acebailey - The Emergent Fool

Posted by acebailey in Competition, Health, Scarcity / Abundance, Society on 09 3rd, 2009 | View Comments

Whether it is general resources after the implementation of a universal health care scheme or specific resources such as flu vaccine in the early stages of a pandemic, there will always be instances of scarcity. Who gets the resources? Youngest first? Sickest first? First in? Lottery winners?...

Purple Balls of Death...

Posted by acebailey in Health on 09 1st, 2009 | View Comments

Imagine a lottery machine filled with one million mostly white balls and a few purple ones bouncing around. Each purple ball represents a MicroMort, a one in a million chance of you dying in the next year. Each year one ball pops out. If a purple one pops out you will die in the next year. By...

Coolest Bike in Town!...

Posted by acebailey in Creativity, Economics, Poverty, Social Entrepreneurship on 07 16th, 2009 | View Comments

Mike Ritchey of mountain bike fame is helping Rwandan coffee farmers cut the transport time (increasing their selling price) from the field to the washing stations by providing them with custom “Coffee Bikes” on a micro loan basis. These bikes replace the wooden bikes (including wheels) that...

Splitting the Difference...

Posted by acebailey in Homelessness, Memes, Philanthropy, Poker on 06 24th, 2009 | View Comments

Rafe Furst and I were discussing my predisposition for staying in the cheapest hotel within walking distance of the hotel I actually play poker in despite having the resources to pay for the more expensive properties. The money I save just stays in a fungible heap of other money and isn’t really...

Posted by acebailey in Climate, Technology on 06 17th, 2009 | View Comments

Stephen Salter wants to build a fleet of ships that will churn up seawater to create whiter, fluffier clouds that will reflect more sunlight away from the sea surface. The cost for the first 300 ships that should turn the clock back: $600 million. Other ideas include spraying sulfur dioxide 65,000 feet up...

Cool Solar Power...

Posted by acebailey in Technology on 06 16th, 2009 | View Comments

On a recent trip to the CalExpo site I was impressed to see rows and rows of solar panels supported over the parking lot. Instead of taking up valuable real estate it shades your car and generates 540kW. Check out this even more interesting way of generating solar power at Cool Earth Solar. It is massively...

Posted by acebailey in Economics on 05 26th, 2009 | View Comments

Here The 2009 map evokes nuclear strike graphics from 80′s films! Very clear that it is easier to destroy an economy than build...

Drug Decriminalization: Portugal's ...

Posted by acebailey in Economics, Government on 05 5th, 2009 | View Comments

Portugal decriminalized all drugs in 2001 (yes that includes cocaine and heroin). And “ none of the nightmare scenarios touted by preenactment decriminalization opponents—from rampant increases in drug usage among the young to the transformation of Lisbon into a haven for “drug tourists”—has...

Halting the Spread of Swine Flu - ...

Posted by acebailey in Health on 04 30th, 2009 | View Comments

With flu the incubation period ranges from 24 hours to four days, meaning people often are infectious before they have symptoms. Unless already feeling ill, the majority of people assume they haven’t been infected and behave accordingly. Perhaps, instead, they should act as though they are infected...

Posted by acebailey in Cancer on 04 29th, 2009 | View Comments

Dendreon has developed two interesting avenues in the fight against prostate cancer. The first is a therapeutic vaccine that in just released Phase 3 study results increased survival time by 4 months. The second is a small molecule that induces apoptosis in prostate cancer cells. ...

A Step Closer to the Singularity...

Posted by acebailey in Singularity on 04 25th, 2009 | View Comments

Ray Kurzweil’s prediction of the melding of the computational speed of computers with the awesome software of the human brain is one step closer. The Blue Brain Project is an attempt to reverse engineer the brain with the goal of “creating a physiological simulation for biomedical...

Unwinding Mortgage Backed Securities...

Posted by acebailey in Crowdsourcing, Economics, Government, Markets on 04 24th, 2009 | View Comments

One problem facing financial institutions is not knowing what the Mortgage Backed Securities they hold are worth. One problem facing homeowners is that the abandoned and unmaintained house beside them is dragging down the value of their property. An anecdotal story from Modesto, Ca has two neighbors getting...