AdventuresInMissingThePoint.com

I am a fan of the Urban Dictionary and of women.  This post connects the two.  From my experiences, I eventually noticed that the most efficient way to predict the mannerisms and characteristics of women is by their purse, or lack there of.

From the pursenality entry:

using a woman’s handbag or pocketbook as a form of identifying her most definitive characteristics

Shoes, hair style, and clothes are also useful for judging, but I don’t think they are as prompt to distinguish differences. . . although, maybe I just think my wallet is really cool.

Little did I realize in my first engineering class that I would learn the ultimate weight loss solution.

accumulation = in – out + generation

This is the fundamental balance in engineering, which is applied to mass, energy, momentum, charge, benjamins, etc.  In non-engineering speak: You accumulate whatever you take in and whatever you generate, but less whatever goes out.  Think of a scenario involving vegetables and a vegetable garden.

At a your current state:
      You have 2 carrots in your fridge.

Today you take in:
      You buy 5 potatoes and 2 onions at the store.

Today, you generate:
      You harvest 7 tomatoes from your garden.

Today you take out:
      You eat 2 potatoes, 2 tomatoes, 1 carrot, and 1 onion in your stew.

For the day, you accumulated:
      You have 3 potatoes, 1 onion, 5 tomatoes and had a net loss of 1 carrot.

Net:
      You now have 1 carrot, 3 potatoes, 1 onion, and 5 tomatoes.
      And, you have energy for your body as well as a food baby forming.

That was fun to figure out. You can also apply this balance to your weight. If you want to lose weight, think that you want to negatively accumulate weight. If you want to maintain your weight, you want accumulation to be 0.  Or, you can beef up.  I don’t know how to generate weight. So, the equation becomes simpler: everybody wins.

acc = in – out

Yes, there are lot of uncertainties revolving around “out,” like how much energy we burn in sleeping, metabolizing, or killing proverbial kittens.  But, if I am gaining weight, I either need to take in less energy (eat less) or use more energy (exercise) to maintain my weight.  Weight loss, to me, seems so simple. Yet, I think capitalism, by way of marketing to people’s immediate gratification desires, has other options for us consumers.

Here’s a fun thought experiment.  How much weight would you gain if you supplemented your current diet/lifestyle by adding a Coke to your daily intake for an entire year?

(1 Coke) x (140 calories / 1 Coke) x (1 g fat / 9 calories) x (1 lb / 454 g)

= 12.5 lbs!

It can be astonishing that small differences, over time, can add up.

I recently rode on a newer bus line, Megabus. The reason I chose Megabus is due to cost: $45; a Greyhound ticket cost $75. I didn’t check other alternatives. The book A Confederacy of Dunces taught me that a bus ride is necessary every once in a while, to keep collecting good life experiences.  A rider on this trip catalyzed my 2009 Social Experiment goal!  I digress.

I find Megabus’ business model interesting.  That is the company charges people less the earlier they buy the ticket. The first seats purchased on a Megabus ride sell for $1!  This is a logical business plan.  A lot of businesses in the travel industry use this method, like airlines and hotels.

Using my University of Wikipeidia knowledge, it turns out this method is called Yield Management. I think the benefits of yield management is predicting cyclical trends, maximizing profits, and even controlling cyclical trends.  At a given future time, the more tickets sold, the more likely that passengers will be wanting to travel on that trip. For predictability purposes, yield management can raise prices to maximize the profits, if you are willing to add extra resources, in this case an extra bus.  Megabus can do this by “just renting another bus.” However, this is not as easy for airlines or hotels, so the price discrimination often raises drastically for the later industries to maximize profits while considering the available resource restraints.

I found Roscoe’s, my Megabus driver, loyalty to the company quite amazing.  He informed us passengers that Megabus is hiring, and an experienced bus driver can make $60,000 a year.

Whoa whoa whoa!

I am assuming that Greyhound does not pay their drivers near this amount.  Even with government subsidies, Greyhound has additional costs that Megabus does not: bus stations, ticket agents, and a lot more infrastructure and overheard to support many more, unpopulated stops than Megabus. For, Megabus only goes to major cities, i.e. New York, Washington D.C., Chicago, etc.

In general, I think Megabus adapted yield management to a good service.  I also think Megabus has, and can afford, a slightly higher operating expense, like giving Roscoe a little extra pay, possibly to prevent driver turnover.

I wonder what other markets could benefit from yield management.  I think sandwich shops could, to help control and maximize the profits of the lunch and/or dinner rushes.  I think the Wikipedia article has a good section on pointing out the drawbacks to Yield Managent, namely pissing off the customer.  “You paid less, WTF!?!”