css1971

Ian Ayres's 'Super Crunchers': Statistics Outperform Experts

I'm not a bit surprised. Sorry, but it's who you know. Not what you know. Politics. It's also interesting how little experts know about their own field.

Statistics is an interesting field. In University I saw a statistician correctly predict the 8 columns of the chemical periodic table from completely anonymous data. He didn't even know it was data on chemical elements he was analyzing.

Google Should Make Apple Beg for Maps Navigation

Just a question...

So how do you navigate if there is no 3G reception?

At the moment, Google Maps will navigate you out to the middle of nowhere and then stop working... No?

Cool "feature".

Google’s New Mobile App Cuts Garmin, TomTom at the Knees

So... what happens if you're out of reception?

No 3G connection and Google Maps... doesn't work? The time you're most likely to need (middle of nowhere) it, it won't work?

Google Redefines GPS Navigation Landscape

Ovi Maps (free, and previously called Nokia Maps) has been available on and for Nokia phones for a couple of years now.

V3 just released. You can even install the maps from your PC, so if you hit an area with crap reception... i.e. You're in the middle of nowhere... Ovi Maps still works... Google maps... well... No reception, no idea where you are and... well... oops. Minor flaw there.

Then there's the bandwidth costs of downloading megabytes of maps if you're not on flat rate.

What deleveraging? While it's true household debt dropped slightly last quarter (but see), overall debt continued to grow. Unfortunately, the only way to climb out of a debt-induced depression is to pay down debt - or to write it off.

"the only way to climb out of a debt-induced depression is to pay down debt"

What?

If you pay down debt, you destroy credit and thereby make the recession/depression worse. You get out by writing off debt (bankruptcy) or by printing (not borrowing) money.

You can try "growing" out, but that's just borrowing more money into existence so the debt just increases.

Nokia Should Have Prevented Its Portal Problems

I'll just point out that Nokia is simply and by far, the biggest producer of phones in the world. They understand phones really well. Both RIM and Apple are minority players in comparison. It's pretty much only the USA market which they haven't owned. And that isn't because Americans are particularly sophisticated phone users, rather the opposite.

Their phones aren't the problem. They pretty much hit the markets they are aimed at. The N97 for example will be entering a pocket near me real soon. Their problem is Nokia is a phone company and doesn't (yet) know how to run an ISP.

On Jun 01 12:41 PM Economyst wrote:

> Nokia has a touchscreen the 5800. What Nokia does not understand
> is that it's not technology that is driving the smartphone market
> as usability and simplicity.

Nokia Should Have Prevented Its Portal Problems

Nokia are several years behind apple etc in the apps market for their phones, so the rush is understandable, but big bang is just... What were they thinking?

Leave the thing beta for a year and let the user base grow, fix the usability and performance bugs in what is clearly a new and untested system...

Gold and Economic Freedom: Reinterpreted for the 21st Century

He didn't in fact say that. It's a misquotation.


On May 10 04:39 PM Gold Barron wrote:

> "I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties
> than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks
> to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then
> by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around
> the banks will deprive the people of all property until their children
> wake-up home-less on the continent their fathers conquered."
> –Thomas Jefferson
>

With tweleve years of stock market profits down the drain, Prozac Nation author Elizabeth Wurtzel wonders why no one is stating the obvious: The whole system is warped. "I would love to call the system despicable or detestable or something evil-sounding, but that would be giving it too much credit. It's really just the march of dunces."

It's a Ponzi scheme. The earlier you get in the better you do. It's a fundamental feature of our banking system.

Once you understand the Ponzi nature of banking and the stock market, it's not so difficult to step out when the shit hits the fan and step back in at the bottom.

$200 Oil Is Coming While We Waste a Perfectly Good Crisis (Part 3)

Large parts of economies can't function with energy that expensive, so there will be demand destruction instead. You'll see peaks and troughs rather than increase and plateau.


On Apr 09 10:19 AM Frank H wrote:

> I agree oil prices will get bumped back up to at least the 140's
> again and get set in place for a longer run at that range

$200 Oil Is Coming While We Waste a Perfectly Good Crisis (Part 3)

Hi James,

It's nice to see a publisher responding. I also follow the oil drum.

However I'm not a doomer. It's possible to make use of the oncoming oil spikes to ready investments in industries and technologies which will ameliorate the problem. Particularly nuclear, wind etc.

Think of the spikes like a hammer. The simple application of force. It can do damage, however if you can direct the force of the blow, it can do work instead. I'm using it as a lever, the spikes are going to be coming in on oil, and I'm then going to be directing the results of those into nuclear and "green" energy. Along with that go heavy energy users.

'U.S. Banking System Is Effectively Insolvent' - Soros

So, basically, they are vampire banks or leech banks rather than zombie banks.

"In my parents' retirement community, when they describe me as an M&A banker, it's no longer socially acceptable. So they call me an adviser to the free flow of capital." - Goldman M&A head Tim Ingrassia, in his keynote speech this morning at Tulane

Banking is swindling. The people just noticed.


Now you know why it's no longer socially acceptable.


HTH

Li-ion Batteries and How Cheap Beat Cool in the Chevy Volt

Hydrogen weighs 1
Lithium weighs 3
Sodium weighs 11
Nickel weighs 28
Zinc weighs 30
Lead weighs 82

With any of these technologies in a vehicle, weight matters. People want to use lithium because it's very light. Lead is always going to be vastly heavier than Lithium. Unfortunately Lithium is not terribly abundant, (Li,Be, B tend not to be produced) though sodium is. I think we'll end up with something like a sodium ion battery technology because it'll be dirt cheap in comparison to Li but still a fraction of the weight of an equivalent lead technology.

Anything which stores enough energy to push a car is likely to be dangerous.

"Populist perception is that everyone working in a big investment bank was greedy and/or incompetent. That is simply not true. This may sound shocking, but professionals who’ve built up a lifetime of skills, experience, and contacts do exist at these firms. They are not so easily replaced. I’ve heard rumblings already that anyone worth their salt has left any firm taking TARP money. If this legislation passes, that will no doubt be true." (Economist)

"Populist perception is that everyone working in a big investment bank was greedy and/or incompetent. That is simply not true."

Really? The evidence says otherwise.

Anyone working at a bank taking TARP cash is rightly tainted for life.