An alternative to solar panels

We have all tried to walk on black roads during the summer. It’s not quite… comfortable. – it burns! Black roofs are absorbing much heat during the summer. This will overheat the house which again will lead to the need of air condition. During the winter it will be efficient having a heat-absorbing roof. What if it was possible to have a white roof (heat-reflecting) during the summer and a black roof (heat-absorbing) during the winter? This way we would save energy on air condition during the summer and on heating during the winter.

This is what a team of MIT-students have made. They have developed roof tiles that changes color according to the weather; it’s Thermeleon. The quick reader thinks Chameleon and yes, it changes color like a Chameleon.  When it gets hot the Thermeleon turns white and when it gets cold it’ll turn black. It’s not yet very efficient but the idea and vision is clear and could lead to much energy saved from heating/air conditioning. There’s an opportunity cost of a likely decline in the air conditioning/heating industry  but no matter what this is an excellent and easy way of saving energy. Check out the projects web page here.

Friends With Benefits

In my class we have an American exchange student – lets call him Benjamin. He speaks no Danish but, well, English. Since our line of study is international business with English as language of instruction, 17 out of 37 students in my class have lived in English speaking countries for at least one year (majority as exchange students – me being one of them). Thus the 17 of us speaks English very well while the other 20 students speak English less good.

Back to Benjamin: you would expect him to mainly socialize and become friends with those comfortable with English; it’d be much easier. So why doesn’t he? He gets along well with every body but has become best friends with three people from the class; three who did not study abroad. Those three are not nearly as good in English as they are in Danish. What incentive is there for the three to socialize with Benjamin? It is much harder for the three to be friends with Benjamin, in terms of communication, when they have to speak English. Having a friendship with a Danish person would be much easier for them. So why bother?

Roughly half of the students in my class have lived abroad and speak English well. So statistically half of his friends from the class should have lived abroad, the other half not. The chance of having three friends (out of three) who did not live abroad is around 1/6. The chance of having two friends who previously lived abroad and one who did not (or the other way around) is much higher than having three friends who did not previously live abroad and zero who did. You can say it’s a coincidence, but it’s unlikely. What does Benjamin offer that the Danish student does not offer? What motives might be behind this preference?

It turns out that the three benefits more than the English-fluent student when connecting with Benjamin. The person who previously lived abroad gets, well, a friendship. How does the three actual friends of Benjamin benefit from the friendship? Along with friendship they get exposed to American culture, which is fairly alien to the three compared to those who previously lived abroad. Being exposed to foreign cultures is very valuable to people who has not lived abroad before. They also benefit in terms of language training – they get to practice English and get good at it. These incentives surely make them more interested in the exchange student – they benefit additionally from being around Benjamin.

Although it’s quite a small observation I still find it interesting. Hope you enjoyed it as much as I did!

Advertising today

This picture is taken in the center of Copenhagen in Denmark.

Along with many others I’m starting to feel careless towards traditional advertising. It does not grab attention the way it’s intended to. Never before has creativity been more important for advertisers wanting to grab peoples attention. How many people feels stimulated when watching a regular tv-ad ? Not many.

What do you think happened as the ice block started to melt? There was most likely people waiting to be able to take the bottles. Along with the possibility of getting a free bottle of Jaegermeister it also gives the person a good story to share with his friends. This project is likely to have been cheap and the percentage of people feeling stimulated by this ad is probably much higher than for mainstream ads.

I wish more ads would be like this. It inspires!