Archive for January, 2014
The Minnesota Starvation Experiment
January 29th, 2014Via: io9: Towards the end of World War II, word got through that certain people in occupied territories were eating a near-starvation diet. American researchers wanted to study the effects of starvation, so they recruited volunteers – and starved them some more. The Minnesota Starvation Experiment pretty much lived up to its name. It was […]
Iceland Let Banks Fail, Jailed Criminal Bankers and Now Has Only 4% Unemployment
January 29th, 2014Via: Bloomberg: Iceland let its banks fail in 2008 because they proved too big to save. Now, the island is finding crisis-management decisions made half a decade ago have put it on a trajectory that’s turned 2 percent unemployment into a realistic goal. While the euro area grapples with record joblessness, led by more than […]
The Very First Porsche Was an Electric Vehicle
January 28th, 2014Via: Cnet: The very first Porsche, an electric carriage, sat untouched in a warehouse for 111 years, but now it’s come home. On June 26, 1898, Ferdinand Porsche’s “Egger-Lohner C.2 electric vehicle,” better known as the “P-1,” rolled on to the streets of Vienna for the first time. In 1899, the P-1 took the gold […]
Baltimore: Speed Cameras Issue Hundreds of Thousands of “Erroneous” Tickets
January 28th, 2014Via: Baltimore Sun: Baltimore’s speed cameras likely charged motorists for thousands more erroneous tickets than previously disclosed, according to data from a secret audit conducted for the city last year and obtained by The Baltimore Sun. Consultant URS Corp. evaluated the camera system as run by Xerox State and Local Solutions in 2012 and found […]
Scientists Find Ancient Plague DNA in Teeth
January 27th, 2014Via: AP: Scientists say two of the deadliest pandemics in history were caused by strains of the same plague and warn that new versions of the bacteria could spark future outbreaks. Researchers found tiny bits of DNA in the teeth of two German victims killed by the Justinian plague about 1,500 years ago. With those […]
NSA Targets ‘Leaky Apps Spew Everything’ from Smartphones
January 27th, 2014Via: New York Times: When a smartphone user opens Angry Birds, the popular game application, and starts slinging birds at chortling green pigs, spies could be lurking in the background to snatch data revealing the player’s location, age, sex and other personal information, according to secret British intelligence documents. In their globe-spanning surveillance for terrorism […]
Dimon Gets 74 Percent Raise After Billions in Fines
January 27th, 2014Via: Bloomberg: After agreeing to pay $23 billion in penalties and settlements in 2013, JPMorgan Chase (JPM) Chief Executive Jamie Dimon was rewarded today by the board he chairs, receiving a 74 percent pay raise to $20 million. Dimon has presided over a series of costly settlements with government investigators, including paying $13 billion for […]
Legal Pot: The Gateway Drug to State-Run Banking?
January 27th, 2014Via: Bloomberg: If ever a hippie dream existed, it would probably look something like what’s being proposed in Washington by Democratic State Senator Bob Hasegawa. He wants to open a state-run bank specifically to serve Washington’s newly legal marijuana industry. The proposal would solve two real problems: Pot businesses would no longer be trapped in […]
Cryptogon Reader Sends NZ$100
January 27th, 2014Thanks, Windhorse.
Why Are U.S. Corporate Profits So High? Because Wages Are So Low
January 27th, 2014Automation is the key, but this piece doesn’t mention it. The companies have, “Still managed to boost profits beyond anything ever seen before because they’ve got away with employing as few workers as possible at as low a rate as possible.” I’ve got news for Jamie McGeever at Reuters: Companies only ever employ as few […]
