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Would Real Life Alchemy Be Profitable?

September 4, 2012 in Editorial

 

Money may not grow on trees, but to the medieval it could be made through dark sorcery. Henry IV of England banned alchemy, Pope John XII forbade the ‘lies’ of transmutation, and Dante found a special place in hell for the alchemist.

For those who are unaware, we are talking about the mythological turning of a common metal into one of more value.

If it did actually work, of course, then an alchemist could make themself incredibly wealthy very quickly. Read the rest of this entry →

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Preparing For A Greek Exit

September 4, 2012 in Daily Bulletin

For several reasons it looks like Greece could end up leaving the Eurozone. Businesses, at least, have begun to prepare for that eventuality writes Nelson D. Schwartz. Some of the precautions they have taken include:

  • Ford has updated its vehicle’s computer systems so that they can easily accommodate whichever currency Greece might choose to adopt after it leaves the Euro.
  • Bank of America Merrill Lynch has plans where it could send trucks filled with cash over the border into Athens to help its clients pay their employees.
  • JPMorgan Chase has created accounts that are equipped to handle new currencies for its high profile clients.
  • Visa and MasterCard promise that their systems would minimize disruptions to customers and retailers in the event of a Greek exit.
  • Businesses have also worked with consultancies to identify the possible timeline of a Greek exit. It would likely happen on a Friday after markets have closed. It would then be followed by a bank holiday as strict controls on the flow of capital are introduced.
  • One networking company has introduced a business continuity plan similar to those used to identify a course of action after an earthquake.
  • Another company has refused to extend credit to Greek customers, requiring them to pay in advance.

Read more about the steps that have been taken and what the Eurozone leaders have to say over here.

Source: The New York Times

Via: Marginal Revolution

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Bacon Flavoured Coffee

September 3, 2012 in Daily Bulletin

Last week at a coffee competition in New York there was an unexpected winner:

  • Eileen Gannon made bacon flavoured coffee using bacon-flavoured syrup and candied oven baked bacon to win the $10,000 prize.
  • Certain Seattle’s Best Coffee branches will now be featuring the drink.
  • The drink is called “How to Win a Guy With One Sip”
  • Runners-up include a coffee blended with chili powder and cayenne, as well as a raspberry flavoured chocolate coffee.

To read more including other successful creations from Gannon, as well as the calories in a bacon flavoured sundae click here.

Source: Daily News

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Prison Food

September 2, 2012 in Daily Bulletin

Adam Aspinall reported on an initiative to help prisoners build careers once they have finished serving their time:

  • Award-winning chef Alberto Crisci is opening a restaurant inside of a Welsh prison in Cardiff.
  • All of the food at the restaurant will be cooked and served by inmates.
  • Only those with between six and 18 months left on their sentence will be allowed to work in the restaurant. No sex or substance abusers allowed.
  • Inmates will be paid £14 an hour, and are expected to work 40 hours a week.
  • The idea is to help the inmates build culinary skills that will allow them to find top jobs in hotels and restaurants, hopefully keeping them away from crime.

Read more about the initiative over here. They are not the first one to try out something like this. Centives has previous reported on similar arrangements in India and Honduras.

Source: Mirror

Via: Marginal Revolution

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GPS Systems Today

September 2, 2012 in Daily Bulletin

Randall Stross took a look at how GPS systems are used today:

  • GPS units are often unfairly blamed for errors which were ultimately caused by humans, such as the incorrect input of instructions.
  • The systems provide a vast amount of visual information – but under best conditions the driver needs to take 200 milliseconds to glance at the display – enough to cause an accident.
  • Providing voice directions without any digital display may be just as effective at getting people to their destination, but drivers feel uncomfortable relying on audio alone.
  • Today it is possible to find luxury cars with augmented reality technology that present directions directly on the windscreen.

Read more to find out what industry experts have to say over here.

Source: The New York Times

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How Do Hurricanes Affect Dolphins?

September 1, 2012 in Daily Bulletin, Signature

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-rQkvR0FkPbk/TVgPUUpyDKI/AAAAAAAAAqw/pDoq6sPfI1U/s1600/Jumping_Bottlenose_Dolphins.jpg

On land hurricanes create devastation and destruction. But what effects do they have on our intelligent friends under the ocean? Jason G. Goldman reported on a study that attempted to answer the question:

  • In the years after Hurricane Katrina there was a massive increase in the number of (bottlenose) dolphins.
  • This might be because the hurricane caused the destruction of boats; and since dolphins don’t appear to like boats this meant that they could spend more time hunting and eating.
  • The destruction of boats also meant that the rate of fishing was lower, meaning that there was more food available for the dolphins, increasing their numbers.

To read other factors that might explain the surprising result, click here.

Source: Scientific American

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What Does Spending $2.4 Billion On A Submarine Get You?

September 1, 2012 in Daily Bulletin

America’s Virginia Class Submarines cost $2.4 billion each, take five years to build, and are so advanced that so far there are only nine in service. Walter Hickey and Robert Johnson described some of the features of the submarine. Highlights of their report include:

  • The food served on the submarine is of extremely high quality. This is meant to offset the depressive effects of…living on a submarine.
  • The ‘periscope’ is a high-tech digital system that projects onto computer screens, allowing more than one person to see what’s happening.
  • The submarine was designed to have mini-submarines within it that could “fire” Navy SEALS for underwater stealth missions.
  • The submarine has a top speed of 32 mph while submerged.

Check out all 28 points here.

Source: Business Insider

Via: Newmark’s Door

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The Life Of A Tour Bus Driver

August 31, 2012 in Daily Bulletin


When Mariah Carey, ‘N Sync, and Chris Brown go on tour they need somebody to drive them around. What’s it like to have them in the bus? David Peisner interviewed the drivers of these and other artists to find out what their lives were like:

  • The drivers note that things used to be wilder in the past. These days instead of alcohol and drugs, band members are more likely to consume health foods and drink teas with a humidifier buzzing in the background to keep their vocal chords moist. A blender is used for protein shakes instead of daiquiris.
  • Tour bus drivers make around $200 a day.
  • They work as independent contractors – this means they get no health benefits or pensions.
  • In the past they would get perks such as free t-shirts and tickets to concerts. However these have disappeared as the music industry has struggled.
  • Drivers need to know how to repair every part of a bus, which in modern buses especially, requires specialized knowledge about electrical and cooling systems.
  • They must also be the maids who cleanup the bus and prepare it for the next leg of the tour.
  • Bands generally like to travel at night so that they can sleep. This means that bus drivers need to have the discipline to avoid the temptation of the numerous parties, and maintain a strict sleeping schedule so that they’re alert behind the wheel.

The full article is much more comprehensive and covers many more facets of the job. It also includes descriptions about what it’s like to drive around various aritsts (Mariah Carey is sweet, Motley Crue is rough, Creed is impossible, John Legend likes to read, Chris Brown likes to party, Matisyahu is kind, and They Might Be Giants have intellectual conversations). There’s much more of all of this over here.

Source: Spin

Via: Newmark’s Door

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Build Your Own Biography

August 31, 2012 in Daily Bulletin

Wolfram Alpha has released a new feature that allows you to generate a mini-biography on your life based on data from your Facebook account. Some of the remarkable things in the 60 page report on your life include:

  • The weather when you were born.
  • The countries your friends reside in.
  • The day and time that you post the most often.
  • The post and photo of yours that is the most liked.
  • The friend that posts the most on your page.
  • The gender and relationship status distribution of your friends.
  • The most common first and last name among your friends.
  • The stand out feature though is a visualization of your network (pictured above). You’ll see clustered cliques as well as the people who cross the divide, and the person that you share the most friends with.

It’s a fascinating tool and you can find instructions on how to use it for your own Facebook over here. The best part? It doesn’t make a post on your profile advertising to the world that you used it, or what the results were.

Source: Wolfram Alpha Blog

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What The Cheesecake Factory Can Teach American Hospitals

August 30, 2012 in Daily Bulletin, Signature

Atul Gawande got an inside look at how The Cheesecake Factory is able to deliver such great food at surprisingly low prices. We’ll get to the healthcare part of it soon enough but highlights of just the restaurant chain’s production process include:

  • Most of the 308 items on a Cheesecake Factory menu are made from scratch. Only the Cheesecake itself is premade…at an actual factory for cheesecake in California.
  • All Cheesecake Factory kitchens are designed in the same way. They are made to look like real factories with manufacturing lines that begin with raw ingredients which are chopped up, and end with the finished product.
  • There are computer monitors in the kitchens that show the orders assigned to the station. The touch screens illustrate what the finished product should look like and also detail the raw ingredients to use and the steps of the recipe.
  • The screen includes a timer that shows how long the item should take to prepare. Once it approaches the target time the background turns yellow. If it’s late it turns red.
  • Yet the screens only show what to do – not how to do it. Each cook brings their own experience and style to the recipe. Care is taken to not let the food look manufactured.
  • Before the food goes out it is rated on a scale of one to ten. An eight means that a couple of corrections are needed. Anything lower than a seven is immediately rejected and must be remade.
  • If a restaurant orders too many groceries, then they rot away, wasting money. Order too few and customers will become frustrated and leave. The Cheesecake Factory aims to throwaway no more than 2.5% of the groceries it purchases. This is a phenomenal target as it requires near-perfect knowledge about which kinds of food customers will order.
  • These forecasts are done through models that monitor both recent and long term rends, and take into account things such as sporting events that will likely keep people at home.
  • Every six months a new menu item is introduced – anybody can suggest it. The CEO himself enjoys suggesting and sampling new ideas.
  • Rolling out the new dishes to all of the cooks, servers, and restaurants across the United States takes just 7 weeks.

But how does this all fit into healthcare? Gawande notes that “restaurant chains have managed to combine quality control, cost control, and innovation” on a very large scale across hundreds of locations. This is exactly the challenge that health care in the United States faces today, and there is much to learn, especially in terms of standardization.

To find out exactly what lessons need to be learnt and how test projects have performed check out the full article here.

Source: The New Yorker

Via: Newmark’s Door

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