Benjamin Tegarden

Thoughts on sports:

Can we estimate the maximum running speed in humans?

While Usain Bolt has improved the world record in his sport by over 1.6%, Takeru Kobayashi improved the world record in his by nearly 115%!

New York Thursday:

All about manhole covers.

Even the hot-dog vendors are paying an arm and a leg to be here.

The Chinese economy:

Does 8% growth mean China’s economy is healthy? Not necessarily. Excerpt: “However, many of the households that purchased washing machines, or were virtually given such machines, have found them unusable because their homes lack either the running water or electricity (or both) necessary to make use of a modern appliance.”

Thinking about China’s provinces. Longer, but worth the read. Excerpt: “[China's] population is roughly equivalent to the entire Western world; that is Europe, the Americas, Australia and New Zealand. Talking about the Chinese economy is about as meaningful as talking about the “Western economy,” and thinking it fits both Switzerland and Bolivia.”

Info on infrastructure:

Lots of people love trains (including me!), but how does high-speed rail fare under cost-benefit analysis?

Not everyone thinks the U.S. should follow the Spanish model of renewable energy investment. For instance, some Spaniards.

How does one square the oft-heard claim “Japan is years ahead in any [cell phone] innovation” [Source] with the fact that there are two iPhone models on Japan’s top-ten list?

The linked NYT article offers some hints that maybe the Japanese cell phone aren’t that many light-years ahead after all: “handsets [in Japan] often have primitive, clunky interfaces”; “most handsets have no way to easily synchronize data with PCs”; and “the emphasis on hardware makes even the newest phones [in Japan] surprisingly bulky”.

Health care Thursday:

Thoughts on health care reform.

Legalize compensation for organ donation. [More.] Basic economics tells us that price ceilings create shortages; current law sets a price ceiling of $0. The 100,000-person waiting list — and the thousands of people who die each year awaiting a transplant — are proof of what happens when the government regulates something that’s “too important to be left to the market”.

Views on Venezuela:

Car companies are slowing production, despite healthy demand. Incompetence is involved, but for once it’s not on the side of the car companies.

In related government incompetence news, Venezuela becomes a coffee importer for the first time. While the country has price controls on coffee, somehow the government blames “speculation by the private sector”.

Biology blogs:

Are brain-controlling bacteria responsible for traffic accidents?

What happens when you give mice the human version of a language gene?

Maps for Monday:

Understanding the DC street plan. There are more rules than I would have guessed.

Manhattan’s daily population surge.

Apparently, Law & Order: SVU is filming on my street next Monday. This flier was posted right outside the front door to my building.

Update [Aug. 17, 2009]: They did indeed come film, but unfortunately due to work I only saw them packing up on my way home. I did manage to snap a shot out my window of the Haddad’s trailers you always see in New York when someone is filming something.