Archive for the 'Economy' Category
The Rise of Geoengineering
October 22nd, 2013Via: Independent: Geoengineering technologies are the stuff of Hollywood disaster movies. Researchers have suggested sending a giant glass sunshade into space to reflect light; the eruption of artificial volcanoes, or spraying of sulphate aerosols into the stratosphere; dissolving mountains and putting remains in the sea; and, least dramatically, perhaps, filing the ocean with iron filings […]
Fructose: The Poison Index
October 21st, 2013Via: Guardian: The battle over the compound fructose now reaches new levels of obfuscation. The food industry is a strong – and loud, and rich – proponent, hard to ignore. The European Food and Safety Agency has just weighed in, in favour of the substitution of sucrose (table sugar: a disaccharide composed of the monosaccharides […]
How to Lose $172,222 a Second for 45 Minutes
October 21st, 2013Via: python sweetness: This is probably the most painful bug report I’ve ever read, describing in glorious technicolor the steps leading to Knight Capital’s $465m trading loss due to a software bug that struck late last year, effectively bankrupting the company. The tale has all the hallmarks of technical debt in a huge, unmaintained, bitrotten […]
Outsourcing Chicken Processing to China
October 21st, 2013[???] Via: Bloomberg: Food-safety advocates are raising alarms over a decision by the Obama administration to permit chicken processed in China to be sold in the U.S. even after several high-profile incidents of food contamination. The U.S. Department of Agriculture, in addressing a decade-long trade dispute over farm imports, said it will allow poultry slaughtered […]
China: Smog Emergency Shuts City of 11 Million People
October 20th, 2013Via: Reuters: Choking smog all but shut down one of northeastern China’s largest cities on Monday, forcing schools to suspended classes, snarling traffic and closing the airport, in the country’s first major air pollution crisis of the winter. An index measuring PM2.5, or particulate matter with a diameter of 2.5 micrometers (PM2.5), reached a reading […]
Japan: Celibacy Syndrome
October 20th, 2013Via: Guardian: 45% of Japanese women aged 16-24 are ‘not interested in or despise sexual contact’. More than a quarter of men feel the same way. … Japan’s under-40s appear to be losing interest in conventional relationships. Millions aren’t even dating, and increasing numbers can’t be bothered with sex. For their government, “celibacy syndrome” is […]
Robot Baristas
October 20th, 2013Via: Quartz: In a common area at the University of Texas at Austin, the Briggo coffee kiosk, covered in fake wood paneling and a touch screen and not much else, takes up about as much space as a pair of phone booths. Its external appearance was designed by award-winning industrial designer Yves Behar, with the […]
JPMorgan Agrees to Tentative $13 Billion Settlement with U.S. Over Bad Mortgages
October 19th, 2013Woh. It they are agreeing to a $13 billion settlement, one has to wonder about the true magnitude of the damage caused by JPM’s behavior. These settlements typically represent pennies-on-the-dollar wrist slaps which seem to encourage companies to attempt even greater frauds. Via: Washington Post: JPMorgan Chase, the nation’s largest bank, has reached a tentative […]
Mexico Bans GE Corn
October 19th, 2013Via: Care2: Just when you think there’s no winning against the biotech industry, news out of Mexico City shows that all is not lost. After years of deliberation, a Mexico judge has placed an indefinite ban on genetically-engineered corn. Effective immediately, companies like Monsanto and DuPont/Pioneer will no longer be allowed to plant or sell […]
Recovery: “4 in 5 in USA Face Near-Poverty, No Work”
October 19th, 2013Via: AP: Four out of 5 U.S. adults struggle with joblessness, near-poverty or reliance on welfare for at least parts of their lives, a sign of deteriorating economic security and an elusive American dream. Survey data exclusive to The Associated Press points to an increasingly globalized U.S. economy, the widening gap between rich and poor, […]
