BP. Oil. Consumers.

Posted on May 2, 2010 | by Markus Stocker

This post equals to stating the obvious, really. Yet, I believe some don’t appreciate this basic reality: it is consumers that rule on which products and, thus, corporations are successful, not the other way around. I’m not arguing that corporations never influence our choices. For sure, marketing plays a big role in business and the [...]

From GIS Polygons To RCC Regions

Posted on April 21, 2010 | by Markus Stocker

[This is a technical post.] For a seminar at UEF I’m looking into ways to translate quantitative polygon data digitized in ArcGIS into qualitative data represented with the Region Connection Calculus (RCC). In a nutshell, an ArcGIS polygon described as a closed path of line segments each defined by two coordinates is translated to a [...]

A Case Against “All-Inclusive Lease”

Posted on January 31, 2010 | by Markus Stocker

There are different rental lease models w.r.t the structure of your monthly bill. Typically, I have been having the model where a fixed monthly rent was separate from a variable bill for the utilities, e.g. gas, electric, water, cable. In two occasions, including the current rental agreement, the total rent is fixed and includes the [...]

Environmental Awareness

Posted on January 25, 2010 | by Markus Stocker

Thinking around environmental economics is starting to be my favorite spare time activity. Not entirely sure if that’s a good thing :> I have been writing about democratization of consumption data, the idea of providing accurate and real-time data and information on individual consumption of natural resources to consumers. Data on individual consumption — today [...]

First Article On Wikipedia

Posted on January 21, 2010 | by Markus Stocker

Today, I started my first article on Wikipedia, on Environmental Informatics. Environmental Informatics has been around for awhile but Wikipedia had no page for it. I don’t think, there is a reason not to have an article for Environmental Informatics so I started one with a tentative description adapted from Hilty et al. The article [...]

A Spot From Which I Make Sense

Posted on January 13, 2010 | by Markus Stocker

Recently, I stumbled across the Summers memo (Wikipedia). It is actually only an excerpt of the original. I think, this doesn’t matter as the excerpt is informative and provocative enough. The memo was written by Lawrence Summers in 1991 while he was Chief Economist of the World Bank. A few days ago, I forwarded the [...]

On The Beauty Of Forgetting Intoxication

Posted on December 6, 2009 | by Markus Stocker

Likely you have heard of the chicken or the egg causality dilemma, ”which came first, the chicken or the egg?” I think, Samuel Butler‘s statement about egg & hen is more intriguing: “A hen is only an egg’s way of making another egg.” In The Botany of Desire (2002), Michael Pollan writes about apples, tulips, cannabis and potatoes [...]

Do Conventional Plastics Internalize Costs?

Posted on November 26, 2009 | by Markus Stocker

The United States and Canada (primarily) celebrate Thanksgiving Day, a day that sees families and/or friends gather to share a Thanksgiving meal. According to Wikipedia, “a time to express gratitude in general,” which, depending on your preferred -ism, might be gratitude for the birth of free enterprise in America. My own experience of American Thanksgiving is, [...]

Democratization Of Consumption Data

Posted on November 12, 2009 | by Markus Stocker

An email exchange across the Atlantic (thanks!) motivated me to finally write a post on a thought that kept my three neurons spinning for awhile now. The idea is, surprise, not new. Yet, it might not be too old for some branding either, so here are my two cents: On the Democratization of Consumption Data. Whatever [...]

Breathe Private Quality Air

Posted on November 6, 2009 | by Markus Stocker

Scarcity is perhaps one of the most fundamental characteristic of resources we pay for upon consumption. Breathable air is considered to be a common-pool resource, likely the main reason why up to now we have had open access to it. Free breathable air is, however, not a tautology, I think. Will it become a scarce [...]

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