Lynne Kiesling I recommend this recent Grant McCracken post about Coca-Cola in the U.S. and Mexico. Grant asks if the reason more Americans are buying Mexican Coke (and Coca-Cola is trying to stop it) is about taste. Perhaps. But several of his commenters hit on the crucial distinction between the two formulations: Mexican Coke still …
Coca-Cola: U.S. Fructose Sugar or Mexican Sucrose Sugar? Read More »
Lynne Kiesling So then I go check out Eric Raymond’s reply to Jaron Lanier, and his critique of Lanier focuses on two aspects that I wanted to use as follow-up posts. The first is Liebowitz and Margolis’s “Fable of the Keys” argument: The essay continues with a vulgar error about technology lock-in effects. I yield …
Lynne Kiesling I can already tell that I am going to enjoy the Cato Unbound series on the Internet and technology. Jaron Lanier’s initial essay is full of provocative claims and ideas; I’ve been mulling over some of them all weekend. He ranges from criticizing the path-dependent nature of the file structure of operating systems …
Lynne Kiesling While I’m at Wired, their car blog Autopia is an interesting read, particularly if you are interested in hybrid and/or hydrogen vehicle technologies. The current top post is on an Edmunds estimate that hybrids drivers saved $112 million in fuel costs in 2005. The commenters also raise some good points.
Lynne Kiesling Interesting news item from Wired: Sonic Fabric is made from recycled audio tape woven with cotton, and it can be played to create (or re-create!) sound from four of the tracks on the tape. Sonic Fabric is the creation of audio-visual artist Alyce Santoro, and the Wired article describes the origins of the …
Lynne Kiesling Yesterday I attended a conference at Carnegie-Mellon on valuation of distributed monitoring and sensing technologies. One of the primary benefits of distributed sensing is that it reduces transaction costs and information costs, thus leading to more efficient transactions and to the developement of new products, services, and markets. Sadly, this benefit is really, …
Distributed Sensing in Networks: The Example of Traffic Read More »
Lynne Kiesling From the privatization file … the city of Rochester, NY has closed its high-speed passenger+car catamaran service between Rochester and Toronto. According to an article from Newsday, The city’s new mayor, Robert Duffy, rejected a $11.5 million loan request to bankroll the Lake Ontario ferry service in 2006. Instead, he will ask the …
Lynne Kiesling Steve Horwitz’s musings on complexity and snowflakes is a great read that raises an important question: why are so many of us willing to accept and appreciate emergent order processes when they occur in non-human nature? Why do some think differently about snowflakes in the air and eggnog in the store? People who …
Lynne Kiesling So the attempt to attach provisions to drill for oil in ANWR to a defense bill has failed. Should we be bugged about this? I think it depends on which forecasts you believe. Here’s what I mean: over the past five years I’ve had several different group research projects in which students perform …
Lynne Kiesling In addition to his very useful website, David Friedman now has a blog, Ideas. Expect thought provoking questions and ideas. I can’t remember whom to thank for the link, because I followed it in an insomnia-induced frenzy the other day. But thank you.
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