background preloader

Reading for free time

Facebook Twitter

SlideShareToday : 'Dirty Tricks for AdWords and... What in your study of history has most humanized the past and its people for you? : AskHistorians. Is Litecoin the Silver to Bitcoin’s Gold? — Bitcoin Bits. Bitcoin Deflation and Economic Activity. The Great Depression is the worst period of deflation the world has ever witnessed, but it’s not the last time deflation has struck the United States.

Bitcoin Deflation and Economic Activity

In 2010, the Colorado minimum wage was lowered to account for a decrease in the cost of living. Colorado is one of the states whose minimum wage tracks inflation. That means that as the cost of living increases, so too does Colorado’s minimum wage. But when deflation occurs, the cost of living decreases, and by their laws they have to adjust their minimum wage accordingly. Which is to say, downward. The downward adjustment was slight—$0.04 or one half of one percent—and it has since recovered. Making this comparison is a bit unfair, as it’s only a valid comparison if there is in fact a bitcoin economy. You spend your bitcoins on the materials, goods, and services that you need to build your widget empire, and get to work building those widgets and preparing them for sale.

You now have virtually no chance of selling your widgets at 2 BTC. Bitcoin Deflation and Economic Activity. Betamore : Six of the hottest young... Naval : @johnolilly @cdixon recommended... They're Watching You at Work. What happens when Big Data meets human resources?

They're Watching You at Work

The emerging practice of "people analytics" is already transforming how employers hire, fire, and promote. Peter Yang In 2003, thanks to Michael Lewis and his best seller Moneyball, the general manager of the Oakland A’s, Billy Beane, became a star. The previous year, Beane had turned his back on his scouts and had instead entrusted player-acquisition decisions to mathematical models developed by a young, Harvard-trained statistical wizard on his staff. What happened next has become baseball lore. That’s the story as most of us know it. Yes, unavoidably, big data. Some of the changes are well known, and already upon us.

But it now does. The application of predictive analytics to people’s careers—an emerging field sometimes called “people analytics”—is enormously challenging, not to mention ethically fraught. Ever since we’ve had companies, we’ve had managers trying to figure out which people are best suited to working for them. Software Is Reorganizing the World. The tech industry has created cloud communities that are taking physical shape. Photo: Simon / Flickr For the first time in memory, adults in the United States under age forty are now expected to be poorer than their parents. This is the kind of grim reality that in other times and places spurred young people to look abroad for opportunity. Indeed, it is similar to the factors that once pushed millions of people to emigrate from their home countries to make their home in America. Our nation of immigrants is, tautologically, a nation of emigrants. These emigrants weren’t Going Galt or being unpatriotic by leaving.

These emigrants, our ancestors, didn’t bear enmity towards the countries they left — quite the contrary. Yet while our ancestors had America as their ultimate destination, it is not immediately obvious where those seeking opportunity might head today. The concept of migrating our lives to the cloud is much more than a picturesque metaphor. Balaji S. And from there? Secrets of The Tech Elite.