"Best" Food to Fill Your Tummy from the Taco Bell Menu -- Calories per Dollar

 

"Best" as in highest calories per dollar. I am curious and so I compile the list from the Taco Bell website. Data is retrieved on April 21, 2021 from https://www.tacobell.com/food. I excluded items that vary in calories because of options, 0-calories items, and drinks. Some specific exclusions include "My cravings box" and party packs.

Sauces are on the top of the list. But assuming you are not buying $3 worth of Spicy Ranch Sauce and drink them for 2200 calories and receiving the gift of diarrhea, the best item is the Beef Burrito ($1 for 430 calories) from the value menu. The next two that follow closely are also from the value menu -- Beefy Potato-Rito and Cheesy Bean and Rice Burrito. The first non-value menu item at the top of the list is the Hash Brown Toasted Breakfast Burrito ($1.99 for 580 calories for 291.5 calories per dollar.)

For taste, I like the Beef Burrito and the Chicken Chipotle Melt (only $1 for 190 calories because ... chicken).

 

Food Item	Price	Calories	Calories per $
Spicy Ranch	$0.30	220 Cal	733.3
Avocado Ranch Sauce	$0.35	240 Cal	685.7
Creamy Jalapeño Sauce	$0.35	230 Cal	657.1
Chipotle Sauce	$0.35	220 Cal	628.6
Beef Burrito	$1.00	430 Cal	430.0
Beefy Potato-Rito	$1.00	420 Cal	420.0
Cheesy Bean and Rice Burrito	$1.00	420 Cal	420.0
Hash Brown Toasted Breakfast Burrito	$1.99	580 Cal	291.5
Drinks Party Pack	$4.00	1120 Cal	280.0
Bean Burrito	$1.29	350 Cal	271.3
Chalupa Cravings Box	$5.00	1340 Cal	268.0
Cheesy Toasted Breakfast Burrito	$1.29	340 Cal	263.6
Cheesy Toasted Breakfast Burrito Potato	$1.29	340 Cal	263.6
Hash Brown Toasted Breakfast Burrito Combo	$4.19	1020 Cal	243.4
Breakfast Crunchwrap	$2.79	670 Cal	240.1
Spicy Potato Soft Taco	$1.00	240 Cal	240.0
Quesalupa Combo	$5.99	1360 Cal	227.0
Breakfast Crunchwrap Combo	$4.99	1110 Cal	222.4
Chips and Nacho Cheese Sauce	$1.00	220 Cal	220.0
Hash Brown Toasted Breakfast Burrito Steak	$2.69	570 Cal	211.9
Nachos Party Pack	$9.99	2050 Cal	205.2
Nachos BellGrande® Combo	$6.69	1350 Cal	201.8
Grande Toasted Breakfast Burrito	$2.79	560 Cal	200.7
Grande Toasted Breakfast Burrito Combo	$4.99	1000 Cal	200.4
Black Bean Quesarito	$3.19	630 Cal	197.5
Beefy 5-Layer Burrito	$2.49	490 Cal	196.8
Quesarito	$3.39	650 Cal	191.7
Chicken Chipotle Melt	$1.00	190 Cal	190.0
Cheesy Roll Up	$1.00	180 Cal	180.0
Cinnabon Delights® 12 Pack	$5.19	930 Cal	179.2
Veggie Nachos Party Pack	$9.99	1770 Cal	177.2
Quesalupa	$3.49	610 Cal	174.8
Cinnamon Twists	$1.00	170 Cal	170.0
Quesalupa Black Bean	$3.49	590 Cal	169.1
3 Soft Tacos Combo	$5.79	970 Cal	167.5
Crunchwrap Supreme® Combo	$6.89	1120 Cal	162.6
Grande Toasted Breakfast Burrito Steak	$3.49	560 Cal	160.5
Chicken Quesadilla Combo	$6.89	1100 Cal	159.7
3 Crunchy Tacos Combo	$5.79	920 Cal	158.9
Nachos BellGrande®	$4.79	740 Cal	154.5
Cheesy Fiesta Potatoes	$1.49	230 Cal	154.4
Burrito Supreme® Combo	$6.49	1000 Cal	154.1
3 Soft Tacos Supreme® Combo	$6.79	1040 Cal	153.2
2 Chicken Chalupas Supreme Combo	$8.39	1240 Cal	147.8
Cheese Quesadilla	$3.19	470 Cal	147.3
3 Crunchy Tacos Supreme® Combo	$6.79	990 Cal	145.8
Guacamole	$0.50	70 Cal	140.0
Crunchwrap Supreme®	$3.79	530 Cal	139.8
Soft Taco	$1.29	180 Cal	139.5
Cheesy Gordita Crunch	$3.59	500 Cal	139.3
Black Bean Crunchwrap Supreme®	$3.79	520 Cal	137.2
Chicken Quesadilla	$3.79	510 Cal	134.6
Crunchy Taco	$1.29	170 Cal	131.8
3 Doritos® Locos Tacos Combo	$6.99	920 Cal	131.6
3 Doritos® Locos Tacos Supreme Combo	$7.59	990 Cal	130.4
Steak Quesadilla	$3.99	520 Cal	130.3
Cinnabon Delights® 2 Pack	$1.29	160 Cal	124.0
Hash Brown	$1.29	160 Cal	124.0
Soft Taco Supreme®	$1.79	210 Cal	117.3
Black Beans and Rice	$1.49	170 Cal	114.1
Chalupa Supreme	$3.19	350 Cal	109.7
Crunchy Taco Supreme®	$1.79	190 Cal	106.1
Burrito Supreme®	$3.69	390 Cal	105.7
Black Bean Chalupa	$3.29	330 Cal	100.3
Nacho Cheese Sauce	$0.65	60 Cal	92.3
Mountain Dew® Kickstart™ Orange Citrus - Small	$1.00	90 Cal	90.0
Reduced Fat Sour Cream	$0.50	45 Cal	90.0
Nacho Cheese Doritos® Locos Tacos	$1.89	170 Cal	89.9
Power Menu Bowl	$5.69	470 Cal	82.6
Red Sauce	$0.25	20 Cal	80.0
Nacho Cheese Doritos® Locos Tacos Supreme®	$2.39	190 Cal	79.5
Power Menu Bowl - Veggie	$5.59	430 Cal	76.9
Black Beans	$1.49	50 Cal	33.6

 

Random: CombiBar - Gold Bar the Size of Credit Card

Saw the CombiBar mentioned on Marginal Revolution (link here). The purpose of the CombiBar is make payment in gold easier in a crisis because the bar is the size of a credit card and can be broken into 1g chunks.

The price of gold at the time of writing is about $1,656.65 per troy ounce. With 1 troy ounce = 31.1034768 grams, that comes to about $53.26 per chunk.

If you’re curious what the CombiBar looks like, there are some pictures (article here). I don’t know how much Valcambi (the Swiss refinery that makes the bar) charges for the card – i.e., what is the value of the workmanship involved to make the gold bar into breakable pieces.

RSS to Email

I was considering merging my information streams from email and RSS feed (via Google Reader) into just email. One way to do this is to have RSS updates be sent to my email inbox directly. After some googling, the one service I like is feedmyinbox [http://www.feedmyinbox.com/]. They allow users to have RSS feed updates for each email address. Paid accounts have this limit removed and enjoy some other benefits like real-time notifications.

After some testing, I decided to stay with having email as well as RSS feed. With Google reader and services like Full Text RSS Feed Builder [http://fulltextrssfeed.com/], I am able to read the complete article from within Google reader. Furthermore, I often save articles with Pocket [http://getpocket.com/] to read articles offline on my iPod Touch. The latter benefits outweigh the benefit of having everything in my email inbox.

News to Me: The Thai Chipotle

The information is dated September 2011, but is news to me nonetheless: Chipotle founder tries new Asian format with ShopHouse. The website is (here), and it lists only one location in Washington DC. I wonder if the company feels that the concept still has not been sufficiently tweaked to warrant expansion. From the article date, the restaurant would have been opened for about a year now.

I was in DC a year ago (and sadly, did not know about the place at the time). However, there are other places that are Chipotle-like for other types of food. Roti in particular comes to mind (website here).

A random statistic: as of August 6, 2012, the ShopHouse has 1,427 likes on Facebook, versus 1,850,393 likes for Chipotle. That is a multiple of 1,297. According to Wikipedia (reference here), there are 1,316 locations for Chipotle. The popularity of the ShopHouse as measured by Facebook likes, accounting for the number of locations (somewhat), seems comparable to Chipotle.

Random Musing: Popularity of Dropbox and Chrome

Because portable versions of Google Chrome and Dropbox are available (discussed here), lack of these programs on the school computers hasn't been an issue for me. It however appears that these two program are now sufficiently popular that they are finally installed on the computers in my school libraries and labs.

Random Links: Econ Memes

Hattip to Marginal Revolution (here) on a series of economics memes by Art Carden (here). Note that the site Carden uses – quickmeme (here) – allows anyone to make his or her own memes. My two favorites:

 

Reference: Artcarden's created memes [Quickmeme]

Week Cal, My DateBk Replacement on the iOS

With the recent Week Cal update allowing rolling events to be flexible (i.e., I can set it to roll for 1 day, 2 day, 1 week, 1 month, etc), I am compelled to mention the iOS calendar app Week Cal.

In my Palm Pilot PDA days - I love the calendar DateBk. But after my Palm Tungsten T5 suffers from drop too many drop, I ended up getting an iPod touch and were abhorred with the crappy program that is Calendar. Perhaps crappy is too strong a word - it is just that the default calendar program is exactly what the program name suggested - a calendar. The screen real estate is poorly utilized, and there is a severe lack of features.

After googling on and off for about a month, I was thankful to find this Lifehacker article (here). And for the better, I am happy to have settled with Week Cal by chance.

For those that used DateBk, I love the conditional formatting, templates, and floating events. I use the conditional formatting to mark important or timed appointments (which is useful because I put a lot of other information on the calendar in additional to just appointment. The conditional formatting allows me the highlight the actual appointments. I use floating events also because of the various other information I put on my calendar - so that I do not have to manually roll these events for each day. For those unfamiliar, the rolling event is an option that you can set to have events automatically "float" or "roll" to the following day. Even I first started using Week Cal, they already have the first two features. With the past two updates, the rolling event function is added, making it close to everything I need.

WinSplit – Aerosnap for XP and Vista

People who like and hate the aerosnap feature on Windows 7 are about 50/50. I happen to be in the like group. Unfortunately, since I am still stuck in the Stone Age with XP and Vista laptops, I have been looking for a utility that would replicate this function.

I used to use a program call AeroSnap, but it was a bit buggy and the author of the program has long since stop updating it. You can still find it on CNET (here). If you follow the link to the publisher’s home page, you will see that even the website is gone.

Very recently, I find a new program that close to replicate the aerosnap function – called WinSplit Revolution. It does a full set of window managing feature – though I just use the aerosnap function. You can define hotkeys to snap your windows, and you can snap them more than just the left, right, top, and bottom. However, as far as I can tell, it doesn’t allow you to do it with the mouse. (I.e., move the window to the right edge of the screen to have it snap to the right side.)

So, not an optimal solution – but second best is good enough for me.

You can read about and download WinSplit Revolution (here). It is a freeware.

UCSD San Diego Shuttles Tracking Direct URL Links, an Update

Syncromatics is changing their UCSD Shuttle website again. So, an update on the previous post titled “UCSD San Diego Shuttles Tracking Direct URL Links.”

The new direct link to the interactive maps all has the format:

http://ucsdbus.com/m/regions/0/routes/1143/map.

As before, you can replace 1143 with a different route. You can find the route number by using the mobile version of the site - which you can go to from any web browser (desktop or mobile) by going directly to: http://ucsdbus.com/m/routes. Select the route and look at the URL for the route number. From the mobile link, you can also go to the static maps - but unfortunately, it doesn't seem to zoom out very much, making it rather useless at the moment.

Random Links: “Macau casino revenue increased by 12.2% yoy in June”

Blog entry (here) from Also Sprach Analyst shows graphically the correlation between China quarterly GDP growth and Macau’s gross gaming revenue. Given that collecting macroeconomic data is costly and slow, the use of unconventional data helps supplement and increases our understanding of the current economy.

As stated in the article:

We started looking at Macau casino revenues as a possibly proxy for China’s economic growth earlier, as the chart below shows that they track each other well.

In this case, the ideal situation is to have slowing Chinese economic activities cause less traveling which then causes the reduction in Macau gaming revenue. However, the article also raises some issues with the Macau data. For example, the restriction of Chinese visa would have the same effects. I.e., less visas cause less traveling which then causes the reduction in gaming revenue. This results in misleading correlation if the visa restriction is unrelated to the economic downturn.

If the correlation is valid, then the strong relationship suggests that even if China does massage its economic data – it does so without being too obvious (drastic). For an anecdote, see this other blog entry from Also Sprach Analyst titled “Is China massaging macro data? (Ans: Yes).”

Reference: Macau casino revenue increased by 12.2% yoy in June [Also Sprach Analyst]

Random Links: “Make 50% on Apple with Little Downside Risk”

An interesting strategy from a Seeking Alpha article here: http://seekingalpha.com/article/694301-a-chance-to-make-50-on-apple-with-little-downside-risk. It makes use of call spread (shorting and longing calls at different prices) and shorting puts.

The payoff graph for the example described by the article, assuming the cost of the long and the short options cancels out, is:

 

In words, if the price of the Apple stock goes above $650, the payoff with 2 long calls, 2 short calls and 1 short put will yield $10,000 of profit (the author assumes the transaction cost from the shorts and longs cancel out). If the price falls below $400, the strategy suffers a ‘loss’ in the sense that you will have to buy 100 Apple stock at $400 each, while the actual price of the stock is below $400.

The crucial assumption for earning 50% is 1) the ability to use a margin account, so the short put option ties up only $20,000 of capital, and 2) the Apple stock goes above $650 before the options expires. If you can use naked puts, the return in percentage term would be higher. If you cannot use margin account, the return would be 25% (with the short put tie up $40,000 of capital).

Note that the maximum lost is $40,000, in the case of Apple stocks falls to $0 and you have to by 100 Apple stocks at $400. The author claims this trade to have ‘little downside’ because he assumes you values the apple stock at $400 – so that you would be happy to buy the Apple stock at $400 even though it currently is trading at below $400 (though hopefully not at $0).

I find the strategy suggested by the author interesting because it highlights how even though the purpose of option is insurance, it allows the author to change the payoff of the stock to something he deems to be the optimal.

In contrast, one of the commenter of the article, "Roger C. Wren,” suggests an alternative strategy of using just 1 short put at $450 (and he assumes the premium of the 1 short put yields $5,300). In this case, the payoff of the stock is:

Essentially, the commenter prefers a profit of $5,300 should the stock stay above $450, versus the article author’s preference of a profit of up to $10,000 should the stock goes above $650. To some extent, it also suggests that the author thinks it more likely that the stock will go above $650 than the commenter.

Random Links: Recycling at its Finest

In the artist’s own words:

My sculptures are all constructed with recycled materials — old CDs, computer hard drives etc, so I classify my work as “sustainable art”. They’re a lot of fun to make, but they take an extremely long time to finish, so I don’t do a lot of them.

He has a page on Deviant Art at: http://seanavery.deviantart.com/, and the work looks incredible. I wish more artists will make sure of these materials – materials that will last generations.

Reference: Broken CDs Transformed Into Iridescent Animal Sculptures [The Creators Project]

How to Create a Shortcut to Change the Power Scheme on Your Laptop

I can’t seem to force my power task icon to have the power plans I want. For example, I currently have the following three plans in the figure below. If I want to switch to “Maximum Performance,” I will need a few more clicks.

To create shortcuts to change the power plan in your Windows computers (I have Vista), start a command prompt, and run:

powercfg.exe –L

This will give you a list of GUID for all your power schemes. For example:

 

To create a shortcut to change to the Power saver scheme, use the following command in your shortcut:

powercfg.exe -setactive  a1841308-3541-4fab-bc81-f71556f20b4a

Random Book Review: Nano House, Innovations for Small Dwellings

Most people prefer doing things more efficiently, but that does not necessarily apply to living spaces. As a graduate student, I spend most of my time in a small office with three other graduate students or out and about. I go home mostly to just sleep. For me, a large living space has very little value, and it furthermore has the cost of:

• having to clean it,
• having to pay for the extra space directly via rent payment, and
• having to pay for the extra space indirectly via extra electricity used for heating and cooling.

Thus, I was intrigue by the book Nano House (Amazon link here). However, I end up disappointed after perusing the book.

The main disappointment comes from that of expectations. I envisioned this book to provide examples of houses that use space efficiently and discuss how to work in necessities like bathroom and kitchens into a complete package. In designing small houses, it is easy to have a small space for a bed, but fitting in things like bathroom, showers, and kitchens are much more difficult. Instead, the narrative of the book reads like a catalog - with superficial and detach. Furthermore, for many of these houses, I do not have a good sense of how everything fit together due to the lack of floor plans for most houses. The pictures are nice, but it does not give me a complete picture of the house. I cannot even tell if most of these houses have bathrooms.

My personal favorites are the One+MiniHouse (pg52, more info here, including showing the kitchen and bathroom) and the Roll-IT (pg78, more info here, seeming to have no kitchen or bathroom). But I have come across other good nano homes as well - two of which are:

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lg9qnWg9kak
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZSdrtEqcHU

I also find Tata’s nano home concept encouraging – particular the possibility of providing lower income people with cheap and practical living spaces (more info here).

Using Skydrive for Backing Up Files – A Suggested Process Flow

SkyDrive (from Microsoft at https://skydrive.live.com/) has been offering 25GB of storage for files for years now. Recently, with a newer iteration of the service, they lowered the free storage offering to 7GB. As this Lifehacker article points out, if you act now, you can be “upgraded” back to having 25GB of storage free.

And as this other Lifehacker article points out, the max file size for SkyDrive is 2GB (10GB for Google Drive; unlimited with some qualification for Dropbox.)

Putting the two pieces of info together, it occurs to me that for the average student, you can use SkyDrive to backup most of your school files (if you have <25 GB of files and they are <2 GB each). This has the benefits of:

1. having a backup copy of your files in addition to the ones on your hard drive,
2. having an backup that is 'offsite,’
3. having the files accessible anywhere (where you have Internet access,
4. for some Microsoft Office files, you can actually edit them online, and
5. for 25 GB with 2 GB file size, it would back up most file for an ‘average’ student.

About point #4, I tried open an Excel file that is 5.9MB in size using the office web app via my web browser – that failed. Also, the online Excel app does not support a lot of regular features in the desktop version.

For me personally, since I use Dropbox for most of my current schoolwork, my main motivation for using SkyDrive is for a tertiary (and offsite) backup for my older class files. (You should still have local a second backup of your files for good backup practice.) This works well especially if you don’t usually use your SkyDrive online – which I do not. Frequently use of the SkyDrive online via your browser is a potential risk because it increases the chance of you accidentally deleting things online. If you delete the files online, that deletion propagates to your local file! Unfortunately, unlike Dropbox, you cannot restore files you have deleted on SkyDrive.

Furthermore, to reduce the overhead of having yet another program running in the background, you can use the Task Scheduler to run the SkyDrive desktop syncing program, and have it stopped after a set amount of time – perhaps an hour (versus just having it run continuous in the background). I think the Windows Task Scheduler gives you the option to kill program that runs for a certain period. But if that does not work (task scheduler can be flaky sometimes), you can always scheduler a taskfill to kill the process (and thus the program) manually.

If you have no school files, this would be a nice location to backup your photo as well. Though I suspect it is far more likely for people to have more than 25GB of photo than 25GB of class files.

To reiterate, the major short coming of using SkyDrive for backup is the possibility of accidentally deleting your files online and have that deletion propagate back to your machine. Thus, you would want to have a local backup of the files as well. The benefit – an offsite backup of your files.

Generic Laptop Battery Effectiveness for Lenovo X61

Some comments about generic laptop batteries – I am happy to report that the generic battery I got for my Lenovo X61 tablet for $28 has been working well. As of now, after having it for a few months, it still gives me about 3 hours of “normal use” per charge.

My advice is to get the higher n-cell with the highest wh you can. However, batteries with more cells tend to be bigger. For the Lenovo X61 tablet battery, the 8-cell battery “sticks out” even more than the 4-cell. (You will know what I mean if you have one of these tablets.) The specification for my original 4-cell battery is:

14.4v, 4.55ah, 66wh || Fru: 42t4661 || Asm: 42t5209

The v, ah, and wh numbers are slightly different sometimes when you look at the various generic batteries on eBay or Amazon. Only after some googling, did I realize that 14.4v * 4.55ah = 65.52wh (i.e., 66wh). 

The battery I got from eBay is from a seller named “buyingsnow.” (Example here.) I think the listing title he uses for the x61 tablet battery is “40Y8314 40Y8318 Battery For Lenovo X60 X61 Tablet PC.” Note that x61/x60 batteries and x61/x60 **tablet** batteries are different.

I don’t have the original eBay posting saved – so I do not remember what the exact specification were for the battery I bought. Based on what Lenovo’s power manager is telling me, it is a little different from the example of the eBay auction I linked:

If I set the brightness to 8, turn wi-fi on, and do just mostly word processing and web browsing, the battery lasts me 2 hours and 45 minutes at the max performance setting. It will probably last longer if I use a more efficient power profile.

At the end of the day, the decision is whether to take a risk on a generic battery, and get something like this:

or this:

.

The alternative is to get it on Amazon. The batteries there seem a little more expansive than eBay, but if the return policy is friendlier, then perhaps the markup is worth it. I don’t know how friendly the return policy is though when you buy things from a third party on Amazon.

In an ideal world, I would see many reviews on the particular battery I want on Amazon. The reality (here) is that some of the battery have good reviews (here), some have good reviews but are pricy (here), and some have no reviews at all.

To sum it up, buying a generic battery still seems like a crapshoot. Here I offer you one observation that ends in a good outcome. Good luck finding your replacement.

Note-taking In Ipod Touch – Take A Snap Shot

After watching this GeekBeat.TV episode, it occurs to me that the best way to take “notes” on my gen2 iPod touch is to just snap a screen shot. Which, if you watch the video, or just google around, you will find that this function is natively supported and activated by pressing the power and home button at the same time.

The iPod touch then makes a shutter sound, and it saves to a folder in your Photo app. I believe this works in all iOS devices – though I can only say for certain that it works on a gen2 iPod touch.

I have been copying and pasting notes into Simplenote app, but it is a slow process given how under power the processor is in those gen2 devices and I would need to switch between the apps. The way I need to select text – say from a webpage in Mobile Safari – is also very cumbersome in iOS. The benefit of using Simplenote is that it can sync to your other devices, and access your notes in any browser. I.e., I often copy and paste information back and forth between my laptop and the iPod touch.

Reference: How to Capture Any Screen [GeekBeat.TV]

UCSD San Diego Shuttles Tracking Direct URL Links

While the shuttle tracking at ucsdbus.com is really useful - I really dislike the inefficiency of the GUI. The normal flow to reach the track map is:

1. Go to ucsdbus.com, then
2. Click on the live bus map link, then
3. Click on the mesa route.

Here are the direct URLs to the various maps that you can bookmark instead. You can find these by accessing the website using a mobile device (or directly here: http://ucsdbus.com/m/routes). I like to bookmark these in my desktop and laptop browser as well, and add a bookmark keyword so I can access my route simply by typing “s” in the address bar.

(A: Arriba) http://ucsdbus.com/m/regions/0/routes/117/map
(C: Coaster East) http://ucsdbus.com/m/regions/0/routes/312/map
(C/W: Coaster East/West mid-day) http://ucsdbus.com/m/regions/0/routes/314/map
(H: Campus/Med Center Hillcrest) http://ucsdbus.com/m/regions/0/routes/138/map
(L: Campus Loop) http://ucsdbus.com/m/regions/0/routes/120/map
(M: Mesa) http://ucsdbus.com/m/regions/0/routes/198/map
(N: Nobel) http://ucsdbus.com/m/regions/0/routes/115/map
(OT: Old Town Connector) http://ucsdbus.com/m/regions/0/routes/111/map
(P: East - Regents Parking 702) http://ucsdbus.com/m/regions/0/routes/867/map
(S: SIO) http://ucsdbus.com/m/regions/0/routes/139/map
(S: SIO evening route 7pm-) http://ucsdbus.com/m/regions/0/routes/519/map
(TP: TOrrey Pines - Peterson Shuttle) http://ucsdbus.com/m/regions/0/routes/828/map
(W: Coaster West) http://ucsdbus.com/m/regions/0/routes/313/map

Samsung N120 White Screen of Death Monitor Issue

I have a Samsung N120 that has been afflicted with the white screen of death issue. The problem appears to be a loose wire going from the mother board to the LCD panel. The screen would go "white," but the computer continues to run fine (except you cannot see anything.) Usually, if you apply pressure to the Samsung logo to that is located at the bottom of the LCD screen, or to both the Samsung logo and to the back of the panel, the screen would come back. Depending on your luck, it would work after that, or go back to the deadly white screen once you release the pressure.

The following YouTube video illustrates the issue (which also happens to the NC10). As the video shows, you can sometimes bring your monitor back by wiggling the screen as well.

Samsung NC10 white screen problem [by nygelhillen]

I fix the problem by opening up the LCD casing and re-taping the cable more securely so that it no longer wiggle around. Make sure the screen is working after you taped the cable though. I use electrical tape for this. To open the case, I use this YouTube video as a guide.

How to fix screen flicker problem on Samsung N120 [by 6rubby]

You can see (unclearly) the cable in question running alongside from the left hinge to the Samsung logo at the bottom from around the 4:45 mark in the video). The poster 6rubby believes that tightening the screws will fix the problem. For me, the screws are pretty tight already, but so I think it is more likely that his problem is fixed due to the inadvertent repositioning of the LCD wire.

For supplemental reference, you can find some discussions at the Sammy Netbook Forum:

http://www.sammynetbook.com/forum/threads/10949-White-screen-%28of-death-%29

The information from outnumbered dated "20-10-09, 12:27 AM" is especially helpful to me. The most relevant instructions are:

• Unscrew the four screws at the base of the LCD panel, freeing the panel from the hinges. Commence handling the LCD panel. Notice where the cable flattens out and adheres to the back of the panel, Have some fun peeling the first inch or so of it off and sticking it back on.
• Go on and re-insert the battery and fire up your computer. Without any safety precautions, proceed to dork around with the wiring. Once you have confirmed that your problem is solved, find a nice way to lace the wiring into place and screw the LCD panel back on.

Update (20120417): The white screen of death rears its deathly white screen once again. So, I might have to either replace that cable – assuming it is indeed the faulty component and not the connections that the cable connects to – or just use the laptop as a home desktop with separate monitor.

Camelcamelcamel! Use Camelcamelcamel to Inform Yourself When Selling Books on Amazon

I finally sold my copy of Simon and Blume’s Mathematics for Economists that has been left unused for the past 4 years. Fortunately, unlike undergraduate textbook, graduate textbook tend not to be updated at the same ridiculously pace and so the resale value is still moderately high.

Camelcamelcamel.com is a service that helps users monitor prices of products on Amazon and alerts users by email, twitter, or RSS when prices change. I have used it as a buyer for a few things before, but never for books and never or selling. As a seller, I was curious about the history of the listing price for Simon and Blume and camelcamelcamel ends up being useful as well. I believe camelcamelcamel earns money from Amazon by referring customers to them and perhaps sell the threshold data from the users to companies. They have sites for Best Buy (http://camelbuy.com/), Newegg.com (http://camelegg.com/), and a few others.

The reservation price data from potential customer is worth money for businesses, and from an economic point of view it is data that I would love to analyze comb through and analyze. This should help with understanding how consumer behaviors change over this past recession. This also in some sense ties back to projects like "Billion dollar project," a movement to use more real time data to analyze the macro economy.

Anyhow, now that I am done with the pedantic diatribe, here is the chart of the data for Simon and Blume. A few things to keep in mind when looking at this chart:

• How to read the chart:
  • The green line is the Amazon selling price.
  • The red line is the "3rd party" used book price. My book listing would fall under this group.

• Caveats about the chart
  • Note that these are plots of the lowest listing price and not transacted prices. In other words, a data point of $71 in November 15, 2008, means that the lowest price book on that day is listed for $71. It is possible that no one ever bought the book at that price.
  • Note the asymmetry are likely caused by different factors.
    • The movement up can be attributed to a buyer purchasing a book and so the listing price increase.
    • The movement down is likely to be attributed to sellers adjusting its listing prices. Either due to their own inventory increase, new entrants under cutting the existing lowest price, or other sellers responding to other seller's prices.

• Some observations
  • I do see some run up in prices during the summers. The book price seems to have peaked near $71 in August 2010, and peaked near $110 around August 2011. Given that this is a textbook used by for entry level "math for economist" class, this makes sense. However, it is unclear to me why the listing price has gone up so much this past year relative to the previous 2 years.
  • The Amazon prices are very stable. And it doesn't have the seasonal pattern like that of the 3rd party used books.
  • In the used book market, the frequency of the update has increased since April 2011. There are many possible causes:
    • a technology issue on the part of camelcamelcamel on checking and updating prices
    • someone (Amazon or another company) has developed a system and the software to allow sellers to update their prices based on either their own inventory or on other people's prices.
    • The variance of the book prices has increased. So when a buyer buy a book, the next lowest price book is in a sufficiently different price range and so we see a fluctuation. (In other words, if two books are being sold for $61. After 1 book got purchased, the lowest listing price is still $61. If books are all listed at different prices, then after someone purchased a book, the lowest listing price will change)