Month: March 2007

Math Savant

Daniel Tammet is a high-functioning autistic savant. He can calculate huge sums in his head in seconds and instantaneously recognize prime numbers, but he finds emotions difficult to understand and has trouble telling left from right. 1 of fewer than 50 such people living worldwide, Daniel is unique in his ability to articulate his savant experience. He describes his visual experience of numbers as complex synaesthetic shapes with color, texture and motion. 37 is lumpy like porridge, while 89 reminds him of falling snow. Sequences of digits form visual landscapes in his mind.

A glimpse of our posthuman future.

Google Pay Per Action

Affiliate marketing networks like Commission Junction and LinkShare are screwed. These networks also operate on a cost-per-action basis, mostly with online retailers. Even though some of them have scale, they will not have the ability to compete with Google on sheer size of network. Advertisers flock to volume, which drives average pricing up. When prices increase, publishers flock to the new platform because they’ll earn more. Look for serious publisher leakage from the big affiliate networks over time as this new product scales up. If you want to argue this point, note what happened to the stock price of Commission Junction’s parent company, ValueClick, today. And that’s even though the market has largely adjusted for this news already – this move to add PPA ads has been rumored for some time.

good riddance to affiliate spam, hopefully

Subprime

it might be that the default risk is only $300b. by comparison, the tech crash was $9t.
2007-12-05: this is hilariously funny

2008-03-16:

a newsteam ventures to one of LA’s new shantytowns made up of people who’ve lost their homes in the subprime meltdown and now live in tents, improvised shacks or RVs on abandoned land. It’s the contemporary Hooverville, and, as the Subliterate Cinephile notes, I wonder why I found out about this from the BBC and not US media.