Kruse Kronicle

Long-Term, Commodities Are Getting Cheaper

From Mark Perry

Perry writes:

"Bottom Line: Over a very long period of time (76 years), there has been a significant downward trend in the real prices of commodities (see red trend line in graph), and the decline in commodity prices has taken place during a period when the world population increased by more than three times, from 2 billion in 1934 to the current population of 7 billion in 2010."

This gets at concept that is very difficult for may to understand: As long as we have markets we will never "run out" of anything. The Stone Age didn't end for a lack of stones and the Bronze Age didn't end for a lack of bronze. The oil age will not end for a lack of oil.

As commodities become more scarce relative to demand, those who produce, extract, and process the commodities have a financial incentive to do their work more efficiently and cost effectively. (Recycling is included as one way to "produce" more.) Mineral or oil deposits that may once have been considered too difficult to obtain become practical because of technological innovation.

As any commodity begins to rise in price, one of two things happen. Either producers find ways to get more of it to market or buyers begin finding substitutes for the expensive commodity. In the short term (a few years) there can be disruptions but the long-term trend is ever downward. The chart above begins in the 1930s. But other charts I've seen going back to the 1860s show the same continuous trends.

The challenge is that too many tend to project present realities unaltered into the futre and see a world running of this or that in X many years. But markets and human adaptation ensure that almost nothing in the present can projected unaltered into the future.

The U.S. ranks 70th in armed forces personnel

Ranking America: The U.S. ranks 70th in armed forces personnel

A year in nine pictures

Economist: A year in nine pictures

THE global property bust that pulled the world into recession in 2008 began to lift in 2010. House prices turned up in Britain and stabilised in America (chart 1) but slid further in Spain. The process of deleveraging kept rich-world inflation subdued (chart 2). ...

Millennials Knowledge of Politics

Pew Research: Millennials' Knowledge of Politics

Who will be the next speaker of the House of Representatives? What is the current inflation rate? How would you describe the current relationship between India and Pakistan? If you are younger than age 30, odds are you do not know the answer to these questions. Just 14% of young adults can identify John Boehner as the next speaker (closer to half of older adults can do so). Only 7% know the inflation rate is close to 1% (though, few in any age group know this). And just 27% know relations between India and Pakistan are unfriendly (just under half of older adults know this). In fact, on a 13-question political news quiz, adults ages 18 to 29 score below all other age groups on all but two questions. Young adults are by far the most knowledgeable on technology: 42% can identify Google's new phone as the Android (only 4% of adults ages 65 and older can). And, surprisingly enough, Millennials also score the best on a question about government spending. Close to half (45%) know the federal government spends more on defense than three other programs listed, while just a third of adults older than age 50 know this. Read more

You're Out: 20 Things That Became Obsolete This Decade (PHOTOS)

Huffington Post: You're Out: 20 Things That Became Obsolete This Decade (PHOTOS)

The last ten years have brought us a windfall of new gadgets and gizmos, and with them, a new way of life.

Since 2000, we've gained iPods and iPads, Travelocity and Twitter, Facebook and Foursquare, BlackBerry smartphones and Android devices, Xboxes and Wiis, among many other new services, sites, and electronics. We're now poking, tweeting, Googling, and Skyping.

But in that time we've also changed our habits and lost a few things, too. As we look forward to 2011, HuffPostTech has taken a look back at the things that have become obsolete (some of the these items were originally featured on an earlier list here) .

What other items or practices would you add to the list? Submit your own ideas by clicking "Add a Slide" below. ...

 

Generations Online in 2010

Pew Research

Interesting chart. I wonder if the break between Silent and G.I. was intended to read 83 not 73.

Merry Christmas!

Probably my favorite Christmas hymn.

O Come O Come Emmanuel

O come, O come, Emmanuel
And ransom captive Israel
That mourns in lonely exile here
Until the Son of God appear
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel.

O come, Thou Rod of Jesse, free
Thine own from Satan's tyranny
From depths of Hell Thy people save
And give them victory o'er the grave
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel.

O come, Thou Day-Spring, come and cheer
Our spirits by Thine advent here
Disperse the gloomy clouds of night
And death's dark shadows put to flight.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel.

O come, Thou Key of David, come,
And open wide our heavenly home;
Make safe the way that leads on high,
And close the path to misery.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel.

O come, O come, Thou Lord of might,
Who to Thy tribes, on Sinai's height,
In ancient times did'st give the Law,
In cloud, and majesty and awe.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel.

 

Hunkier than thou

Economist: Hunkier than thou

Scientists are finally succeeding where so many men have failed: in understanding why women find some guys handsome and others hideous.

WHEN it comes to partners, men often find women’s taste fickle and unfathomable. But ladies may not be entirely to blame. A growing body of research suggests that their preference for certain types of male physiognomy may be swayed by things beyond their conscious control—like prevalence of disease or crime—and in predictable ways.

Masculine features—a big jaw, say, or a prominent brow—tend to reflect physical and behavioural traits, such as strength and aggression. They are also closely linked to physiological ones, like virility and a sturdy immune system.

The obverse of these desirable characteristics looks less appealing. Aggression is fine when directed at external threats, less so when it spills over onto the hearth. Sexual prowess ensures plenty of progeny, but it often goes hand in hand with promiscuity and a tendency to shirk parental duties or leave the mother altogether.

So, whenever a woman has to choose a mate, she must decide whether to place a premium on the hunk’s choicer genes or the wimp’s love and care. Lisa DeBruine, of the University of Aberdeen, believes that today’s women still face this dilemma and that their choices are affected by unconscious factors. ...

... Since violent competition for resources is more pronounced in unequal societies, Dr Brooks predicted that women would value masculinity more highly in countries with a higher Gini coefficient, which is a measure of income inequality. And indeed, he found that this was better than a country’s health statistics at predicting the relative attractiveness of hunky faces.

The rub is that unequal countries also tend to be less healthy. So, in order to disentangle cause from effect, Dr Brooks compared Dr DeBruine’s health index with a measure of violence in a country: its murder rate. Again, he found that his chosen indicator predicts preference for facial masculinity more accurately than the health figures do (though less well than the Gini).

However, in a rejoinder published in the same issue of the Proceedings, Dr DeBruine and her colleagues point to a flaw in Dr Brooks’s analysis: his failure to take into account a society’s overall wealth. When she performed the statistical tests again, this time controlling for GNP, it turned out that the murder rate’s predictive power disappears, whereas that of the health indicators persists. In other words, the prevalence of violent crime seems to predict mating preferences only in so far as it reflects a country’s relative penury.

The statistical tussle shows the difficulty of drawing firm conclusions from correlations alone. Dr DeBruine and Dr Brooks admit as much, and agree the dispute will not be settled until the factors that shape mating preferences are tested directly. ...

 

Teen birth rate hits record low

Kansas City Star: Teen birth rate hits record low

As the nation continued to struggle in the recession in 2009, the rate at which U.S. women are having babies continued to fall, pushing the teen birth rate to a record low, federal officials reported Tuesday.

The birth rate among U.S. girls aged 15 to 19 fell to 39.1 births per 1,000 teens in 2009, the most recent year for which statistics are available. That's a 6 percent drop from 2008 and the lowest rate ever recorded in the nearly 70 years that the federal government has been collecting reliable data, according to a preliminary analysis of data from the National Center for Health Statistics.

"The decline in teen births is really quite amazing," said Brady E. Hamilton, who helped perform the analysis.

The drop marked the second year in a row the birth rate among teens fell, meaning it has dropped for 16 out of the past 18 years. The 8 percent two-year decline strengthens the belief that a two-year increase during the preceding two years was an aberration.

"Just in time for the holidays, a steep decline in teen birth has been announced," said Sarah Brown of the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancies. "We now are, thankfully, back on track."

The reason for the record low remains unclear, but some experts attributed the two-year decline to the recession, noting that the overall fertility rate as well as the total number of births in the United States declined the second straight year in 2009 as well. ...

It's official: The U.S. population is 308,745,538

USA Today: It's official: The U.S. population is 308,745,538

It's official: The U.S. population is 308,745,538, according to the 2010 U.S. Census.

That represents a 9.7% increase over the 2000 figure of 281,421,906.

Nevada had the biggest growth in population, jumping 35.1%, while Michigan dropped the most, losing 0.6%.

Following a multi-year trend in migration patterns, the South grew 14.3% and the West jumped 13.8%,while the Northeast increased only 3.2% and the Midwest 3.9%.

The count not only gives the nation a snapshot of its overall population, the state-by-state figures are used to determine how the 435 seats in the House of Representatives are apportioned.

Under the 2010 figures, eight states will gain representation, with Texas the biggest winner, picking up four seats.

Also gaining seats: Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Nevada, South Carolina, Utah and Washington. Florida picks up 2 seats, the rest geting one each.

Losing seats: Illinois, Iowa, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, Missouri, New Jersey, New York, Ohio and Pennsylvania.

The Book of Genesis, part 2: In the beginning

Guardian: The Book of Genesis, part 2: In the beginning  Jane Williams

In the beginning, Genesis was not a book, or even part of a book. We are so used to the ease and convenience of printing that it is hard always to remember the processes that lay behind books as ancient as the Bible.

In the beginning, a lot of Genesis was probably passed on by word of mouth. In its written form, several different styles can be detected, which suggests that the material comes from different hands, different sources, at different times. From the advent of modern literary critical scholarship until quite recently, these different sources in Genesis were identified as J, E and P. J was thought to come from the ninth century BCE, and generally calls God "Yahweh" (or "Jahweh" – hence J). E, who calls God "Elohim", was thought to come from about a century later, and P, the Priestly writer, or school of writers, was thought to be the collector or editor of the whole, adding more material of his own, after the Exile, in the fifth or sixth century BCE. On the whole, this is still the consensus, though scholars are less assured than they used to be about assigning different parts of the text to different authors.

Then, when Genesis was brought together as one collection, it was copied, over and over again, by many different hands, and translated into many different languages. No copyist was perfect and each translator made decisions, good and bad, about the best match in translating. Ancient Hebrew text did not include letters for the vowels, so a system was developed for indicating vowels above and below the consonants in Hebrew. Again, decisions had to be made, on the basis of memory and traditions of reading and repetition, about which vowels went where. ...

 

The Book of Genesis, part 1: God created

Guardian: The Book of Genesis, part 1: God created Jane Williams

Genesis looks at what the culture around it believes about the nature of the material world, and disagrees with it profoundly.

Genesis 1 and 2 must be among the most hotly debated texts in the Bible. But our obsession with whether and how they can be reconciled with scientific descriptions of the beginning of the universe is distorting our understanding of where these "creation narratives" fit into the wider concerns of the Book of Genesis. In its printed form, Genesis has 50 chapters, only one and a bit of which directly concern the origins of the universe. They are there to set the scene for what follows.

Genesis is, from beginning to end, a theological book. It opens with God, "the beginning", and everything that follows is based on this assumption of the relationship between God and the world. So when we get on to the main action of Genesis, with God's conversations with Abraham and his descendents, we know that what is happening is not just of local significance. The God who calls Abraham is the one we have just seen, making the world, so we know that Abraham's story is one about the meaning of life, the universe and everything.

Genesis isn't the only place in the Bible where God is described as the creator. ...

Jesus and Women (Ben Witherington, III)

Jesus and Women from CPX on Vimeo.

MLB Discusses World Series Winner Playing Japanese Champion

Business Week: MLB Discusses World Series Winner Playing Japanese Champion

Dec. 17 (Bloomberg) -- Major League Baseball will continue talks next month on a plan that would pit the World Series winner against Japan’s champion.

Jim Small, MLB’s vice president for Asia, said at a media conference in Tokyo yesterday that MLB officials will meet with counterparts from Nippon Professional Baseball in January for a fourth round of discussions.

Any title series schedule would be complicated by cold weather, MLB free agency and competition from other sports for air time, Small said.

“When you really get into the details of it, it’s a difficult thing to see happening, but we continue to do it,” he said. “Not all those things are insurmountable, but they do create some issues.”

A matchup this year immediately after the World Series would have pitted teams from the milder climates of San Francisco and Chiba, east of Tokyo. ...

Oh my! This is going to send the purists over the edge.

How Market Economies Really Work

John H. Armstrong: How Market Economies Really Work

There is a rising opposition, among some Christians in the West, to market economies. Social science, joined with various claims about the inherent dangers of globalization (rarely defined in a clear way), have made their way into the public dialogue of many Christians. Since I have devoted a great deal of time to exposing how ideologies pose serious threats to the church’s commitment to the gospel I have spent more than a little time exploring this supposed threat through the growth of economic markets. I am quite convinced that opposing free markets is not an issue related to the gospel. Let me explain. ...

... Bottom line: Markets are not inherently evil nor are they in conflict with Christian ethics. In fact, Christian ethics will serve society at large by reminding people that freedom and virtue are both needed to sustain successful and truly free markets over the long run. ...

I missed this one from last week and had to link it. Excellent post.

Wide Awake During Heart Surgery Saves Costs

I'd jump at this procedure in a heartbeat. I'd want a video viewer so I could see what is happening.

Jon Stewart on Printing Money

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
The Big Bank Theory
www.thedailyshow.com
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Religion's Secret to Happiness: It's Friends, Not Faith

Time: Religion's Secret to Happiness: It's Friends, Not Faith

Religion can be good for your health, and especially your mental health, according to the latest studies, which show that church-goers are happier and more satisfied with their lives than those who don't attend services. But what exactly is it about religion that is so beneficial to health?

Some might argue that it is the power of faith in a being or power beyond ourselves. But according to a study led by Chaeyoon Lim, a sociology professor at University of Wisconsin-Madison, the reason religion makes us happy may have more to do with friends than with faith. (More on Time.com: Retirement May Make You Happier, Depending on Where You Retire)

Using data from the Faith Matters Study, a survey of U.S. adults conducted in 2006 and 2007, Lim and his colleagues found that 33% of those who attended religious services every week and reported having close friends at church said they were extremely satisfied with their lives, while only 19% of those who went to church but had no close connections to the congregation reported the same satisfaction.

As Lim noted in a statement describing his findings:

“To me, the evidence substantiates that it is not really going to church and listening to sermons or praying that makes people happier, but making church-based friends and building intimate social networks there.”

I suspect he is right. I know from other studies that weekly attendance at worship of any kind, not just Christian, has a significant impact on attendees. I've always suspected that it has something to do with inclusion in  a like-minded community and this seems like further evidence.

Countries Ranked by 2009 GDP

Source: Ranking America

When was Genesis Written and Why Does it Matter? A Brief Historical Study

When was Genesis Written and Why Does it Matter? A Brief Historical Study. An essay by Peter Enns at Biologos.

A lengthy but interesting essay. The key take away ...

... The truth, however, is that this alleged “postbiblical” period is actually the biblical period, meaning the time in which the Hebrew Old Testament as we know it took shape as a final and sacred collection of texts. There is little question that Israel documented, recorded, told, and retold parts of its own story—in writing and orally—probably for hundreds of years before the exile. Few would dispute this. It is unlikely, however, that early records of ancient deeds, court politics, and poems were thought of as “sacred Scripture” at the time. That is a later development, and the motivation for it was Israel’s national crisis.

The exile was arguably the most traumatic and therefore most influential historical event in Israel’s ancient history. The Israelites understood themselves to be God’s chosen people: they were promised the perpetual possession of the land, the glorious temple as a house of worship, and a descendent of David sitting perpetually on the throne (2 Sam 7:4-16). With the exile, all of this came to a sudden and devastating end. Exile in Babylon was not an inconvenience. It meant to the Israelites that their relationship with God had been disrupted. God could no longer be worshiped as he himself required—in the Jerusalem temple. Israel’s connection with God was severed: no land, no temple, no sacrifices, no king. Rather than prompting the other nations to acknowledge the true God, which was Israel’s national calling, Israel was humiliated by these nations. Rather than the nations streaming to them, they were slaves in a foreign land. Israel was estranged from God.

The impact of this series of events cannot be overstated. Since these heretofore ties to Yahweh were no longer available to them, the Israelites turned to the next best thing: bringing the glorious past into their miserable present by means of an official collection of writings. Some of these writings were collected or edited during the exile or afterward, while others were composed during those times. But the trauma of the exile was the driving factor in the creation of what has come to be known as “the Bible.” Walter Brueggemann summarizes well the scholarly consensus:

It is now increasingly agreed that the Old Testament in its final form is a product of and response to the Babylonian Exile. This premise needs to be stated more precisely. The Torah (Pentateuch) was likely completed in response to the exile, and the subsequent formation of the prophetic corpus and the “writings” *i.e., poetic and wisdom texts+ as bodies of religious literature (canon) is to be understood as a product of Second Temple Judaism [=postexilic period]. This suggests that by their intention, these materials are…an intentional and coherent response to a particular circumstance of crisis….Whatever older materials may have been utilized (and the use of old materials can hardly be doubted), the exilic and/or postexilic location of the final form of the text suggests that the Old Testament materials, understood normatively, are to be taken precisely in an acute crisis of displacement, when old certitudes—sociopolitical as well as theological—had failed.14

The central question the exilic and postexilic Jews asked themselves was, “Are we still the people of God? After all that has happened, are we still connected to the Israelites of old, with whom God spoke and showed his faithfulness?” Their answer to these questions was to tell their story from the beginning and from their postexilic point of view—which meant editing older works and creating some new ones. The creation of the Hebrew Bible, in other words, is Israel’s self-definition as a nation and the people of God in response to the Babylonian exile. ...

The world economy: Three-way split

The Economist: The world economy: Three-way split

America, the euro zone and the emerging world are heading in different directions.

THIS year has turned out to be a surprisingly good one for the world economy. Global output has probably risen by close to 5%, well above its trend rate and a lot faster than forecasters were expecting 12 months ago. Most of the dangers that frightened financial markets during the year have failed to materialise. China’s economy has not suffered a hard landing. America’s mid-year slowdown did not become a double-dip recession. Granted, the troubles of the euro area’s peripheral economies have proved all too real. Yet the euro zone as a whole has grown at a decent rate for an ageing continent, thanks to oomph from Germany, the fastest-growing big rich economy in 2010.

The question now is whether 2011 will follow the same pattern. Many people seem to think so. Consumer and business confidence is rising in most parts of the world; global manufacturing is accelerating; and financial markets are buoyant. The MSCI index of global share prices has climbed by 20% since early July. Investors today are shrugging off news far more ominous than that which rattled them earlier this year, from the soaring debt yields in the euro zone’s periphery to news of rising inflation in China.

Earlier this year investors were too pessimistic. Now their breezy confidence seems misplaced. To oversimplify a little, the performance of the world economy in 2011 depends on what happens in three places: the big emerging markets, the euro area and America. (Yes, Japan is still an economic heavyweight, but it is less likely to yield surprises.) These big three are heading in very different directions, with very different growth prospects and contradictory policy choices. Some of this divergence is inevitable: even to the casual observer, India’s economy has always been rather different from America’s. But new splits are opening up, especially in the rich world, and with them come ever more chances for friction. ...

The Future of the Mainline Church: PCUSA Stated Clerk Interviews Brian McLaren

Greg Mankiw on the Tax Deal

Greg Mankiw: Greg Mankiw on the Tax Deal

I am generally pleased with the compromise over taxes the President and Republicans struck yesterday.  (The President should be too, but he seemed dejected at his news conference.  Buck up, Mr President!  You don't want anyone to start thinking of the word "malaise.")

One aspect of the deal struck me as worth discussing with econ students: The compromise includes a one-year cut in the payroll tax by 2 percentage points.  The tax cut will be entirely in the employees' share.  Why do you think they designed the policy in this way?  Was it the right choice?

One basic lesson of microeconomics is that it doesn't matter which side of a market the government taxes.  As a result, you might think it doesn't really matter which side of the payroll tax is cut. ...

Job Openings Increasing

Carpe Diem: Job Openings Increasing

The BLS reported yesterday that job openings rose to 3,362,000 in October, which was the highest level since August 2008, more than two years ago.  Compared to the cyclical low of 2,338,000 in July of last year, job openings have risen by more than one million and by 44% through October of this year.  ...

 

Jesus vs. Paul

Christianity Today: Jesus vs. Paul  Scot McKnight

Many biblical scholars have noted that Jesus preached almost exclusively about the kingdom of heaven, while Paul highlighted justification by faith—and not vice versa. What gives?

Many biblical scholars and lay Christians have noted that Jesus preached almost exclusively about the kingdom of heaven, while Paul highlighted justification by faith—and not vice versa. Some conclude that they preached two different gospels. Others argue that really they both preached justification; still others say it's all about the kingdom. What gives?

Note: Clicking the "video" links placed in the article will take you to a segment from an interview with Scot McKnight about the implications of this story.

I grew up with, on, through, and in the apostle Paul. His letters were the heart of our Bible. From the time I began paying attention to my pastor's sermons, I can only recall sermons on 1 Corinthians—the whole book verse by verse, week by week—and Ephesians. I don't recall a series on any of the Gospels or on Jesus.

There were two annual exceptions to our Pauline focus. At Christmas, we heard a sermon on one of the narratives about Jesus' birth, and during Holy Week, we got something on Jesus' death and resurrection. We were Pauline Christians and not one bit worried about it. I learned to think and believe and live in a Pauline fashion. Everything was filtered through Paul's theology. Justification was the lens for the gospel, and "life in the Spirit," the lens for Christian living.

Then I went off to Bible college (now Cornerstone University in Grand Rapids, Michigan) and majored in history while taking as many Bible courses as I could. Once again, Paul featured prominently. My senior year, I read the first volume of Ralph Martin's New Testament Foundations series and was taken with the freshness of the Gospels. But nothing overwhelmed me like my first experience in seminary. Sitting in Walter Liefeld's synoptic Gospels course at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, I was absolutely mesmerized by Jesus, his kingdom vision, and the Gospels. I decided then and there that my life's pursuit would be Jesus and the Gospels.

A few years later, I began doctoral work on the Gospel of Matthew, and a few years after that began teaching as a young professor at Trinity, where I even got to teach Jesus and the Gospels. I spoke so often about Jesus' teachings that one student quipped that I needed to give a lecture called "Jesus' View of Jesus," since I had covered Jesus' view on everything but Jesus!

Something was clearly happening to me. Formerly I had loved Paul and thought with Paul. Then, when I encountered Jesus, as if for the first time, I began learning to think with Jesus. One of my colleagues occasionally suggested I was getting too Jesus-centered and ignoring Paul. I'm not so sure I was ignoring Paul; after all, I was teaching a few of his letters on a regular basis. But I had unlearned how to think in Pauline terms and was thinking only in the terms of Jesus. Everything was kingdom-centered for me.

And, truth be told, I was so taken with Jesus' kingdom vision that reading Paul created a dilemma every time I opened his letters. ...

Despite other problems I may have had in my Church of the Nazarene upbringing, I am thankful that this sort of bifurcation was not something I experienced. It is intriguing for me to listen to these conversations and here how this dichtomy is such a major struggle for so many. This topic surfaces frequently at McKnight's Jesus Creed and this article gives a nice synopsis of the synthesis he works toward at his blog.

Study: Africa can feed itself in a generation

CNN: Study: Africa can feed itself in a generation

(CNN) -- Africa could be able to feed itself in a generation, says a new study being presented to five African presidents Thursday.

Currently a net food importer, Africa has the potential to become a food exporter through a combination of modern technology, improved infrastructure and better technical education, according to the study.

Calestous Juma, professor of the practice of international development at the Harvard Kennedy School in the United States, led the research, which was funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Juma told CNN Africa's agricultural transformation would require a shift in focus from exporting raw materials to developing the agriculture sector.

"Seventy percent of employment in Africa comes from agriculture, so you can argue that in Africa agriculture and economy are synonymous," he said. "In effect, you cannot modernize the economy in Africa without starting with agriculture."

According to the study, a lack of investment means food production in Africa has fallen 10 percent since 1960, and production levels are so low that one third of sub-Saharan Africans are chronically hungry.

Technology is key to powering an agricultural revolution, according to Juma. He says modern communications are essential for farmers to keep abreast of changes in market prices and weather conditions.

He also suggests biotechnology, including genetically modified (GM) seeds, will become increasingly important in improving agricultural yields and in mitigating the effects of climate change. ...

Hans Rosling's 200 Countries, 200 Years, 4 Minutes

Going round in circles (A Timeless Universe?)

The Economist: Going round in circles

In contradiction to most cosmologists’ opinions, two scientists have found evidence that the universe may have existed for ever.

WHAT happened before the beginning of time is—by definition, it might be thought—metaphysics. At least one physicist, though, thinks there is nothing meta about the question at all. Roger Penrose, of Oxford University, believes that the Big Bang in which the visible universe began was not actually the beginning of everything. It was merely the latest example of a series of such bangs that renew reality when it is getting tired out. More importantly, he thinks that the pre-Big Bang past has left an imprint on the present that can be detected and analysed, and that he and a colleague in Armenia have found it.

The imprint in question is in the cosmic microwave background (CMB). This is a bath of radiation that fills the whole universe. It was frozen in its present form some 300,000 years after the Big Bang, and thus carries information about what the early universe was like. The CMB is almost, but not quite, uniform, and the known irregularities in it are thought to mark the seeds from which galaxies—and therefore stars and planets—grew.

Dr Penrose, though, predicts another form of irregularity—great circles in the sky where the microwave background is slightly more uniform than it should be. These, if they exist, would be fossil traces of black holes from the pre-Big Bang version of reality. And in a paper just published in arXiv.org, an online database, he claims they do indeed exist. ...

 

 

The Rise of the Sheconomy

Time: The Rise of the Sheconomy

In the hierarchy of activities that people despise, getting a car repaired is in pole position, sort of the auto equivalent of having a tooth pulled, except you bleed money and don't get a smiley sticker as you leave. Garry Rosenfeldt, marketing-research director for Midas International, knew this. After their cars were fixed, only 1 in 4 Midas customers returned to buy other services. Even dentists see their customers more often than that.

To ascertain what might make it more pleasant — or at least less odious — for customers, Rosenfeldt set up an experiment in late 2008 in which customers were recorded before and after they brought their cars in for repairs. He found that while auto shops inspired fear and loathing in men and women alike, the two sexes had different ideas about how to improve the experience. (See an infographic of the growing buying power of women.)

Since Midas is in the testosterone-y world of engine blocks and overhead camshafts, it needed to aim for what the men wanted, right? Nuh-uh. "From a financial point of view, I'd rather have a woman in the shop than a man," says Rosenfeldt. They're better customers, he believes, more loyal and evangelistic. "They talk about looking for 'their guy,'" he says. And once they find him and trust him, he adds, "they spend more."

Over at Best Buy, Julie Gilbert, a senior vice president whose job it was to figure out high-end male consumers, had already come to the same conclusion. She liked to do her research in living rooms, so she got herself invited to a couple of rich guys' homes to figure out why they'd buy widgets and peripherals at Best Buy but not pricey home theaters. Almost from the first home she visited, she realized she was talking to the wrong person. "The women took over the conversation," Gilbert says. "They had incredible passion and intensity about the store experience, and for every issue they also had a solution."

What these two and many other businesses discovered is the Sheconomy.

Everyone knows, or has long suspected, that the purse strings are held by women. It's oft repeated that they make 85% of the buying decisions or are the chief purchasing officers of their households. The difference today — one that has enormous consequences across global economies — is that women are also the earners. ...

... To appeal to women, the changes in a product or service or even the way a company is run have to be more profound. "Women have a more comprehensive decision process," says Barletta. A guy, she suggests, is a targeted shopper. He will book the first hotel room he finds at his price point. For a woman, the secondary characteristics are key: the gym, the spa, the sustainability, the thread count. Get the guy right and you've made a sale; get the woman right and you have a customer. ...

...Midas' retooled approach was oddly similar: change the balance of power in the relationship in favor of customers. Let them in on the process. The company instituted a program called the Midas Way. Using Philadelphia as its pilot city, it personalized the business, making Midas stores, ironically, more like dentists' offices, with appointments and checkups and lots of explaining. Employees of Midas stores, including mechanics, were offered training. Smile, they were told, even when talking on the phone. Most of all, make sure every customer who comes in, even just for the $21.99 oil-change-and-tire-rotation special, is shown exactly what will be done on a checklist. "The benchmark for success is, we ask the customer: Would you be able to explain what happened at Midas to your mother?" says Rosenfeldt.

While it's still early, and the auto business is still tough, the results are marked. In Philadelphia, Midas' retail sales are up an average 13% since December, when the program was instituted. "Some stores completely did a 180, literally, to the month that we started this program," says Rosenfeldt. Cautious that it might be a fluke, Midas tried the program in St. Louis and got similarly encouraging results. The Midas Way is now being rolled out to the rest of the U.S. The women's input "spawned a whole different way we execute our retail model," says Rosenfeldt. ...

Up Close and Personal (3D)

Trend Central: Up Close and Personal (3D)

“In less than 20 years, anything presented digitally in public forums will be presented in 3-D,” declared Dreamworks Animation CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg at the recent 3-D Media Markets conference produced by analyst firm Paul Kagan and Panasonic. Now, the 3-D movement is hitting home in a big way, as companies scramble to reinvent gadgets equipped with a reach-out-and-touch-me dimension. Here are a few of the latest ones.

3-D Camcorders: We told you about the new Fuji 3-D camera, and it’s no surprise that 3-D camcorders are a fast follow-up. ...

3-D Toys: The future of 3-D may be in viewing it with the naked eye. Debuting early next year, Nintendo’s much-anticipated 3DS handheld 3-D enabled gaming device does just that. ...

3-D Projectors: The large screen projector is coveted by those who value the viewing experience as much as the content itself. ...

Okay. We'll see. All through my childhood I was promised to be able to fly where I wanted with a rocket pack. And by now I was supposed to be able to take vacations at a space station or on the moon. (Ever see 2001: A Space Odyssey?) Is this just more false hopes? ;-)