Improving America's Math abilities

America needs a common math curriculum. We can build on a common math curriculum in many ways - showing a variety of approaches to solving the same problem (remember people learn in different ways. Some of us are more visual etcetera) we can build a rich set of practice questions (I've been frustrated by the lack of a substantial number of practice questions for my kids). We could have on-line tutors who understand the content because its a common cirriculum. Imagine several different teachers each creating their own You Tube video on how to solve the same problem. If a student doesn't "get it" based on one teacher's lesson, then s/he can watch another teacher - there might be a subtle difference, that the student picks up on that allows the student to understand.

I've started buying ALL laundry detergent

Why is that significant? Because for years I've picked TIDE from the supermarket shelves. My wife stared buying ALL in the new, super concentrated form. In its super concentrated form the laundry detergent comes in a much smaller bottle which is a handsome new design. The net result is that instead of a frumpy old package, now I think I'm sort of cool when I checkout, with the New ALL in my basket.

Economic Stimulus - incentives to buy cars and appliances

Recently the NY Times reported in the success of an economic stimulus program in Germany where owners of cars at least 9 years old were provided a 2,500 EURO incentive to purchase a new vehicle.

Lets borrow the idea in the United States. Lets give an additional 35% incentive if the vehicle gets great gas mileage.

Lets give folks with refridgerators over a certain age an incentive to buy a new refridgerator. The refridgerator is apparently the appliance that uses the most energy (besides an airconditioner). While we're at it, lets do the same for airconditioners.

Improving the power grid isn't the best place to spend stimulus $

Improving the power grid is short sighted. Lets put a substantial amount of the funds towards driving fuel cell technology forward. Last summer, MIT Professor Daniel Nocera made a splash with the announcement of a process he developed that "will allow the sun's energy to be used to split water into hydrogen and oxygen gases. Later, the oxygen and hydrogen may be recombined inside a fuel cell, creating carbon-free electricity to power your house or your electric car, day or night." (http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2008/oxygen-0731.html)

Bringing this technology to the market would, over time, reduce, or potentially eliminate the need to be on the grid at all and eliminate the need to build power plants.

This technology has the potential to be so revolutionary that we need to find a way to incent people to work day and night to make it deployable.

Do we need DARPA to issue a challenge the way it has for driverless vehicles?

The silver lining in the current economic problems

Falling house prices hurt those of us who are homeowners who were expecting to be able to monetize the equity in their homes for retirement and, potentially, to provide money to help our children assemble a down payment on a house. The silver lining is that, as home prices fall, the home our child buys is more affordable and therefore homes won't be as "out of reach" as they would have been had home values continued to increase.

Our children may also not have as much pressure to seek the job that pays the most just to be able to afford a home.

Life, and the economy, works in mysterious ways....

Now, if economic pressures would only drive down the cost of college so students and parents wouldn't end up with remarkably high loan balances come graduation.

Food Inspector - in tragedy there's opportunity

The New York Times ran an article yesterday called "Food Safety Problems Elude Private Inspectors". The story focused on tragedy tied to the Peanut Corporation of America. The article said that Kellogg and other food companies relied on a private food inspector to inspect the plant. The food inspector worked for the American Institute of Baking. The food inspector was an expert in fresh produce and was "not aware that peanuts are readily susceptible to salmonella - which he was not required to test for anyway"

Time to start a new institute? Here's an opportunity for an agricultural university or set of universities to step in and create one. Food Inspectors could be certified in various areas - fresh produce, baking, meat, fish etc.... food prep, growth, organics etc.... Refresher courses and re certifications could be instituted. It might take a lot of persuasion to get food companies to agree to implement, but imagine a seal of approval from the institute - it would have a lot of marketing value, although the institute would have to be managed to the highest standards - imagine the downside of a problem. On the other hand - the institute could provide silver, gold and platinum levels, each representing a higher level of scrutiny that a manufacturer would subject itself too (similar to ISO 9001).

Peanut Corporation of America - in tragedy there's opportunity

A smart business person is going to see that the liquidation of the Peanut Corporation of America means all of its customers will need a find a new supplier. Time to start up a peanut supplier that touts how clean it is? How about Internet enabled cameras that are on 24 x 7 x 365 where a customer can log in randomly or constantly to view what's going on in a plant?

Some thoughts on Zillow

Zillow doesn't seem to be able to account for subtle differences like neighborhood. neighborhoods seperated by less than a mile could be substantially different. It also doesn't seem to account for the value of larger properties, which, where I live, seems to be valued by actual buyers. Also quality of construction and custom touches to construction. Regarding square footage - at some point additional square footage doesn't add to value. It might even subtract in the age of expensive energy. Also street presence or "charm" and views don't seem to be accounted for. In short - unless its an area of "cookie cutter" homes with similar lots, calculating the value of a home seems pretty hard to do