Networks

Dot’s Airline Price Gouging Investigation and a Political Economy-based Prediction

On Friday, the U.S. Department of Transportation announced it had launched an investigation into possible “unfair practices (e.g., price gouging) affecting air travel during the period of time that Amtrak service along the Northeast Corridor was delayed or suspended as a result of the May 12th derailment.” Five airlines received letters from the agency seeking …

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The Sharing Economy and the Electricity Industry

In a recent essay, the Rocky Mountain Institute’s Matthew Crosby asks “will there ever be an AirBnB or Uber for the electricity grid?” It’s a good question, a complicated question, and one that I have pondered myself a few times. He correctly identifies the characteristics of such platforms that have made them attractive and successful, …

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Complexity, Heuristics, and the Traveling Salesman Problem

Add this one to your long reads queue, because it’s well worth it: Tom Vanderbilt writes in Nautilus about the traveling salesman problem and how algorithmic optimization helps us understand human behavior more deeply. It’s a thorough and nuanced analysis of the various applications of algorithms to solve the traveling salesman problem — what’s the …

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Don’t Bet Against Netflix, at Least Not Now

Michael Giberson Jonathan Knee argues that Netflix is succeeding the way big media companies always have succeeded, in a time where such opportunities are less frequent than before. From The Atlantic: The economic structure of the media business is not fundamentally different from that of business in general. The most-prevalent sources of industrial strength are …

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Netflix Recommendations: Deep or Random?

Michael Giberson I know that Netflix’s recommendation engine has some serious computation behind it, and it often offers up interesting and useful suggestions. But occasionally it puzzles me, and I wonder if it is incredibly deep in its analysis or simply somewhat random. Case in point: Suggested: American Experience: Into the Deep Because you enjoyed: It Might …

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The Natural Gas That Didn’t Come in from the Cold

Michael Giberson Among the complications caused by the cold weather last week, short supply of natural gas throughout much of the southwest United States. Reports indicate some gas wells were freezing up and loss of electric power to gas production systems, but more of the problem was loss of power to natural gas pipelines. And, …

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Klein’s Review of The Wealth of Networks

Lynne Kiesling I like Peter Klein’s review in the Independent Review of Yochai Benkler’s The Wealth of Networks. Apart from giving a good overview of the Benkler work, Peter offers some original insights that are worth thinking about. For example: To ensure open access to the networked economy, Benkler favors a public-ownership network infrastructure, loose …

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FCC and Internet Regulation: “Lobbyists on Both Sides Are Already Shopping for New Vacation Houses in Aspen”

Michael Giberson From Regulation 2.0: Frustrated by a federal appeals court ruling that the FCC had no authority to second-guess Comcast’s treatment of customers and under pressure from the Obama Administration to impose a net neutrality regime (whatever that truly means) on the broadband industry, FCC Chair Julius Genachowski is now asserting the commission’s right …

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