- Kat LeveauPersonal Blog
- Carleton College History DepartmentCollege & University
- BetterbeautymovementHealth/Beauty
In the 20th century, we hunted whales nearly to extinction. What possessed us?
https://perspicacity.xyz/…/…/15/we-did-it-to-make-margarine/
Released court documents in the Google-Uber battle have revealed that Google has spent $1.1 billion on self-driving cars so far. Which, in the grand scheme of things, seems like an incredible bargain: Witness Baidu's promise to invest another $1.5 billion in just the next three years.
This is really happening.
https://globenewswire.com/…/Baidu-Announces-Apollo-1-5-and-…
Investors have learned from Uber and Airbnb that it can be worth it to ignore pesky laws, with the hope that society will forgive you if the bet pans out.
I'm officially afraid.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/authorities-launch-investigati…
A new survey of global youth (18-35 yrs old) shows that >70% *strongly* agree that humans are causing climate change. Amazingly, 76% of US youth agree.
Hope.
News from the interface of technology and politics.
It's not clear whether roll-out of self-driving cars will be slowed from fear of litigation, or quickened because Congress will not have the chance to carefully consider safety concerns. But it's pretty clear we'll get more chaos than we deserve.
https://www.cnbc.com/…/us-governments-self-driving-car-coun…
This is the craziest story I have read in a long while. And I look for crazy stories.
http://abcnews.go.com/…/blue-skinned-people-kentucky…/story…
Does the future of power generation include humans? Renewables need barely any maintenance or human intervention; natural gas looks the same.
http://spectrum.ieee.org/…/automation-is-engineering-the-jo…
@TheMissionT Just featured a story of mine from last year. I loved this one; it's worth checking out!
https://medium.com/…/the-placebo-effect-is-a-lie-61a26df35a…
I've been thinking a lot about whether technological progress is killing competition. The linked blog provides a mostly jargon-free summary of a recent economics paper on the issue, which also claims that an increase in profitability is behind the mysterious drop in measured productivity, and possibly the increase in income inequality.
I don't have the depth of background to confirm whether the dramatic rise in profitability the authors see is real, and not some artifact of r...eporting. But if it is right, it's a big deal. Would love to hear comments or criticism.
Original paper: http://www.janeeckhout.com/wp-content/uploads/RMP.pdf
http://www.motherjones.com/…/why-are-corporations-so-damn-…/
My piece on Big Oil is now available in Dutch, thanks to Danny Steenhorts and OliNo Renewable Energy.
Was contacted by Adam Mosam, entrepreneur and founder of Robocars. They are already designing automated delivery vehicles to act as driverless storefronts and logistics support.
The future keeps coming faster than even I think! www.robocars.co
As a follow up to my last piece on the economic implications of robotic delivery, this graph (courtesy of @CBInsights) is eye-opening.
In the late 1990s, my father became a thief...
https://perspicacity.xyz/…/when-delivery-is-free-will-owne…/
Eleven charts that explain the economics behind self-driving cars, and why the car in your garage can't compete.
http://perspicacity.xyz/…/will-you-hire-a-robot-to-be-your…/
Self-driving cars are being hyped for some very good reasons.
http://perspicacity.xyz/…/…/24/this-is-how-big-oil-will-die/
