Indian taxis are black

Consumers probably want to avoid their cars being mistaken for a cab?

There is chart in the FT comparing the popularity of car colors around the world. For the most part everyone dislikes the same colors – brown, yellow, green and pink – but there are some discrepancies.

For example, North American and Europe are fond of grey cars and blacks cars, but Indians are not. There is a huge disparity, with Indians down at 4% and Europe at 18% in the case of grey; black cars are at 26% in Europe but only 7% in India.

Also, people probably assume that a black car is hotter in already insufferable climate:

We can see that the painted surfaces of the car did indeed vary by a large amount between the white and black cars. The difference between the average black and average white cars is: 144.85- 90.25 = 54.6 degrees. This is about ten times what the glass variation was.

The NYT gets a scoop on the NYT

Buy 1 get 1 free:

The New York Times Company hopes to sell a newspaper in central Massachusetts along with The Boston Globe and wants the buyer of the papers to take on $59 million in pension liabilities. It intends to make a deal quite quickly, according to a letter sent to potential bidders.

The confidential letter from the company’s investment bankers at Goldman Sachs, which was obtained by a Times reporter, says the company will focus on getting the highest price and “on the certainty and speed with which bidders can sign a definitive agreement and complete an acquisition.” It sets a July 8 deadline for initial, nonbinding bids, after which the company would choose which potential buyers would participate in a second round and would be allowed to submit binding offers.

How’d the reporter get the letter? And did she have to use an outside line to call the company spokesperson?

Michael’s patent

More useful than Microsoft’s recent patent (via DF):

Michael Jackson’s Patent for ‘Anti-Gravity’ Shoes