I am fast becoming a fan of the ideas in William Poundstone’s soon to be published new book “Priceless: The Myth of Fair Value (and How to Take Advantage of it)”. (read an excerpt of the book)
Check out this blog entry Priceless: Decoding Fast-Food Menus and the following insightful YouTube videos. Great stuff.
Flipping on eBay
Posted in Business, Economics, Entrepreneurship, food, Fun, insightful, Video, World, YouTube 
Huawei's solar-powered base station
In case anyone is doubting that the shakeout in the telecommunications world will continue even as demand for broadband (and bandwidth) skyrockets, consider Huawei’s reported 2009 revenue of $21.5 billion and contract sales of more than $30 billion. The Chinese telecommunications equipment vendor told Light Reading that it grew contract sales by almost 29 percent and saw revenue growth of 17.5 percent, during a year when most of its competitors have been reporting lowered sales.
Huawei is on a tear, although it expects its contract sales growth to slow in 2010 to about 20 percent, reaching $30 billion. Its competitors, meanwhile, have been cutting their work forces and trying to figure out ways to bolster non-equipment aspects of their businesses as the tectonic shifts in the telecommunications industry ripple through the ecosystem.
Nokia Siemens Network is cutting employees while Alcatel-Lucent and Ericsson are trying to derive other forms of revenue from services plays. Meanwhile, Nortel’s assets are in the final stages of getting sold off and Motorola’s equipment arm is touting its WiMAX gear while desperately hoping for some big LTE wins.
Monday, January 04, 2010 
Chinese battery and car maker BYD (1211.HK), backed by U.S. billionaire Warren Buffet, said it has raised its 2010 sales target, as it prepares to roll out its first electric cars.
BYD, 10 percent owned by Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway (BRKa.N), aims to sell 800,000 vehicles next year, up from a previous target of 700,000 units, said Paul Lin, manager of the company’s marketing department.
He attributed the revision to robust demand from Chinese consumers following Beijing’s 4 trillion yuan ($586 billion) economic stimulus plan, which includes several measures specifically aimed at boosting car sales.
“The company already reached its 2009 target of 400,000 vehicles in November, so now we are setting our 2010 target to double that number at 800,000 units,” Lin said, adding that this year’s final sales should come in at around 440,000 units.
BYD’s F3 sedan was the best-selling car in China in the first 11 months of this year, leading other popular domestic and foreign models, such as, Hyundai Motor’s (005380.KS) new Elantra and Chery Automobile’s QQ, official data showed.
To help meet market demand, BYD’s new bus plant in the central Chinese city of Changsha and a car plant in the northwestern city of Xian will start operation next year, adding up to 700,000 units of capacity, Lin said.
Henry Li, general manager of BYD Auto’s export arm, told Reuters in July that the firm aims to be a major global player by 2025, with vehicle sales of 8-9 million. [ID:nHKG366761]
BYD, which had sold several hundred of its plug-in hybrid, F3DM, unveiled in December of 2008, plans to start selling its first electric car, the e6, in China in the first quarter of 2010, Lin said.
The e6 had passed government safety inspections in the country and received other necessary permits, he said, adding the firm remained committed to export the model to the United States next year.
BYD’s shares, traded in Hong Kong, have surged more than 422 percent since the beginning of this year, leading a roughly 49 percent gain in the broader market .HSI and bolstering its founder, Wang Chuanfu, to the top of Forbes 2009 list of China’s wealthiest.
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I tend to have about 60-70 podcasts on my iPod these days waiting for me to listen to them. One of the happy accidents of this is that I often hear interviews about movies after I’ve actually seen a film (instead of during the promotional run up to the film). So this morning, as I was doing my morning run, I got to hear two interviews related to the new movie Up In The Air..
The first interview is with the author of the novel on which it’s based, Walter Kirn. Recorded in 2001, Kirn talks about the genesis of the novel and what he thinks about “air world”, the setting for the book. The second interview was with the director, Jason Reitman, who also directed Juno in 2007. He talks about his own experiences with air travel, getting George Clooney to do the film and the interviews with real people who have lost their jobs which frame and punctuate the movie.
Here is one of the trailers for the film:
Тамплієри, які мали неабиякий підприємницький хист, отримали право на торгівлю солотвинською сіллю. Соляний шлях з Підкарпатських копалень в Європу проходив через Закарпаття. Тамплієри дуже добре вміли не тільки торгувати, а й захищати свої економічні інтереси. Вони швидко зводять вздовж всього соляного шляху низку укріплень. Одне з таких укріплень збереглося в Середньому.Це характерна для Західної Європи ХІІ століття оборонна споруда у вигляді башти донжону (башти останньої оборони). Такі башти були дозорними і не призначеними для тривалого проживання. Але якщо була необхідність, вони могли стати потужними пунктами оборони, бо мали добру зону огляду й з неї можна було вести круговий обстріл. Крім того такі башти мали кругову систему валів і ровів. Ці складові мав і Середнянський замок. До того ж перша лінія його валів, що влаштовувалась паралельно стінам башти була підсилена кам’яним муром з циліндричними наріжними баштами. Слідів від тих передових укріплень зараз майже не залишилось.
В 1312 році замком в Середньому заволоділи монахи ордену св.Павла. Вони вв’язалися в затяжні чвари за угорську корону. Після придушення королівської опозиції угорська корона конфіскувала їх володіння й передала більш лояльним власникам.
В XV столітті Середньому надаються міські привілеї, а король Карл Роберт дарує містечко магнатам Другетам. Але інші магнати – Палочі, після довготривалого протистояння закріплюють Середнє за своїм родом. В 1526 році в битві під Могачем турки громлять угорське військо і разом з королем гине останній представник роду Палочі по чоловічій лінії. Середнє і замок переходять до роду Добо. Починається нова доба в історії села, пов’язана з родом Добо. Нові володарі зміцнюють замок і розвивають виноробство в Середньому. Син Іштвана Добо з компаньйонами, силами полонених турок розширює і поглиблюю винні підвали. Їх загальна протяжність сягає чотири кілометри. Про ті роботи зараз нагадує викарбувана на камені 550 років тому табличка, що знаходиться в підвалах, які використовує нині місцевий винзавод «Леанка».
Протягом XVII – XVIII ст. Середнянський замок ще не раз міняв своїх володарів в вирі безкінечних австро-турецьких та австро-угорських війн. В цих війнах замок поступово руйнувався, ремонтні роботи ніхто не проводив, оскільки архаїчно непривітна кам’яна громада вже не відповідала стилю життя дворян XVIII ст.
Після придушення повстання Ракоці, габсбургські війська влаштовували терор в Закарпатських селах, так як багато українських селян брало активну участь у тому повстанні на боці мадяр. Наслідком терору стало масове знелюднення сіл та містечок Закарпаття. В 1720 році в Середньому проживало лише 2 корінні родини, 19 родин переселенців та 11 родин дворян.
Поступово Середнє поверталося до життя. В 1839 році в селі проживало вже 1578 чоловік, в 1891 році – 1861. В селі діяв монастир. Але так як і руїни замку вже не могли претендувати на статус могутньої фортеці, так і село Середнє вже не могло претендувати на статус міста.
В 1919 році Середнє, як і все Закарпаття входить до складу Чехословаччини, в 1939 році – до складу Угорщини, а в 1944 до складу СРСР.
фото Середнього:
If you read the headline, then you already know that Samsung pushed out 2.6 million LED LCD TVs in 2009. That’s nearly equal to the population of San Diego. But the company also expects 2010 to be bigger — a lot bigger. Samsung plans on moving 10 million LED LCD TVs in 2010, which would be one to every person living in Beijing. That’s a lot, folks.
We’ll get a closer look at Samsung’s 2010 HDTV lineup with week at CES. It will likely include LED-backlit HDTVs in smaller sizes, which will help the company reach the lofty 10mil goal. Previously, the LED technology was mainly a top-tier feature, reserved for larger models with high price tags. But like everything, the technology is flowing down-market and into models that were previously lit with CFLs.
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The RCA brand is still around thanks to TTE Corportation and is ready for 2010 with a full-scale HDTV assault. Most of the nine upcoming models are a snozefest, but a few stand out from the rest with with modern specs, Energy Star 4.0 ratings and presumably low prices.
The F11 series all feature a new slim profile and down-firing speakers that allows the TV to maintain its sleek look. The 24-inch, 26-inch, and 32-inch are all 1366×768 panels and are equipped with the usual HDMI and component inputs. The 40-inch (L40FHD2XF11) and 46-inch (L46FHD2XF11) however are 1080p sets with 120Hz support. All the sets besides the 24-inch already have the necessary specs to meet the Energy Star 4.0 specs when they are enacted on May 1st, 2010.
Prices for these sets haven’t been released yet, but it’s probably safe to assume that they will be on the lower scale of things.
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Who’s optimistic about 2010? Slate’s Daniel Gross is:
My bold prediction for 2010 is that the consensus of the forecasters
surveyed by the Philadelphia Federal Reserve, which projects the
economy will grow only 2.4 percent in 2010, is too pessimistic, perhaps
by half.
The Menu title of Gross’ article is: “The dangers of economic pessimism.” The basic idea is that we were too optimistic about the economy in the boom times, and now we’re being too pessimistic in the bust. But isn’t the much graver danger today in economic optimism?
Gross is right that there have been plenty of happy surprises in the
upturn. Many of us thought the Dow would languish in the 5000s in
March. Today it’s in the 10,000s. We thought some of our biggest banks
would be hosed for years, whereas many are already paying back their
TARP funds with interest. So yes, the Debbie Downers can be wrong too.
But Gross is omitting some important reasons why pessimism remains
popular. Our big Q3 GDP recovery was initially reported at 3.5%, then
revised to 2.8%, and then again to 2.2%. Low 2% growth will barely be
enough to hold the unemployment rate steady much less provide jobs for
an expanding population and today’s unemployed. The housing market
remains weak. The Federal Reserve is planning to rein in its asset
purchases even with unemployment over 10 percent. Relaxed housing
standards are set to end. There’s no guarantee of another round of
stimulus spending to juice Americans’ depressed consumerism. In other
words, we’re barely growing and the very government programs that lured Americans to the nation’s storefronts in Q3 are ending.
The danger of too much economic optimism is that it coincides with
too much fiscal caution. We tell ourselves the ’09 stimulus will be enough, and
that doing too much will upset the fragile bond markets by making American debt look dangerous and driving
interest rates through the roof. We hasten the rush to normalcy and in
the process turn 2010 in 1937, the year the Great Depression double
dipped as FDR and his advisers tried to balance the budget and shrink
the money supply.
To be sure, I don’t know what’s going to happen in the next 12 months
any more than Gross does. But it’s important to note that there’s a
danger to both economic optimism and pessimism.
The gadget-frenzy that is the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) kicks off this week, and like in recent years past (2009, 2008), we’re keeping an eye out on the energy efficient and “greener” gadgets on display at the show. Like in 2008 and 2009, expect to see a variety of light emitting diodes (LED) products, energy-efficient […]
Filed under: Hardware, Rumors, Apple
The Apple tablet, whether you want to call it the iSlate, the iTablet, or “Betty,” hasn’t even been verified to exist at this point. However, that’s not keeping other manufacturers from coming out with their own competition to the mythical device.
At this year’s Consumer Electronics Show, which runs from Thursday, January 7th through Sunday, January 10th, several vendors may be showing devices to compete with an Apple design that hasn’t even been leaked, cheesy specs notwithstanding.
Mobile handset heavyweight HTC, the same company that will debut the new Google Nexus One Android phone on January 5th, is expected to have a tablet ready to show at CES. HTC is an OEM, so it’s not likely that a tablet will appear under the HTC label. Instead, traditional PC sellers such as ASUS, HP, and Dell will probably announce devices that have been designed and built by HTC or other OEMs.
HTC isn’t the only company jumping into the tablet fray; Freescale Semiconductor will be showing a “tablet reference design” at CES as well. The Freescale device (at right) has a 7″ display and is designed to take up about one-third the volume of a current netbook. Freescale’s tablet will be shown running both Google Android OS and some variety of Linux, and is rumored to have “all day” battery life and instant-on functionality.
While the HTC and Freescale tablets are designed for sale by other companies, an Indian startup called Notion Ink will be showing a 10.1″ touchscreen device at CES that they have designed and will build. Even Microsoft could get into the CES tablet action by having CEO Steve Ballmer demonstrate the Courier device.
The announcements are sure to place some price pressure on Apple: Freescale’s design is intended for retail prices in the $200 range, much less than the $600 – $1,000 expected for Apple’s device. Of course, Apple is all about the design, functionality, and user experience of their devices and software, and the capabilities of the tablet will need to show perceived value to potential customers. One thing is for sure — tablets have sparked the imagination of the public and manufacturers, and we’re going to hear a lot about them in the upcoming year.
[via Smarthouse, I4U]
TUAWHTC and other OEMs prepared to challenge the iSlate originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Mon, 04 Jan 2010 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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ZOMM uses Bluetooth to tether you to your phone, your phone to you originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 04 Jan 2010 11:56:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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In his latest routine forum visit, Meizu CEO Jack Wong dropped a couple of teasers about what’s coming up in his fancy Zhuhai-based factory. First is that the M8 3G will need at least another six months to brew, which is slightly off the March release date we last heard. Initial versions will pack W-CDMA (aka, UMTS) and China’s own TD-SCDMA radios, then maybe a CDMA version whenever Jack’s ready to pay “premium license fees” to enter the “narrow international market [of EV-DO].” Next up is word that apparently the infamous Windows CE-based M8 may get a dose of Windows Phone apps in a future firmware update, courtesy of “a project that Microsoft is working on.” Sure, it all sounds great, but given Meizu’s record of underestimating the complexities of manufacturing mobile phones, we’ll believe it when we see it.
Meizu CEO: M8 3G launch pushed, original M8 getting Windows Phone apps (maybe) originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 04 Jan 2010 11:41:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Horizon’s Hydrofill converts water to hydrogen, hydrogen into juice for your gadgets originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 04 Jan 2010 11:26:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Gallery: Lenovo IdeaCentre B500 hands-on
Continue reading Lenovo IdeaCentre B500 hands-on impressions
Lenovo IdeaCentre B500 hands-on impressions originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 04 Jan 2010 11:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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In case there was any doubt that Sprint thinks they’re getting a pink Palm Pixi, Engadget has corroborated the buy back inventory screen we saw early last month with a shot of their own. Needless to say, there’s not much here we haven’t already seen, but we do anticipate that we might be hearing something about this at CES, even if it’s just a press release.
It’s been simultaneously amusing and horrifying to read through the comments on my post about the misguided atheist holiday display in Illinois. This is still the Internet after all, and “reading comprehension” is not a highly valued skill, even among subsamples self-selected for their logic and reasoning abilities.
In brief: thinking that atheists shouldn’t be needlessly obnoxious doesn’t make me a “faithiest” or an “accommodationist” or someone without the courage of my convictions. Those would be hard charges to support against someone who wrote this or this or this or this. I just think it’s possible to have convictions without being a jerk about them. “I disagree with you” and “You are a contemptible idiot” are not logically equivalent.
Phil just pointed to a good post by Steve Cumo about precisely the same issue, with “atheism” replaced by “skepticism.” A lot of skeptics/atheists are truly excited and passionate about their worldviews, and that’s unquestionably a good thing. But it can turn into a bad thing if we allow that passion to manifest itself as contempt for everyone who disagrees with us. (For certain worthy targets, sure.) There’s certainly a place for telling jokes, or calling a crackpot a crackpot; being too afraid of stepping on people’s toes is just as bad as stomping on feet for the sheer joy of it. But there’s also a place for letting things slide, living to dispute another day.
We atheists/skeptics have a huge advantage when it comes to reasonable, evidence-based argumentation: we’re right. (Provisionally, with appropriate humble caveats about those aspects of the natural world we don’t yet understand.) We don’t need to stoop to insults to win debates; reality is on our side. And there are many people out there who are willing to listen to logic and evidence, when presented reasonably and in good faith. We should always presume that people who disagree with us are amenable to reasonable discussion, until proven otherwise. (Cf. the Grid of Disputation. See also Dr. Free-Ride.)
That’s very different than “accommodationism,” which holds that science and religion aren’t really in conflict. The problem with accommodationism isn’t that its adherents aren’t sufficiently macho or strident; it’s that they’re wrong. And when respected organizations like the National Academy of Sciences, the National Center for Science Education, or the American Association for the Advancement of Science go on record as claiming that science and religion are completely compatible, as if they were speaking for scientists, that’s unconscionable and should be stopped. They don’t have to go on at great length about how a scientific worldview undermines religious belief, even if it’s true; they can just choose not to say anything at all about religion. That’s not their job.
It’s also wrong to fetishize politeness for its own sake. Some people manage to forfeit the right to be taken seriously or treated politely. But that shouldn’t be the default position. And being polite doesn’t make you more likely to be correct, or vice-versa. And — to keep piling on the caveats — being “polite” doesn’t mean “keeping quiet,” at least as a general principle. We all know people who will resort to a cowardly tactic of claiming to be “offended” when you say something perfectly reasonable with which they happen to disagree. There’s no reason to give into that; but the solution is not to valorize obnoxiousness for its own sake.
The irony is that the pro-obnoxious crowd (obnoxionists?) is ultimately making the same mistake as the accommodationist crowd. Namely: blurring the lines between the truth of a claim and the manner in which the claim is presented. Accommodationists slide from “we can work together, in a spirit of mutual respect, with religious people on issues about which we agree” to “we should pretend that science and religion are compatible.” But obnoxionists tend to slide from “we disagree with those people” to “we should treat those people with contempt.” Neither move is really logically supportable.
A lot of the pro-obnoxiousness sentiment stems from a feeling that atheism is a disrespected minority viewpoint in our culture, and I have some sympathy with that. Atheists should never be ashamed of their beliefs, or afraid to support them vigorously. And — let’s be honest — there’s a certain amount of pleasure to be found in being part of a group where everyone sits around congratulating each other on their superior intellect and reasoning abilities, while deriding their opponents with terms like “superstition” and “brain damage” and “child abuse.” But these are temptations to be avoided, not badges of honor.
Within the self-reinforcing culture of vocal non-believers, it’s gotten to the point where saying that someone is “nice” has become an insult. Let me hereby stake out a brave, contrarian position: in favor of being nice. I think that folks in the reality-based community should be the paragons of reasonableness and even niceness, while not yielding an inch on the correctness of their views. We should be the good guys. We are in possession of some incredible truths about this amazing universe in which we live, and we should be promoting positive messages about the liberating aspects of a life in which human beings are responsible for creating justice and beauty, rather than having them handed to us by supernatural overseers. Remarkably, I think it’s possible to be positive and nice (when appropriate) and say true things at the same time. But maybe that’s just my crazy utopian streak.
The mysterious and deadly facial cancer that has sent populations of Tasmanian devils crashing now has a known source, according to findings published last week in the journal Science. The ailment originated in nerve cells of the devils themselves.
A genetic analysis of tumors from Tasmanian devils widely separated geographically shows that all the tumors are virtually identical and distinct from the animals’ own genomes…. The tumors probably arose from Schwann cells, which normally play a role in protecting and cushioning nerves [Los Angeles Times]. Tasmanian devils have a lot of nerves on their faces near their whiskers, the researchers note, and therefore have Schwann cells there. Team member Jenny Graves says the tumor could have arisen in one cell in one animal two decades ago, and then passed from devil to devil as they bit each other. The disease has already killed 60 percent of the population.
Graves says the findings have real practical value. “The good news is that one of the active proteins is easy to detect and it will give us the chance to diagnose the cancer early, which is important for setting up cancer-free ‘insurance populations’,” she added. “It also allows us to study the way the cancer changes over a long period, which potentially offers new insights for all cancer research” [The Times]. Hopefully new insights for these marsupials will come fast; at present rates the cancer could wipe out all Tasmanian devils in 30 to 50 years.
Tasmanian devils are an easy target for such a plague because they’re such a small, inbred population. Tasmanian devils are so genetically similar to one another that their immune systems don’t recognize infectious cancer cells from another individual as foreign [Science News]. The same kind of phenomenon showed up in 2006 in dogs.
For more on the Tasmanian devil paper, check out DISCOVER blogger Carl Zimmer’s post at The Loom.
Related Content:
80beats: Tasmanian Devils Have Precocious Sex to Beat Cancer
80beats: Tasmanian Devils’ Social Networking May Spell Doom for the Species
80beats: Tasmanian Superdevil, Hope of the Species, Is All Too Mortal
The Loom: Saving Tasmanian Devils from a New Form of Life—Themselves
The Loom: A Dead Dog Lives On (Inside New Dogs)
Image: flickr / JLplusAL
Vigo. Ensanche y zona comercial
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By Andrew LaVallee, Reporter, The Wall Street Journal
Will 2010 be the year that Internet users cut back on friending, tweeting and connecting with their long-lost acquaintances?
A site called the Web 2.0 Suicide Machine is banking on it. It offers to help visitors “kill” their online presence on Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and LinkedIn by clicking a “commit” link (complete with a noose icon).
It works by prompting users for their account information, then removing their friends, updates and other content, then changing the password and logging out — leaving an intact but bare profile.
The site offers this service for free and coaxes the uncertain with words like “delete all your energy sucking social-networking profiles,” “feel free like a real bird again and untwitter yourself” and “you want your actual life back?”
Read the rest of this post on the original site
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Microwaves can transform a frozen pizza into hot, melted goodness in four minutes flat, but they can’t rescue your melted ice-cream sundae. Or can they?
To cook food, a microwave oven converts voltage into high-frequency electromagnetic microwaves. The molecules in food-especially water and fat-absorb this energy and wiggle at high speeds, causing them to heat rapidly and warm the surrounding food. Although quickly turning leftovers cold would be handy, this is a one-way operation, explains David Pozar, a professor and microwave expert at the University of Massachusetts. Microwaves can only speed up atoms, not slow them down.
Scientists do have a high-tech method for slowing atoms, however: lasers. Shoot a moving atom with a laser, and it will absorb the laser’s photons and re-emit them every which way, causing the atom to hold nearly still. Placing an atom at the junction of multiple beams can slow its momentum in all directions, decreasing its energy and cooling it.
This drops an atom’s temperature a couple hundred degrees Fahrenheit-much colder than anything you’d want to put in your mouth-in less than a second. But because it works most efficiently on low-density gases of atoms of a single element, physicist Mark Raizen of the University of Texas doesn’t think it will be useful for cooling food anytime soon: “Not unless you can subsist on a thousand sodium atoms.”
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