For those with eclectic tastes in Sunday morning reading, you’ll love Simoleon Sense’s weekly linkfests. – Ilene
Handpicked to satisfy your intellectual curiosity!
(If you like this roundup or plan on linking to it (or from it) kindly include a reference to SimoleonSense Thanks.)
*Legal Disclaimer: I link to content created by others. If you believe I have violated your copyright (and prefer that thousands of intelligent readers avoid reading your material) please let me know and I will take down the reference.
Weekly Cartoon:
Weekly Saying:
““In Science you need to understand the world; in business you need others to misunderstand it.”
Important Infographic: Global Obseity from 1980-thru-Today!
Miguel’s Roundup (a sampling, click here for more!)
Egypt: The Distance Between Enthusiasm and Reality – via Stratfor @ Seth’s Posterous- What we see is that while Mubarak is gone, the military regime in which he served has dramatically increased its power. This isn’t incompatible with democratic reform. Organizing elections, political parties and candidates is not something that can be done quickly. If the military is sincere in its intentions, it will have to do these things. The problem is that if the military is insincere it will do exactly the same things. Six months is a long time, passions can subside and promises can be forgotten.
Is China Building Its Own Panama Canal? – via IBD -Today, something much more dramatic is happening. China’s Development Bank is prepared to splash out $7.6 billion to build a whole new railroad “dry canal” on the Colombian side of the isthmus for the China Railway Group to ship goods from Asia to the Atlantic side of the fast-growing South American continent.
Expanding Waistlines Around the World – via Freakonomics – Obesity is far from just an American problem. These nifty maps from the Economist display average BMI for males around the world in 1980 and 2008, and the percentage change. The maps demonstrate that “Polynesia aside, obesity was a rich-world phenomenon in 1980. By 2008 the rich world had itself expanded, bringing obesity to groups within countries that were previously considered poor, such as Brazil and South Africa. During that period, the prevalence rate of obesity among men doubled to nearly 10%. One country has stubbornly resisted this trend. For all its dynamism since India opened up its economy in 1990, its men have on average become even thinner. The study suggests that Congo is the thinnest country in the world, and Nauru the fattest.”
Economic History: How The World’s Serial Defaulter , Spain, embedded risk & return centuries ago. – Philip II of Spain accumulated debts equivalent to 60% of GDP. He also defaulted four times on his short-term loans, thus becoming the first serial defaulter in history. Contrary to a common view in the literature, we show that lending to the king was profitable even under worst-case scenario assumptions. Lenders maintained long-term relationships with the crown. Losses sustained during defaults were more than compensated by profits in normal times. Defaults were not catastrophic events. In effect, short-term lending acted as an insurance mechanism, allowing the king to reduce his payments in harsh times in exchange for paying a premium in tranquil periods.
The Surprising Link Between Light Pollution and Cancer – via Good -There are plenty of arguments against lighting the night sky: It wastes energy, blots out stars and messes with the nocturnal habits of animals in a big way. Now there’s another reason, one that could go a long way toward convincing humans that whatever sense of safety is conferred by nighttime lighting, it isn’t worth the risk. It turns out that light pollution may be a cancer risk.
Pseudoscience masquerading as neuroscience”: Is there “a growing academic obsession with soundbites and ‘impact’”? – via Brains on Purpose- The famous philosopher Karl Popper once noted that genuine science and pseudoscience are difficult to distinguish. To the uninitiated they can look the same, sound the same and smell the same. If we ourselves, the so-called “experts”, actively conspire to mix fantasy and reality, what hope can the public have of learning about genuine scientific discoveries?
MIT Bloggers and Sorkin Take Down a Derivatives Study – via CJR – A Chamber-backed group commissioned a report from an outfit called Keybridge Research to show that derivatives legislation would cost jobs. Keybridge dutifully did so, coming up with 130,000 jobs that “could” be lost if firms are forced to put up collateral for derivatives trades.
Video: A Rare Look Inside Pixar Studios – via OpenCulture – Since 1995, Pixar has released a steady stream of award-winning animated films. First came Toy Story, then Finding Nemo, Monsters, Inc., The Incredibles, and most recently Toy Story 3. (You can revisit Pixar’s classics in this wonderful little tribute video.) Getting inside Pixar Studios has never been easy. But last week The New York Times pulled it off, producing a six minute video that takes you through the studios designed by Steve Jobs himself, and inside Pixar’s patented animation process – a process that combines more traditional and cutting-edge elements.
What personality inventories tell us about how we’re all just like one another – via Citation Needed – …it’s just a nice reminder that most of us are not really very good at evaluating where we stand in relation to other people, at least for many traits (for more on that, go read Simine Vazire’s work). The nominal midpoint on most personality scales is usually quite far from the actual median in the general population. This is a pretty big challenge for personality psychology, and if we could figure out how to get people to rank themselves more accurately relative to other people on self-report measures, that would be a pretty huge advance. But it seems quite likely that you just can’t do it, because people simply may not have introspective access to that kind of information.
Is oxytocin truly a universal social panacea? – via DR Shock – Oxytocin only improved empathetic accuracy in less socially proficient individuals not in more socially proficient individuals. Oxytocin does not acts as a universal prosocial enhancer that can render all people social-cognitive experts. This is against my hypothesis but nevertheless more in relation to reality that oxytocin is not the new social drug we thought it to be.
China, Treasuries, and US – via Reuters- As the U.S. Federal Reserve grappled with the aftershocks of financial crisis, the Chinese, like many others, suffered huge losses from their investments in American financial firms — from Lehman Brothers to the Primary Reserve Fund, the money market fund that broke the buck. The cables, obtained by WikiLeaks, show that escalating Chinese pressure prompted a procession of soothing visits from the U.S.Treasury Department. In one striking instance, a top Chinese money manager directly asked U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner for a favor.
Video: Brains in love – This is Your Brain on Love: Why Him? Why Her? – via Channel N – The brain’s reward systems and neurobiological changes during romantic love, as studied by neuroanthropologist Helen Fisher. Fisher gives an entertaining talk outlining her research, her online dating site and personality types, and how people create their own “love maps” while biology plays a big role behind the poetry. Great talk and Q&A, archived as part of WGBH’s special
How to Stop the Rise in Food Price Volatility – via Policy Pointers – This US bulletin examines the developing world’s vulnerability to food price shocks.
Infographics here >
