The Fount of Useless Information
Your place for useless information that just might possibly be interesting.
The Last Mystery of the Financial Crisis
It’s long been suspected that ratings agencies like Moody’s and Standard & Poor’s helped trigger the meltdown. A new trove of embarrassing documents shows how they did it
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-last-mystery-of-the-financial-crisis-20130619
In this case, the …
Vitamins: Too much of a not-so-good thing?
http://www.cnn.com/2013/06/19/health/vitamins-offit/index.html?hpt=hp_c4
This is an interesting issue. Much like the flu vaccine having dubious efficacy (where ‘dubious’ is being kind) over the last couple of decades mega doses of vitamins have been increasingly shown …
U.S. top court bars patents on human genes unless synthetic
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/06/13/us-usa-court-genes-idUSBRE95C0PW20130613
It has always stuck in my craw that the simple act of sequencing a gene could possibly be considered ‘novel, useful and non-obvious’, yet we have (had) thousands of …
Employment is still near a 30-year low
http://money.cnn.com/2013/06/06/news/economy/employment-rate/index.html?hpt=hp_t3
Using the most generous measurement of employment in the article (for workers ages 25 to 54 — those who should be in the prime of their careers) there is an employment rate …
Why Didn’t the SEC Catch Madoff? It Might Have Been Policy Not To
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/why-didnt-the-sec-catch-madoff-it-might-have-been-policy-not-to-20130531
For those non-financial types amongst my reader(s) this article might be a bit hard to follow. The gist is the SEC is basically in place to …
Potemkin Stimulus: One Way to Offset Austerity
http://jaredbernsteinblog.com/potemkin-stimulus-one-way-to-offset-austerity/
How far away are we from doing this? I doubt it is very. At the moment we rush around and spend huge dollars replacing broken things (like bridges, cities; generally with borrowed …
Everything Is Rigged: The Biggest Price-Fixing Scandal Ever
The Illuminati were amateurs. The second huge financial scandal of the year reveals the real international conspiracy: There’s no price the big banks can’t fix
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/everything-is-rigged-the-biggest-financial-scandal-yet-20130425
Somehow I missed this article and …
It’s Time to Talk about the Burgeoning Robot Middle Class
How will a mass influx of robots affect human employment?
http://www.technologyreview.com/view/514861/its-time-to-talk-about-the-burgeoning-robot-middle-class/
I am sure that this article is relevant, but not sure that it will have any impact. ‘Robots’ (really, …
Student Debt and the Crushing of the American Dream
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/05/12/student-debt-and-the-crushing-of-the-american-dream/
I have waxed on the subject of student loans a number of times (see here, here, here and here for just a few examples). When the student loan …
Printing Electronics Just Got Easier
A new technique developed by researchers in China allows easier printing of electronic components onto paper.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/13/130509-paper-printed-circuits-electronics-technology-science/
I think the next decade is going to be as eye popping as the last quarter century (in …