web-based reader. You can add to the list in the preferences. I use Google Reader, which can be nicely integrated into Google's personalized website, but the two most popular web-based readers are probably NewsGator and Bloglines. Both are easy to use, so check them out to see what you like best.

You can also use stand-alone applications, which can display your newest feeds right on your desktop or in your menu bar. Here are a couple of suggestions.

Mac OS X
If you are a Mac user, you can use Safari's built-in RSS support, which is actually rather nice, so check that out first. Another great little app is RSS Menu, which does exactly what it says. Definitely worth a try. Lots of other choices are available here.

Windows
If you are a Windows user, first go here, then proceed as above.

Recommended RSS feeds
Here are just a couple of RSS feeds I would recommend to get you started:
benjamin.richter—This excellent blog.
cyclingnews.com—A third-party feed for CyclingNews, which does not offer its own. Twice daily news from the cycling world.
The New York Times most emailed articles—Typically the most interesting articles from the New York Times.

One more thing. . .
The big news in Minnesota last week, was of course that high school wrestling had to be suspended for eight days. All the wrestlers were giving each other herpes. I don't even want to begin to speculate how it all got started, but the important thing is that everyone is now back on the mats.
 

Monday's Procrastination: Cars, Cars, Cars

Once again, Monday appropriately turned to Tuesday, but here goes.

I bought a brand-new car over the weekend, a first for me. Until now, I had always bought pretty old and cheap Fords and was always happy with them. Naturally, I thought the trend might continue. Well, it did not, and I will soon be the proud owner of a Toyota. But first things first.

Focus on Ford
As I mentioned, I've always driven Fords. This was coincidental rather than a deliberate policy, and it started with a 1987 Ford Mustang LX I bought for one summer in college and ended with the 1994 Ford Escort Wagon I still drive today. These cars always managed to make up for their significant deficiencies in the style department by being reliable and cheap to service and insure. The Escort is especially impressive when it comes to hauling stuff. Here it is:

Beauty.

Having had these positive experiences, I figured a Ford Focus would be the natural choice, so I went to test drive one. Amazing. This car looks pretty good on paper: it's got loads of extras and a low price tag. In fact, they were practically trying to give it away, selling at invoice minus $250 minus $2,500 incentive minus $500 student bonus minus $500 first-time buyer bonus. The size of discounts on a product of course says something about the product itself. And the test drive confirmed my suspicion. This car had absolutely nothing on my 13 year old Escort with 170,000 miles on it. Nothing. Actually, I would say that the only real difference was that the engine was louder on the Focus. Imagine that.

So what does that say about the company? Well, you can draw your own conclusions, of course, but the boat is clearly sinking. On the one hand it's really sad to see because so many people's livelihoods depend on this company's survival. On the other hand, the company has had it coming for a long time (I cannot deny a certain amount of Schadenfreude when I see a company fail that has pushed SUV's and pickup trucks for personal transportation), and if 13 years are not enough to improve a lineup, perhaps they are in the wrong business. In the early 90's, Ford's Taurus was the best-selling car in America, until the Toyota Camry took over for good.

Last year Ford took a loss of $12.7 billion. That's $12,700,000,000. So what are they going to do about it? Well, their new CEO just came up with an ingenious plan: they will rename the Ford 500 the... wait for it... the Taurus. Brilliant.

Good luck, Ford.

Welcome to the Matrix
The only other car in the same group as the Ford Focus is the Toyota Matrix. By group I mean station wagons with combined gas mileages above 30 mpg for under $20,000 available in the USA. But it is definitely in a different class. It is much more refined than the Focus and after test driving the Ford, the Matrix feels almost like a luxury automobile, which it is not. Just plain old quality at a reasonable price with some nice style points. So I ordered one, just like this.



It will be a couple of months before I get it because I wanted ABS and side airbags, but I can wait, confident that it will beat the pants off the discontinued Focus Wagon.

Hybrid Hype
If fuel efficiency was one of my main concerns, why not buy a hybrid? Well, they're expensive, difficult to repair without a degree in computer science, and most importantly: I've recently driven one on and off. It is my firm opinion that the Toyota Prius, the poster child of the hybrid industry, is just not ready for prime time, which is mostly based on poor interior design choices. Most things have to be controlled via one gimmicky touch screen, which is cumbersome and distracting. And it is really hard to look out of that car. Bottom line, think twice before you buy one, and be sure to test drive it thoroughly.

Gas mileage on the Prius is another point of contention, but even the on-board computer does not claim more than 33 mpg in cold Minnesota weather, something I can pretty much match with my Escort right now. State of the art? Maybe, but it's a bit of a sorry state.

Toyota certainly gets a lot of loyal followers for its pioneering efforts in hybrid technology, but those people are quick to forget Toyota's most recent addition to the American market. Very efficient. And whoops, what is that? Toyota, boldly going where no Japanese car company has gone before.



A Camry in Daytona. This could be the final nail in Detroit's coffin. Sorry.

GM at the Super Bowl
Sunday was the Super Bowl, and with it came the much-awaited commercials. It was pretty lukewarm fare for the most part, but there was one commercial that really stood out, I think. And that was GM's robot commercial. Here's what the New York Times had this to say about it:

"The best of the batch was a commercial for General Motors by Deutsch, part of the Interpublic Group of Companies, in which a factory robot 'obsessed about quality' imagined the dire outcome of making a mistake."

I have read similar comments on the internet, but that is not at all what I felt. This commercial did not make me think of awesome cars, it made me think of a dying American automobile industry. But see for yourself. And while you watch this, imagine you are a recently laid-off ex-employee of GM.



It's so sad. What a cruel joke. But not to worry, it was all just a bad dream. And you can always become a real estate agent or work at McDonald's.

So sad.

Some car links:
Edmunds—research cars before you buy
Newgate—what to do with your old car
Green Car Congress—what should be state of the art