Results for “stagnation” 721 found
Transparent erasers markets in everything there is no great stagnation
To many, Japan seems like a technological wonderland that’s at least a couple of decades ahead of the rest of the world when it comes to innovation. That even applies to something as seemingly mundane as office supplies, as is evident by this new see-through eraser that enhances precision by providing an unobstructed view of what’s actually being erased.
…And with a price tag of around $1.40 for a large version of the Clear Radar, and around 90 cents for a smaller one, Seed isn’t charging an inflated premium for this innovation, so why wouldn’t you upgrade?
Here is the full story, via Samuel Brenner.
There is no great stagnation in policing nature through the use of AI-regulated cat flaps
A cat flap that automatically bars entry to a pet if it tries to enter with prey in its jaws has been built as a DIY project by an Amazon employee.
Ben Hamm used machine-learning software to train a system to recognise when his cat Metric was approaching with a rodent or bird in its mouth.
When it detected such an attack, he said, a computer attached to the flap’s lock triggered a 15-minute shut-out.
Mr Hamm unveiled his invention at an event in Seattle last month.
Here is the full story, via Michelle Dawson.
There is no great stagnation, refitted tuk-tuk edition
An Essex man has said he is “over the moon” after setting a new tuk-tuk land speed record, having purchased the three-wheeled Thai vehicle during a “boozy night on eBay”.
Over the course of two laps, Matt Everard reached a speed of 74.306mph (119.583km/h) after being set a target of 68.35mph (110km/h) by Guinness World Records.
Everard, 46, a freight firm boss from Billericay, drove the 1971 Bangkok taxi on Monday at the Elvington airfield in North Yorkshire, with his cousin, Russell Shearman, 49, as his backseat passenger.
Everard, a father of two, has spent more than £20,000 improving the vehicle after buying it from a seller in Bolton in 2017, saying he has worked on “every nut, bolt and bearing”.
Here is the full story, via Michelle Dawson.
*First Man* and the great stagnation
I enjoyed this movie, although I would not describe it as a must-see. It is best for showing the rickety and claustrophobic nature of the moon landing program.
Three points struck me in particular, both concerning progress. First, the space shots in this movie are not better than those of Stanley Kubrick in his 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey. There are even several Kubrick homage shots, and they don’t look any better than the originals, and arguably somewhat worse. Perhaps most cinematic progress has come in shooting or better yet constructing dense scenes, but that does not apply to space.
Second, I walked to my (non-fancy) car and turned on the ignition right after watching the movie. It was immediately striking how much better and more reliable was the software in my car than in the whole well-funded moon program. In this sense technological progress has been immense. That said, most cars in operation today are not that much better than cars from 1969, and they perform more or less the same functions, albeit more safely. Improving car manufacture is not that hard, but improving the usefulness of cars in our daily lives is where the problem lies. So this supports the “the consumer space is already filled out” interpretation of the great stagnation.
Third, perhaps it is the very absence of the internet and advanced information technology that made the moon program possible. When Armstrong arrives at the moon, you realize it is pretty boring and it has not so much to offer, either in 1969 or today. Would they have gone to such trouble if there had been better problems to work on? Well before the end of the movie, I found myself wanting to check my email and refresh my Twitter feed.
By the way, this movie has bombed at the box office, perhaps not a good sign for the revival of adventure in contemporary culture.
The Great Stagnation: How America Ate All the Low-Hanging Fruit of Modern History, Got Sick, and Will(Eventually) Feel Better
Average Is Over: Powering America Beyond the Age of the Great Stagnation
There is no great lung stagnation
In 2013, the Post-Polio Health International (PPHI) organizations estimated that there were six to eight iron lung users in the United States. Now, PPHI executive director Brian Tiburzi says he doesn’t know anyone alive still using the negative-pressure ventilators. This fall, I met three polio survivors who depend on iron lungs. They are among the last few, possibly the last three.”
…In the 1940s and 1950s, hospitals across the country were filled with rows of iron lungs that kept victims alive. Lillard recalls being in rooms packed with metal tubes—especially when there were storms and all the men, women, adults, and children would be moved to the same room so nurses could manually operate the iron lungs if the power went out. “The period of time that it took the nurse to get out of the chair, it seemed like forever because you weren’t breathing,” Lillard said. “You just laid there and you could feel your heart beating and it was just terrifying. The only noise that you can make when you can’t breathe is clicking your tongue. And that whole dark room just sounded like a big room full of chickens just cluck-cluck-clucking. All the nurses were saying, ‘Just a second, you’ll be breathing in just a second.’”
…Mia Farrow only had to spend eight months in an iron lung when she was nine, before going on to become a famous actress and polio advocate.
Here is the full story, via the excellent Samir Varma.
Might tech super-firms mean the Great Stagnation is over?
I am now giving this a chance of somewhat over 50 (!) percent, and that is the topic of my latest Bloomberg column. Here is one bit:
Gross domestic product growth for the last two quarters was over 3 percent, even in light of hurricane damage in August and September, and middle-class income growth has resumed. You might think that would mean high price inflation from credit growth and “overheating,” but the 12-month change in core prices for personal consumption expenditures has fallen to 1.3 percent.
And:
Low rates of inflation, however, reflect productivity gains that already are here. The tech giants — Google, Amazon.com Inc., Facebook Inc. and Apple Inc. — have become major managers of our information, our businesses and our lives. They’re meeting political resistance, but whatever you think of those complaints, they are signs the major tech companies are having transformative effects. I used to say that we are overrating what tech has done for us to date, and underrating what it will do in the future. Perhaps reality has caught up with that prognostication.
And:
The major tech companies are growing their platforms quickly, supporting low prices with scale, product diversity, data ownership and superior service. Hardly anyone today worries about the eventual disappearance of competition and monopoly prices from Amazon or the other major tech companies. Do you really think Amazon is going to double book prices five years from now?…The tech companies have shown that their radical model of low price, high market share, high quality rapid expansion will keep them profitable for a long time to come.
Big if true, as they say…do read the whole thing. The still-remaining negative possibility, of course, is that the current positive wave is like 1995-1998, and we will sink back to less positive economic times, as we did back then.
There is no great startup stagnation crow average is over
The winners of the Dutch Accenture Innovation Awards, the Crowbar (Crowded Cities) startup offers a smart machine that trains crows to pick up cigarette butts from the street, The Next Web reports.
The incentives work like this:
The machine is designed to autonomously train crows to pick up change and bring it back in exchange for peanuts.
The first step presents the crow with food and a butt on a tray in the machine. The food is always there, next to the butt, so the crow learns to come back for more.
The second step takes away the food, and only drops it just after the crow arrives. “So the crow gets used to the machine doing things,” Bob says.
“The third step is crucial,” the authors say. In this step, the food is completely removed, leaving only the butt on the tray. The crow, used to getting food only for being there, will start to nose around, eventually knocking the butt off the tray into the butt receptacle. The food drops when that happens.
Here is the full story, via the excellent Mark Thorson.
Is the great wage stagnation over?
Possibly so, though some more good years would be nice, to say the least. To some extent this could be noise, or delayed catch-up growth. Still, there seems to be a break in the previous trend:
In 2015, median household incomes rose by 5.2 percent. That was the fastest surge in percentage terms since the Census Bureau began keeping records in the 1960s. Women living alone saw their incomes rise by 8.7 percent. Median incomes for Hispanics rose by 6.1 percent. Immigrants’ incomes, excluding naturalized citizens, jumped by over 10 percent.
The news was especially good for the poor. The share of overall income that went to the poorest fifth increased by 3 percent, while the share that went to the affluent groups did not change. In that year, the poverty rate fell by 1.2 percentage points, the steepest decline since 1999.
…The numbers for 2016 have just been released by the Census Bureau, and the trends are pretty much the same. Median household income rose another 3.2 percent, after inflation, to its highest level ever. The poverty rate fell some more. The share of national income going to labor is now rising, while the share going to capital is falling.
That is from the new David Brooks column.
Is the Great Chocolate Stagnation over?
I say no, but some disagree:
There hasn’t been an innovation in the world of chocolate since the white variant was introduced in 1930, which is fine because — in the immortal words of Cogsworth in “Beauty and the Beast” — if ain’t baroque, don’t fix it.
But still, we’d never turn away a new kind of creamy, chocolate-y thing to munch on while we binge-watch Netflix.
And thanks to some Swiss chocolate scientists over at Barry Callebaut — the world’s leading manufacturer of the good stuff, producing 1.8 million tons of cocoa every year and with a revenue of almost $10 billion — that’s exactly what we’re getting. A brand new chocolate flavor called Ruby, developed from the Ruby Cocoa bean, colored a pleasingly millennial pink hue and that tastes like sweet, sweet berries despite having no added color or flavoring.
“Ruby chocolate is the fourth type of chocolate [after milk, white and dark] and is an intense sensorial delight,” a spokesperson for Barry Callebaut said after launching the chocolate to a panel of experts in China.
Here is the (noisy) link, via the excellent Samir Varma.
Who’s complacent? (there is no great stagnation)
A California-based lifestyle company has created Smalt (pictured), which is designed to make shaking salt…less strenuous by automating the process of seasoning your food through Amazon’s Alexa smart assistant.
…Users will be able to request that Alexa issues a command to start shaking salt, without the need for any strenuous twisting or grinding.
Here is the article, via the excellent Mark Thorson.
There was no great submarine stagnation
Recall the development of the Polaris nuclear-missile system in the late 1950s. The whole package—a nuclear submarine, a solid-fuel missile, an underwater launch system, a nuclear warhead and a guidance system—went from the drawing board to deployment in four years (and using slide rules).
Today, according to the Defense Business Board, the average development timeline for much less complex weapons is 22.5 years. A case in point is the Ford-class aircraft carrier. The program is two years delayed and $2.4 billion over budget.
That is from John Lehman, Secretary of the Navy under President Reagan.
The Great Stagnation has been worse than you think
The value of household services was equal to about 37% of GDP in 1965, but is currently equal to about 23% of GDP.
That is from Timothy Taylor.
There is no great Indian curry stagnation
A washing machine has been launched for the Indian market, with a special mode to tackle curry stains.
Panasonic said the introduction of a ‘curry’ button followed complaints from customers struggling to fully get the food off their clothes.
It says development took two years, testing combinations of water temperature and water flow.
The machine has five other cycles aimed at the Indian consumer, including one to remove traces of hair oil.
Here is the full article, via Ghosh S.