Monthly Archives: September 2008

There WILL be more bailouts! WE ARE RUDDERLESS!

Posted on September 26, 2008 by

Come-on people…it is gut-check time!!! You want a republic to be proud of? Now’s the time to find you spine. We got the government we worked to get. Right, none of us worked hard enough and this is what laziness … Continue reading →

Posted in analysis of behavior, business strategy, economics, politics, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

2008 Campaign Data: Voting Records, Legislation, Book Preferences and more.

Posted on September 20, 2008 by

One thing that’s definitely different about this election than all those before is the amount of data we all have access to. Here are some of the more clever and interesting resources for the data junkies out there: Amazon’s Election … Continue reading →

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IKE – The Houston Experience

Posted on September 19, 2008 by

I was telling my friend the complexities of hurricane IKE for us here in the outskirts of Houston. He too had the ‘experience’ and was caught not being able to adequately explain what it was like. I am tough enough … Continue reading →

Posted in analysis of behavior, economics, politics | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

I LOVE WHEN PEOPLE LOSE MONEY

Posted on September 19, 2008 by

The financial issues are the ultimate consequence for huge swaths of people, policy makers, CEOs, workers, and investors. Nothing better than the brink of financial destruction to get people moving. We’ve had significant policy changes in less than a week!  … Continue reading →

Posted in analysis of behavior, business strategy, data mining, economics, politics, social science | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

The Collapse of Risk Management and Bailouts – Predicting Uncertainty is, well, not possible!

Posted on September 18, 2008 by

Great piece from Black Swan author,Nassim Nicholas Taleeb, on Edge.org. Read it. What Is Fundamentally Different About Real Life My anger with “empirical” claims in risk management does not come from research. It comes from spending twenty tense (but entertaining) … Continue reading →

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Riding It Out, Hunkering Down – Why People Don’t Evacuate

Posted on September 13, 2008 by

Why do people not heed warnings and/or follow mandatory evacuations? We do not have an single, simple answer for this.  John Bryant claims, “people do what they value.”  Though an accurate statement, it still doesn’t answer the question, which can … Continue reading →

Posted in analysis of behavior, hurricane, weather | Tagged , , , , , , | 1 Comment

New iPod Nano – A Picture

Posted on September 9, 2008 by

You can shake it, get coverflow, use it as voice recorder. It’s cool. But this whole announcement reminds me of that SNL sketch where Steve Jobs just keeps making smaller and smaller ipods until they need tweezers. Pic from Gizmodo:

Posted in apple, economics, media | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

iTunes 8 – genius feature is OLD and BORING

Posted on September 9, 2008 by

if you’re paying attention to apple’s event you just heard about iTunes 8 and the genius feature.  Basically it makes smart playlists based on the iTunes user base and your preferences. Pandora, Last.fm, iLike and many others already do this.  … Continue reading →

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World Bank API

Posted on September 8, 2008 by

If you need to integrate global development data into an application or want easy access to huge amounts of government, economics and social data, head over to The World Bank Developer Network. Plenty of mashing up to do with this … Continue reading →

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LHC First Beam

Posted on September 8, 2008 by

Tired of politics? football? hurricanes? we’re on the eve of the LHC’s first proton beam. Be sure to catch the live webcast here. Keep in mind all times are CEST timezone (pretty late for us on the west coast!) More … Continue reading →

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