May 2013
15 posts
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Utilities for dummies: How they work and why that... →
In most economic sectors, businesses live in fear of competing businesses coming in and providing customers with a better value proposition. They must be vigilant, cut costs, and innovate. That is the power of markets.
But utilities do not fear competition. Their customers cannot live without their product, or purchase it elsewhere. Their profits are guaranteed so long as they can justify...
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The Hairpin has a guide to becoming a web content writer:
By now, you can’t fool yourself that this writing is even a little bit meaningful, rather than a turd sculpted to the specifications of Google’s algorithm. This is not a business that helps the world, even in a small way. Today you will write four articles about hammocks for a website that sells the world’s most...
Behold, the patent for a caffeinated toothbrush.
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A Hack-Proof Internet Exists, Thanks to Quantum... →
The key is effectively transported by photons of light along a dedicated fiber optic line. Per Heisenberg’s famous uncertainty principle, hack attempts would have clear effects on those particles. As MIT Technology Review puts it, “any attempt to eavesdrop on a quantum message cannot fail to leave telltale signs of snooping that the receiver can detect.”
So while the rest of us are still prey...
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Public Policy Polling: 26 percent surveyed think... →
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“Painting with several inscriptions and simbols [sic] with heavy orange...”
– Interpol seized Jean-Michel Basquiat’s Hannibal in a money-laundering sting. Here’s the agency’s description of the art.
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Most Creative People 2013: 1. Nate Silver →
Not working for the Heritage Foundation is my Mother’s Day gift.
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“JPMorgan “flooded California’s courts with collection lawsuits...”
– Reuters: JPMorgan sued by California over ‘illegal’ debt collections
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What Five Real Economists Think About Bitcoin →
(via Kashmir Hill.)
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“The debt ceiling is becoming all-purpose leverage.”
– Ezra Klein: This is a dangerous approach to the debt ceiling
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Heat May Have M.V.P., but Bulls Have Series Lead →
The Heat, meantime, were fully rested and raring to go since sweeping the Milwaukee Bucks more than a week ago. The latest homage to James took shape in the hours before the game. The front facade of the arena suddenly featured a huge black-and-white mural of his profile, along with the headline “2013 MVP.” In a pregame ceremony, Commissioner David Stern presented James with his fourth M.V.P....
Dealbook: New York to Sue Wells Fargo and Bank of... →
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“Open the door to the top executives’ suite and you will hear howls of rage over...”
– Chrystia Freeland: Business, taxes and responsibility
“Officials with Virtu Financial LLC, a high-speed trading firm in New York, view...”
– WSJ.com: High-Speed Traders Exploit Loophole
Seems legit.
April 2013
16 posts
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“If you have learned anything from Jackie Robinson, it is that teammates are...”
– Boston Celtics coach Doc Rivers on Jason Collins.
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“The Village got gentrified. Now it has the quaintness of a stage set in storage....”
– From critic Henry Allen’s review of “The Village: 400 Years of Beats and Bohemians, Radicals and Rogues.”
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The Entertaining And Cringe-Inducing Ways Urban... →
“Our customer is from traditional homes and advantage, but this offers them the benefit of rebellion.” …
“Although they deem themselves worldly, they believe the way they see things personally is the correct way and everyone else feels exactly the same way.”
Paul Graham thinks a government created bitcoin →
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Expect airport delays today as sequestration cuts... →
U.S. airports were seeing delays of an hour or more Monday as FAA furloughs began hitting control towers at U.S. airports.
Early Monday, flights were running on time at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport and Midway Airport, but travelers should expect with delays averaging as much as 50 minutes per flight this week because of fewer air traffic controllers in the tower, according...
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Tax incentives for companies to hire the long-term unemployed: Good or not-good idea?
No one dies in school stabbing spree →
I rewrote the headline for them.
Things you can buy with the money you got for...
forhavingmyhousestolen:
The OCC announced on April 9th, 2013 the details of how much money the banks will pay homeowners who were found to be wrongfully foreclosed on—or who suffered financial harm at the hands of the banks.
This is compensation for losing your home due to ERRORS BY THE BANKS. This is not homeowners who were foreclosed on because they didn’t pay. This is $ given to those...
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“[I]t’s becoming clear that bubble or no bubble, businesses and individuals are...”
– Michael Hickins in the Wall Street Journal
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US economy posted disappointing job growth in... →
March’s job gains were concentrated in professional and business services and health care, while the government again shed workers, as it has been doing for most of the last four years. Economists expect more government layoffs in the months ahead as the effects of Congress’s across-the-board budget cuts make their way through the system. This so-called sequestration process does not seem to have...
Felix Salmon wrote a thing on a kind of digital... →
I won’t even try to summarize. It’s excellent. Just go read it.
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“If she is the best on the board, I will take her.”
– Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban is considering drafting Baylor women’s basketball star Brittney Griner.
March 2013
28 posts
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I used to have nightmares about teams like Louisville. So fast. So quick. Their press is ridiculously good.
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“If you look at [respondents’] broad socialization as high school students,...”
– Jennifer Lawless, professor at AU and director of the Women & Politics Institute, describing new research that suggests not enough women want to run for public office.
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“[A] decision striking down Proposition 8 because it qualifies as gender...”
– Ilya Somin. Yes, this is from Volokh Conspiracy, and no, libertarian thought isn’t my particular brand of vodka, but his argument is worth reading and thinking about.
“I’m all for a federally subsidized squatting program. I’ll help design and...”
– squashed.tumblr.com, on a tangent related to no-doc loan modifications.
I, too, want to help design and implement this squatting program you speak of. Where do I sign?
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Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg Starting Political... →
Mr. Zuckerberg has told confidantes that the new group will initially be focused on comprehensive immigration reform and making the pathway to U.S. citizenship less complicated for all immigrants, said people familiar with the CEO’s thinking. The group also plans to focus on issues including education reform and funding for scientific research.
The new group has also enlisted several...
“This is why we can’t have nice things.”
– Full text of the Supreme Court’s ruling on DOMA, as imagined by me, before it declares all marriages everywhere immediately void.
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Changes at MSNBC
The network’s moving Chris Hayes from weekend mornings to 8pm weekdays (the lead-in to Rachel Maddow), and Ed Schultz gets relegated to a two-hour slot on Saturdays and Sundays. Good move?
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“[I]t’s not an immediate problem.”
– House Speaker John Boehner on United States’ debt.
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Unrequited Love and Failed Pickup Lines at CPAC... →
For the young women of CPAC, life can be rough, as awkward advances and failed pickup lines abound.
“It’s been a long weekend,” said Marianne Smith, 23, eyes rolling and her face resting in her hand. “Somebody asked me to join their ‘Capital Club.’”
Asked for the worst pickup lines they’d heard at the conference, several young CPAC women revealed exceptionally bad ones.
“‘Why don’t you give me...
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New York City population hits all-time high of... →
Return to whence you came, all of you.
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