Planet Money has a gem of a story on ‘the Business Secrets Of The Amish‘. The story zooms in on how the Amish, who have made their living through small plot farming for centuries, have adapted to an environment that does not allow for this lifestyle anymore: What you see in this hall is the [...]

almost 6 year ago (on the first of january 2007) i started taking an interest in the use of Compact Fluorescent Lights (CFLs) as exterior lightening. I first noticed this use of this type op lightbulbs on a new years day stroll to the recently bombed out southern suburbs of Beirut. A large number shops [...]

turns out that theverge does music reporting of sorts. their recent history of dubstep music (‘beyond lies the wub‘) contains two short passages that highlight the impact of digital technology on art (in this case dubstep music). The first passage highlights how digital piracy killed the music industry might have actually driven the quality of [...]

just finished reading ‘Red Plenty‘ by Francis Spufford which has replaced ‘Turing’s Cathedral‘ as my favourite book from this year. In fact the two books probably should be read together. Red Plenty picks up approximately where Turing’s Cathedral ends and offers a rather fascinating peek into how the invention of electronic computers interacted with the [...]

So i finally managed to start reading the ‘Future of Copyright‘ anthology that contains the winning essays from a contest organised by the Modern Poland Foundation. So far (i have not read them all) my favourite essay is ‘Give‘ by Togi, which i read as powerful argument that systemic change (and not just reform) is [...]

ran into this ad while reading the economy section of yesterdays NRC on the toilet this morning. It is easily the most amazingly stupid copywriting i have come across in a while. i mean seriously who on earth still worries about ‘the soviets’ anymore? ‘i was 250.000 miles out in space. imagine what could have [...]

so apparently time travel has finally arrived. Walked by the bus shelter opposite of Berlin Hauptbahnhof this morning and was greeted with a ‘Willkommen in der Zukunft’ (‘Welcome to the future’) message scrolling across the LED display. Have not entirely figured out how the future is different from the present nor how i can get [...]

so i am finally finding the time to read James C. Scott’s Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed. At the end of chapter 2 he makes the observation that… …the modern state, through it’s officials, attempts with varying success to create a terrain and a population with [...]

the New York Times has a longish article portraying the Operations Center of the City of Rio that has been build by IBM’s smarter cities unit. In the article both the city of Rio de Janeiro and IBM portray the operations center as some kind of magic wand that enables the benevolent city government to [...]

So the latest Planet Money podcast consists of this absolutely fascinating interview with Harvard professor turned casino CEO Gary Loveman. The interview is fascinating on a number of levels, chief among them this detailed look into data-driven behavioral manipulations: Gary Loveman: Everybody who gambles knows that the house has an advantage. They are not unhappy [...]