Centives

The Economist delved in the world of valuing boats:

• Just like a house, cargo ships are bought and sold, and bankers have to estimate the value of the ship before the deals can proceed.
• Old-style ship brokers are expensive – they can charge $1,500 for the valuation, and in the close shipping community, it’s hard to get a valuation without everybody finding out about it.
• A website called VesselsValue is trying to do for shipping what Zillow and Zoopla did for real estate – an online directory where people can get instant checks of a ship’s price.
• VesselsValue takes into account things such as current and estimated future costs of shipping cargo when providing valuations.

Read more about the business of valuing ships over here.

Source: The Economist

The reviews of Google Glass have been tepid at best. But the claim that people should avoid it due to privacy concerns don’t hold up to closer scrutiny writes Will Oremus:

• If people want to secretly record you then they can do it in much cheaper ways. You can get pens and glasses with hidden spycams that cost a fraction of the thousands that Glass costs.
• Google Glass itself isn’t particularly intuitive or easy to use. You need to talk to it – making it clear to everyone around you that you’re recording – or try to awkwardly get at a half-hidden button to record.
• Even if one is able to navigate through Glass’s interface to take a video without anybody noticing, a bright light will start shining meaning that everybody will know they are being recorded.
• It’s possible that some day in the future Glass or a competing product will evolve to the point where it is a privacy concern. But it is nowhere near that point yet.

Read more about some ways to secretly record people that actually work, how society will evolve to accommodate wearable computing, and what exactly a Glasshole is over here.

Source: Slate

Daniel W. Drezner has put together a collection of articles that look at the implications of a world where alternative forms of energy such as shale gas replace oil as the primary source of energy:

• The price of oil would fall and countries such as Saudi Arabia that use oil funds to keep instability at bay will quickly descend into chaos.
• Since oil exporting countries haven’t developed industries other than oil, the internal turmoil would likely last for several years if not decades.
• A lot of the alternative sources of energy are found in areas of disputed sovereignty and countries may resort to military tactics to secure those supplies.
• Oil also currently forces inter-dependence through trade. Both America and China, for example, need oil, and thus need to ensure that international waters are safe for trade.
• Without that stabilizing force it is possible that there will be more warfare as countries will have less to lose.

Drezner puts together these articles to argue that the articles are flawed, and that there is nothing to be concerned about. Read his argument, as well as links to the source articles worrying about an alternative-energy future over here.

Source: Foreign Policy

There’s an economic crisis ravaging the virtual gaming world of Diablo III writes Luke Plunkett:

• Players in the game have found a way to duplicate gold – the virtual money used in the game.
• This has resulted in massive inflation.
• The inflation very real implications since Diablo III allows players to trade in gold for real money. Players are seeing very real dollars evaporate due to inflation.
• The makers of the game have since suspended all trading in the game as they try to fix the problem.

Read more over here.

Source: Kotaku

Julie Jargon looked at how Kroger Co., a supermarket chain, is making sure that customers don’t have to wait in line:

• Using a system called QueVision Kroger uses infrared cameras – similar to those used by the military – to alert managers when lines are building up, informing them that more lanes need to be opened.
• QueVision also takes into account hourly and daily fluctuations in shoppers and informs managers so that they can plan their lane operators accordingly.
• Overall the system is credited with reducing average wait times by almost 90% from 4 minutes to 26 seconds.
• Kroger isn’t alone in fighting long lines. Wal-Mart recently released a new system where shoppers can scan their purchases into their smartphones and then use that information to quickly self-checkout.

Read more about how other companies are reducing wait times, the impact the system has had on Kroger’s financials, and more over here.

Source: The Wall Street Journal

Years from now we’ll likely see a rise in Japanese economic majors. When we do Jun Hongo’s article will be cited as the reason for this surge:

• A new pop-idol group called Machikado Keiki Japan base their costumes on the stock price index of the day.
• The higher the price, the shorter their skirts get. When the index crossed 13,000 the group went without skirts altogether.
• The groups’ lyrics include such gems as “Fix the yen’s appreciation. Quantitative easing. Don’t forget public investment”.
• During performances crowds of (mostly male) fans are known to yell out terms like “Monetary policy!” and “Private investment!”
• Perhaps non-coincidentally Japan’s stock market has been surging in recent times.

Read more about the fascinating group here.

Source: The Japan Times

Via: Marginal Revolution

Anna Palmer took a look at why ads on ESPN in America have become increasingly political:

• Obama and other top White House officials are known to be avid sports fans, watching several live sporting events.
• Industry groups and lobbyists that want the White House to be aware of important issues buy time on ESPN to discretely target the President.
• The ads have to be subtle – it can’t be obvious that Obama and his team are the target.
• The ads themselves aren’t that expensive. While those that run across the nation can cost up to $20,000 those that are only seen in Washington cost $750-$1000 per ad.
• ESPN has other advantages as an advertising platform – it’s one of the few forms of television that people want to watch live – along with the associated live ads.

Read more about the companies that are trying to use ESPN to advocate for specific causes, what ESPN has done to encourage it, and more over here.

Source: Politico

While analyzing the words used in song titles Tyler Schnoebelen found love. More specifically, he found statistics about the frequency with which the word ‘love’ shows up in top Billboard songs:

• In 1980 15.8% of top songs had some variation of the word ‘love’ in the title.
• 1993 was also a good year for love when 13.8% mentioned love. Examples include Dreamlover and That’s the Way Love Goes.
• More recently songs have become more lonely. In 2005 only 3.2% of songs were about love.
• Between 2002 and 2006 11 songs with the word ‘hate’ in them made the top. In the past 120 years there have only been 30 chart-topping songs about hate.
• In the past year things have gotten better. In 2012 5.8% of all songs were about love. Examples include Rihanna’s We Found Love, and Enrique Iglesias’ Tonight (I’m Lovin’ You).
• Faith Hill’s The Way You Love Me has the record for longest at the top – staying there for 56 weeks. Taylor Swift’s Love Story isn’t far behind at 49 weeks.
• Love might be declining in popularity because songwriters have become smarter. Songs about love only last for about 9.4 weeks at the top. Other songs generally go for 11.4 weeks.

Read more about the artists that sing most about love, the number of characters in titles with the word ‘love’ in them, and more of the top songs about love over here.

Source: idibon

Via: The Week

A little under a year ago Patrick Radden Keefe wrote an in depth piece about the operations of drug cartels. A few of the very many highlights include:

• Custom built submarines, FedEx, and air conditioned trolley tunnels are all ways that narcotics make their way into the United States.
• Some arrested drug traffickers demand a receipt from the authorities for the drugs that were taken from them so that they can prove to their masters that they didn’t steal or consume the drugs.
• It’s even possible to buy insurance policies that protect against seizure.
• Other sophisticated financial products include lines of credit given to drug retailers who can’t afford to pay for the upfront cost of the product.
• While drug cartels don’t pay taxes the amount that they have to pay in bribes is likely equal to that of the corporate tax rate in Mexico.
• These bribes mean that even when they are arrested traffickers live cushy lives. One prisoner ordered his meals from a menu, had prostitutes delivered to him, and managed his drug affairs with a cell phone while in prison.
• Many of those who are a part of the drug organizations are also members of the police. They conduct their business in their police uniforms – sometimes even openly killing people.
• In contrast, when (honest) officers make a drug bust, they make sure to cover their face before appearing in front of cameras to ensure that their families aren’t targeted. Thus the cops dress like thieves while the thieves dress like cops.
• Getting drugs into the United States is only half the battle. The other half is exporting the cash back out of it and into the pockets of the cartels.
• And there is a lot of cash. A kilo of drugs that is bought for $2,000 can retail for up to $100,000 in the United States.

Read more about how marriages are used to ensure loyalty, the Mexican cities where every cab-driver is on the payroll, where the cartels invest their money, and much, much more over here.

Source: The New York Times