…Google has gathered so much data, in so many areas, that it’s now crunching it together and creating features that Apple can’t make—surrounding Google Maps with a moat of time.
How far ahead of Apple Maps is Google Maps?
Source: Google Maps’s Moat
Quotes
How brands secretly buy their way into Forbes, Fast Company, and HuffPost stories
Yael Grauer, a freelancer who’s written for Forbes and many other outlets, says she’s gotten as many as 12 offers like Satyam’s in a single month, which she always rejects. Some are surprisingly straightforward, like a marketer who simply asked how much she charged for an article in Slate or Wired. Others are coy, like a representative of a firm called Co-Creative Marketing, who heaped praise on her writing before asking whether she could get content published in Forbes or Wired on behalf of a client. Another marketer offered Erik Sherman, a business journalist, $315 per article to mention her client’s landscaping products in Forbes, the Huffington Post, or the Wall Street Journal — though she cautioned that the mentions would need to “not look blatant.” Sherman declined, telling the marketer that the offer was “completely unethical.”
Source: How brands secretly buy their way into Forbes, Fast Company, and HuffPost stories
Why We Blame Millennials For Everything
There are regular headlines that accuse Millennials of “killing” some product or industry. What do you think this reveals about what’s expected or demanded of Millennials in our society?
MH: It’s kind of funny, right? It’s as if we are our consumer choices. I think it reflects a few things. One is the identification of Millennials with history. So if there are things that happen, it’s our fault [simply] because we are the next cohort. So you can project onto us the fault for these shifts that actually characterize us as much as anything. The reason that casual restaurants are closing is because people don’t have time and money to afford it. It’s strange that we see economists and business people blaming customers for not being able to afford things. Theoretically, that’s not our fault, that’s the market’s fault—if we can’t afford things, it’s not our fault for not wanting them.
Library of Congress Acquires Extremely Rare Mesoamerican Codex
The Library of Congress has acquired the Codex Quetzalecatzin, one of the very few Mesoamerican manuscripts to survive from the 16th century. After being in private collections for more than 100 years, the codex has been digitally preserved and made available online for the first time to the general public at loc.gov/resource/g4701g.ct009133/.The codex, also known as the Mapa de Ecatepec-Huitziltepec, represents one of the most important indigenous manuscripts from the earliest history of America to become available in the last century.
Source: Library of Congress Acquires Extremely Rare Mesoamerican Codex
One way to curb freight emissions: Put trucks on an electric catenary system
The eHighway built by Siemens and SCAQMD is for now just a test road. It’s only one mile long, and the system only has three freight trucks that can pair with the catenary system—a battery electric truck, a natural-gas hybrid-electric truck, and a diesel-hybrid truck. The battery-electric and natural gas trucks were developed by a company called TransPower, and the diesel hybrid was developed by Volvo-owned Mack Trucks.
Each truck is able to connect to the electric wires above the highway with rooftop rods just like a trolley car (the riser on top of the trucks and trolleys is called a “pantograph”). According to a Siemens press release, “The pantograph can connect and disconnect automatically with the contact line via a sensor system while the trucks are moving. This allows the eHighway trucks to easily switch lanes or pass other vehicles without being permanently fixed to the overhead systems like a streetcar.”
Source: One way to curb freight emissions: Put trucks on an electric catenary system
Rich people are cheapskates
What’s more, high-end retailers are fast learning that rich people are frugal: According to a new report this year from the Wall Street Journal,“high-end chains, which raised prices incessantly over the past decade, are learning the hard way that even wealthy customers are hunting for better deals.” Matthew Singer, Neiman Marcus’s former men’s fashion director, told the Wall Street Journal that “even a very rich person can say, ‘enough is enough,’ when it comes to price.”
Astana, Kazakhstan’s plan to stay warm in the winter? Build a ring of one million trees
In 1997 the Kazakh president launched a plan to protect his new capital from the icy winds of the featureless steppes with a ring of trees. Twenty years on his scientists are still struggling to grow forests in a spot where no trees stood
Source: Astana’s plan to stay warm in the winter? Build a ring of one million trees
Predicting the 2017-18 NBA season using The Oregon Trail
AFAIC This is the best predictive model that has ever been created:
First, the “Wagon Leader” is never an actual team because nothing happens to them until everyone else dies, therefore, it’s no fun. So, the four other spots get filled by team names in random order and sent down the trail on grueling pace and bare bones rations to create the worst health conditions and thus, kill teams off one-by-one. At rivers, I always caulk and float to, again, create the most random outcome (fording ends in death too much to even be funny).
Source: The Oregon Trail Predicts Carnage For The 2017-18 NBA Season
MOOSE: The Wearable Reentry Spacecraft of Yesteryear
The MOOSE unit was attached to the back of a maximum protection pressure suit not unlike the kind worn during space walks. The unit contained oxygen tanks, a rudimentary sighting system, a small rocket pack, as well as some basic survival supplies. The back of it — which was also at the astronaut’s back — had a quarter-inch thick heat shield made of GE’s Elastomeric Shield Material shaped like a shallow. Filled with rigid foam, it became a lifeboat. Here’s how GE imagined it saving a man from dying in space.
Source: The Wearable Reentry Spacecraft of Yesteryear – Vintage Space : Vintage Space
Russia Probe Now Investigating Cambridge Analytica, Trump’s ‘Psychographic’ Data Gurus
A reminder that our usually-abstract work as analysys have real-world impacts
A data firm backed by some of Donald Trump’s closest allies is now facing scrutiny as part of an investigation into possible collusion between the president’s team and Russian operatives, The Daily Beast has learned.
The House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI) is looking at Cambridge Analytica’s work for President Donald Trump’s campaign as part of its investigation into Russian efforts to meddle in the 2016 race, according to sources familiar with the probe.
The company is in the process of turning over documents to HPSCI, according to a source familiar with the committee’s work. Another source close to the investigation said that the probe’s focus on Cambridge Analytica is “fruitful.”
Source: Russia Probe Now Investigating Cambridge Analytica, Trump’s ‘Psychographic’ Data Gurus
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