There Are Two American Economies

INC. Magazine story on TechStars makes an interesting point of page 61.  “There are two American economies”.  Whereas huge swaths of the country remain hobbled by scarce credit, depressed home prices, and high levels of unemployment, the technology hubs in Silicon Valley, Boston and NYC are booming.

If you are where the start ups are, you could never think there was a recession.  If you are a good software code writer, there might not be a recession in your near future.

As the rest of the country frets, and worries about a global meltdown, our creative folks are seeing little impact on their world.  A few years ago I was assisting a lady who was trying to found a creative (two year) university here in Columbia. I learned so much about the future, and why America needs to be pushing our creative types, not worrying about why our kids don’t do math as good as the Indian’s and Chinese.  Our future will rest,not on math in the traditional form, but on ideas and related products that entertain or assist people all over the world.

Four years ago Brad Feld (venture capitalist, co founder TechStars) made an investment in Zynga, a company that makes online video games for Facebook users.  Today, Zynga trades on Nasdaq and is worth $9 billion. 

Which brings me to a final point, I had quit subscribing to INC Magazine some years ago and now regret that.  The magazine has improved greatly from my prior experience, I find every issue contains interesting stories.  I tear them out, and pass the rest of the magazine on to a friend to read (eco friendly pass along? --- some end up in assisted living centers I think).

Credit:  TechStars is a business incubator that is now in five cities.  Evaluations of business propositions can take as little as 2.5 minutes or less.  One founder thinks that he can spot the winners in 20 seconds.  The get 1,500 application for 14 spots in their boot camps.   Have you heard of CrowdFunding ?  Maybe that’s my next Blog. 

Health and Diet Website : Worth a Look

This might be my first, and last, Blog post on health and nutrition, but I thought it worth passing along to readers this one time. 

http://nutritionfacts.org/

I was made aware of this website by a Blog post elsewhere (Dr. Tom Hill's Eaglezine) and took a little time to view some of the included videos.  I was impressed that this MD doesn’t seem to be selling anything, and is dedicated to showing ordinary folks some of the facts (as best they know them) of various foods, diets, and disease risks.  The videos are short and well done. 

Here are a few you might like to see – they are all on the website home page above, of course:

http://nutritionfacts.org/video/dont-put-your-money-where-your-mouth-is/

Germs from touching money – and contaminating food (by workers in food outlets)

http://nutritionfacts.org/video/health-food-store-supplement-advice/

Are health food store employees really trained ?   Apparently not.  So asking for recommendations might be a waste of time.

http://nutritionfacts.org/video/plant-based-atkins-diet/

Low Carb diets warnings, but lowers health.  Maybe dangerously. 

http://nutritionfacts.org/video/some-dietary-supplements-may-be-more-than-a-waste-of-money/

Dietary supplements, don’t do the same thing as real foods do, and could have the opposite effects

Again, I believe you can access these videos with a click, even though they might not appear ‘blue” on your computer screen.  I like the fact that this does appear to be a truly non-sales based site talking about health and nutrition issues.

Your comments ?

Super-Camera Breakthrough

Super-Camera Breakthrough is right.  Duke University has built at experimental camera that can capture a billion pixels –  and will one with an even larger pixel count next year.  That means the camera can capture 5 X as much information as a person with 20/20 vision can see.

It also has all parts of a picture in focus, a rare thing in the real world.  So, one could zoom into see individual persons at different distances in a photo.  And of course this could revolutionize security cameras and spy planes.  For more information Google  Super-Camera Breakthrough Gautam Maik.  I have found by adding the story reporter’s name to the name of an article, you can the article on-line, and thus don’thave to buy the paper (assuming you don’t already own it).  This one was in the Wall Street Journal.  

Photos taken with the camera can be seen at www.WSJ.com/US   So far it is only black and white, but color is coming next. 

Sprial light bulbs, revisited again.

My dislike of spiral blubs is fading as I get better and better results.  I just got some 40 watt bulbs at Lowes today, Sylvania, micro mini CFL, 2700 K wave length light, and 40 watt replacement, drawing 10 watts of power.  They are INSTANT ON.  Smaller than prior versions.  And last 12,000 hours.  Outlasting 50 equivalent 40 watt incandescent bulbs. Saving massive amount of money on electricity.

The signs in the store say that up to 40% of some homes electric bill (probably in off seasons) is for lighting.  But the reason I am converting, even to little desk lamps is

1.      no flickering anymore

2.      they put off a fraction of the heat, and this is summer, and my cooling isn’t big enough to cover any excess heat

3.      the wave length of light is now pretty acceptable in most of the things I am doing with it

4.      they are sweeping the country, and regular bulbs are fading away anyway

5.      I am tired of climbing up on ladders to replace bulbs a few times a year, with these, I might not live long enough to ever replace them

Now LED blubs are on the way, and Lowes had a huge promotion showing how they work, and why they are even better. Unfortunately good ones start at $10 and go to $30 each bulb.  And they are not all dim-able, if that’s a real word.  Same for some spirals.

Deal of the Day -- at Staples

I shop very little at Staples, but I do enjoy using their copy machines.  The machines are easy to use, you just put your credit card in a slot, and they run just like any other $30,000 office copy machine.  And it shows you how your cost is building up.  My best use of these machines is for two-sided copies, which I can’t do at home, large numbers of copies (too much wear and tear on home machine), and copies that have lots of black space (eats up too much toner or ink at home).  Today I ran a large amount of stapled, two-sided, copies.  Total cost $9.00.  Not too bad.  And, like an ATM machine, no human help needed – and they have a great big sorting tables and stools. 

But, the news for me  today is they are now given loyalty card customers (which is most everyone) 5% off at the cash register.  On everything, I think.  I found my daughter's favorite brand of toilet tissue, 24 roll size, on sale and then got 5% more at the register.  I think it was totaling out less than the grocery stores or Wal-Mart.  There are other nice advantages for loyalty card holders.  And you don’t need the card, they use take my verbal phone number.