Wow, this was a long post, but plenty of enjoyable articles. For my Finnish audience, I'm especially happy about the several links to 80's-90's scene at the bottom of the post. I will post my market views on Sunday evening. The video clip is to celebrate some good news I got. Sorry if you don't get the joke.
Previously on MoreLiver’s:
OFF-TOPICS
TECH
The State of the Internet (1-Oct) – Henry
Blodget / BI
Why we can’t solve big problems – technology
review
A Bandwidth Breakthrough – technology
review
A dash of
algebra on wireless networks promises to boost bandwidth tenfold, without new
infrastructure.
HUMAN
Chilling Brain Scans
Show the Impact of a Mother's Love on a Child's Brain Size – Medical
Daily
A shocking comparison of brain scans from two
three-year-old children reveals new evidence of the remarkable impact a
mother's love has on a child's brain development.
The Longform Guide to Sleep – Slate
Good
dreams, bad dreams, night terrors, insomnia, and sleep deprivation—a collection
of slumber stories.
How Do You Raise a Prodigy? – NYT
On his way
to kindergarten one day, Drew asked his mother, “Can I just stay home so I can
learn something?” Sue was at a loss. “He was reading textbooks this big, and
they’re in class holding up a blowup M,” she said. Drew, who is now 18, said:
“At first, it felt lonely. Then you accept that, yes, you’re different from
everyone else, but people will be your friends anyway.”
As the days grow shorter, considering the role of
omega-3s in keeping everything sunny
Wild Things – Harper’s
Animal
nature, human racism, and the future of zoos
Science Reveals the Power of a Handshake – ScienceDaily
New
neuroscience research is confirming an old adage about the power of a
handshake: strangers do form a better impression of those who proffer their
hand in greeting.
FiveBooks Interviews: Helene Guldberg on Man
and Ape – The
Browser
It's
fashionable today to liken humans to animals but the developmental psychologist
says it's more interesting to study the ways in which we're remarkably
different from other creatures
SCIENCE
Philosopher Thomas
Nagel’s Brave Critique of Scientific Reductionism – brain
pickings
How our hunger for definitive answers robs us of the
intellectual humility necessary for understanding the universe and our place in
it.
Playing God – Foreign Policy
With efforts to halt climate change on life support,
scientists are looking at some radical options to save our planet. But could
the cure be worse than the disease?
MILSECPOL
The Future of Special
Operations: Beyond Kill and Capture – Foreign
Affairs
With the rise of endless irregular wars playing out in
the shadows, special operations have never been more important to U.S. national
security. But policymakers and commanders focus too much on dramatic raids and
high-tech drone strikes. They need to pay more attention to an even more
important task these forces take on: training foreign troops.
A pathbreaking history of the Vietnam War reveals that
the Northern government was far more divided and discouraged than commonly
believed. Yet the fact remains that the United
States and its allies in
the South always faced very long odds of success.
(video) After the Arab Spring: the Gulf
monarchies in an age of uncertainty – LSE
Christopher
Davidson discusses the political and economic pressures building in the Gulf
monarchies and considers the likelihood of their survival or collapse over the
next five years. Christopher Davidson is reader in Middle East politics in the School of Government and International Affairs, Durham University. His forthcoming book is After the
Sheikhs: the coming collapse of the Gulf monarchies.
How did the
international drug control system arise, why has it proven so durable in the
face of failure, and is there hope for reform? David Courtwright is professor
of history at the University of North Florida. Nigel Inkster is the former
director of operations and intelligence for MI6. William McAllister is special
projects director at Office of the Historian, US Department of State. Ethan
Nadelmann is founder and executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance. Slides: McAllister (pdf)
and Courtwright (pdf)
(video) True Believers: collaboration and
opposition under totalitarian regimes – LSE
The
horrifying genius of Soviet communism was the system’s ability to get the
silent majority in so many countries to play along without much protest. The
techniques used to do this are the central topic of this lecture and Iron
Curtain, Anne Applebaum’s new book.
FiveBooks Interviews: Keith Jeffery on the
Secret Service – The
Browser
The author
of a history of MI6 tells us about the evolution of the secret intelligence
services, their representation in fiction, and the man Fleming may have had in
mind when he created James Bond
Four years after discovering that militants were
tapping into drone video feeds, the U.S. military
still hasn’t secured the transmissions of more than half of its fleet of
Predator and Reaper drones
ASTRO
84 Million Stars in 9
Billion Pixels – big
think
How To Tackle the Outstanding Problem in
Astrophysics – technology
review
The strange
behaviour of spacecraft as they fly past Earth has astrophysicists scratching
their heads. Now space scientists are developing a mission that could measure
the phenomenon in detail
Watchers of the
multiverse – arxiv
BUSINESS
& MONEY
What are the 18
secrets to giving a presentation like Steve Jobs? – bakadesuyo
Nobody’s going to steal your idea – The
Endeavour
Casinos bring jobs, but also crime, bankruptcy,
and even suicide – Wonkblog
/ WP
Virtual currency
schemes – ECB
(pdf)
Bitcoin, SecondLife etc.
Insider Knowledge – Crooked Timber
My
experience has been that careful analysis of publicly available information
almost always trumps the insider approach.
RICH
PEOPLE
The Luxury Repo Men – Businessweek
The World’s 200
Richest People – BB
They make flip-flops and pet food. They sell
miniskirts and motorcars. They mine iron ore and distribute soda. Their net
worth totals $2.7 trillion, about the size of the gross domestic product of France, the
fifth-biggest economy on the planet.
HALLOWEEN
Some terrifying psychology links for Halloween – The
British Psychological Society
Which kids will steal your Halloween candy?
There’s a study for that – Wonkblog
/ WP
Are there really razor blades in kids’
halloween candy? – bakadesuyo
OTHER
In this two-part piece, we will examine the portrayal
of villains in creative mediums, like novels and comics, and why they are
severely lacking; I will also argue why it's necessary to create better
villains.
The Worst Song in the
World: Music & Evolution – big
think
The Gentleman’s Guide
To Forum Disruption – The
Big Picture
How the Invention of Walls Gave Rise to
Eavesdropping – brainpickings
Given Tablets but No
Teachers, Ethiopian Children Teach Themselves – technology
review
A bold experiment by the One Laptop Per Child
organization has shown “encouraging” results.
Krugman’s Asimov introduction – (pdf).
The Social Networking Lives Of The Dead
Celebrities – Forbes
The Case of the Mormon Historian – Slate
What
happened when Michael Quinn challenged the history of the church he loved.
IN FINNISH
Lapsellista uhoa
lapsilisistä – Jyrki
Virolainen
Saksalaiset yritykset
palkkaavat ja suomalaiset erottavat – taitaa hintakehitys selittää – tyhmyri
Luin vinkin saaneena
tämän Helena Petäistön kolumnin Suomen nykyisestä ulkopoliittisesta suunnasta.
Miksi EI
liittovaltiolle – Sampo
Terho / US Puheenvuoro
KOOSTE: 80-90-luku
Henrik Kuningas:
Kuningashai (1988) – City
Jotkut osaavat tulla näyttämölle oikeaan aikaan, toiset
poistua sieltä maineensa kukkuloilla. Kuningas osasi molemmat.
Kriisin Jälkeen
(2001) – TalSa
Suomen pankkikriisi maksoi 50 miljardia markkaa. Suuri osa
1980- ja 90-luvun vaikuttajista on jäänyt eläkkeelle, osa jättäytynyt
työelämästä muuten vaan ja osa työskentelee edelleen vaikutusvaltaisissa
asemissa. Myös suuri osa oikeudenkäynneistä on päättynyt ja tuomiot luettu.
Silti jälkipyykkiä pestään edelleen eivätkä kaikki henkilökohtaiset tragediat
suinkaan ole ohi. Missä kriisin päähenkilöt ovat nyt?
1980-luvun jupit: He
elivät herroiksi (1996) – TE
Ammattilainen pinteessä (1989) – City
Arctosin osakesalkun ryöstöstä tuomittu nuori optiokauppias
puhuu muun muassa ahneuden rajoista aikana, jolloin kaverille ei jätetä.