The Market of Daft Punk Helmet-Replicas
Anscheinend hat sich im Laufe der Jahre ein Markt für DIY-Daft Punk-Helme gebildet, da die Jungs und die Firma, die die Originale herstellt, keine Replicas herausgeben, unter anderem geht’s im Posting vom Wall Street Journal um den alten NC-Bekannten Harrison Krix aka Volpin Props:
Harrison Krix, 30, was working at an ad agency in Atlanta when he decided to try his hand at re-creating a Daft Punk helmet for a prospective buyer in California four years ago. After months of blueprinting, mold-making, sculpting and sanding, Mr. Krix shipped his helmet to an automotive shop that specialized in chrome plating, installed circuit boards and eventually delivered a shimmering gold specimen nearly identical to the first one worn by Mr. de Homem-Christo, complete with rainbow LEDs. […]
Kevin Sanders, founder of the Daft Club, a London fan site, says he started seeing so much helmet-hawking in discussion forums that he created a special page where buyers and sellers could connect.
Mr. Sanders said his website has tracked a 365% jump in the number of members seeking helmets last month from the year earlier. Helmets without programmable light displays cost from $200 to $500; computerized designs run up to several thousand dollars.
Fans Lose Their Heads in Pursuit of Daft Punk Helmets
Und weil’s passt: Das Mixmag hat gestern einen Bonustrack von der japanischen Ausgabe von RAM auf Soundcloud gepostet:
(via Dangerous Minds)
Paul Krugmans Theory of Interstellar Trade
Ich hatte grade meinen Spaß mit Paul Krugmans Wirtschaftstheorie vom interstellaren Handel bei Lichtgeschwindigkeit: The Theory of Interstellar Trade (PDF). Das Teil ist von vorne bis hinten mit SciFi-Anspielungen gespickt – Krugman hat das Vorwort der Neuauflage von Asimovs Foundation geschrieben – und schließt mit den Worten: „Those of us working in this field are still a small band, but we know that the Force is with us.“ Hell, yeah!
This paper extends interplanetary trade theory to an interstellar setting. It is chiefly concerned with the following question: how should interest charges on goods in transit be computed when the goods travel at close to the speed of light? This is a problem because the time taken in transit will appear less to an observer travelling with the goods than to a stationary observer.
Candy for Cows
Der Preis für Nutzviehfutter ist anscheinend mittlerweile so teuerspekuliert worden, das es für Bauern günstiger geworden ist, Gummibärchen, Schokolade und Kekse and ihre Viecher zu verfüttern.
Feeding candy to cows has become a more popular practice in tandem with the rising price of corn, which has doubled since 2009, fueled by government-subsidized demand for ethanol and this year’s drought. […] While corn goes for about $315 a ton, ice-cream sprinkles can be had for as little as $160 a ton.
“As the price of corn has climbed, farmers either sold off their pigs and cattle, or they found alternative feeds,” said Mike Yoder, a dairy farmer in Middlebury, Ind. He feeds his 400 cows bits of candy, hot chocolate mix, crumbled cookies, breakfast cereal, trail mix, dried cranberries, orange peelings and ice cream sprinkles, which are blended into more traditional forms of feed, like hay.
Calculating the Costs of Commander Hadfields Musicvideo in Space:
Randal Munroe rechnet auf seinem What If-Blog aus, wieviel Commander Hadfields Space Oddity-Video an Board der ISS gekostet hat: ISS Music Video – Is this the most expensive music video ever?
Capitalism is evil, now proven by Science (and mice!)
In einem Experiment haben Wissenschaftler Belege dafür gefunden, dass wirtschaftliche Entscheidungen am Markt die Wertschätzung anderer Lebewesen beeinträchtigt. Konkret ging es darum, Überschüsse an Labormäusen aufzukaufen, die andernfalls getötet werden würden. Die Probanden haben durchaus bezahlt, die wirtschaftlichen Verhandlungen aber haben die Preise gedrückt. Daraus folgt, dass wirtschaftliches Handeln den moralischen Kompass verändert und das Leben der Mäuse an Wert verliert: Capitalism is evil.
The possibility that market interaction may erode moral values is a long-standing, but controversial, hypothesis in the social sciences, ethics, and philosophy. To date, empirical evidence on decay of moral values through market interaction has been scarce. We present controlled experimental evidence on how market interaction changes how human subjects value harm and damage done to third parties.
In the experiment, subjects decide between either saving the life of a mouse or receiving money. We compare individual decisions to those made in a bilateral and a multilateral market. In both markets, the willingness to kill the mouse is substantially higher than in individual decisions. Furthermore, in the multilateral market, prices for life deteriorate tremendously.
Bitcoin Network is 8x „faster“ than the Top 500 Supercomputers combined
Die Rechnung ist ein bisschen Bullshit, da Bitcoins mit Grafikkarten gemined werden und die keine FLOPS generieren, in denen die Leistung von Prozessoren beschrieben wird. Der Umkehrschluss, den sie dort allerdings ziehen, ist immer noch ziemlich beeindruckend. Und der ganze Rechenwahn alleine für die Gier.
The bitcoin network hashrate estimate on bitcoinwatch.com passed 1 exaFLOPS (1,000 petaFLOPS) this week – over 8 times the combined speed of the top 500 supercomputers. […]
The fastest computer, Sequoia, would measure at about 1.6% of the bitcoin network. Their combined speed is 48 petaFLOPS, roughly equivalent to 5% of the bitcoin network. In fact, the top 500 supercomputers have a combined speed of 12% of the bitcoin network.
Bitcoin Network Speed 8 Times Faster than Top 500 Supercomputers Combined
DataVisualized SloMo High Frequency-Trading
Youtube Direkttrade, via Motherboard
Die Marktanalysten von Nanex, die vor einem Jahr bereits High Frequency Trading in einem sensationellen GIF visualisierten, haben nun eine halbe Sekunde HFT auf sechs Minuten gedehnt und visualisiert.
Watch High Frequency Traders (HFT) at the millisecond level jam thousands of quotes in the stock of Johnson and Johnson (JNJ) through our financial networks on May 2, 2013. Video shows 1/2 second of time. If any of the connections are not running perfectly, High Frequency Traders can profit from the price discrepancies that result. There is no economic justification for this abusive behavior.
Each box represents one exchange. The SIP (CQS in this case) is the box at 6 o’clock. It shows the National Best Bid/Offer. Watch how much it changes in a fraction of a second. The shapes represent quote changes which are the result of a change to the top of the book at each exchange. The time at the bottom of the screen is Eastern Time HH:MM:SS:mmm (mmm = millisecond). We slow time down so you can see what goes on at the millisecond level. A millisecond (ms) is 1/1000th of a second.
Note how every exchange must process every quote from the others — for proper trade through price protection. This complex web of technology must run flawlessly every millisecond of the trading day, or arbitrage (HFT profit) opportunities will appear. It is easy for HFTs to cause delays in one or more of the connections between each exchange.
Vorher auf Nerdcore:
Son of Godzillas Bad Hair Day: High Frequency Trading Ethernet-Engine
High Frequency Trading in Super Slow Audio
High Frequency Trading GIF’d
Molly Crabapples Shell Game: CC-Release in HighRes
Molly Crabapple hatte am 1. Mai ihre Gemäldeserie Shell Game, über die ich schon ein paar mal gebloggt hatte, unter CC in HighRes veröffentlicht:
Today is May Day. The day of workers, immigrants, beautiful young girls, and rebellion. I’m releasing all the art from SHELL GAME on Creative Commons. Share. Remix. Make art. Wheatpaste the world.
Bankster whining about their Millions
Auf der unglaublichen Website eFinancial Careers erklären Bankster, warum sie mit ihren Millionengehältern nicht zurecht kommen. Tipp von dort: Monogamie und Freunde außerhalb der Branche, die läppische 25000 englische Pfund verdienen. Um dem wiederum ein bisschen Perspektive zu geben: Der durchschnittliche Banker bei den Verbrechern von Goldman Sachs hat letztes Jahr 676.000 Dollar verdient.
The best antidote to over-spending is to retain a single partner for life, said Cooper: it helps put things in context. Alternatively, try cultivating friendships outside of banking. “I always had a lot of hobbies which brought me into contact with people from different walks of life,” said Shapiro. “I always knew people who earned £25k-30k a year.”
When a million isn’t enough: why top bankers are struggling to get by
Bitcoins in Kreuzberg
Der Guardian über Bitcoins im Kreuzberger Graefekiez, wo derzeit die höchste Dichte von RealWorld-Shops die digitale Währung annehmen.
These […] tradespeople are among around a dozen in the Graefekiez, a cosy neighbourhood established in the 19th century in the southern Berlin district of Kreuzberg, which currently boasts the highest density of businesses accepting the currency in the world. Its growing list of Bitcoin establishments includes a restaurant, a printing shop, a bar and boutique.
Bitcoin: the Berlin streets where you can shop with virtual money
Apple Store Afghanistan
Schönes Posting auf Quartz über den ersten Apple Store in Kabul, Afghanistan.
Mohammed Nasery, the store’s sales manager, told Quartz he sells the 16GB iPhone 5 for $700, about $50 more than its price in America. The merchandise comes from Dubai, where the 16GB iPhone 5 retails for 2599 dirhams (about $710). With discounts for buying in bulk, he estimates that margins vary from $10 to $50 across products. […]
“It’s very trendy to own an iPhone or an iPad. These young Afghans work around foreigners who have iPods and Macs and iPads, and they want them too,” Rahimi told students from USC Annenberg in an interview last year. “If you see a woman using an iPhone, even if she’s wearing the hijab you know she’s got money and that she wants people to notice her. You don’t really look twice if she’s on a Nokia, you know?”
The unofficial Apple store in Afghanistan
Newspaper Downfall-Photography
Großartige Fotoserie von Will Steacy über die schweren Zeiten des Philadelphia Inquirer, der 2009 Bankrott anmeldete und aus einem riesigen Zeitungs-Komplex namens Tower of Truth in ein einziges Stockwerk in einem Bürogebäude umziehen musste. Von Wired:
The extreme downsizing of the Philadelphia Inquirer is a stand-in for what we know has been happening to newspapers across the country for the last decade. Since its bankruptcy filing in 2009 it has moved from the 526,000-square-foot Tower of Truth to a single floor in an office building.
Photographer Will Steacy has been documenting these financially difficult years for the paper, giving a unique perspective on the national downsizing and closures that are easily dismissed as just numbers.
“I wanted to create a portrait that showed the reality,” says Steacy, whose father worked at the Inquirer for 29 years.
Philly Inquirer’s Hard Years Are Microcosm of Newspapers’ Long Goodbye
Economics of Ice & Fire
Großartige Podcast-Serie auf Slate von Matthew Yglesias über die Wirtschaft in Game Of Thrones. Überhaupt: Habt Ihr die Folge vom Wochenende gesehen? Mother of Dragons, fuck yeah! Jedenfalls: Wirtschaft, Drachen und Gold… die dritte Folge des Podcasts bezieht sich halbwegs direkt auf die letzte Folge und den Markt der Drachen. Großartig!
Economics of Ice & Fire I: House Tyrell Is Richer Than House Lannister: „As you watch members of House Lannister and House Tyrell scheme for control over King’s Landing here’s something to keep in mind. The Westeroi conventional wisdom that that the Lannisters are the richest house in the Seven Kingdoms is dead wrong. House Tyrell is number one in all the ways that count.“
Economics of Ice & Fire II: The Lannisters’ Subprime Lending: „A later post will explain why it’s no surprise that the agriculturally oriented Reach supports a larger city than the mining-based Westerlands. But for now let’s consider the other objection, that in addition to its gold mines, House Lannister possesses valuable assets in the form of debts incurred by the Iron Throne.“
Economics of Ice and Fire, Part 3: The Market for Dragons:
There are very few dragon sales happening, so the price of dragons hinges entirely on the idiosyncratic decision-making leading up to a single transaction. Nobody knows what price a dragon would fetch if Daenerys tried to offer it up at a widely publicized auction. What we know (from the books where the transaction is spelled out in more detail) is that Kraznys Mo Nakloz is willing to trade 1,000 Unsullied for the goods carried by the Vhagar, the Meraxes, and the Balerion and to trade 1,000 more for the three ships themselves. But for her plan to work, Daenerys needs to buy all 8,600 Unsullied. Krazynys agrees to sell the whole lot for the three ships, their contents, and a single dragon. Hence a dragon is worth 6,600 Unsullied, a ship is worth 333 Unsullied, and thus a dragon is worth approximately 20 ships.
Spoilers are involved in the details, but from the books we know that Sallador San has at least 29 ships left after the Battle of Blackwater, so in pure financial terms, three dragons does not seem to make House Targaryen all that rich compared to the great houses of Westeros. Certainly, though, it’s valuable property.
Data Visualizing the Identity of Satoshi Nakamoto
Spannendes Posting auf Bitslog, wo man die ersten Bitcoins visualisiert hat. Ich steig’ selbst nicht ganz durch, aber anscheinend lässt sich anhand dieses Verfahrens, wenn die Identität auch nur einer Bitcoin-Transaktion rauskommt, die Identität von Bitcoin-Erschaffer Satoshi Nakamoto quasi per Reverse Engineering herausfinden. Ich tendiere bei Bitcoins mittlerweile zu „Größtes Netz-Wirtschafts-Kunstprojekt aller Zeiten“, wer weiß, was da am Ende bei rauskommt…
In the following graphs each dot is the creation of 50 BTC. I have only analyzed and printed graphs from block 0 upto block 36288. […] I can’t assure with 100% certainty that the all the black dots are owned by Satoshi, but almost all are owned by a single entity, and that entity began mining right from block 1, and with the same performance as the genesis block. It can be identified by constant slope segments that occasionally restart. Also this entity is the only entity that has shown complete trust in Bitcoin, since it hasn’t spend any coins (as last as the eye can see). I estimate at eyesight that Satoshi fortune is around 1M Bitcoins, or 100M USD at current exchange rate.[…]
One of the consequences of these graph is that if the real name of the sender of a single transaction belonging to the entity is identified, then Satoshi mystery identity will be revealed. I bet that this will happen in the days following this post.
The Well Deserved Fortune of Satoshi Nakamoto, Bitcoin creator, Visionary and Genius (via Adafruit)
