This chart shows the population of individuals in the US sorted into buckets. One bucket for each last name. One dot for each bucket. Only the three thousand most popular names are shown.
The axis on the left shows how popular a given name is, while the bottom axis shows what percentage of the population has [...]
When Afganistan tried driving on the right. The camels didn’t cooperate, so they switched back.
Some standards prescribe how to perform a solitary task. How to make plaster: mix the powder into the water never the other way around. The value adopting such standards is limited to improving the task at hand. [...]
I’m interested in standards, the behaviors that groups adopt which on the one hand reduce the diversity while on the other add some efficiency.
Many standards are informal, possibly the majority. Consider the handshake. Why hold your hand vertically or offer the right hand? It is not hard to make up insta-theories for these choices.
The boy [...]
Oh this is exciting, a whole book about how systems with network topology work.
Linked: The New Science of Networks by Albert-Laszlo Barabasi.
The book’s website includes a nice visual companion, though it suggests the book might suffer from ‘people magazine syndrome’. Boy I hope this is a good book
Five ways to get rich:
pick the right parents (inheritance),
pick the right spouse (marry well),
pick the right pocket (theft & conquest),
pick the right card (luck,serendipity, gambling), or
pick the right trade (craft, profession, industy).
This list was triggered by an essay by Brad DeLong on how the standards around inheritance have evolved thru time. I’d love [...]
The following chart has one dot for every country on the planet. The vertical axis shows how productive a country’s citizens are. For example, people in Peru produce around $1000 per year. The countries are ordered from left to right, in rank order, so the most productive country Switzerland is first. [...]
This map shows where the Internet Routers are, and hence
where the Internet is.
Like the map of what is lite up at night it suffers from tendency to under represent thd dense areas and to over emphasis lightly populated areas with wealth enough to have Internet service brought to them.
These two images show where people live, and who has sufficent wealth to turn the lights on at night. Respectively these show where to go if you like people, or if your afraid of the dark.
Each Dot denotes Ten Million People:
Were nighttime lighting is used:
On the population map notice Nigeria, Indonisia, the Ganges, China, [...]
Getting your input from a trusted Bivings?. An article from the Gardian – always a breathless paper – about corporations creating fake “citizens” to give the impression of what is sometimes called “Social Proof”.
The top 1% own just about half of everything. That’s really hard to think about. Everywhere you look; half of that is owned by only 1% of the population. Cars, trees, radio, TV, bytes; half of all of it. Can that be good? Kevin Phillips new book talks about this [...]
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