In Search of the Perfect Investment

+ During an interview with CNN, Representative Peter King, Republican of New York, who previously distinguished himself by actively supporting the Irish Republican Army, said the police were well within their rights and suggested that Mr. Garner was responsible for his own death. “If he had not had asthma, and a heart condition, and was so obese, he almost definitely he would not have died from this.”

+ Senator Rand Paul, Republican of Kentucky,  said during an interview on MSNBC’s Hardball that there was something larger at work than police abuse: “Obviously the individual circumstances are important, but I think it’s also important to know that some politician put a tax of $5.85 on a pack of cigarettes, so they’ve driven cigarettes underground by making them so expensive.” Senator Paul doesn’t like big government.

Garner’s “crime”  was selling loose cigarettes on the street. He had six children.

 The Economist announces its annual Innovation Awards: 

In this weekend’s Technology Quarterly, the Economist writes:

Our annual prizes recognise successful innovators in eight categories. Here are this year’s winners:

+ Bioscience: Jay Keasling, professor of chemical engineering at the University of California, Berkeley, for developing synthetic artemisinin, the main ingredient in the treatment of malaria. Artemisinin is normally extracted from the sweet wormwood plant, but Dr Keasling reprogrammed microbes to make it.

+ Computing and telecommunications: Andrew Rubin, former senior vice-president of Google, for the development of Android, the world’s most widely used smartphone operating system. Based on a Linux kernel, Android was acquired by Google in 2005 and now powers 85% of smartphones sold each year.

+ Energy and the environment: Urs Hölzle, senior vice-president of technical infrastructure at Google, for energy-efficient data centres. The rows of servers that deliver internet services consume large amounts of electricity. Dr Hölzle’s innovations have reduced energy consumption in Google’s facilities to less than 50% of the industry average.

+ Social and economic innovation: Nandan Nilekani, former chairman of the Unique Identification Authority of India, for the development of India’s national identification scheme. A lack of formal identity documents excludes many Indians from the modern economy. Mr Nilekani led the project to create a national scheme based on biometric verification.

+ Process and service innovation: Perry Chen, Yancey Strickler and Charles Adler, the founders of Kickstarter, for popularising crowdfunding. Kickstarter has let over 7m people fund 73,000 projects to the tune of more than $1 billion.

+ Consumer: Renaud Laplanche, founder and chief executive of Lending Club, for popularising peer-to-peer consumer lending. Intrigued by the fact that savings accounts pay very little interest, but credit cards charge high rates, Mr Laplanche set up a platform to match lenders and borrowers directly, giving both better rates.

+ No boundaries: Jack Dorsey, Biz Stone and Evan Williams, the founders of Twitter, for pioneering microblogging using short messages, or “tweets”. Twitter has 285m monthly users, who collectively send more than 500m tweets every day.

+ Corporate innovation: Pixar. A pioneer in computer animation, Pixar makes both its own films (such as “Toy Story 3”, pictured) and the tools used by other studios for animation and special effects. Pixar has earned 30 Academy Awards, including seven for best animated feature.

I hate calculators. I always screw up, can’t tell where I screwed up and have to start all over again. For eons I’ve been aching for an electronic paper calculator. I wanted one I could eye my error, fix it on the fly (on the left) and get the right result quickly.  I found one. It’s called CalTape and looks like this:

It also stores your paper tape — they call it a Scratchpad. You can edit it. You can try it free for 30 days and/or buy it for the grand sum of $7.95. Click here. My dream fulfilled.

English humor at its best. One minute of pure fun. Click the forward arrow.

 The best noise cancelling earbuds. They’re made by Bose. They’re called the Bose QuietComfort 20i Acoustic Noise Cancelling Headphones.  One reviewer on Amazon wrote:

I don’t use the word “revolutionary” casually. Truth is, a product rarely qualifies for that accolade. But knowing as much as I do about noise-cancelling technology, I would not have believed that what Bose has accomplished with the QC20 series was even possible. In fact, I’d say they’ve created the best all-around earphone or headphone on the market today for everyday use with portable music players.

My friend Patrick writes:

These are the best in ear noise cancelling headphones available. They are expensive, but nothing else comes near to them in silencing aircraft noise, while the special ear clip design means that they don’t fall out of your ears. The cables too are almost impossible to tangle,  possibly because the cables are relatively thick but still easily manageable. While they are expensive, there is a good reason why Bose can charge so much for them.

They cost $299 and are worth it if you’re regularly on a plane. I’m not. But you might be. Click here.

Favorite recent New Yorker cartoon. I call it “customer tennis,” though it’s uncaptioned:

When you subscribe to the New Yorker (highly recommended) you get access to it online. Their software is the best of any magazine I’ve ever seen.

Harry Newton, who’s back to New York’s cold, rain and snow tomorrow. Sorry, California, to leave you when you finally stopped raining. Now, why can’t you get on Eastern time. It’s hard to get up so early. See you on Monday from New York.

Nice employment numbers this morning. The economy must be doing better. It’s impossible to get anyone to do any work out here — like electrical, plumbing or communications. Everyone is SO busy. My networking guy called me last night and said it was his 43rd customer call he’d returned that evening.

Harry Newton