74 karma · joined March 29, 2010
Bee populations have continued a precipitous decline since 2006, dropping 32% in 2007, 36% in 2008, and 29% in 2009. This not only effects honey but also the $15 billion in crops depending on pollination by bees. The phenominon is called “colony collapse disorder” in is happening all over the world. The cause is probably a result from many factors and increased use of pesticides is likely a major cause. Pesticide use has increased significantly in the last few years in places like Florida to fight a plant disease hitting the orange crops.
http://hnsummary.com/2010/04/02/scientists-stumped-as-bee-po...
Two researchers at HP Labs have discovered that you can use Twitter mentions to predict how well a movie will do in it’s first couple of weeks more accurately than any currently used methods. The researchers monitored movie mentions in 2.9 million tweets from 1.2 million different users over a three month period. The tweets were regarding some 24 different movies including Twilight: New Moon.
They used “buzz” to measure how the first weekend would perform and then used tweets with reviews from people who saw the movie to predict how well the movie would do in the second weekend.
This method was 97.3% effective at predicting first weekend performance which is better than the currently used Hollywood Stock Exchange which is 96.5% effective.
http://hnsummary.com/2010/04/02/twitter-predicts-box-office-...
Definitely not. Since 1971 the increase in postal rates has increased more slowly than inflation measured by the CPI. This means that despite the numerous rate increases over the years stamps have actually been getting cheaper relative to the purchase power of the dollar.
This is not going to change either. In December of 2006 George Bush signed a law requiring the increase in postal rates to always stay below an inflation based ceiling.
http://hnsummary.com/2010/04/02/should-i-invest-in-forever-s...
Extreme commuters are the fastest growing group of work commuters in the country, who rarely see their homes in the daylight. People who spend a month of their lives each year commuting at least an hour and a half to work and back each day are considered extreme commuters. This is compared with the US average of 50 minutes and according to the Census Bureau their numbers have jumped 95% since 1990 to 3.4 million workers. Experts say their numbers will continue to grow.
In 1990 24% of workers left their home counties on their way to the office, and since then 50% of all new workers are doing the same. Many extreme commuters are forced to drive the long distances because the affordable housing isn’t near the good paying jobs.
Interestingly, economists say this “commuting paradox” doesn’t pay off in terms of life satisfaction. A commuter who travels one hour each way would have to make 40% more in pay to be as satisfied with his life if he were a non-commuter.
The government bailed out Citigroup to the tune of $45 billion in 2008. $20 billion of that has been paid back by Citigroup to the Treasury and the remaining $25 billion was converted to common stock. The stock is now worth $33 billion netting the government an expected $8 billion.
http://hnsummary.com/2010/03/30/citibank-pays-off-its-bailou...
MSNBC and CNN are both lagging behind Fox News in the ratings. Fox is the second highest ranks cable network in prime time, while CNN ranks 21st and MSNBC is 25th. CNN began it’s sharp decline in ratings during the first quarter of 2010 with the main hosts loosing half their viewers in a year. This is despite recent newsworthy evens such as the earthquake in Haiti and health care reform.
http://hnsummary.com/2010/03/30/cnn-lost-almost-half-of-thei...
The real estate market is going from bad to worse. By the end of 2010 about half of all commercial real estate mortgages will be underwater.
According to Elizabeth Warren, the chairperson of TARP, The majority of the mortgages in danger were made by 2,988 midsized banks. She believes the economy will face another very serious problem and “things are unlikely to return to normalcy in 2010.”
Elizabeth also believes the government should “pull the plug” on mortgage lenders Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
http://hnsummary.com/2010/03/30/half-of-commercial-real-esta...
AdMob is an advertising network that specializes in showing ads for mobile phones. Their ads can be shown in web pages loaded in mobile web browsers, or the ads can be embedded in mobile applications that run natively on the phones. AdMob does not segment ads in browsers from ads in applications so a single device running a browser and several applications with AdMob ads count count as several devices in AdMob’s figures. This likely leads to a significant inflation of the total number of iPhone and Android users.
http://hnsummary.com/2010/03/30/why-admob%E2%80%99s-reported...
Buried inside of the new banking bill is a provision that will raise the requirements to be an accredited investor. The new bill is proposed by Chris Dodd, the senator from Connecticut. The requirements are increasing from $1m in net worth or $250k in annual income to $2.3 million in net worth or $450k in annual income. Angel investment will also have to undergo a 120 day SEC review.
http://hnsummary.com/2010/03/30/get-the-anti-startup-and-ant...
San Francisco recently counted all of their parking spaces in preparation for the SFPark system which will dynamically adjust prices based on demand. There are a total of 441,541 parking spaces, 280,000 on street parking spaces, and 25,000 metered spaces.
The new parking system will have electronic parking sensors in each of the spots and will feed this data to an intelligent traffic routing system to direct drivers to the open parking spaces. During peak parking hours the system will increase parking prices to encourage people to run their errands during other times if their schedule is flexible. Also by making the parking data available online it will help people make better transit decisions and possibly take public transit if no parking is available. The goal is to make more land area available for urban living rather and less land wasted on parking.
http://hnsummary.com/2010/03/29/san-francisco-counts-its-par...
“A group of House Energy and Commerce members are urging the FTC to investigate complaints that Google’s Buzz social networking service and some of its other services may harm consumer privacy.”
One of the goals of the proposed probe would be to determine how much data Google gathers from it’s properties such as Buzz, and how it uses this data to target ads to users.
Google counters by saying ”user transparency and control are very important to us, and we review all products carefully before we roll them out. When we realized that we’d unintentionally made many of our users unhappy, we moved quickly to make significant product improvements to address their concerns. Our door is always open to discuss additional ways to improve our products and services moving forward.”
I suspect Microsoft is behind much of the increased government scrutiny over Google.
http://hnsummary.com/2010/03/29/house-lawmakers-voice-concer...
Jason Fried is one of the co-founders of the software as a service company 37 Signals and gives a good pep talk in this video that is sure to resonate with anyone that works in a typical office with more than a handful of employees in it.
He believes the modern workplace is “optimized for interruptions and interruptions are the enemy of work.” Work is like sleep in that we can’t immediately fall asleep and we can’t immediately get work done. There is a period of ramp up time before real work starts but there are so many distractions in the office that it makes it nearly impossible to stay in the flow of doing real work.
Jason plugs a few of 37 Signals software tools such as Campfire which allow employees to work with each other and communicate in an efficient manner without interrupting each others work flow. He also gives a few good jabs at managers who make a job out of interrupting the employees rather than just letting them work.
Apple has released a new iPhone every June or July since 2007. “People” have been “briefed with the matter” and they say it will be available on Verizon’s network. Apple has had an exclusive relationship with AT&T giving them a competitive edge. This article from the WSJ reaffirms previous reports that the new iPhone would be available this summer, but doesn’t provide any new information.
http://hnsummary.com/2010/03/29/new-iphones-this-summer-mayb...
Michael Arrington hates reading his email and thinks you should pay him to read it. Enter a service called Attention Acution that gives you a special inbox and let’s people know how many emails you have in your inbox and place a bid to have you read their email. If you read their email then you get paid. Apparently the site is buggy and doesn’t work all the time so it’s unlikely it will take off.
http://hnsummary.com/2010/03/29/get-paid-to-read-your-email/
Because it’s where the money is (supposedly). Each era of MBA graduates have their defining characteristics. The ’80s conquered Wall St, the late ’90s conquered Silicon Valley, and now they’re off to dominate Asia. MBA graduates taking jobs in Asia has doubled in the last 5 years, growing from 5% to more than 10%, and it’s the promise of rapid growth which is drawing them there. Experts say the percentage of graduates taking international jobs typically increases during a recession, however the number of graduates now asking for assignments in China, Vietnam, and India right now is unprecedented.
The geographic arbitrage is paying off well for these MBA grads, allowing them partake in the upper-crust Manhattan type lifestyle of having food delivered to them daily, maids clean up after them, and skipping around to different Asian cities, all for the cost of living in the cheapest of cities in the US.
Chinese firms didn’t used to recruit talent from United States universities, but that is starting to change. Large Chinese firms are showing up at recruiting events at America’s top business universities in increasing numbers.
Visitors don’t always mean sales though. The Shoes Of Prey blog says they didn’t get many sales out of the deal and speculate that Blairs follower demographic of 13-17 year old girls can’t afford the expensive shoes. I don’t know how much they paid Blair to do the video but I’m sure enough of those kids were able to convince their moms to buy some shoes.
http://hnsummary.com/2010/03/28/the-incredible-power-of-a-16...