Certain quantitative market and population concepts pop up frequently.

Peak X

2013, June – Initial blog post

2013, July – Peak Printer blog post

2013, October – Peak cable & car blog post

2013, October – Article on how we have passed Peak Antibiotic

2013, November – New Yorker article on the closing of Blockbuster that states that peak Blockbuster VCR-rental store count in the US occurred in 2002 with over 8,000 units.

Y is the new X

2013, June – Initial blog post

2013, June – Product succession

2013, June – Email is the new telegraph

X is a Historical Accident

2013, June – Initial blog post covering, “what if mass media was a historical accident?”

2013, July – Peak Printer blog post, the previously mentioned ‘Peak Printer’ post also hit on the same questions about mass media.

Power Law Found in X

Power laws are fascinating – the implications are still not fully incorporated into much of what is taught as modern statistics.  My first and still favorite book on the topic was Critical Mass by the popular science author Philip Ball.  Nassim Taleb, a student of Benoit Mandelbrot, whose work in fractals is often included in writings in this area, did much to popular Cauchy-type distributions with his book The Black Swan.