Monday, May 04, 2009

Swine flu meet Money and Banking

Predicting Flu With the Aid of (George) Washington - NYTimes.com:
"The best way to track the spread of swine flu across the United States in the coming weeks may be to imagine it riding a dollar bill."
The model is based on the "Where’s George?" that you probably have seen stamped on dollar bills. It "
was started more than 10 years ago by Hank Eskin, a programmer who marked each dollar bill he received with a note asking its next owner to enter its serial number and a ZIP code into the Web site, just for the fun of seeing how far and fast bills traveled. By 2006, the site had the histories of 100 million bills."
Great use of the data! Hope it is right. It predicts a fairly slow spread.

Interestingly the virus can live on money for 10 days, so be sure to wash hands after touching money! (Which is what I tell cashiers at the Park and Shop all the time!)

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