Weekend Digest: The parking lot math, royal badness, and old fairy tales edition

TV PREVIEW
On this week’s TV edition of Talk Business & Politics, which airs Sundays at 9:30 a.m. on KATV Channel 7 in Central Arkansas and now in Northeast Arkansas on KAIT-NBC, Sundays at 10 a.m.:

Donald Trump vs. Hillary Clinton: It appears inevitable. Plus, the legislature wraps up the fiscal session, but a highway special session is on the horizon. And, will Conner Eldridge’s effort to tie opponent John Boozman to Trump be successful? TB&P contributors Jessica DeLoach Sabin and John Burris are our roundtable guests.

Tourism in the Natural State. It’s an industry on fire. We’ll look at the latest stats in our Tourism Ticker report.

Plus, more from our interviews with AEDC’s Mike Preston and Cong. Bruce Westerman on the latest jobs successes and the federal budget.

Tune in to Talk Business & Politics in Central Arkansas on KATV Channel 7, Sundays at 9:30 a.m. and now in Northeast Arkansas on KAIT-NBC, Sundays at 10 a.m.

ELON MUSK’S PLAN IS A REALLY BIG DEAL
Actually, despite the hype from the beer commercial, Musk probably is “the most interesting man in the world.” Bloomberg Technology says, “Tesla just took the most ambitious automotive production timeline since the Ford Model T and moved it up two years.”

The company now plans to produce 500,000 electric cars every year starting in 2018. That’s 10 times the number of vehicles it produced in 2015, and enough to ensure that all 400,000 customers who put down a $1,000 deposit on the forthcoming Model 3 will qualify for a significant U.S. subsidy.

Talk about doubling down – even the original 2020 goal was considered a long shot by Wall Street. This new target would pledge the carmaker to a faster production growth rate than Ford Motor Co. managed in the early 1900s.

“A century later, Tesla Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk wants the Model 3 to be its electric grandchild. He’s now aiming for close to a million sales by 2020.”

More on this fascinating story at this link.

INSIDE PAISLEY PARK
Prince is gone but Forbes reports, “his music is reverberating worldwide in tribute.”

“His Royal Badness” brought the house down everywhere he performed (TV, movies, clubs, arenas, stadiums and even Super Bowl 41). But the guitar wizard rocked most intently at Paisley Park Studios – the Chanhassen, Minnesota residence, recording studio, soundstage, nightclub, and concert hall where he honed his craft as a musician, producer, and charismatic live entertainer.

“There, he wrote complex lyrics, composed melodies, blasted funky beats, played instruments (27 in all), mixed albums, auditioned backup bands, rehearsed for tours, hosted parties, conducted rare interviews, and squeezed in a few hours sleep in between.”

Take a look, and learn more about this “private palace” at this link.

69 SPOTS AWAY
If you’re looking for a parking spot but the lot seems mostly full, your best bet, says computer scientist Brian Christian, is to “take anything starting 69 spots away” from the front of the store, reports Marketplace.

Christian is the co-author of the book “Algorithms to Live by: The Computer Science of Human Decison.” In it, he explores how the algorithms used in our machines can be used to help organize our everyday lives, from navigating crowded parking lots to finding a spouse.

OK, does this include your Kroger list? Click to listen and learn.

HOW SMALL COMPANIES CAN INNOVATE LIKE BIG ENTERPRISES
Small is good says Entrepreneur.

“When it comes to business, speed is a weapon that separates certain organizations from the competition – but, its speed can also be harmful if not handled correctly. In the age of digital innovation and transformation, small companies have burst out of the gate to disrupt traditional business molds.”

Today’s Fortune 500 list is a mere shadow of what it was in 1995. In fact, fewer than 50 percent of those who were on the list in 1995 still remain today. That’s a big change in just 20 years and the evolution is continuing to happen even faster.

This change has been largely due to those aforementioned smaller companies and startups and their success holds exciting promise for entrepreneurs of the future. But what made those small startups leap to the top, while so many others grew slowly or not at all?

Find out by following this link.

BUSINESS THE TRUMP WAY
“He’s a billionaire (though maybe not as rich as he says). He claims he hates debt (but his casino companies went bust because of it). He craves press attention (but sues at the drop of a hat). What does Trump’s record tell us about how he’ll lead?” asks Fortune.

Donald Trump’s pitch is simple: He is, as he’ll happily tell you, one of the world’s elite businessmen. Therefore he’d make a great President.

Is that so? Read more at this link.

CAN CLINTON’S FOCUS ON EXPERIENCE BEAT TRUMP WHEN OTHERS FAILED?
The Washington Post reports, “Far ahead in the Democratic race for president, Hillary Clinton has embarked on a first round of general-election campaigning against Donald Trump featuring a low-key focus on policy and her own experience, in addition to the daily volley of attack and retort that already defines their contest.”

But what’s next?

Hoping that the election will be waged on wider ground than her economics-centered primary battle against Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, Clinton’s campaign is trying to present a contrast between someone who talks big – “a loose cannon,” as Clinton often labels Trump – and someone who listens and gets things done.

The strategy includes wonky appearances to discuss job creation, green energy and combating drug addiction – even in unfriendly states such as West Virginia, where Clinton spoke Monday in an effort to demonstrate, a senior aide said, that she would be a president “for everyone.”

For more on this “for everyone” presidential philosophy, connect here.

THIS APP IS THE ANTIDOTE TO THIS INSANE PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN
Fast Company says, “Sidewire – created by a former Republican politico and a Stanford wunderkind – aims to create community around smart political discourse.”

“Eavesdropping on what a cadre of top politicos – strategists, speechwriters, congresspeople, political scientists, journalists, and the like – make of the madness is thrilling. Smart, fun, and spirited, it’s the 180-degree opposite of the kabuki theater of cable news “debate,” or the sure-to-devolve and difficult to follow political conversation on social media. At Sidewire, “you can have a more fun conversation without people tweeting Benghazi photos at you all day long,” says Tommy Vietor, cofounder of Fenwy Strategies and a veteran of the 2008 Obama campaign.”

Sidewire is not a bar or a private club, but an app, newsletter, and website – the product of an early-stage, San Francisco-based startup of the same name. Sidewire’s mission is to create a place where informed “newsmakers,” as it calls its contributors, have a clean, well-lit place to share their insights and have civilized conversations.

Eavesdrop more at this link.

WHO KNOWS WHO IS WINNING ON ELECTION NIGHT?
AP does as The Washington Post  reports. How?

“The AP has a FAQ on the topic, in fact, but it’s oriented around a presidential general election. Curious how it worked for primaries, we reached out by email to Don Rehill, the AP’s director of election tabulations and research.”

Those vote counts are sent to vote entry centers by phone, fax or email before being aggregated into overall numbers. (Why “centers,” plural? In case one loses power or otherwise goes offline.) For the most part, the data is transmitted by phone for the simple reason that it requires that another person be involved in gathering – and assessing – the data.

And there’s so much more, here.

WATCH CHANNING TATUM’S INTERVIEW WITH A NONVERBAL AUTISM ACTIVIST
Fast Company posts, “Author and autism activist Carly Fleischmann recently unveiled her new show, Speechless with Carly Fleischmann. Her first guest? Actor/dancer/drill-wielding superstar Channing Tatum.”

The first episode has Fleischmann, who is nonverbal and uses a communication device, asking Tatum hilarious, on-point questions like, “Do you find it hard to be good looking?” and “(After stripping) how many girls at the end of the night would you take home?”

Tatum appears to be enjoying this interview immensely. And because Fleischmann is great at asking just the type of fangirl questions we care about, we get to hear that Tatum wants to act with Jack Nicholson and get drunk with Obama: “You just feel like he’d be a rad hang,” Tatum says.

Oh my gosh. For the complete story, “hang” at this link.

REALLY OLD FAIRY TALES
Come on we all love fairy tales. But Science says some might be 6,000 years old.

“When it comes to the origin of Western fairy tales, the 19th century Brothers Grimm get a lot of the credit. Few scholars believe the Grimms were actually responsible for creating the tales, but academics probably didn’t realize how old many of these stories really are. A new study, which treats these fables like an evolving species, finds that some may have originated as long as 6000 years ago.”

The basis for the new study, published in Royal Society Open Science, is a massive online repository of more than 2000 distinct tales from different Indo-European cultures known as the Aarne–Thompson–Uther Index, which was compiled in 2004. Although not all researchers agree on the specifics, all modern Indo-European cultures (encompassing all of Europe and much of Asia) descended from the Proto-Indo-European people who lived during the Neolithic Period (10,200 B.C.E.–2000 B.C.E.) in Eastern Europe. Much of the world’s modern language is thought to have evolved from them.

That seems a bit complicated, but … dang did we mention we love fairy tales? And we know you do to, so go here.