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...,280 ft wide, say 3 + 4, or ten million feet; so maybe the width of Texas? a billion inches is 7 - 1 + 3 = 2 orders of magnitude more, or about 100 million feet... say, two times around the globe?) What is the weight of the Empire State Building? Of Hoover Dam? Of a fully loaded jumbo jet? (a million tons? 10 million? 100?) How many commercial airline takeoffs occur each year in the world? (100k passengers / 100s on a flight = 1,000s flights a day = 3 + 2 = 5... probably 6 because 5 seems low) Douglas Hofstatder's Innumeracy Exercises (Solutions) | jsomers.net
  • Empire State: The building weighs 365,000 tons and its volume is 37 million cubic feet. source
  • Hoover Dam: How much does Hoover Dam weigh? More than 6,600,000 tons. source
  • Jumbo Jet (call it a 747): The 747’s maximum takeoff weight ranges from 735,000 pounds (333,400 kg) for the -100 to 970,000 lb (439,985 kg) source

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added at April 1st, 2016 21:15
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...estaurants are there in the U.S.? (4, which would work out to a few thousand in each state) How many passenger-miles are flown each day in the U.S.? (100k's of travelers * 100's of miles = 5 + 2) How many volumes are there in the Library of Congress? (tens of millions = 7) How many notes are played in the full career of a concert pianist? (a page of music has probably 10 bars, each of which has 10-100 notes (3); concert pianist probably plays 100s of pages of music a... Douglas Hofstatder's Innumeracy Exercises (Solutions) | jsomers.net

Founded in 1800 to serve the reference needs of Congress, the library has grown from an original collection of 6,487 books to a current accumulation of more than 16 million books and more than 120 million other items and collections, from ancient Chinese wood-block prints to compact discs.

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added at April 1st, 2016 21:12
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...ndred streets squared should give an upper bound to the intersections, so 4: 10-100k) How many Chinese restaurants are there in the U.S.? (4, which would work out to a few thousand in each state) How many passenger-miles are flown each day in the U.S.? (100k's of travelers * 100's of miles = 5 + 2) How many volumes are there in the Library of Congress? (tens of millions = 7) How many notes are played in the full career of a concert pianist? (a page of music has probably 10 bars, each of whi... Douglas Hofstatder's Innumeracy Exercises (Solutions) | jsomers.net

Appears to be about 1.6B

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added at April 1st, 2016 20:53
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...y people die per day on Earth? (6: 1-10 million) How many traffic lights are there in New York City? (a few hundred streets squared should give an upper bound to the intersections, so 4: 10-100k) How many Chinese restaurants are there in the U.S.? (4, which would work out to a few thousand in each state) How many passenger-miles are flown each day in the U.S.? (100k's of travelers * 100's of miles = 5 + 2) How many volumes are there in the Library of Congress? (tens of millions = 7) How many no... Douglas Hofstatder's Innumeracy Exercises (Solutions) | jsomers.net

…there are now more than 41,000 Chinese restaurants in the U.S., nearly three times the number of McDonald’s, according to Chinese Restaurant News.

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added at April 1st, 2016 20:51
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What's the gross state product of California? (10: 10-100 billion) How many people die per day on Earth? (6: 1-10 million) How many traffic lights are there in New York City? (a few hundred streets squared should give an upper bound to the intersections, so 4: 10-100k) How many Chinese restaurants are there in the U.S.? (4, which would work out to a few thousand in each state) How many passenger-miles are flown each day in the U.S.? (100k's of travelers * 100's... Douglas Hofstatder's Innumeracy Exercises (Solutions) | jsomers.net

As of June 30, 2011, there were 12,460 intersections with traffic signals citywide

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added at April 1st, 2016 20:50
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What's the gross state product of California? (10: 10-100 billion) How many people die per day on Earth? (6: 1-10 million) How many traffic lights are there in New York City? (a few hundred streets squared should give an upper bound to the intersections, so 4: 10-100k) How many Chinese restaurants are there in the U.... Douglas Hofstatder's Innumeracy Exercises (Solutions) | jsomers.net

151,600 people die each day.

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added at April 1st, 2016 20:49
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What's the gross state product of California? (10: 10-100 billion) How many people die per day on Earth? (6: 1-10 million) How many traffic lights are there in New York City? (a few hundred streets squared should give an upper bound to the intersections, so 4: 1... Douglas Hofstatder's Innumeracy Exercises (Solutions) | jsomers.net

The economy of California is the largest in the United States. As of 2014, California’s gross state product (GSP) is about $2.3 trillion.

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added at April 1st, 2016 20:48
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The link above points to the full text online, but translators matter here . I'm not sure he's the best (or anywhere close), but for what it's worth we used the Lombardo translation at the U of M. James Somers

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added at April 1st, 2016 20:45
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... Greg Egan's home page is a bit nuts but has links to many of his shorts and essays. He is a published author in physics and co-wrote a paper with John Baez. Swingers (screenplay), Jon Favreau . This is my favorite movie. Thus the the top five are: (1) Swingers, (2) Independence Day, (3) Hackers, (4) American Psycho, (5) The Rock. If you're a fan of the movie it is wort... James Somers

Not to be confused with Jon Favreau

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added at April 1st, 2016 20:43
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Title insurance, which in 2014 reaped an operating income of $12.2 billion and net income of over $800 million, has always been an opaque corner of real estate. Though technology has made title searches simpler and cheaper for firms, buyer premiums have continued to rise, given that the industry colludes to k... Title Insurance Industry | American Land Title Association

Given the shady/collusive nature of the whole title insurance racket, I’m pretty surprised that the business runs at ~7% margin.

Especially odd since this figure is apparently from 2014, so the tech efficiencies described below should already be priced in / fattening up the margin.

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added at March 28th, 2016 17:50
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B43b456f0950c477955c944da596b969

30,626

8 years

Well, is this stat the underwriter? If so, 80% of their gross goes to agencies off the top.

There are a whole lot of people getting compensated off of any one deal.

From my limited understanding, you can do with a low net because the overhead and liabilities are very low. Most of what nominally cuts into the gross are extremely high commissions, but of course these will never exceed the income.

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