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Saturday, January 26

26th Jan - Weekender: Off-Topic & Finnish




Last week’s edition here.

Previously on MoreLiver’s:

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OFF-TOPIC
  DRINKING
How America Drinks: Water and Wine Surge, Cheap Beer and Soda CrashThe Atlantic
It's not the end of soda -- yet. But soft drinks have peaked, while bottled water, energy drinks, and a considerable amount of premium alcohol are taking their place in our liquid diet.

Last CallWashington Monthly
Industry giants are threatening to swallow up America's carefully regulated alcohol industry, and remake America in the image of booze-soaked Britain.

  TECHNOLOGY
High-definition TV: Ne plus ultraBabbage / The Economist
Having seen interest in 3D television fizzle, consumer-electronics firms are desperate to find some other blockbuster product that will get customers back into big-box stores.

How roads could beat railFelix Salmon / Reuters

Why DNA Will Someday Replace the Hard DriveMIT Technology Review
Researchers who have used the biomolecule to encoded MP3s, text files, and JPEGs say it will be a competitive storage medium in just a few decades.

A Free Database of the Entire Web May Spawn the Next GoogleMIT Technology Review
Common Crawl supplies a database of over five billion Web pages in the hope that it will inspire new research or online services.

What Makes a Mind? Kurzweil and Google May be SurprisedMIT Technology Review
One AI researcher suggests that an ambitious plan to build a more intelligent machine may be flawed.

Endless OpportunityBabbage / The Economist
Opportunity may no longer be able to move forward. Fortunately, boffins have worked around this niggle by getting this Mars Exploration Rover (MER-B, to give its technical moniker) to drive in reverse. It is thanks to clever tinkering like this that it is "nine years into its 90-day mission",

  WORK / LIFE
How to create great slides for presentationsMike Jeffs / slideshare

Checklist: Are you doing these five things to be the best?Barking

Smokers who quit before age 40 have lifespan almost as long as people who never smokedScienceblog

Here’s how you’ll waste 43 days of your lifeMarketWatch
Hours spent on hold listening to Muzak add up over time. Having to wait 40 days and 40 nights sounds like a torture of biblical proportions, but the average American suffers just that long over the course of a lifetime — on hold.

Why You Truly Never Leave High SchoolThe New York Magazine
New science on its corrosive, traumatizing effects.

Everybody’s An ExpertFarnam Street
One of Tetlock’s counter-intuitive findings is that specialists are not significantly more reliable than non-specialists in predicting what is going to happen, even in the field they study.

Pot Smokers Might Not Turn into Dopes after AllSciAm
Revisiting data casts doubt on the link between heavy cannabis use and declining IQ

Finance lost. Tech won. Here’s why.pandodaily
I failed at investment banking. And it wasn’t this soft, cheery type of failure that we celebrate in Silicon Valley. It was a real failure.

Building Blocks and InnovationFarnam Street
Most innovation comes from combining well-known, well-established, building blocks in new ways.


  SMART PHONE
I’m Going Back to my “Dumb” Phone. Should You?MIT Technology Review
For the next month, I’m trying out a smartphone-less existence. Am I crazy?

My Dumb Phone Experiment: Week OneMIT Technology Review
It’s not going great, guys.

My Dumb Phone Experiment: Week TwoMIT Technology Review
In modern society, there’s no such thing as giving up your smartphone.

Why I’m Not Going Back to My iPhoneMIT Technology Review
For now, at least, my dumb phone experiment has reached a strange equilibrium.


  OTHER
Lucasfilm Confirms: J.J. Abrams Will Direct the Next Star Wars MovieWired

Back in businessBabbage / The Economist
An unprecedented move by America's government, in the shape of the country's National Scientific Advisory Board for Biosecurity, to request that the world's two leading scientific journals censor the papers

British and French Commandos Take Charge of Mali WarWired

James Bond, Moviegoers Face New Nemesis: Chinese CensorsWSJ

James Bond and the Killer Bag LadySalon
New clues and a powerful Wall St. skeptic challenge the official story of CIA financier Nick Deak's brutal murder…In November 1985, a woman who appeared to be a homeless drifter staked out the offices of 80-year-old banker Nicholas Deak, waited until he returned from lunch, then executed Deak and his secretary. As police wrestled her to the floor, she said “Don’t hurt me. He told me I could carry the gun.”

What would George Orwell have made of the world in 2013?The Guardian
If he were alive today, would he be writing about call centres and Occupy? Or would he have become a rightwing food writer? It's not as crazy as it sounds

Awaiting a New DarwinThe New York Review of Books
Mind and Cosmos: Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature Is Almost Certainly False


IN FINNISH
Euroalueen loppupelitHenri Myllyniemi / US Puheenvuoro

Japani elvyttää umpikujaanNordea

Tappaako vahvempi euro euroalueen toipumisen?Nordea

Oligopolitakkirauta