In the US, high oil prices correlate with recessions, although not all recessions correlate with high oil prices. It does not prove causation, but it is highly likely that when the US pays more than 4% of its GDP for oil, or more than 10% of GDP for primary energy, the economy declines as money is sucked into buying fuel instead of other goods and services... A shortage of oil will affect everything in the economy. I expect more famine, more drought, more resource wars and a steady inflation in the energy cost of all commodities.
Former BP geologist: peak oil is here and it will 'break economies' | Nafeez Ahmed | Environment | theguardian.com December 26, 2013
Crude oil production grew at approximately 1.5% per year between 1995 and 2005, but then plateaued with more recent increases in liquids supply largely deriving from NGLs, oil sands and tight oil. These trends are expected to continue... Crude oil production is heavily concentrated in a small number of countries and a small number of giant fields, with approximately 100 fields producing one half of global supply, 25 producing one quarter and a single field (Ghawar in Saudi Arabia) producing approximately 7%. Most of these giant fields are relatively old, many are well past their peak of production, most of the rest seem likely to enter decline within the next decade or so and few new giant fields are expected to be found.
Former BP geologist: peak oil is here and it will 'break economies' | Nafeez Ahmed | Environment | theguardian.com December 26, 2013
Dr. Richard G. Miller, who worked for BP from 1985 before retiring in 2008, said that official data from the International Energy Agency (IEA), US Energy Information Administration (EIA), International Monetary Fund (IMF), among other sources, showed that conventional oil had most likely peaked around 2008.Dr. Miller critiqued the official industry line that global reserves will last 53 years at current rates of consumption, pointing out that "peaking is the result of declining production rates, not declining reserves." Despite new discoveries and increasing reliance on unconventional oil and gas, 37 countries are already post-peak, and global oil production is declining at about 4.1% per year, or 3.5 million barrels a day (b/d) per year: "We need new production equal to a new Saudi Arabia every 3 to 4 years to maintain and grow supply... New discoveries have not matched consumption since 1986.
Former BP geologist: peak oil is here and it will 'break economies' | Nafeez Ahmed | Environment | theguardian.com December 26, 2013
The development of Bitcoin is historically important because it solved a problem of computer science that had previously been widely thought to be impossible: it is a decentralized, trustworthy generic transaction store. This realization raises interesting questions about the political motivations of Satoshi Nakamoto in presenting their creation as a digital currency when they must have known that they had solved this far more important general problem. I credit the discovery of the more general applicability of the Bitcoin technique to Aaron Swartz in his essay Squaring the Triangle, in which he presents an application of the system to secure, decentralized, and human-readable name registration and lookup. (I believe that this essay may prove historically to be Swartz’s most significant work in computing.) The more general application of the block-chain technique is already happening on a limited scale: Bitcoin’s own block-chain can be used directly as a global information log to prove a document’s existence at a certain time, while Namecoin is an implementation of a similar technique described by Swartz to provide a replacement for DNS.
Block-chains and Bitcoin December 24, 2013
However, these uses of the block-chain system still suffer from many of the same problems as Bitcoin itself does: notably, the 51% attack (someone with more than half the CPU power of the network can take control of the block-chain); growing energy consumption as the block-chain grows larger; the eventual massive size of the block-chain in the years ahead being too large for consumer computers to store; etc. This is why I think alternative crypto-currencies are so interesting. Not so much the trivial ones like Litecoin and Dogecoin, but those that actually make significant improvements to the block-chain algorithm to try to fix these flaws, such as Peercoin (which supplements the proof-of-work system with a proof-of-stake to try to reduce energy consumption and solve the 51% problem).
Block-chains and Bitcoin December 24, 2013
In an existential culture, the organization exists to help the individual achieve his purpose. This is in contrast to the other three types of cultures where the individual is there to help the organization achieve its purpose. The symbol Handy uses for this type of culture is a cluster of individual stars loosely gathered in a circle. The members of this type of organization are not interdependent and thus do not cause an organizational change if one or more members leave the organization. In this type of organization, management is considered a chore. Furthermore, a manager is considered the lowest status in such organizations. Furthermore, in a Dionysus culture, the manager can only manage by consent, and every individual has the right of veto, so that any coordinated effort becomes a matter of endless negotiation. An example Handy gives of a Dionysus culture is a university. A university is an existential culture in that “there are no sanctions that can be used against [the] [professors], [and] [d]ismissal, money perks, or punishment are all outside the jurisdiction of the leader” (Handy p97). Furthermore he states that these decisions are made by a “group of equals” and not by an individual.
Microsoft Word - LEA502-8-godsofmanagement - LEA502-8-godsofmanagement.pdf December 24, 2013
Furthermore, he maintains that these experts discuss in excess the problems an organization faces, which results in costing the organization a large quantity of money. Also he states that some problems are not solved the first time around, so there is a need to experiment which results in some errors and those errors also cost the organization money. This leads Handy to conclude that these types of organizations “tend to flourish in times of expansion, when the products, technologies, or services are new or when there is some sort of cartel arrangement that provides a price floor” (Handy p74). However, he also contends that a task culture comes into difficult times when the organization needs to make the solutions permanent or routine, and that the cost of maintaining the culture seems excessively expensive. Furthermore, Handy asserts that the lives of task cultures are short. To support his assertion, he states that “if [organizations] are successful, they will grow big, and to pay their way will take on a lot of routine or maintenance work, which requires Apollonian structures” (Handy p74). In essence, this leads to the transformation of a task culture into that of a role culture
Microsoft Word - LEA502-8-godsofmanagement - LEA502-8-godsofmanagement.pdf December 24, 2013
How he comes to meet non-manic somewhat-damaged pixie almost-literal Dream Girl Gabi is a scenario that would not be enhanced by synopsizing. But meet her he does. She's played by Evan Rachel Wood (who's fine, despite the fact that there are maybe a hundred actual Romanian actresses who would have been fine too), and she's all punky and dour of countenance, and she plays the cello. Charlie, of course, falls for her like several years' worth of output from a brick fantasy. Skeptical Gabi warns him off: "Perhaps you have some sort of fantasy about sad woman from distant land who plays the cello." Perhaps a smart producer might have informed writer Matt Drake and director Fredrik Bond that self-consciously pointing out the hoariest commonplaces in your dumb hipster romantic fantasy doesn't automatically absolve you from them.
Charlie Countryman Movie Review (2013) | Roger Ebert December 24, 2013
When you’ve reached a certain level of success, say you’re at around $500k MRR, the biggest challenge (besides growing a bigger organization and mastering all kinds of growing pains of course) is to find ways to profitably acquire customers at a much higher scale. By this time you’ve picked all the low-hanging fruits, and you may have maxed out what you can reasonably spend on AdWords to buy traffic and leads.
The Angel VC: The 8th DO for SaaS startups - Stay on top of your KPIs December 24, 2013
Therefore you’ll have to focus on the relationship between your CLTV and your CACs (customer acquisition costs), your CLTV/CAC ratio, which measures the ROI on your sales and marketing investments. Another way to look at it is your CACs payback time, which tells you how many months of subscription revenue it takes to recoup customer acquisition costs. If I had to choose I’d pick this one, since CLTV is always an estimate which can be more or less accurate.
Indeed, at a time when wealthier people are moving back to cities, and lower-income residents are getting displaced, debates about Whole Foods seem to double as debates over the very character of cities and their residents. Whole Foods rejects the idea that it targets neighborhoods primed for high-end development. “People use us a gauge of the state of the community, and we don’t think that’s fair,” Sinatra said. But even John Mackey, the Whole Foods C.E.O., has acknowledged his company’s knack for identifying neighborhoods on the cusp of gentrification.
Whole Foods, and Gentrification, Grows in Brooklyn : The New Yorker December 24, 2013
And so today, 53 years later, Kraus's signal complaint – that the nexus of technology and media has made people relentlessly focused on the present and forgetful of the past – can't help ringing true to me. Kraus was the first great instance of a writer fully experiencing how modernity, whose essence is the accelerating rate of change, in itself creates the conditions for personal apocalypse. Naturally, because he was the first, the changes felt particular and unique to him, but in fact he was registering something that has become a fixture of modernity. The experience of each succeeding generation is so different from that of the previous one that there will always be people to whom it seems that any connection of the key values of the past have been lost. As long as modernity lasts, all days will feel to someone like the last days of humanity.
Jonathan Franzen: what's wrong with the modern world | Books | The Guardian December 24, 2013
Whether I like it or not, the world being created by the infernal machine of technoconsumerism is still a world made by human beings. As I write this, it seems like half the advertisements on network television are featuring people bending over smartphones; there's a particularly noxious/great one in which all the twentysomethings at a wedding reception are doing nothing but taking smartphone photos and texting them to one another. To describe this dismal spectacle in apocalyptic terms, as a "dehumanisation" of a wedding, is to advance a particular moral conception of humanity; and if you follow Nietzsche and reject the moral judgment in favour of an aesthetic one, you're immediately confronted by Bourdieu's persuasive connection of asethetics with class and privilege; and, the next thing you know, you're translating The Last Days of Mankind as The Last Days of Privileging the Things I Personally Find Beautiful.And maybe this is not such a bad thing. Maybe apocalypse is, paradoxically, always individual, always personal. I have a brief tenure on Earth, bracketed by infinities of nothingness, and during the first part of this tenure I form an attachment to a particular set of human values that are shaped inevitably by my social circumstances. If I'd been born in 1159, when the world was steadier, I might well have felt, at 53, that the next generation would share my values and appreciate the same things I appreciated; no apocalypse pending.
Jonathan Franzen: what's wrong with the modern world | Books | The Guardian December 24, 2013
Kraus in this passage is evoking the Sorcerer's Apprentice – the unintended unleashing of supernaturally destructive consequences. Although he's talking about the modern newspaper, his critique applies, if anything, even better to contemporary technoconsumerism. For Kraus, the infernal thing about newspapers was their fraudulent coupling of Enlightenment ideals with a relentless pursuit of profit and power. With technoconsumerism, a humanist rhetoric of "empowerment" and "creativity" and "freedom" and "connection" and "democracy" abets the frank monopolism of the techno-titans; the new infernal machine seems increasingly to obey nothing but its own developmental logic, and it's far more enslavingly addictive, and far more pandering to people's worst impulses, than newspapers ever were.
Jonathan Franzen: what's wrong with the modern world | Books | The Guardian December 24, 2013
Gasoline engines are (like Da Dude says) about 25% efficient. It varies, though. TDI diesel engines are notably higher. A typical coal-burning power plant is in the 30%-40% range. Globally, the average is 33%. The newest, greatest supercritical coal plant is 46% efficient. The electrical grid is "pretty efficient". Nationally, about 6%-7% of the electricity generated is lost in transmission/distribution. So efficiency is >90%. The problem is, that coal figure based on how much of the heat of burning it is used. The difference is gasoline is MUCH denser energy-wise and has more energy per lb and you get more energy per lb of CO2 generated.
ELI5: If we all suddenly started driving Teslas, wouldn't the corresponding electricity demand (and coal burning) negate any positive effect of the drop in vehicle emissions? : explainlikeimfive December 24, 2013
On this weekend's "Saturday Night Live," Jimmy Fallon and Cecily Strong updated the nauseatingly cute Christmas duet with some extra verses that pick up where, "Well, maybe just half a drink more" leaves off.
Jimmy Fallon And Cecily Strong's Adorable 'Baby It's Cold Outside' Parody Will Make You Smile December 23, 2013
This flexibility of hygge is a major reason why English words like "cozy" don't do it justice. "Coziness relates to physical surroundings — a jersey can be cozy, or a warm bed — whereas hygge has more to do with people's behavior toward each other," writes author Helen Dyrbye in "Xenophobe's Guide to the Danes." "It is the art of creating intimacy: a sense of comradeship, conviviality and contentment rolled into one." Danes don't have a monopoly on these concepts, but they do take pride in their holistic way of looking at them. It's not unlike the American idea of thankfulness around Thanksgiving and Christmas, which refers to a general sense of gratitude as well as the implied presence of family, festivity and homemade food. Yet while holiday cheer doesn't last all year for many Americans — despite its potential health benefits — hygge has become embedded in the Danish consciousness.
How 'hygge' can help you get through winter | MNN - Mother Nature Network December 22, 2013
I did a little experiment, opening up a couple of pomegranates. I peeled the white pith away from the seeds, transferred the seeds into a saucepan, added a little water and brought the mixture to a simmer. When the mixture had liquefied, I poured the juice through a sieve and pressed out the last drops.I placed the seeds from the other pomegranate into a potato ricer and crushed them, as gently as possible, over a bowl. (Crushing them in a sieve would probably have worked as well.)Results: The cooked juice had a far better flavor than the fresh-crushed juice, which was bitter and had an earthy taste. "Joy of Cooking" was right.
Please Don't Squeeze the Pomegranates - Los Angeles Times December 22, 2013
pomegranate juice drinks have often suffered from a bitter taste because processors commonly squeeze the juice from the whole fruit. “Traditionally, processors squeeze pomegranate juice out in various ways including squeezing the juice with the peel, which causes a bitter taste due to the highly concentrated tannins in the peel and pith,” said Oded Shtemer, president and CEO of Hefestus.Another alternative is to peel and deseed manually the fruit but this can be a complicated and expensive process, so Hefestus has developed a system for separating out the component parts of the pomegranate fruit.
New machine promises improved pomegranate juice December 22, 2013
قبلاً هم گفتیم که شور نوستالوژی را درآوردهاند؛ هر جا سر میچرخانی از جذابیت خاطرهبازی دارند استفاده میکنند. کلی صفحه مثلاً در فیسبوک درست کردهاند که «فلانهای زمان ما» و «بهمانهای خاطرهانگیز» و از این دست. کاربران هم میآیند و شلوغش میکنند که نسل ما این خاطرهها را داشت و این نسل جدید، نسل بیخاطره است. در سطح شهر هم پر است از منوهای نوستالوژیک؛ کافه طهران قدیم (با اصرار بر طای دستهدارش)، رستوران لالهزار، شهر فرنگ و … همگی هم فقط یک استراتژی نخنما را دنبال میکنند؛ توسل بر سیستم تداعی. بهراستی، نان این نوستالوژی تا کی در روغن است. «کارتونهای زمان ما» را تا کی باید دید و آه و دریغ و دردا و حسرتا سر داد؟ مگر آن کارتونها واقعاً همهچیزشان اوکی بود؟
لطفاً شور نوستالوژی را درنیاورید - حاشیه December 19, 2013
Moreover, even if one made the impossibly optimistic assumption that picking the best stock of the day is a 50-50 guess, there would be only a one-in-3.53 trevigintillion (3.53 x 1072) chance of matching these results.
Take $1,000, Trade Once a Day, Make $264 Billion—You Could Have Done It in 2013 - David Yanofsky - The Atlantic December 19, 2013
I want to ask you about the turn in the road in modern history that you may be living through. One way that former Secretary of State Kissinger has described this is to say that for this “turn” to happen, Iran has to be “a nation and not a cause.” It has to behave like a nation that has interests, seeks respect, wants equal footing but is not a revolutionary movement that destabilizes others. So let me put it to you bluntly: Is Iran a nation or a cause today? Well I believe the dichotomy is erroneous, particularly coming from an American. I ask you: Is America a nation or a cause? How do you describe U.S. behavior? Is the United States simply a nation, or does it have objective, have objectives, have goals. . . . Ideals. Ideals. Yes. So that has to be in the right framework. I believe all nations have ideals and have interests. I do not believe there is a dichotomy between interests and ideals. I believe the US has ideals and interests. . . . In my view ideals and interests converge, not diverge. But Iran is committed to principles of international law. We do not seek to undermine any government. We do not seek to interfere in the internal affairs of any other states.
David Ignatius: Q&A with Mohammad Javad Zarif, Iran’s foreign minister - The Washington Post December 19, 2013
Let’s start with enrichment. Iran did not decide to enrich. Iran was forced to enrich, because we had a share in a consortium in France called “Eurodif,” which we had paid for fully, but we were not able to get a gram of enriched uranium, even for our research reactor that was built under the “Atoms for Peace” Program of President Eisenhower. We did not decide to enrich to 20 percent. We tried for 20 years to buy 20 percent-enriched uranium for fuel for that reactor. We were intimidated, insulated, pushed back and forth to the point that we said we’ll do it ourselves: We’re not going to take this from anybody! Now this doesn’t mean that if they provide us with fuel now we will accept it, because first of all we have made this investment domestically, and secondly we do not have any trust and, third we do not see any reason now that we have put so much time and effort in it and brought them to the point of abandoning the illusion of zero enrichment in Iran, why should we accept anything less.
David Ignatius: Q&A with Mohammad Javad Zarif, Iran’s foreign minister - The Washington Post December 19, 2013
The emails were sent using Guerrilla Mail, a free online application that generates temporary anonymous email addresses. Additionally, Kim used a free application called TOR, which generates a random anonymous IP address for temporary use that is difficult for law enforcement to trace. According to the affidavit, authorities were able to determine that Kim had accessed TOR on the Harvard network before sending the email.
Harvard Sophomore Charged in Bomb Threat | News | The Harvard Crimson December 18, 2013
همه هنرجوا باید سر ظهر میرفتن نمازخونه نمازجماعت میخوندن. یادمه اقلیتای مذهبی هم – گرچه نماز بهشون واجب نبود – به دستور مدیر حضورشون تو نمازخونه موقع نماز اجباری بود. وقت نماز که میشد، مدیر مییومد تو حیاط، با آستینای بالازده واسه طهارت یه طوری روحانیوار بهت نیگا میکرد که خودت خجالت بکشی بدویی بری دستنماز بگیری. زمستونا هم که آب گرم نبود، باید با همون آب یخ شیر فلکه وضو میگرفتیم. تو اون وضعیت که در اثر برخورد آب سرد با پوست گرم از بدن آدم بخار بلند میشد و به مستراح فضایی روحانی میبخشید، اگه یکی ناتویی میکرد و یه تقه به بدنت میزد، سوزش و دردی بود که تا فیهاخالدونت فرو میرفت. چقدر از بچهها، سر سادیسم و بچهآزاری و شوخی خرکی ناظم و معلم پرورشی و معلم دفاعی و غیره ذلک، تو این وضعیت چک و لقت خورده باشن خوبه؟
مدرسهای که ما میرفتیم | Khodnevis December 18, 2013
One approach that really helped me out was to extend the problem from three doors to a million doors.You're allowed to pick one door, out of a million. Then, the host opens 999,998 of the other doors which he knows have a goat. This leaves the closed door you picked and one remaining closed door.So, there's now two possibilities. Out of one million doors you somehow just happened to have guessed right and picked the right one. Or, you're wrong. If you're wrong then the correct door would be the other closed one.
Monty Hall problem explained visually | Hacker News December 18, 2013
In a recent article for the New Yorker, neuroscientist Kenneth Wright said that “cognition is best several hours prior to habitual sleep time, and worst near habitual wake time”—which suggests that you do your best work later in the day, not first thing in the morning. Your consciousness kicks in almost immediately after waking up, but it can take up to four hours for your mind to crank itself up to full awareness and alertness—and in that time, you won’t make good decisions. So how do employers accommodate this? A shorter workday works particularly well for knowledge workers—people in creative or professional jobs—who can work productively for about six hours a day, compared to the eight hours manual laborers can churn out, according to Salon. Unlike machines, humans operate on a cyclical basis, which means our energy and motivation fluctuate in peaks and troughs. Cognitive workers tend to be more focused in the late morning, getting another energy boost in the late afternoon when lung efficiency peaks.
Why the 9-to-5 Day Is So Tough on Creative Workers - Atlantic Mobile December 17, 2013
The model-fitting hypothesis says that the conscious self, the perceived self that I experience as having intentionality, as being free to make choices, as planning things and taking decisions, must, like any other percept, arise from an internal model: the single internal model that my brain fits to my real, biologically diverse, multi-component, multifariously subtle self.
Neuroscience vs Free Will » IAI TV December 17, 2013
As Jack Cohen and Ian Stewart have aptly put it, the brain viewed from outside looks more like a committee, composed of different parts that evolved at different times for different purposes, echoed in common experience: “something tells me that....”, “my head says one thing but my heart another”, and so on. Yet “I am utterly convinced that there is only one me... not some kind of committee”. The model-fitting hypothesis makes sense of this paradox: the brain has multifarious parts, but only one self-model.
However diverse our internal make-up may be, in order to survive we need, continually, to make sense of our surroundings and our own location and orientation in those surroundings. So the repertoire of internal models and sub-models that are used to construct the perceived world, with its stationary and moving objects, has to include a self-model. Simultaneously with other models, this has to be fitted to the incoming sensory data including, now, internal data from one's own body, such as proprioceptive data about limb positions.
The end result is a single spatio-temporal model of oneself in one's surroundings.
Your credit card is a token, one that is used to: - Prove your identity to the merchant - Confirm your intent to process a transaction - Identify your source of funding We have many protocols that can do all of this and more with a high level of security, it’s trivial to name half a dozen. None of them require you to give your full plaintext credentials to a third-party – although that’s exactly what happens every time you use your credit card. You have to give every merchant a complete list of every bit of information that is required to process transactions against your account – or else they can’t process the transaction. Those credentials remain static for several years, by design being given to several thousand anonymous strangers (known only by their participation in the system) over their lifetime. Multi-year credentials for financial authorization that are, by design, shared with any participant in the system. Does this sound broken yet? Seriously, why are we still using credit card numbers? Why don’t we have smartcards containing a megabyte of pre-programmed single-use card numbers (that’s a LOT of card numbers!) that we pull up once and throw away? Or some kind of signature algorithm, put a public key on the card and sign the transaction electronically?
Credit card “security” December 17, 2013 | Modified
This expression is often thought to be related not to live cats, but a cat o'nine tails - a vicious type of whip, typically used to discipline sailors. Boats aren't known for being roomy, and a sailor complaining about living in close quarters might be heard to remark "Shiver me timbers! There's not room to swing a cat in here. Aar." Or something of the sort.
Where does "Can't swing a dead cat without hitting one" come from? December 17, 2013 | Modified
It seems like all the qualms people have with the experimental design revolve around the duration of musical training used in your study. With that in mind, do you know of anything that will significantly increase IQ in roughly 6 weeks ('IQ' for brevity, I realize in this study you tested more specific cognitive abilities). I'm trying to get a sense for what it actually takes to change a kid's IQ. If there is something out there that can significantly increase a kids IQ in 6 weeks, it could be used in a control group as a proxy for what 6 weeks of musical training could look like if it actually helped. However if there's nothing out there that works that quickly, I'm less inclined to think that anything should be expected to work in that timeframe. Particularly if the most robust factors known to increase IQ (e.g. eating choline, or rigorous multilingual training - speaking hypothetically) take several years of dedication to the regime to start showing noticeable effects.
Two new studies by Harvard researchers show no effect of music training on the cognitive abilities of young children : science December 16, 2013
