viernes, 26 de febrero de 2010

ENLACES

  • Premiar el ahorro con sorteos: "In January 2009, the credit unions declared that for every $25 someone saved, the saver would earn an entry into a drawing for a $100,000 prize one year later. At the same time, they gave out monthly prizes of up to $100..." (de un artículo del Washington Post)
  • Excelente artículo de David Glenn sobre la atención, la realización de varias tareas al mismo tiempo y el funcionamiento de nuestra memoria (el enlace en Marginal Revolution):  "I'm teaching a class of first-year students," says David E. Meyer, a professor of psychology at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. "This might well have been the very first class they walked into in their college careers. I handed out a sheet that said, 'Thou shalt have no electronic devices in the classroom.' ... I don't want to see students with their computers out, because you know they're surfing the Web. I don't want to see them taking notes. I want to see them paying attention to me." Wait a minute. No notes? Does that include pen-and-paper note-taking? "Yes, I don't want that going on either," Meyer says. "I think with the media that are now available, it makes more sense for the professor to distribute the material that seems absolutely crucial either after the fact or before the fact. Or you can record the lecture and make that available for the students to review. If you want to create the best environment for learning, I think it's best to have students listening to you and to each other in a rapt fashion. If they start taking notes, they're going to miss something you say." 
  • Mercados que no funcionan: tarjetas de crédito y pago: "It’s worth noting that the interchange fee on credit and debit cards runs from 1-3% plus a fixed cost per transaction. This rate is increasing, though the technology has matured and had significant market penetration, which should lead someone to believe something has gone wrong in the market structure. ...a problem is that competition works to increase fees, not lower them, since the real competition is for banks, not storeowners... Challenges to the business model online, notably paypal, have really just become UI front-end for the credit card model, reinforcing the duopoly structure without disrupting it".
  •  Kevin Kelly en TED: Technology is anything invented after you were born (Allan Kay); Technology is anything that does not work yet (Danny Hillis); Technology is anything useful we have invented including Law (Kevin Kelly)
  • Una entrada en un blog australiano sobre educación: The real solution to the problem of government schools is not to have any. To have a regulator who is completely independent because they are not running any schools.
  • Una clara explicación de los credit default swaps:
  • Por qué envejecemos "when an ageing cell detects serious damage to its DNA - caused by the wear and tear of life - it sends out specific internal signals. These distress signals trigger the cell's mitochondria , its tiny energy-producing power packs, to make oxidising "free radical" molecules, which in turn tell the cell either to destroy itself or to stop dividing. The aim is to avoid the damaged DNA that causes cancer".
  • Una excelente entrada de Easterly sobre Hayek

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