If you have a car with only a few years on it, now might be a good time to sell it and buy a brand new car writes Kathleen Pender:

• Since 2007 the average trade in value of a 6 year old car has risen 33%.
• Usually experts recommend buying cars that are 2-3 years old because that way you avoid paying for the years when the car depreciates the fastest, and you still end up with a fairly new car with the latest advancements.
• Now however it might be more cost effective to buy a new car than a used car. In some cases the monthly payments are actually lower on a new car.
• Part of the reason for this is that during the depths of the recession few people bought new cars – which means the supply of cars that only have a few years on them is low.

Read more about some examples of the cars available, and why we’ve likely hit a plateau over here.

Source: SFGate

Via: Newmark’s Door

What does the term “startup” really mean? Paul Graham gave his take:

• Countless companies are started every day, yet only a fraction of them are startups.
• This is because to be a startup you have to be designed for massive growth. Most of the businesses that are started in the US are restaurants and salons. They are not created with rapid growth in mind.
• It is important to make it clear that a startup is only designed for growth. It doesn’t have to successfully attain growth to be a startup. Most startups fail.
• The best way to measure growth is by revenue. If the product is given away for free at first then the best proxy is number of users.

The full article goes into much deeper detail about what it means to be a startup and provides several tips for budding startup entrepreneurs. Read it over here.

Source: Paul Graham

Via: Kottke

In honour of (American) football season, Jimmy Stamp went over some of the history behind, and the dynamics of, the football field:

• American football owes its origins to rugby and soccer. This is evident in the field that the game is played on – a grassy green rectangle.
• Football doesn’t require a flat surface, because the ball doesn’t have to roll. Instead the field’s purpose is to mark territory and show which team has more of it.
• When indoor stadiums became popular natural grass became too expensive to maintain. Artificial grass popularly known as “Astroturf” was developed.
• The rubber base of modern artificial grass provides cushioning that helps protect the athletes as they tumble around on the field.
• While this artificial grass could, in theory, be painted any colour, the rules mandate that the grass be green. This is to prevent sponsors from taking over the field itself.

Read more about developments in goal posts and other changes in the game over here.

Source: Smithsonian

Apple’s bungled attempt at mapping (something that should particularly concern its executives) has put maps in the spotlight. Vanessa Thorpe looked at the role that maps play in our society:

• Throughout history the center of the map was a known cultural landmark such as London or Jerusalem.
• Now however with digital maps the individual is at the center of the map, explaining why they have become so popular in recent times.
• Maps also play an important role in children’s literature. The Hobbit, The Chronicles of Narnia, and Treasure Island all prominently featured maps. The Marauder’s Map in Harry Potter also played a pivotal role.
• Map makers have yielded a lot of influence in history and continue to do so in the present. Google mistakenly assigned some territory in Costa Rica to Nicaragua. Nicaraguans then used that mistake as a justification to invade the territory.

Read more about the mountain range that never was, and the future of maps over here.

Source: The Guardian

It turns out that Barack Obama is related to Rush Limbaugh; Robert Pattinson to the original vampire: Vlad III Dracula; and Emma Watson to an actual witch that was burned at the stake. All of these connections were found by Ancestry.com – a website that has come to dominate the genealogy market. Bruce Falconer wrote:

• After porn, genealogy is the most searched topic on the internet.
• White women 55 and older are the most frequent visitors to genealogy sites.
• Ancestry.com has doubled the number of its subscribers since 2009.
• The site is projected to make $480 million this year – which means that it has grown almost 200% in the last five years.
• Its biggest competitor is itself. It owns five of the top 10 genealogy sites, having acquired the most recent one in April.
• Subscribers pay up to $34.95 a month for access to Ancestry.com’s substantial database, which covers 40 countries and 800 years of history.
• Or they can pay $120 an hour (with a minimum of $2,400) for a personalized consultation with a genealogist.

Read more about the future of the industry, Ancestry.com’s humble origins, and the ancient Egyptian village that produced Hitler, Stalin, Darwin, Churchill, Turning, Austen and Lincoln, over here.

Source: Business Week

We’re immersed in a media crazy culture. Could this be affecting our romantic relationships? The Taylor & Francis group reported on a study that suggests that the answer is yes:

• Individuals who think that television portrayals of romance are realistic are less likely to be committed to their own relationships.
• This also affected how they viewed the ‘cost’ – or the lost time and freedom – of the relationship. Those who believe in TV romances believe that the cost of their relationship is high.
• This is concerning because several of the most popular TV shows this year have had important romantic threads.

Read more about the methodology of the study as well as what the author has to say about it over here.

Source: AlphaGalileo Foundation