Google Analytics

Monday, August 20

20th Aug - (late) Weekender: Views & Off-Topics

Some market views and Off-Topic articles - sorry, usually I post this during the weekend.



The stock markets are


Previously on MoreLiver’s:

Follow ‘MoreLiver’ on Twitter or Facebook 











PSYCHOLOGY
Does Contemporary Neuroscience Support or Challenge the Reality of Free Will?BQO

To Spot a Liar: An Offices of SciAm Mystery SciAm

The Hunt Is On for Biological Signs of PTSDtechnology review
Nationwide team will work to find biomarkers that could improve diagnosis and treatment of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder

Secret of AA: After 75 Years, We Don’t Know How It Works (June 2010) – Wired

Psych- and neuro linkfestBPS

The Science of Sleep brain pickings
Dreaming, Depression, and How REM Sleep Regulates Negative Emotions

MILSECINT
*A Cyber "Warhead" With an Unknown Targettechnology review
The Gauss malware uncovered last week features a mystery payload.

CIA Declassifies Amazing 1972 Spy Satellite Capsule Deep-Sea RescueLiveScience
It's a plot worthy of a Hollywood action movie: 40 years ago, the U.S. Navy carried out a daring mission to retrieve a top-secret film capsule that had settled more than 16,000 feet (4,876 meters) underwater on the ocean floor.

You, Too, Can Purchase a Not-Quite Panopticonreason
We're almost certainly not yet living in the Panopticon. But any step in that direction—even if it's well-spun marketing-speak—is worth watching.

Wikileaks & Assange
Assange Faces Long Stay in Ecuador’s London Embassy – NYT
Blocking Assange – The World / FT
Assange or Corzine? – Azizonomics
Conflict Brewing Between UK And Ecuador As Latin American Country Agrees To Grant Asylum To Assange – ZH

SOCIETY
They have more money than you and this is what they do.

Berlin’s “cyber-bohemians” don’t want to workFrankfurter Allgemeine / presseurop
"Poor but sexy"; the German capital is a creative, forward-thinking centre, but only survives on subsidies paid by other states. There, lives a population for whom money is tight, and universal handouts are expected. Blogger Don Alphonso pulls no punches in his portrait of Berlin. Excerpts.

Central Planning in History – The Greek Bronze AgeWhy Nations Fail
The idea that the central planning of the economy in the Soviet Union was driven by ideology seems compelling and obviously true. But it isn’t that simple actually.

A $1.2bn Simulation of Civilizationtechnology review
An ambitious European project wants to build super-real simulations to help predict the future.
http://www.technologyreview.com/view/428891/a-12bn-simulation-of-civilization/?ref=rss

As Ramadan ends, we publish three articles on changes in the Islamic world: on the impact of digital technology, on religious observance, and on the role of alcohol:
Islam and technology: The online ummah – The Economist
Muslim rituals: Preaching and practicing – The Economist
Islam and alcohol: Tipsy taboo – The Economist

TECH / SCIENCE
Approaching maximum theoretical printing resolution
The limits of light – Babbage / The Economist
100,000 DPI Image Pushes Limits of Resolution – Wired
A Playboy Model and Nanoscale Printing – technology review

The Q&A: Caleb Scharf: Engines of creation Babbage / The Economist
new data suggest that black holes, some of the most enigmatic objects in the universe, may in a sense be deserving of veneration. For they seem to have been instrumental in bringing about the conditions necessary for life ultimately to emerge.

Fermat’s Last Theorem (video 45 min) – Farnam Street
Simon Singh and John Lynch’s film tells the enthralling and emotional story of Andrew Wiles. A quiet English mathematician, he was drawn into maths by Fermat’s puzzle, but at Cambridge in the ’70s, Fermat’s Last Theorem (FLT) was considered a joke, so he set it aside. Then, in 1986, an extraordinary idea linked this irritating problem with one of the most profound ideas of modern mathematics

The Emerging Revolution in Game Theorytechnology review
The discovery of a winning strategy for Prisoner's Dilemma is forcing game theorists to rethink their discipline. Their conclusion? Winning isn't everything.

Turn, Turn, TurnFutility Closet
Mazes have exercised a peculiar fascination for the mathematically minded.

OTHER
How top executives live (1955)Fortune

5 Founders Who Came Back to Rescue Their Companies Fiscal Times

Capturing the Last Don (GQ Mar 2007) – devinfriedman
How Bernardo Provenzano, “boss of all bosses of the Sicilian Mafia” and fugitive for more than 40 years, got caught.

Follow ‘MoreLiver’ on Twitter or Facebook