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This is the most amazing video on the economy I have ever seen! If you've ever felt the slight unease about how money actually works, this video will give you chills. I thought I'd only watch a few minutes of it, but I stayed glued through the whole thing.

Man, I really should have gone into banking as a career.

Hmmm... they aren't priced that much lower compared to Starbucks. I don't think the machines will displace baristas.

Quoted: Sandoval is among the first in San Diego County to renovate his store and make room for the machine that, with a press of a button, turns out espresso-based drinks. Many of them can be served hot or cold and spiked with flavored syrups.

With McCafe drinks priced from $2.39 for a small to $3.29 for a large, they are still less expensive than the barista- prepared lattes and cappuccinos that made Starbucks a household name.

Quoted: The Academy-Award nominated animated short-film tells the story of a lonely inventor, whose colorless existence is brightened only by dreams of the carefree bliss of his youth.

By day, he is trapped in a dehumanizing job in a joyless world. But by night, he tinkers away on a visionary invention, desperate to translate his inspiration into something meaningful.

When his invention is complete, it will change the way people see the world. But he will find that success comes at a high price, as it changes himself, as well.

An interesting account of pay-for-performance applied to fruit picking.

Quoted: Managers would test-pick the field to see how difficult it was and set the rate accordingly, thus preventing the workers from engaging in a collective go-slow. (If the managers made a mistake in their estimate, and the pickers didn't earn minimum wage, Farmer Smith would make up the shortfall with an extra payment. This rarely happened.) The economists measured the result. By the time the experiment was over, Farmer Smith's initial skepticism had long evaporated: The new pay scheme increased productivity (kilograms of fruit per worker per hour) by about 50 percent.

Pretty cool.

Quoted: Extraordinarily lifelike characters are to begin appearing in films and computer games thanks to a new type of animation technology.

I wonder if there's an opportunity for companies with huge online brands to take them off-line. e.g. The amazon outlet mall.

Quoted: Internet advertising stimulates off-line sales, too—in most cases, our firm finds that online campaigns increase sales more at advertisers’ retail cash registers than on their websites

The idea is that you log points for doing things that move you towards your goals. Sounds great for those new-year resolutions. I'm going to give this a shot.

Brilliant!

Lots of videos of great speakers and guests lectures on this Stanford website. Eric Schmidt's talk is excellent.