Tech Thursday: Smartphones in Cars

A recent Business Week article on smartphone apps in cars covers ground we at FIWK have already been over, but it's still interesting to consider.

Below is a CNet Car Tech video which covers another really interesting way for smartphones to communicate with cars - especially electric cars. Ford is displaying the ability for an app on your phone to set the charging parameters and features on your electric vehicle remotely (starting about halfway through the video):



This is a great integration of phone and car technology, right?

In a related story, the grill on the Ford Focus electric is one of the best examples of robot mouth in automobile history.

Tech Thursday: Facebook Privacy

Comic from Joy of Tech, by Nitrozac & Snaggy

Short but sweet Tech Thursday this week, filling in for the vacationing Scottie. I want to talk about privacy on Facebook.

BusinessWeek: Most Expensive Summer Homes 2010

I never get tired of Bloomberg BusinessWeek slideshows like this one titled Most Expensive Summer Homes 2010. Which one is your favorite?

Business Week: The World's Most Expensive Stuff

I thoroughly enjoyed this Business Week slideshow titled The World's Most Expensive Stuff 2010. It includes cigars with the name Black Dragon that cost $1,150 each, gold-plated bicycles that cost $114k, and a gold- and diamond-coated iPhone that cost $3 million, my personal favorite.

Required Reading: "Lessons of a $618,616 Death"

Rather than discuss this at length, I'd like to use this Friday to just present Business Week's cover article titled "Lessons of a $618,616 Death" by Amanda Bennett. It's a personal story, and to me with its simplicity and candor stacks up with the best non-fiction short stories. The article's straightforward questioning of health care reminds me of the best of Atul Gawande. Its breakdown of the facts and figures of the charges, bills, and insurance coverage strikes me as the best anecdotal analysis I've seen of where our health care system currently stands.

Business Week on Warren Buffett

Is Warren Buffett a good manager?

It's no secret that I love me some Warren Buffett. He is the subject of a cover article on Business Week this week about his management style. Buffett makes for fascinating study because he is a direct contrast to the same issue's articles on greedy CEOs hedging their own companies' stock, and because he is a famous proponent of using praise and condemnation to motivate his managers rather than purely financial incentives. In other words, he has a great deal of confidence in the effects of his own managerial focus on people and companies.


(sorry for the giant close up of his face, but this image tickles me)

BusinessWeek: Bad Bosses Slideshow

I enjoyed this BusinessWeek slideshow about different types of bad bosses a little too much. I sure recognize some of these traits in bosses I've had - and in myself... Do you recognize any of the types?

Best Places to Raise Your Kids

I love everything about the "Best Places to Raise Your Kids" list on BW right now. I love reading about these suburbs and towns, I love the real estate angle, I love that they picked a place in each of the 50 states, I love the unintentional comedy of placing superimposed pictures of people doing unrelated activities over scenic shots of the towns, I even love the failed attempts at choosing some of those scenic shots. Just look at the first example in Tallahassee - they couldn't have found a better pic of Dothan that doesn't include a knocked-over Yield streetsign and an overgrown stucco wall? Really? Why are the mother and child in Montana wearing snow gear and shades to visit the town hall in summer? It remains unclear.

No, it does not bother me that I am apparently a shill for Business Week. And yes, I am curious why none of BW's best cities to live in appear on this list - a message that cities are not good places to raise children?

The Morality of Incentives

In keeping with my niche of "Business Week reactions" (as Scott called me out on), I found this BW article on the morality of incentives fascinating. The general idea is that introducing money into the equation takes morality out of the equation. A bit counterintuitive, and this assumption is backed up by some studies I am not familiar with, but I find the concept and the suggested fix intriguing.

Do you buy the argument that the current incentive system is harming morality in business? If so, and you were a shareholder of a bank, would you be in favor of completely removing incentives from the executive positions?

BusinessWeek: How to Cut Health Care Costs

BusinessWeek's cover article this week is titled "Why Wait for Health Care Reform?" and features the article 10 Ways to Cut Health Care Costs Right Now as well as an accompanying slideshow of ways hospitals can reduce their expenses.

Many of their suggestions are similar to suggestions Atul Gawande made in his New Yorker article over the summer. I would argue that the BW cost cutting plans don't go deep enough - for instance, how can insurers or the gov't mandate "fewer tests" without the medical profession altering the culture in which the decisions to order those tests get made? Gawande makes a strong case that this mentality is deep-seated and growing in the medical profession. Another question I have is that, if insurers have the power to do this now and BW is correct that it would help them, regardless of insurance reform, then why are costs still going up? Why are none of these fixes being considered? Why the inertia preventing improvement? The answers remain unclear.

BusinessWeek on China's Economy

In a long and interesting article, BusinessWeek covers the present and the future of China's economy. As I was reading it I kept thinking back to our World Is Flat discussion and its global implications.

America's Favorite Candies

I almost flipped my lid when I saw this BusinessWeek list of America's 25 Favorite Candies because GUM IS NOT CANDY!!1! Despite what Scott says in praise of gum it is not even in the same stratosphere as the superdelicious chocolate and candy treats on this list. You can't even digest gum! There were some other oddball selections as well... Twizzlers? Wtf, America?

Ave: High Speed Trains Done Right

Today BusinessWeek (my old standby) has an article up about the high speed Ave trains that cross Spain's plains. I took a Madrid to Sevilla trip when I was in Spain and it was a great experience. The Aves might be a good template for a US high speed train, which Obama has set aside $13 billion in stimulus money for.

The Hot Property Blog

I was recently turned on to the Hot Property Blog over at Business Week which I have enjoyed reading. It takes the general BW tone of "bland informational posts" but is a nice primer for general real estate trends. I do wish it would rely more on expertise, because rather than ask Could Home Prices See a Double-Dip? they could easily do the research and present a well-formulated opinion (consensus of people I've talked to anecdotally: yes we could see a double-dip). Also their feature on practically free houses in the US was an interesting read. They are on my regular reading list now.

Business Week: Best Young Entrepreneur Finalists

Business Week has put up its twenty five finalists for Best Young Entrepreneurs under the age of 25. These are the kind of business owners you'd see on Young Entrepreneur Blog or on Jun Loayza's blog. There are some cool people in here with some interesting businesses. Anyone stand out to you?

Health Care - What the F*ck?

What in the hell is going on with health care. Congress can't pass a bill and in the meantime insurers are charging 7% more next year?? What kind of sense does that make?

Meanwhile all kinds of studies are coming out talking about wasted money in health care and the different ways that costs can be trimmed and service can be better. We have previously talked about ways that costs can skyrocket and we previously questioned what Congress' plan was to reduce costs, or if such a plan even exists. It now seems important that we have one.

If Democrats are actively trying to pass health care reform, why are costs going up? Are insurers actively trying to antagonize the public? Is it a giant middle finger to Congress? Are they trying to get as much cash as they can before legislation hits? Am I even asking the right questions? None of this makes any sense.

I'm so confused. I need somebody to make sense of all this - where is Ja?

Is Google Still the Best?

I really enjoyed today's Business Week article titled Can Google Stay on Top of the Web? It raised a lot of interesting points and talked about the current strengths and strategies of its main competitors in the sphere of dominating the way people interact with internet content. It is a six-page read and it focuses primarily on Google working to improve its search functions.

North Dakota: Very Small

About a month ago Business Week posted an article titled What's North Dakota Doing Right? After reading and considering the article, I have suggested an alternative headline in this blog title.

Turns out Bismarck only has 60,000 people and homes cost an average of $160,000. It's freaking freezing there and it's got 90% farmland, "making it the most rural state in the nation" according to BW. Well, then. May I suggest that if your entire state has fewer people than Fresno (650k) it is not so tough to manage your budget. The recession never affected ND and its 3.6% unemployment because the economy's boom hardly affected the state beforehand - its GDP of $29.4 billion is roughly equivalent to Turkmenistan.

And now to close with a scene from the West Wing:

Donna: Eliminating the term north from North Dakota is an important state issue and the President feels it should be resolved on a state level. While the President is sympathetic towards the cause and understands the large economics ramifications of this name change, he feels the issue is not yet ripe for national attention. The President wishes you well on your endeavors and thanks you for your support.

Man:Uh, Miss Moss? Are you aware that studies clearly show the word 'north' leaves the impression that this state is cold, snowy and flat, significantly depressing tourism and business startup.

Donna: With due respect, sir, your average temperature is 7 degrees. Your average snowfall: 42 inches, and a name change isn't going to take care of that.

Woman: We enjoy roughly the same climate as South Dakota. We took in 73.7 million in tourism revenue last year. They took in 1.2 billion. They have the word south.

Donna: Also Mount Rushmore.

Business Week: The World's Best Cities to Live In

Since I never get tired of geography rankings like this, here are the Top 30 Best Cities to Live In according to a survey passed along by Business Week.

The official BW title is "The World's Best Places to Live," but since they only ranked big cities I think that's a misnomer. As far as rankings go this list actually kind of sucks - I have no idea what their criteria are, so it's impossible to say if they've chosen well or not. You might as well call this the "top 30 cities in Germany and Scandinavia, with a few other places thrown in" because that's basically all that's on here. And I mean, weather obviously can't be a big factor, cause how did so many relatively cold-weather places get on here? Isn't "not freezing to death" high on these rankers' priorities? Anyway what would you rank as your top places to try living for, say, a year?

Business Week on Glock

The new cover story on Business Week is titled Glock's Secret Path to Profits and it contains several interesting related links as well. It's a fascinating article even if you don't care about Glock or handguns, because it's surprising how much drama took place in a big, profitable, international corporation like Glock. The amount of corruption and bad apple executives caught me off guard