Category: economics

biodiesel sport car

On By Rick McIn economics, good newsLeave a comment

A car that can go from zero to 60 in four seconds and get more than 50 miles to the gallon would be enough to pique any driver’s interest. So who do we have to thank for it. Ford? GM? Toyota? No — just Victor, David, Cheeseborough, Bruce, and Kosi, five kids from the auto shop program at West Philadelphia High School

(They) built the soybean-fueled car as an after-school project. It took them more than a year — rummaging for parts, configuring wires and learning as they went. As teacher Simon Hauger notes, these kids weren’t exactly the cream of the academic crop.

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Kids Build Soybean-Fueled Car, Futuristic After-School Project Wows Crowd At Philly Auto Show – CBS News

I love stories like this and hope those kids get rich. Awesome!

TV – alternatives to sitting through commercials

On By Rick McIn economics, TVLeave a comment

A 30min TV show is about 17min long if you strip out the commercials. You don’t have time to sit through lengthy ads for products you will not buy. How does this inefficiency persist?

Neil Kjeldsen posted the definitive article on the alternatives to TV shows supported by traditional commercials:

… Business models need to change. Content producers cannot rely on network deals, 30 second advertising and, later, dvd sales, to pull in the revenue. Shows will have to stand on their own, and will probably need to be free for the first few episodes to pull in viewers who may eventually be willing to pay. Frankly, I look forward to the day that a show, ignored by the networks, first decides to launch itself on iTunes and go straight to consumers. The press around it would be overwhelming. The first to do it will have a big advantage.

TechCrunch » Blog Archive » Download Your TV – The Current Options
HOMER-couch.jpg

competition is good

On By Rick McIn economics, internetLeave a comment

Yahoo_Google_Microsoft.jpgEBay has a market capitalization of about $42 billion. Yahoo about $43 billion. Google $115 billion. Microsoft $232 billion.

It’s fun to watch them compete in the marketplace.

But how many more partnerships and mergers are coming?

Washington Post article

$100 laptop now available

On By Rick McIn economics, good newsLeave a comment

100laptop.jpg1st working model (OLPC), originally uploaded by Pete Barr-Watson.

The much awaited US$100 laptop is here.

You can buy one for $300, donating the other two to children around the world.

The best hope for this planet is to get people communicating and educated.

video – amazing Honda Accord Commercial

On By Rick McIn economicsLeave a comment

A good model for advertisers.

Make a commercial that people want to watch. Then let bloggers distribute it for you.

They claim no special effects were used in the making of this clip.

Click PLAY below, or watch the video on YouTube.

Clinton – a nightmare, insane, a colossal waste of money

On By Rick McIn economics, health & fitnessLeave a comment

globeandmail.com : Avoid U.S. health model: Clinton

(Bill might be ramping up the rhetoric towards coming US elections.)

Clinton said Canada should stay the course. And review similar health-care systems — in Germany, Denmark or Sweden, for instance — that have solved problems such as overly long waiting times.

I disagree. The only solution is a FREE free market system for health care.

Regulated health care is like regulated phone service. Now that there is competition between VOIP and traditional carriers, my cost today dropped to FREE for all long distance Skype calls and now all local calls from North America to North America from SkypeOut.

would you join a “Google internet”?

On By Rick McIn economics, internetLeave a comment

If you were Google, you would be tempted to set-up your own internet. Where you do not have to talk to idiot US Senators or compromise with Communist governments.

But how could they do it?

Partner with a telecom company? Or with a cable TV company?

No, better to set up your own private wireless network to deliver service. Start with key markets (like San Francisco) and build from there.

Of course you need government regulators to award you the rights to the wireless spectrum. Google got the San Francisco contract.

Fueling the talk is a regulatory battle — the network neutrality issue — pitting Internet firms against phone companies AT&T, (T) Verizon Communications, (VZ) and BellSouth. (BLS)

Investor’s Business Daily: Internet, Media Outfits Could Bid For Spectrum

Google in China

On By Rick McIn economics, government, product complaintsLeave a comment

Here is a lengthy NY Times article digging into the Google compromise in China:

Google’s China Problem (and China’s Google Problem)

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It is a complex story. I think Google is doing the right thing.

Yahoo was first into China. But Google was far more successful when they first entered the market.

Suddenly, Sept. 3, 2002, Google results disappeared in China. Shut down completely by the government. Many concluded that the action was instigated by Baidu, a Chinese competitor to Google.

A quarter of Baidu’s traffic comes from searching for unlicensed MP3’s — illegal in the USA.

After much consideration, Google opened Google.cn in January 2006. Try it yourself. Search for “Human Rights” and see what you get. The results are self-censored in compliance with Chinese law.

Google.com is still open in China. The same search results as we get here. But when you try to click on a “banned” link, you get an error page. All of wikipedia.com is unavailable, for example.

One Chinese dissident in the article ranks Google best. Then Microsoft. But calls Yahoo! a sell-out.

So, should Google have simply dropped out of the Chinese market? (That’s what Apple is going to do in France, unwilling to modify their service to comply with French law.)

What do you think? (Do you own stock in Google?)

what is “net neutrality”?

On By Rick McIn economics, government, internetLeave a comment

Click on the (ugly looking) video below for a quick overview:

In China the internet is censored. The Chinese suffer under totalitarian control.

Of course I assume the crazy American Congress can be bought off by lobbyists. They might enact any kind of goofy legislation.

Gladly I live in a free country?

SaveTheInternet.com provides more information.

hhmmmm …

They claim Canada’s least favourite company — Telus— blocked Internet customers from visiting a website sympathetic to workers with whom Telus was negotiating.

And Shaw, a major Canadian cable company, charges an extra $10 a month to subscribers who dare to use a competing Internet telephone service.

HEY. Those are my Internet Service Providers!

Who is defending net neutrality in Canada?