October 4, 2006

MoneyBall

There is a book called "Moneyball" that talks about the sport of baseball from a purely financial stance. It refers to an Oakland Athletics team from a few years ago, and the management that had one of the least paid teams in baseball win 100 games. The big idea behind it was that they created a financial metric that ranked each player based on things that were truly important, RBI's, On-base-percentage, etc. It turned out that some of the top ranking players were on the bench for other teams. They scouted and bought up those players and put together one of the most underpaid, overperforming teams of all time. It's a quite remarkable study about how to treat a game like a business in order to better win the game. It also makes me feel dirty.
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October 3, 2006

E-Ching for the Day

"How can one be wise if he has not yet been born?"
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October 2, 2006

Invention: Electronic Newspaper

Since moving up here, I've been buying the Sunday edition of the Chicago Tribune. It's fabulous. In Peoria, there was no good paper to get, and I didn't care, because Yahoo! News gave me everything I needed. But, there's something about flipping through an actual newspaper, not reading off a computer screen, and getting a wider assortment of stories at your fingertips. I don't know. But, how about an electronic newspaper? You buy a flexible electronic reader that folds up into one newspaper spread. It unfolds like a regular paper, but only one spread thick. With either wi-fi or through a USB input, this same paper updates electronically every day, or throughout the day. When you open the paper, there is a menu that allows you to flip through the paper electronically. Much of the cost of newspapers is caught up in printing and distribution. Perhaps this would slow the death of newsprint?
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