The view from Montana

Unfortunately, this is about all of Montana I got to see.



There was a storm cloud hanging over Great Falls dumping snow for 4 consecutive days, preventing me from being able to do much outside the Holiday Inn Express.

From what I did see, Great Falls was a rather unattractive city -- it is littered with big box stores, aging industrial buildings, and 1 cent casinos. I was hoping to drive down to Helena and Bozeman on the way to Yellowstone, but the snow and ice created road closings all around Great Falls, preventing me from being able to leave the city.

I mean, literally, it was only snowing in one part of the country:

So I boarded a plane home early, but the snow at the airport delayed take off, causing me to miss my next flight.

The bad news got worse when I found out the next flight to Atlanta didn't leave until 3am ET. To add insult to injury, Delta refused to pay for a hotel or rental car, leaving me stranded at the Salt Lake City airport.

Things turned up from there. I made the best of a bad situation and started exploring the airport: I found interesting vending machines, watched the planes take off and land from behind the fence, people-watched, admired the often ignored artwork, examined barbed wire (honestly, it doesn't look too hard to climb over -- but I'd love to know how it's made), eavesdropped on airport employee conversations, watched a zamboni-like floor cleaner, and walked for miles.



In my adventures, I learned about a free bus service from the airport to Temple Square. You can imagine my excitement. I had heard LDS missionaries describe their feelings for this temple, and they even handed me a miniature postcard of the building, so I was anxious to see it myself.

It did not disappoint. Non-mormons are not allowed to enter the temple (and, in fact, I think you have to be baptized Mormon for at least a year before being allowed to enter), but from the outside it was gorgeous, as was the rest of the square. It was interesting to me how the majestic square compared to the immediate surroundings, which were full of construction, low-income apartments, and various commercial buildings. One building in the square had 5 acres of gardens on the roof with waterfalls flowing down the side, and immediately behind it was a set of boxy-looking apartment buildings.



The trip didn't go as planned, but you know what? It was successful.

I saw a city I haven't seen before, met interesting people on the planes, and, most importantly, I am no longer missing my mom and my girlfriend's birthdays, nor am I missing the defense of my girlfriend's thesis.

Yellowstone can wait.

Why do the Japanese live longer? [video]

To paraphrase the woman from this Nightline video: Well, duh.

What happens when newspapers go away?

A study by Princeton economists argues that the closing of the Cincinnati Post led to lower voter turnout, fewer candidates running for municipal office in the suburbs most reliant on The Post, and greater re-election chances for incumbents. Further, they argue that even a small newspaper can make local politics more vibrant -- something that television, radio, and blogs have not done with much success.

[Hat tip: Economix]

Political instability index [chart]

The Economist created an index for the political instability in each country, as shown in the chart below.



The index is based on 15 measures including the following: inequality, state history, corruption, ethnic fragmentation, trust in institutions, status of minorities, history of political instability, proclivity to labor unrest, level of social provision, the country's neighborhood, regime type, factionalism, income growth, unemployment, and income per head. (Full methodology here.)

To me, the map above looks mighty similar to the inverse of the map below, showing GDP per capita.



Some quick calculations using the IMF's GDP per capita estimates show that the correlation is -0.63.

Scott Adams

Anyone who reads Scott Adams' blog will tell you that he is one of the most fascinating people on the planet. 60 Minutes is missing an amazing story.

This 4/24 Columbus Dispatch article doesn't tell the half of it, but it's a start.

3-D printing is getting cheaper

. . . so much so that it could change fine art as we know it.

ScienceDaily article

Perspective on the NFL draft

Across the past 10 years, 2,548 players were drafted by NFL teams. Of these…

46.9% appeared in the post-season,

6.9% appeared in the Super Bowl,

7.7% appeared in the Pro Bowl,

0.12% were league MVP,

and 13.0% never played in the NFL.


[Statistics from a chart in the May 2009 issue of ESPN the Magazine. Via Wages of Wins.]

Wine consumption per capita [infographic]

Click to enlarge

[Via Strange Maps]

Seeing purpose where there isn't

An article in Cognition describes the tendency for people to irrationally believe in purpose-based explanations :

Research has found that children possess a broad bias in favor of teleological – or purpose-based – explanations of natural phenomena. The current two experiments explored whether adults implicitly possess a similar bias. In Study 1, undergraduates judged a series of statements as “good” (i.e., correct) or “bad” (i.e., incorrect) explanations for why different phenomena occur. Judgments occurred in one of three conditions: fast speeded, moderately speeded, or unspeeded. Participants in speeded conditions judged significantly more scientifically unwarranted teleological explanations as correct (e.g., “the sun radiates heat because warmth nurtures life”), but were not more error-prone on control items (e.g., unwarranted physical explanations such as “hills form because floodwater freezes”). Study 2 extended these findings by examining the relationship between different aspects of adults’ “promiscuous teleology” and other variables such as scientific knowledge, religious beliefs, and inhibitory control. Implications of these findings for scientific literacy are discussed.

Average college student budget [infographic]

Click to enlarge

Infographic from Westwood College.

I can just imagine Ed Tufte's eyes glowing red looking at this -- "it is alright to decorate construction but never construct decoration".

[Hat tip: Cool Infographics]

Beware Conclusions

The rage for wanting to conclude is one of the most deadly and most fruitless manias to befall humanity. Each religion and each philosophy has pretended to have God to itself, to measure the infinite, and to know the recipe for happiness. What arrogance and what nonsense! I see, to the contrary, that the greatest geniuses and the greatest works have never concluded.

Clifford Geertz, Available Light (also found in Tufte, Beautiful Evidence)

Bob Dylan in Durham July 28

He's bringing Willie Nelson and John Mellencamp to the Durham Bulls Athletic Park as part of his minor league baseball stadium tour. Tickets will set you back $67.50, which is why I'll be listening from the tobacco district next door.

A word of advice to the parents out there: Don't bring the kids. They are not likely to appreciate it, and it might even frighten them.

PR-inside 5/07: Bob Dylan reportedly scared the children at his grandson's kindergarten after treating them to a live show.

Off to Montana

I feel very fortunate to be working for a company that sends me to places like Alaska and Montana; I mean, seriously, how many people get to go to Montana or Alaska on business?

I will be out all next week including some personal time off to visit Yellowstone and/or Glacier National Park. I might or might not post some photos next week, but I have plenty of other posts lined up so that Wehr in the World addicts don't go into withdrawal. (Or just because I have a huge backlog built up, but I prefer the former explanation).

Vanity and Anatomy

Images from Fernando Vincente. [Via Boing Boing]

Felipe Assadi architecture

Many more beautiful examples at FelipeAssadi.com.

[Hat tip: Design Milk]

Jesus, Interrupted

Bart Ehrman, born again evangelist turned liberal Christian turned agnostic -- and now chair of the Department of Religious Studies at the UNC Chapel Hill -- talked yesterday with Frank Stasio of The State of Things about his latest book, Jesus, Interrupted (full program available here).

The interview is thought-provoking and well worth a listen. I found Ehrman's argument to be surprisingly calm and well-reasoned for a man who, I'm sure, is receiving hair-curling hate mail by the boatload.

The blogging profession

WSJ 4/21: America's Newest Profession: Bloggers for Hire

To no one's surprise, the blogosphere quickly picked up on this article and collectively blog-smacked the author's use of misleading statistics overstating the earnings to blogging, forcing the author to post a response at the end of the article.

Good Meeting

More New Math.

I could easily see this stuff turned into a daily blog ala Indexed.

Immigrating to suburbia

The New York times has another excellent infographic feature showing the flight of immigrants to the suburbs.

[hat tip: Map Scroll]

Taco trucks in Los Angeles [video]

Nightline profiles a Korean taco truck in Los Angeles.

I can't say for certain, but Durham may have the best taco truck scene this side of the Mississippi. The northern part of Durham especially is like a miniature Los Angeles. Carpe Durham -- an excellent local food blog written by Duke law students -- has two posts on Durham taco trucks here and here.



One thing I wonder about is the economics of taco trucks. Maybe I will solicit an interview from one of the local entrepreneurs.

North Dakota!

I know it's ironic to see North Dakota and an exclamation point in the same sentence, but it took slightly over 5 months for Wehr in the World to land a visitor from North Dakota. The exclamation point was deserved because this means the Google Analytics map is all green for the first time!



I must say, tracking the geographic spread of visitors has been one of my favorite parts of blogging. It's amazing how quickly a fairly obscure blog like this one can reach all parts of the globe. (If you're interested, you can see a more detailed map of visitor locations on the ClustrMaps page.)

Now, Wehr in the World just needs one visitor from Serbia and Montenegro to complete the map of Europe.



In hopes of having a Serbia and Montenegro visitor land here by accident, allow me to shamelessly endorse their favorite beers...

-Everyone's favorite lager: Jelen Pivo (deer beer).
-Or who could forget the unique lager made from barley, hard mountain water, and bitter and aromatic hop: Nikšićko Pivo?
-Pivara MB d.o.o. za proizvodnju piva Novi Sad (full legal name).
-And finally, Lav Pivo (lion beer), the high quality lager manufacted by Carlsberg Srbija -- also available in the stronger Lav 7 or silky smooth Lav Premium.

[thanks, wikipedia.]

Consumer responses to restaurant nutritional facts

How do consumers respond when restaurants post nutritional information?

To summarize the findings from one paper: It's complicated.

ScienceDaily explains :

The researchers found that providing nutritional information can influence subsequent food consumption, especially when consumers' expectations are not fulfilled when they examine the information. "When a 'great taste' claim was used to describe a restaurant menu item, the provision of calorie information did not affect consumers' perceptions, presumably because foods that claim great taste are typically expected to be relatively high in calories," the authors explain. "On the other hand, when a 'low calorie' claim was presented but the menu item was higher in calories than expected, the provision of nutritional information increased the perceived likelihood of 1) gaining weight and 2) developing heart disease."

Improving roads with art

The 20 minute video below from the 2006 Gel conference discusses the emergence of "road-witching" -- activist art installed on roads to serve as traffic calming devices. You can learn more about road-witching here.

What interests me about road witching is that the positive and negative effects on accidents seem to wash out -- that is, in places that have been "witched", there is no evidence of a decline in traffic accidents or seriousness of accidents. So the positive effect of slowing down traffic approximately equals the negative effect of distracting drivers.


Ted Dewan at euroGel 2006 from Gel Conference on Vimeo.

NC state parks now accepting online campsite reservations

The new system allowing campsite reservations at any of North Carolina's 37 state parks debuts tomorrow, Wednesday, on ncparks.gov.

P.S. - You can already reserve a site at 44 non-state-affiliated NC campgrounds and many other nationwide campgrounds using recreation.gov.

I found this quote from a WRAL article amusing:

There will be a $3 surcharge per night to help pay for the system [...]

Officials say the online system will help free up park rangers who won't have to deal with camping registrations.

So they need the surcharge to cover the money they are saving? I get it.

Global snow animated map

NASA's Earth Observatory maps global snow cover by month from 1999-2009.



[Via Map Scroll]

Nicholas Felton and Jason Kottke interviewed by Spark

Professional blogger Jason Kottke links to an interview he did with CBC's Spark radio show.

Spark caught my attention by also having a recent interview with Nicholas Felton, creator of the Feltron annual reports and co-founder of Daytum.

I enjoyed both interviews. One topic from the Kottke interview that I had not thought of before was the idea of "extreme borrowing", where bloggers extract the main points of a piece of content for their post, thereby creating little need for readers to visit the source of that content and read the whole thing. I'm not sure I agree with Kottke's opposition to the practice (and in fact I am often guilty of it myself), but I will give it some thought and post about it later.

Coach K on Charlie Rose tonight

Is there anyone who does a better interview than Charlie Rose? Combine a great interviewer with the ever-fascinating Mike Krzyzewski, and the result is quality television.

If you're in North Carolina, the show doesn't start until midnight, but you can always watch it online the next day.

Update: The 25 minute interview can be watched in its entirety here.

Bundeslige team offers fans refund for team's poor performance

Brief story from BBC.

It's an interesting idea that could only happen in the extremely competitive world of European Football. To me it sounds like a clever marketing technique because they're not losing huge amounts of money since it was an away game with only 600 tickets needing refunded.

[Via The Sports Economist]

UCSB's data dome [video]

The AlloSphere is a large metal sphere allowing scientists to step inside and experience data in full color and surround sound. It's certainly an interesting project, but I haven't been able to figure out why they need to use a big metal sphere as their medium instead of, say, a computer screen. Check out the 6 minute demo of the AlloSphere embedded below.

The heart of it all: Superior, WI [map]

The Man of Commerce, published 1889 in Superior, Wisconsin, is a highly detailed 31” x 50” map/chart conflating human anatomy with the American transportation system in an apparent attempt to promote Superior as a transportation hub.

Via Strange Maps.

Where internet users spend the most time [chart]

Nielsen has the data.

It should come as no surprise that Google tops the list in terms of unique visitors, but what surprised me is what happens when you combine unique visitors with average time on site . . . Google is not even close!


Click to enlarge

AOL gets more usage than Google?!? Seriously, AOL?

If nothing else, this proves the web is still in its infancy.

---

Related:
Things internet users do in a typical day
Generations online
Internet access by education level
The internet population in perspective

A real headline

John of the always interesting Alternate Blog pointed to this headline in the comments:

"Bad Economy Leads Patients to Put Off Surgery, or Rush It"

I hope that gave you a good laugh like it did me. Now, for the shocking part, guess where it came from.

Creative class and city size [chart]

Chart from Richard Florida's Creative Class blog.

If you aren't familiar with Richard Florida's work, I would recommend this talk at Google for a primer. After that, you can pick up his books which are full of interesting charts and ideas. The main idea of his work is that the economic activity of the world is dominated by a few creative epicenters, and the choice of where you live is one of the most important decisions of your life. The Who's Your City web site has a useful series of maps, including the singles map below, to help you compare cities and pick the best one for you.

3D U.S. population density map

Click to enlarge

This map comes from the portfolio of Time Magazine infographic designer, Joe Lertola. Sarah Slobin has a brief interview with him here including this remark about the above map :

The US population density map was technically challenging. I actually had to do a bit of programming to convert the original data file, which was a text file with ASCII numbers, into a grayscale image. The grayscale image was then used in a 3D program to create the spiky look of the map.

[Hat tip to Infographic News]

Downsizing to an RV [video]

A Nightline segment profiles families moving into RVs after lay offs.

The relevant question here is "compared to what?". The family went from a 1,200 sq ft home to a 300 sq ft RV, which is a legitimate decline in standard of living. But this is only a partial comparison.

How many people in the world today would jump at the opportunity to live the RV lifestyle? I don't know the answer, but I can safely say it's in the billions. It's also worth considering not just how this lifestyle looks compared to 2008, but also compared to 1908, or 1008.

We are extremely fortunate to be living in a time and place where we can open our laptops and blog about the horrible economic conditions from the comfort of our air conditioned living rooms, even if that living room happens to be in an RV.

The third domain of life

An eye-opening passage from As the Future Catches You [more on the book in a future post] :

These organisms were different from any life form encountered, to that point, on the planet.

Fifty-six percent of their 1,738 genes were unlike those of any other species.

But it turns out they have been around for over three billion years...

Since the time the earth was hot, covered with volcanoes and poisonous clouds...

So they were called Archaea ... ancient ones.

And their discovery forced biologists to admit that there was a third branch on the tree of life... one that could breathe iron instead of oxygen.

After biologists realized that life did not have to follow their "rules"...

They opened their eyes and minds...

And found Archaea everywhere ...

In salt flats, inside the core of the Earth, inside volcanic pools with a pH level equivalent to sulfuric acid, in rice paddies, in wine by-products.

To make a long story short...

A life form discovered a few years ago may account for...

One-fifth of the biomass on Planet Earth.

Photographer David Stewart

Change the Thought nicely summarizes :

Holy crapola does Dave Stewart have some absolutely amazing images in his photographic caché. There is some heavy download time involved with viewing his online portfolio, but he is a master behind the camera. Every image is a narrative and thoughtfully cast scene snipped from a complex story.

BBC News visits Google

. . . making reporter Matt Frei feel old.

Check out the 3 minute video where Google CEO Eric Schmidt discusses privacy and awkwardly attempts to mimic the English reporter's pronunciation.

Q & A with News & Observer President, Orage Quarles III

Orage Quarles III is the President and Publisher of The News & Observer, the newspaper of the Research Triangle area. The N&O is known as a visionary company for being one of the first newspapers to the online scene, beginning distributing content via the internet as early as 1994. Mr. Quarles has graciously agreed to answer a few questions for Wehr in the World readers about the future of the news industry. I thank Mr. Quarles for his time.

Q. What's your best guess as to what the news industry might look like in 10 years? How will the business model change (if at all)?

A. The business model will depend on your market. If you are a large metropolitan newspaper you will face more challenges as big national and regional advertisers look for different platforms to target their audiences. Mid-size and small newspapers will still have local merchants to support their products. Most newspapers will see their revenue move to the 15-25% range for on-line [up from about 10%]. Again depending on your market your paper could print seven, five or three days a week.

Q. Who do you see as the biggest competitors to newspapers?

A. The biggest competitor that we all face is "time" or the loss of it. Over and over you hear people say I can't read the paper, watch TV or be on the net because I don't have the time. Technology will continue to be a huge factor. As it improves our ability to get our information out on multiple platforms increases. There is plenty of room in the marketplace for all the players. You will have to decide what fits your business model based on the available revenues.

Q. If traditional news media disappeared, what would be lost?

A. Traditional media will not disappear. It will evolve into various models. People will want more info that fits their own lifestyles. People want news and information that reenforces their own beliefs. More want information that is easy to find and continuously updated. Again, this will all depend on your particular market. Most newspapers will reach 20-35% of the households in the market. Unlike our heyday of 75% or so. The LA Times has found a business that works based on that penetration number for over 20 years. On the print side you may not produce a paper that averages 40 pages a day. However you may be able to find that 24-28 pages a day works. Of course you build the model based on those financial realities. The web offers unlimited space but the content has to be a must read.

Q. Will public support be needed to keep investigative journalism alive?

A. There is lots of chatter out there about non-profits financing good investigative reporting. That could happen if all the critical questions are answered. Most newspapers have a primary mission of providing strong, government oversight. It's costly to do but is critical to the success of our democracy.

Q. The market seems to reward news content for its sensationalism. Is this a bad thing? If so, what can be done about it?

A. The market rewards what's hot for the moment. The name of the game is to have a long term vision and plan. Proper blocking and tackling still pay off. Don't try and be what you are not. Providing solid day in and day out local coverage will keep you in the game. Throw some investigated reporting in the mix and you have a good model to grow on. Keeping your various on-line sites fresh is also a must. Newspapers have this incredible brand that we are only now starting to maximize. Look for more partnerships like the YAHOO!/newspaper consortium.

Q. What positives might come from these hard times in the news business?

A. This recession has put us in the survival mode. We are doing more with less. Our reporters and editors have embraced change much faster than normal economic times. Our innovation has never been better. We're taking advantage of relationships that a few years ago would have never happened. I salute the editors that have figured out that we still have the opportunity to be the leader in our communities by focusing on what is important to our readers and giving the various platforms to get that information.

Effective tax rates over time [chart]

More from the NYT's Economix blog.

Comparing dating sites [chart]

Click to enlarge

This chart clearly shows a great opportunity for entrepreneurs: an online dating service for wholesome one night stands, or for raunchy marriages.

[Hat tip: DataViz]

Addendum: GlobeLife article containing this chart

Cloud building

The proposed Singapore Pavilion for the 2010 World Expo.

More from BLDGBLOG.

Time zone chart (sort of)

Click to enlarge

From the design portfolio of Budi Satria Kwan. [Hat tip: DataViz]

The economics of the paparazzi

Marketplace reports

And while there's always the supermarket checkout line to keep tabs on what Britney's doing, People, US Weekly and the rest simply aren't selling as many copies. That doesn't only mean thinner magazines and less coverage of B-list celebrities, it means less work for the paparazzi who snap their every move.

Self-control externalities

From an article in Psychological Science (emphasis added):

In Study 1, participants who simulated the perspective of a person exercising self-control exhibited less restraint over spending on consumer products than did other participants. In Study 2, participants who took the perspective of a person using self-control exerted less willpower on an unrelated lexical generation task than did participants who took the perspective of a person who did not use self-control. Conversely, participants who merely read about another person's self-control exerted more willpower than did those who read about actions not requiring self-control. These findings suggest that the actions of other people may either deplete or boost one's own self-control, depending on whether one mentally simulates those actions or merely perceives them.

A related write-up from ScienceDaily.

Tighter, simpler, more transparent writing

A journalist explains how writing on the web made her a better writer. Thankfully, the article is well-written.

[Hat tip: Kottke]

Nuclear weapons world map

Click to enlarge

Good news: The number of warheads has seriously declined since 2000.

Bad news: More countries are getting into the mix, and Kim Jong Il is still crazy.

The Guardian's Datablog has the story and the data.

Threatened animal species around the world [chart]

Click to enlarge

This chart shows the number of vulnerable, endangered, and critically endangered species around the world, but it is missing some important information :

How do the number of threatened species compare to the total number of species?
How geographically concentrated are/were these species?
How has this chart changed over time?
What are the names of the species?
What's threatening them?

With some thoughtful design, all these dimensions could be included in the graphic.

[Hat tip: DataViz]

Visualize the number of overnight shipments in the US every hour

Depicts 166,000 packing peanuts, equal to the number of overnight packages shipped by air in the U.S. every hour.


Print detail at full size:


More great work from Chris Jordan at his web site. [Hat tip: PSFK]

Developing healthy habits with incentives

A working paper from UCSB economists (with the abstract re-worded slightly):

In two separate studies, we find that paying people a non-trivial amount of money to attend an exercise facility a number of times during a one-month period leads to a large and significant increase in the average post-intervention attendance level relative to the control group. [. . .] Even though personal incentives to exercise are already in place, it appears that providing financial incentive to attend the gym regularly for a month serves as a catalyst to get some people past the threshold of actually getting started with an exercise regimen. We argue that there is scope for financial intervention in habit formation, particularly in the area of health.

Inside Netflix [video]

Nightline visits the Netflix distribution center (~5 minute video).

Two of the more interesting things I learned from this piece are that Netflix's postal bill is $300M/year, and that they project the DVD mailing business to continue growing for another 5 to 10 years -- so internet streaming is not expected to catch on for quite awhile.

Generations online [charts]

From Pew :

This is a series of charts related to the "Generations Online in 2009" report released on Jan. 28, 2009. For example, the "activity pyramid" shows how the vast majority of online adults from all generations uses email and search, and while there are exceptions, older generations are less likely than younger users to engage in more advanced online entertainment and social media.

I particularly recommend checking out slide 2.

Generations Online in 2009 Charts

View more presentations from PewInternet.

Survey of economist bloggers

It's not the largest sample with only 39 respondents, and, judging by names of the respondents, probably not representative of the entire economist population (I suspect it is highly skewed toward "Masonomics"), but the recently released Kaufman Economics Bloggers Survey has some interesting results regardless.