Centives

Claudia De La Roca interviewed Matt Groening – the creator of The Simpsons and Futurama. The interview focused on the Simpsons and some highlights include:

• The Simpsons family is named after Groening’s own family. His father is named Homer, his mother, Margaret, and his two sisters Lisa and Maggie.
• Groening’s father, Homer, does not like donuts.
• Groening originally planned to name Bart’s character after himself however he felt that studio executives wouldn’t like it.
• Bart was selected because it sounded like Bark and Groening thought that sounded funny.
• The surname Simpsons was chosen because it has the word ‘simp’ as in ‘simpleton’ in it.
• Groening was bullied as a child but (possibly) got his revenge by naming the bullies in Simpsons after some of the bullies he encountered in real life.
• Writers enjoy writing for the show because there is no network interference, and as a cartoon there are no constraints on reality meaning that they can let their imaginations go wild.

To read more about the rules that Groening’s father set down about the way that Homer treated his wife, Groening’s relationship with Portland and how it influenced the show, which city Springfield is named after, and why the focus of the show shifted from Bart to Homer, click here.

Source: Smithsonian

Via: Chris Blattman

PlanIT Valley is a city being built in Northern Portugal that comes straight out of our latest science-fiction novels writes Will Doig. In an article that looks at the dangers and problems of having such a city, his description of the city itself stands out:

• The city is being built with 100 million sensors embedded into it. These sensors will send back a constant stream of data that will be used to alter the city.
• The city will have 150,000 residents and will cost $19 billion to build.
• Because of the experimental nature of the city all of the people who live in it will also likely work for the companies that built it.
• Features of the city include:
  • Cars will be told where they can find empty parking spots.
  • Rooms will be able to detect you leaving and will automatically turn off the air-conditioning if the computer system believes that it would be efficient to do so.
  • Leaky faucets will be detected and either automatically repaired or flagged for a plumber’s attention.
  • In the case of a fire residents will be directed to the nearest exit, and fire-fighters will be presented with the most efficient fire-fighting strategy based on the location of the fire.

To read more about what the city will be able to do, why cities built from scratch have generally failed, how PlanIT Valley compares to Brasilla and New York City in the 60s, and a better alternative to the creation of such a city, click here.

Source: Salon

Pete Wells, the current restaurant critic for The New York Times paused for a moment to reflect upon the inspiration for him and every other critic today: Craig Claiborne. Highlights of the mini-biography include:

• The first in a series of restaurant reviews written by Claiborne appeared 50 years ago in May 1962.
• Within a few years every major newspaper had its own food critic.
• Wells argues that Claiborne elevated the status of food in American society. Chefs now grace magazine covers and are invited to the White House in part because of the efforts of Claiborne.
• A year later, in May 1963, Claiborne added a 3-star ranking scale. A year after that it became a 4-star scale and it has remained the same ever since.
• Claiborne had very strict policies about the way he reviewed restaurants. He tried to eat anonymously, have the paper pay for the meal rather than the restaurant, and would eat at least three meals before reviewing the restaurant.
• Claiborne was one of the first critics to focus on the food offered by the restaurant rather than other qualities such as the social status of the customers.
• Claiborne grew to hate his job, increasingly turning to alcohol to cope with the stress of constantly dining out.

To read many more details and find out how Claiborne compared to his contemporaries, how he was one of the first to seriously consider food from other countries, his association with the White House, the $4,000 dinner in Paris, the restaurant where he could hear gunfire, and his experiences with moose liver, click here.

Source: The New York Times

In India there has been a recent surge in interest in chess reports Rajini Vaidyanathan. Highlights from his article include:

• Some of the reasons for the interest in the game include:
  • The opening up of India’s economy in the early 90s allowed Indians to travel abroad and gain international experience.
  • The rise of the internet gave chess players the opportunity to simulate millions of games at the click of a button.
  • Indians believe that there is an inherent educational value to the game, and education is seen as being extremely important.
  • Indians believe that chess was invented in India.
• The number of grandmasters in India has tripled in the past 7 years.
• Eight Indians are ranked in the world top 100.
• Chess is now on the school curriculum of several Indian states.
• The Mughal Emperor Akhbar is said to have played live games of chess with real animals and soldiers moved around on a giant board.

To read about the 15 year old chess grand-master, the 4 year old who started playing at the age of 2, how Indian women fare at the game, the rise of chess coaching in India, and why it is still difficult to make a living from chess, click here.

Source: BBC

How do the reviews critics offer differ from the popular opinion of Amazon review scores written by individuals? One study sought to find out and Alison Flood reported on the results:

• In aggregate, professional viewers and Amazon reviews agreed about the quality of a book.
• This is despite the fact that there is no quality assurance in Amazon reviews and that they can easily be gamed.
• In fact, at times it appears that Amazon reviews are better evaluators of quality. Professional reviewers are more likely to give prizewinning authors or those with a lot of media attention better reviews.
• Amazon reviews are also good at identifying good books written by authors that aren’t well known.
• Media outlets are also more likely to review, and give better reviews to books written by their own journalists.

To read details of how the study was conducted, what one expert reviewer thinks it takes to be a good reviewer, and some other conclusions from the study, click here.

Source: The Guardian

Via: Marginal Revolution

Timothy Taylor writes that “the U.S. spends more than 50% more per person on health care than the next highest countries…and more than double per person what many other countries spend.” Yet the reasons for high spending without a corresponding increase in life expectancy aren’t what most people would assume:

• While America does have an obesity crisis it also has a younger population with low rates of smoking. So it is not the case that Americans are less healthier than others.
• The US also does not have more doctors or hospital beds per person than other rich, developed countries.
• While the US does buy brand-name drugs instead of generic drugs, the amount that could be saved from the move to generic drugs would only be about 2-3% of total healthcare costs.

So what does explain the high spending? High prices for hospital stays and high administrative costs. To read more about why these costs are so high, as well as other factors do and don’t contribute to the problem of high healthcare spending, and some scattered analysis of how American healthcare compares to that of other countries, click here.

Source: Conversable Economist

Katy June Friesen had the opportunity to interview Jeffrey M. Pilcher, an expert on Mexican food. In this interview they discussed the origins of the taco and some highlights include:

• One theory suggests that the word ‘taco’ has its origins in the dynamite (paper covered gunpowder) used in Mexican silver mines.
• Tacos are a relatively modern invention that can be traced back to the 1700s.
• Tacos were first mentioned in the United States in 1905, at a time when Mexicans began to migrate to the United States.
• They were seen as lower class food until the children of the original Mexican migrants began to advance economically.
• What is widely considered a standard taco today is really an amalgam of American and Mexican cuisine. Hamburger meat, cheddar cheese, iceberg lettuce and tomatoes are all signs of American influences.
• Hard shell tacos did not become mainstream until around the 1940s.

To read more about Lebanese-Mexican tacos, why tacos are like doughnuts, why Taco Bell has been unsuccessful in Mexico, the role that sexualization has played in the adoption of the taco, and why eating a taco was described as “biting a serpent” read the full interview here.

Source: Smithsonian

Via: Kottke