Fifty Inventions That Shaped the Modern Economy

50 Things Economy

Tim Harford, aka The Undercover Economist, is coming out with a new book called Fifty Inventions That Shaped the Modern Economy.

New ideas and inventions have woven, tangled or sliced right through the invisible economic web that surrounds us every day. From the bar code to double-entry bookkeeping, covering ideas as solid as concrete or as intangible as the limited liability company, this book not only shows us how new ideas come about, it also shows us their unintended consequences — for example, the gramophone introducing radically unequal pay in the music industry, or how the fridge shaped the politics of developing countries across the globe.

It’s based on his BBC podcast 50 Things That Made the Modern Economy.

Fun fact that I just discovered: Harford and I share the same birthday, both date and year.

Tags: books   economics   Fifty Inventions That Shaped the Modern Economy   podcasts   Tim Harford
via kottke.org
Fifty Inventions That Shaped the Modern Economy

GE is working on a massive 3D printer for jet engine parts

3D printing is coming of age in numerous ways. On a large scale, MIT researchers built a 50-foot-wide, 12-foot tall igloo in just 13 hours. They’ve also debuted the first completely 3D-printed rocket engine. On a much smaller level, our own Sean Buckley printed a little d-pad for his Nintendo Switch, while medical researchers have produced a 3D-printed patch that can heal scarred heart tissue. Now we’re seeing this technology coming to the industrial world with a new laser-powered metal 3D printer from GE.

GE Additive is a new business under the larger GE umbrella. It is developing what it calls "the world’s largest laser-powered 3D printer" to create parts that fit within one cubic meter cubic of space. "The machine will 3D print aviation parts suitable for making jet engine structural components and parts for single-aisle aircraft," said GE Additive’s Mohammad Ehteshami in a statement. "It will also be applicable for manufacturers in the automotive, power, and oil and gas industries."

Additive printers fuse fine layers of powdered metal with a laser beam to print objects. The new process could make complex parts like jet engine components easier and less costly to make than traditional casting and welding techniques. GE Aviation is already printing fuel nozzles for jet engines that will be found in Airbus, Boeing and narrow-body jets. GE has a prototype large-scale metal prnter, called ATLAS, that can print 2D objects up to 1 meter long, but the new one will extend that to a third dimension. Beta versions of the new printer should be ready by the end of this year, according to Ehteshami, with a production version slated for 2018.

Source: GE Reports

via Engadget
GE is working on a massive 3D printer for jet engine parts

Netflix’s Interactive Stories Are Entertaining Even If You’re Not A Kid

Image via Netflix

On Tuesday, Netflix released its first interactive story. Like the choose-your-own-adventure books from our childhoods, Netflix’s television show lets viewers pick where the story should go, and it’s the best thing ever.

Right now, there’s only one interactive story available: “Puss in Book: Trapped in an Epic Tale.” Luckily, it’s entertaining and well-written enough for both adults and kids.

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In the episode, viewers get to follow Puss as he goes through remixes of popular fairytales. They encounter a book that prompts them to choose between two options while the narrator and Puss comment on both choices. Instead of a progress bar that tells you how far you are into watching a video, there are interactive book pages at the bottom of the screen that let you jump to decisions you can make. If viewers don’t decide in time, Netflix will automatically make a choice for them.

There are also characters from Puss in Boots upcycled to play new roles—like Toby the pig, who plays a pirate. There are the three little bears who can either be kind or not, depending on what viewers pick. And there’s my favorite character, an evil queen that enters the story, saying to her mirror: “I’m just saying maybe we could occasionally have a conversation about something other than who’s the fairest. Like, I don’t know, art, music?”

Unfortunately, the episode is only interactive on smart TVs, game consoles, iOS devices, and Roku devices, per Consumerist. On the web, Apple TV, Chromecast, and Androids devices, the episodes play as if Netflix were making the choices for you.

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Apparently creating interactive stories has been an idea that took two years to execute. Netflix will release another interactive episode from the “Buddy Thunderstruck” series on July 14. In 2018, there will be an interactive episode of “Stretch Armstrong.”

Because it’s interactive, it’s not as easy to binge-watch a bunch of episodes in one sitting. There are other benefits, too, like letting kids think about the different pathways to creating a story and the potential consequences of a choice (Puss ends up getting injured a lot).

Hulu is also tinkering with choose-your-own-adventures. They’re developing a series called “Door No. 1" on its VR app, but the audience is for adults.


via Lifehacker
Netflix’s Interactive Stories Are Entertaining Even If You’re Not A Kid

The Perfect Server – Debian 9 (Stretch) with Apache, BIND, Dovecot, PureFTPD and ISPConfig 3.1

This tutorial shows how to prepare a Debian 9 server (with Apache2, BIND, Dovecot) for the installation of ISPConfig 3.1. The web hosting control panel ISPConfig 3 allows you to configure the following services through a web browser: Apache web server, Postfix mail server, Dovecot IMAP/POP3 server, MySQL, BIND nameserver, PureFTPd, SpamAssassin, ClamAV, and many more.
via Planet MySQL
The Perfect Server – Debian 9 (Stretch) with Apache, BIND, Dovecot, PureFTPD and ISPConfig 3.1

The law firm Cooley is updating its packet of startup tips and financing documents

The law firm Cooley is putting out a new package of seed investment documents for public viewing on its “GO” microsite, the firm said today.

It’s a way for entrepreneurs and early stage investors and business owners to access what the firm considers to be best practices for early stage investment and to streamline the process for committing capital at the seed stage.

The firm said its new release was prompted by the increase in convertible notes for early stage financing.

Since the investment structure is so popular, and relatively uncomplicated, it’s quickly becoming a default structure for early stage financing. The documents that Cooley is making public are the same ones it uses in the hundreds of transactions the firm has completed for startups.

The new documents will also be available on Github, where Cooley’s documents have received several comments from the community.

The company said that the new documents will act as a “fork” of the original GitHub repository under an open source licenses and on the Cooley GO website.

Other documents that support signing agreements for seed stage deals are also available on the Cooley site.

Any new business owner who wants to can access and amend the Series Seed “Notes” and equity financing documents directly through Cooley GO’s document generators.

 

Featured Image: CSA-Archive/Getty Images

via TechCrunch
The law firm Cooley is updating its packet of startup tips and financing documents

Don’t Eat Your Coconut Oil, Use It For This Stuff Instead

Word on the street is the coconut oil is bad for you. Once thought to be a “fat burning fat” that was good to incorporate into your diet, now the advice is “You can put it on your body, but don’t put it in your body.”

Turns out, the research behind the oil being good for you was a bit flawed. It was looking at all the good stuff in “designer oil,” which isn’t what most of us are picking up at Trader Joe’s.

If you have a bunch of coconut oil in your pantry, you don’t have to throw it out. While you should at least limit the amount you consume (as you should with all fats, really), there are a ton of great uses, some of which we’ve written about before, for the oil that are worth giving a try:

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Condition Your Hair

You may not want to line your stomach with fat, but fat can be a good thing for your hair. Coconut oil is thought to be a great conditioner. Putting it on your locks can help smooth down overlapping layers of protein, and will repel water so your hair keeps looking its best.

Treat Your Feet

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Take care of cracked heels by applying a little coconut oil to your feet at night, putting on some socks, and then leaving the oil to soak into your dry heels overnight. You’ll wake up to much softer, much more moisturized, tootsies.

Coconut Manicure

Just like coconut oil can do wonders for your feet, it can also take care of dry skin on your hands. Rub a bit on dry cuticles to moisturize them, and your hands in the process.

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Remove Gum From Hair

When I was in elementary school I had really long hair, and I used to have a real problem with somehow managing to get my gum stuck in my hair. Back in the 80s, the removal method was always just cutting it out (good thing I had a ton of hair), but you can actually use coconut oil to remove it as well. Just rub the area down with a little bit of coconut oil. The area around will get slick, and the gum will slide right out.

Makeup Remover

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Running low on makeup remover? Coconut oil can do wonders when it comes to removing stubborn makeup. Put a tiny bit of coconut oil on a cloth, and then rub it on the area to remove the stuff that isn’t budging with soap and water alone.

Tell us about your own favorite uses for coconut oil in the comments!


via Lifehacker
Don’t Eat Your Coconut Oil, Use It For This Stuff Instead

What Happens When Software Companies Are Liable For Security Vulnerabilities?

mikeatTB shares an article from TechRepublic:
Software engineers have largely failed at security. Even with the move toward more agile development and DevOps, vulnerabilities continue to take off… Things have been this way for decades, but the status quo might soon be rocked as software takes an increasingly starring role in an expanding range of products whose failure could result in bodily harm and even death. Anything less than such a threat might not be able to budge software engineers into taking greater security precautions. While agile and DevOps are belatedly taking on the problems of creating secure software, the original Agile Manifesto did not acknowledge the threat of vulnerabilities as a problem, but focused on "working software [as] the primary measure of progress…" "People are doing exactly what they are being incentivized to do," says Joshua Corman, director of the Cyber Statecraft Initiative for the Atlantic Council and a founder of the Rugged Manifesto, a riff on the original Agile Manifesto with a skew toward security. "There is no software liability and there is no standard of care or ‘building code’ for software, so as a result, there are security holes in your [products] that are allowing attackers to compromise you over and over." Instead, almost every software program comes with a disclaimer to dodge liability for issues caused by the software. End-User License Agreements (EULAs) have been the primary way that software makers have escaped liability for vulnerabilities for the past three decades. Experts see that changing, however. The article suggests incentives for security should be built into the development process — with one security professional warning that in the future, "legal precedent will likely result in companies absorbing the risk of open source code."



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What Happens When Software Companies Are Liable For Security Vulnerabilities?

Columbus could be the next startup city

Ever since I wrote about the Midwest last year I’ve been keeping my eyes on Columbus. I decided to hold a small pitch-off to meet some of the startups I saw last time I had driven through. The pitch-off was a success and a company called Wyzzer took first place and the quirky Hopper Carts came in second. But what I really came away with was a new respect for Columbus as a startup hub.

You see, I grew up in Columbus and I wanted to see how much it’s changed.

And it has changed. A lot.

On the aggregate a city like Columbus is the model for the future. There is manufacturing, farming, retail, brewing, and ecommerce all in a few square miles. The people are ready to expand and learn and there are plenty of smart folks who are willing to leave high-priced real estate in New York and San Francisco to get a house with a back yard down the street from a beer garden in one of the city’s urban enclaves. I asked around and heard that things are getting even better. Here are a few points I discovered during my visit.

All eyes are on Columbus. And they can’t fail. The city just received a $277 million Smart City grant from the federal government to build out tools and techniques that will define the city of the future. So far it looks like the Mayor Andy Ginther and the city government is dragging its feet but there is hope. While other cities – most notably Pittsburgh – vied for the grant, Columbus got it on the power of private industry and public infrastructure. And now it has four years to deliver. I’ve met a few small startups who are trying to work with the Smart City task force to build out the initiative but there’s little promising thus far.

That said, it’s great Columbus got the nod. There is a lot of promise here as long as government gets into gear and starts working with local entrepreneurs and, most important, this grant can help a thousand startups blossom. It’s a win-win for the government and the city. It just can’t be squandered.

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Further, the quality of life is about to hipsterize. In comparison to cosmopolitan Chicago and small, cool towns like Raleigh, Columbus is still a mixture of malls and suburbs. That’s swiftly changing. I lived in Columbus until college and I saw the rough and ready bars of the Campus and Short North District slowly wink out one by one. Then, when I began returning in the 2000s, I saw entire swathes of urban business turn into a sterile sprawl. In short, between 1993 and 2008 or so Columbus got boring.

That’s swiftly changing. The Short North District is a booming pleasure dome dedicated to deep fried pickles and great drinks. Upstarts like Hot Chicken Takeover and carts like PutItInYourFace are replacing the T.G.I. Fridays and Applebees. Microbrews have rousted Coors and Bud. Columbus, like so many other cities, has become comfortable, artisanal, and pleasant. But, because that process is just beginning, there’s still time to get in on the ground floor. There is plenty of room to grow. While many of the rich suburbs are hopeless as magnets for art and commerce the are still places in the city that have plenty of promise. As I wrote last week the city has plenty of rotting malls it can easily turn into unique shopping and eating experiences.

One con? The Columbus ecosystem is small. Columbus has a population of 835,957 with a regular influx of students that leaves over the summer. It’s long been known as a collector of corporate offices – Chase is here as is Nationwide and the Limited. It has never been an “entrepreneurial town” per se and instead depending on the steady flow of students from the halls of OSU to the cubicles of the corporates. That’s changing.

The ecosystem, however, is as nascent as other similarly-sized cities. A few things have been tried but few of the accelerators are able to keep successful entrepreneurs rooted to the city, an important aspect of ecosystem building. I’d like to see more of that over time and I’m sure that slowly but surely we can see some folks settling down to enjoy some Jenni’s and Donato’s with the natives.

Columbus startups need seed badly. There are a few VCs in the area – Rev1, Drive, and Loud Capital are names you hear often – but like most smaller markets the drive to fund smaller startups in negligible. Loud, a startup itself, is the closest to an on-the-ground seed group while Drive is looking for comfortable later stage investments. Accelerators like Fintech71 see the value of seed in specific markets but they’re finding deal-flow difficult. Therefore both investors and startups in the city are usually stuck – a situation is extremely common in cities like Columbus.

One answer to this problem is to activate the older angels to bet on new things. Whereas the angel network in places like Boulder and Denver are well-established and risk tolerant, the same can’t be said of the Columbus check-writers. However Loud has exhibited some success in talking to doctors and other younger professionals who want to experience entrepreneurship but are too busy saving lives to learn Django. The resulting network the Loud team has built allows them to spin up funding quickly when they find something interesting.

Further, the token sale prospects of many small startups are just as valid in cities like Columbus as they are in the Valley or Berlin. I expect many upstart VCs to feel the pinch of founders who no longer want to play their long game.

I asked people why they came to Columbus. Many had the same answer: the talent, the house prices, the quality of life. Shaul Weisband, co-founder of Jifiti, moved to Columbus from Israel to be closer to US retail. His company allows people to send gifts via ecommerce. He’s glad he made the move.

“I’m seventeen minutes from my house to my airport gate,” he said. He also has ready access to local talent and contacts and he and his growing family have more room. He just misses the hummus.

“But I just make my own,” he said.

Featured Image: Walter Bibikow/Getty Images

via TechCrunch
Columbus could be the next startup city

Managing Hierarchical Data in MySQL Using the Adjacency List Model

Summary: in this tutorial, you will learn how to use adjacency list model for managing hierarchical data in MySQL. Introduction to adjacency list model Hierarchical data is everywhere. It can be blog categories, product hierarchies, or organization structures. There are many ways to manage hierarchical data in MySQL and the adjacency list model may be […]

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Managing Hierarchical Data in MySQL Using the Adjacency List Model