Health
- With hospitals now posting price lists, we have a natural experiment in how much attention consumers pay to healthcare prices. Answer: They don’t. Mind you, it doesn’t help that hospitals hide the price lists.
- Google search trends predict nose bleeds and regional weather
- A sports physio explains why data has made him abandon manual therapy, and gets pilloried for it. Medicine, in all of its corners, remains quick to adopt practices, and slow and stubborn about deadoption.
Finance
- Good success in forecasting oil consumption via a Google trends model
- While people are making much about Norway reducing its oil exposure over concern about future price trends, it’s not exactly surprising, given its widespread exposure. It’s like Enron employees reducing their exposure to Enron stock. Wait, bad example.
Tech
- Facebook leads the list of companies with the largest drop in year-over-year reputation. It’s now below Comcast. Shudder.
Research
- Hockey tape is a wonder drug with respect to puck speed, rotation and energy
- Female mountain chickadees pick mates on the basis of mapping skills. As they should, right?
- Smaller countries tend to evolve in the face of political violence, while larger countries tend to monopolize violence and entrench
Other
- You can buy the hospital gown Kurt Cobain wore to mock people saying he was terminally ill. This is, of course just plain ghoulish.
