Google has announced that it’s going to build a gigabit fiber network to nearly every home in Kansas City. See Google’s blog for more details. Consumer internet lines today are typically less than 20 megabits per second. That’s a cap, meaning your actual speed will be much less. Also remember that a bit is different from a byte. So downloading at 20 megabits does not equate to download at 20 megabytes per second. To do the conversion, a gigabit line will provide 125 megabytes per second service to your home. That’s a gigabyte (GB) of data in 8 seconds. For context, a DVD is 4.7GB. That will take 37 seconds to download. A blueray disc is 50GB. That will take you a bit under seven minutes.

All this is theoretical of course. In reality, we’re not really downloading raw data files. We’re streaming.

Gigabit access will allow new applications that don’t exist for consumer use. For example, HD video conferencing. Or streaming HD videos, or steaming high quality music. Even then, the applications aren’t even invented yet because the infrastructure isn’t available.

Google’s project is aimed at proving to the industry, and ultimately to the consumers of the possibilities of truly high speed Internet. The hope is that this would spur demand and be a kick in the behind to the telecom companies to build out the infrastructure.

I can’t even imagine what other applications there will be. How would you use a gigabit line?

The Yellow Pages company has finally learned something, people don’t want their product. It’s forcefully delivered, dumped in our yards, doorsteps, or anywhere the delivery guy can find access. In this digital age, a hard copy Yellow Book is all but obsolete. However, finding bail bonds, pawn shops, and other seedy establishments still is best via a traditional hard copy Yellow Pages (not that I have experience with this).

Go to the opt out page at yellowpagesoptout.com.

While you’re there, you can also download their sustainability report, because Yellow Books are so great for the environment. You can also learn how to recycle your Yellow Pages, because you wanted it in the first place. You can also get some facts on the Yellow Pages. Did you know that directory pages do not come from freshly cut trees? They just come from recycled paper that could be used to produce products that people won’t dump right back into the trash. Way to make a difference in the world Yellow Pages. The only cliches missing on is the obligatory join us on Facebook and Twitter.

Unfortunately, it appears that consumers’ demand for opting out has overwhelmed their servers.

What do you think? Should Yellow Pages be banned? Should it be an opt-in system? If it’s an opt in system, perhaps the business model no longer works. Advertisers want eyeballs on pages.

This really makes me angry. These products create a perception to consumers that their blueberries really are blueberries. Instead, it’s a combination of oils, sugars, coloring. Unfortunately, what’s the alternative? Ban these products and leave people with no alternative? The natural food products with real blueberries are expensive. A large family on a small income could not afford these natural products.

What alternatives are there?

Gordon Gekko is a fictional character. For most, he’s known for his Greed is Good speech. However, he never literally says that greed IS good.

Below is the speech in its entirety. It’s a shame to take it out of context and say that greed is good. Instead, I believe that Mr. Gekko is pointing out a true fact of our modern economy. Management, the leaders that lead our country and the leaders of America’s corporations do not have a financial stake in the companies they run.

Gordon Gekko: [at the Teldar Paper stockholder's meeting] Well, I appreciate the opportunity you’re giving me Mr. Cromwell as the single largest shareholder in Teldar Paper, to speak. Well, ladies and gentlemen we’re not here to indulge in fantasy but in political and economic reality. America, America has become a second-rate power. Its trade deficit and its fiscal deficit are at nightmare proportions. Now, in the days of the free market when our country was a top industrial power, there was accountability to the stockholder. The Carnegies, the Mellons, the men that built this great industrial empire, made sure of it because it was their money at stake. Today, management has no stake in the company! All together, these men sitting up here own less than three percent of the company. And where does Mr. Cromwell put his million-dollar salary? Not in Teldar stock; he owns less than one percent. You own the company. That’s right, you, the stockholder. And you are all being royally screwed over by these, these bureaucrats, with their luncheons, their hunting and fishing trips, their corporate jets and golden parachutes.

Cromwell: This is an outrage! You’re out of line Gekko!

Gordon Gekko: Teldar Paper, Mr. Cromwell, Teldar Paper has 33 different vice presidents each earning over 200 thousand dollars a year. Now, I have spent the last two months analyzing what all these guys do, and I still can’t figure it out. One thing I do know is that our paper company lost 110 million dollars last year, and I’ll bet that half of that was spent in all the paperwork going back and forth between all these vice presidents. The new law of evolution in corporate America seems to be survival of the unfittest. Well, in my book you either do it right or you get eliminated. In the last seven deals that I’ve been involved with, there were 2.5 million stockholders who have made a pretax profit of 12 billion dollars. Thank you. I am not a destroyer of companies. I am a liberator of them! The point is, ladies and gentleman, that greed, for lack of a better word, is good. Greed is right, greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit. Greed, in all of its forms; greed for life, for money, for love, knowledge has marked the upward surge of mankind. And greed, you mark my words, will not only save Teldar Paper, but that other malfunctioning corporation called the USA. Thank you very much.

Wall Street – {IMDB}

What do you think? This is just a conceptional plead. How do we implement this?

Photo by gruntzookiIt’s been a long time since I’ve played economist. It really doesn’t take much training because all economists don’t really know how to predict the future. Economics is all about assumptions.

As we’re looking to buy a home in Seattle, WA, we’re finding that home prices are still expensive. There’s a big disconnect between listing price vs. actual value. I pulled data from the Standard and Poor’s Case-Shiller index. Lets assume that the methodology for developing the index is correct and a good representation of home values in Seattle (first assumption). My second assumption is that homes should appreciate by the rate of inflation. The real estate mantra is location, location, location. Prices in up and coming neighborhoods should in theory increase more than homes that are already priced in the demand for hot neighborhoods. As an investment vehicle, homes are suppose to track inflation in developed neighborhoods and in up and coming neighborhoods, prices should appreciate to reward investors for the risk. Thirdly, improvements to homes from remodeling, renovation, and enhancements should add equity to homes, but only as a fraction of the original investment.

If we focus only on the index and assume that the period between 1990 and 1997 is a good representation of normal growth, we can extrapolate the “correct” growth in home values. This is shown in the flow line below. The grey line represents actual home prices with the recent “bubble” in home values. When the bubble popped in 2007/2008, we see a sharp decline in home values. Macroeconomic factors such as joblessness rate, rising national debt, and expectations of increasing tax rates creates uncertainty. As uncertainty in the state of the economy increases, buyers are less likely to take on the risk of home ownership.

If we assume the blue line represents a more realistic model of growth in home values, home prices will need to either do two things:

1. Decline – the prices should drop until it reaches the support blue line and then track that line. The question is how fast will it drop and what artificial policies will be enacted to keep such a sharp decline. If the decline is too sharp, everyone will lose faith in the ponzi-scheme system and the system collapses.
2. Flatline – alternatively, home prices should stabilize and stay flat until it intersects the blue line. Based on my assumptions, this could take upwards of a decade to reach a stable price point.

A rebuttal to this model is that there’s only so much land and population increases will create demand. However, there are unforeseen alternatives. People could move. Technology allows people to be less location dependent. There’s no need to live central to the city for jobs. New housing policies could push for high density homes. There’s no specific reasons why home prices need to appreciate more than inflation.

In my future analysis, I’ll look at the impacts on generational changes (baby boomers retiring) and first time home buyers influx.

Disclaimer: The analysis presented above should be used for entertainment purposes. Please do not use it to make financial decisions. I am not a home owner and have financial interest in seeing home prices decline.

1. Amazon Mechanical Turk – Unlike other automated computing sourcing systems, Amazon relies on human beings to perform small tasks. When combined, hundreds of thousands of individuals perform tasks for a few cents to dollars. Some example tasks could be finding an image of a Point of Interest and uploading it.
2. Wikipedia – This online encyclopedia is completely volunteer written. Anyone can make changes and update the site. Surprisingly, there is virtually no spam on the site. The close knit community keeps everything at bay. There’s always someone that’s an expert in one narrow subject. The site is constantly updated and a go to source for information.
3. OpenOffice - Through a volunteer community, OpenOffice has developed an open source Microsoft Office replacement. The volunteers include programmers, quality control reviewers, user experience, writing, and marketing.
4. BOINC - UC Berkley developed this platform for volunteer computing and desktop grid computing. Users signup for various scientific research projects such as SETI (finding green men on Mars). Pieces of data are transmitted to volunteer computers for computation and sent back to the lab for compilation. Most users don’t fully use their computers potential. This project allows those unused processing power to combine into one massive supercomputer.
5. StumbleUpon - Like other voting sites such as Digg, StumbleUpon users submit interesting URLs and they get voted up and down. The popular ones particulate up the stream and become headline stories. This is how viral marketing sites get top hits.

I’m currently reading Brain Rules. Rule 7 is “sleep well, think well.” Sleep deprivation costs US businesses more than $100 billion a year. That’s no chump change.

Loss of sleep hurts attention, execution function, working memory, mood, quantitative skills, logical reasoning, and even motor dexterity.

What if we change the way we work. Rather than the typical 9-to-5 model, what if we allowed employees to work when they are most effective. The night owls can stay late at night and the early risers can come in early. Would it be possible to gain productivty, create a better quality of life for employees, and reduce the sleep deficit. This way, night owls don’t have to wake up early to get to work and early risers don’t have to stay late to punch  the clock.

If we replace the sleep deprivation with optimal sleep, employees may actually increase their productivity. Work may be higher quality, innovation may increase, errors will be reduced, and customer service may be better.

Photo by Casey Serin

On a personal note, I’ve been struggling with sleep problems for the past few months. At the bottom of my problems, the lack of quality sleep made me moody, created memory loss, slowed my thinking, and drained my motivation. I had to work twice as hard just to accomplish tasks I could previously do. After a sleep study, some medical treatment, I’m slowly getting back to 100%. Sleep deprivation is a debt we owe. You can’t simply take a pill or buy a new bed and expect to recover instantly. For me, I’ve found that the changes are helping but it’s taking weeks to recover from months and years of deprivation.

Changing people’s behavior isn’t hard, it just takes some imagination and innovative ways. We go through our daily lives following a set of unwritten rules, socially acceptable behaviors. When things change, we’re not sure how to react. Watch this video to see how people’s behavior changed when a new variable is added.

On a more personal note, there’s a similar display at Seattle airport. The water fountain plays a gurgling sound when you press the button.

via Piano Staircase {The Fun Theory}

The New York Time developed an amazing webapp that allows you to make policy decisions to attempt to close the Federal budget deficit. It’s too easy to say that congress isn’t doing their job, or the President is wrong, etc. Instead, this is your chance to sit in the chair and make the decisions. What is missing is the backlash that comes with cutting programs, may be an audio boo could be used.

This also reminds me a lot of Sim City. Simulation software can be a great tool to engage audiences in discussion. Rather than talk about issues, actually simulate it and create discussion and engagement.