Sunday Reading
By Barry Ritholtz - May 29th, 2011, 9:00AM
Here is what is on my short list for today:
• How to Fix Greece (Barron’s)
• Why Are Investors Still Lining Up for Bonds? (NYT) In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king
• PREPARE FOR THE “FALSE GROWTH SCARE” (Pragmatic Capitalism)
• Fiat to Buy Full U.S. Stake in Chrysler (Dealbook)
• REINHARDT: The Case for Higher Taxes (Economix)
• GE Joins Intel to Advise White House as Overseas Holdings Expand (Bloomberg)
• What are the 57 signals google uses to filter search results? (René Pickhardt)
• Sports: Lionel Messi, Boy Genius (NYT)
• A Twist on Climate Change, Risk, and Uncertainty (World Science Festival)
• For your holiday weekend: Weber’s On the Grill App for iPad (iTunes)
What’s on your Instapaper?
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May 29th, 2011 at 9:13 am
Peter Thiel gives kids $100,000 to quit school and start companies. http://www.fastcompany.com/1755089/legendary-investor-peter-thiel-names-dream-team-of-whiz-kids
Problems in China http://www.investorzblog.com/?p=129
Are higher-ed degrees worth it? http://www.fastcompany.com/1755375/what-are-college-majors-really-worth
India is finally growing like China (or at least close to China’s rate). http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/29/opinion/29kristof.html?_r=3&src=tptw
May 29th, 2011 at 10:01 am
Utah legalizes use of gold, silver as currency
http://lifeinthekeyofc.waterforlife.ws/index.php/archives/1197
Longer commutes lead to higher separation rates, study finds
so for all of you pushing that mass transit solution….
http://www.thestar.com/living/article/997379–longer-commutes-lead-to-higher-separation-rates-study-finds?bn=1
Babies Are Capable of Complex Reasoning
http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/20110526/sc_livescience/babiesarecapableofcomplexreasoning
Incredible Photos of Ancient and Medieval Underground Cisterns
These are really cool. They sort of remind me of the Lord of the Rings when they are in the mountain
http://www.lightstalking.com/cisterns
May 29th, 2011 at 10:37 am
BR,
here’s one for you..
“…Brewing a perfect espresso beverage requires the proper management of a number of variables, including the grind of the bean, the dosing, the temperature of the water, the brewing pressure, the tamp pressure, the extraction time and the mineral content of the water (and of course, the blend of beans, the roasting, the quality of the espresso machine and the skill of the barista). Even the temperature of the portafilter and basket are important, which is why the portafilter is left in the group head of the espresso machine even when shots aren’t being drawn. Each of these determines whether the espresso shot will be bitter, sour, weak or strong.
Drip brewing is far less labor intensive and more forgiving, but still requires a certain grind, the correct temperature (typically 190-205 F) and the proper extraction time.
Tap water’s effect on coffee
As you know, tap water is a complex solution of chemicals, organics and minerals, and has pH and alkalinity characteristics. Each of these has an effect on the quality of coffee-based beverages.
• Total Dissolved Solids: During the brewing process solids are extracted from the coffee grounds and without consistent TDS levels the quality of coffee and espresso can range greatly from strong and bitter to weak and underdeveloped. Without controlling the TDS level the consistency of the beverage will vary. Low TDS (500 ppm) could mean that sodium, calcium, chloride and magnesium are detectable in the final product. Also, high TDS saturated water will not extract at full strength as there is no space left to add the finest of the coffee. …”
http://www.watertechonline.com/filtration/article/the-love-hate-of-water-and-coffee-brewing-part-one
“…Coffee is about 98.5 percent water and espresso is about 85-96 percent water. However, water impacts each type in different ways…”
May 29th, 2011 at 11:32 am
Related to Reinhardt’s piece:
U.S. Has Binged. Soon It’ll Be Time to Pay the Tab
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/29/business/economy/29gret.html
May 29th, 2011 at 12:26 pm
BR- Way to go mentioning Messi. Clearly, you are a man of good taste!
May 29th, 2011 at 7:57 pm
FROM ‘REINHARDT: The Case for Higher Taxes (Economix)’:
“the only way to avoid a looming fiscal disaster would be to return to the higher taxes across the board that prevailed during the Clinton administration. (An alternative would be to bite the bullet and adopt a value-added tax, as other nations have done.)”
I am continuously chagrined by those who insist there must be an ‘across-the-board’ solution to our federal deficit and debt problems.
Why oh why ?
It is well documented that the vast overwhelming majority of our current federal deficits and debt, as well as our medium-term projected future federal deficits and debt, are as a direct result of the numerous rounds of massive tax cuts for the Rich & Corporate enacted during the previous administration.
Those that caused or benefited from this massive expansion of federal deficits and debt should be the ones to pay down the federal deficits and debt. There was no shared benefit, why should there now be shared sacrifice ?
May 30th, 2011 at 2:47 am
The Fukushima nuclear plant disaster, the scope of the radiation impacts will be assessed over the next decades.
I read before about the danger of biomagnification in the case of Cesium137 with has an half-life of 30 years, biomagnification means it gets more concentrated along the food chain.
An article from Nature:
A french team of radioecologists used radioactive contamination data from the Fukushima region to use in their software modelisation, ” to calculate the radiation dose that various groups of wildlife would have received.”
For now its just a rough assessment says Thomas Hinton, a co-author of the study, who also says: ” The contaminated zone should ideally be thoroughly surveyed at least twice a year “.
” Amid more pressing priorities, the Japanese government is preparing an environmental monitoring programme that involves around 300 experts from across the country.”
http://www.nature.com/news/2011/110527/full/news.2011.326.html
The research paper “Fukushima Wildlife Dose Reconstruction Signals Ecological Consequences”:
http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/es201637c
May 30th, 2011 at 6:52 am
“The mathematics generation gap – Here’s my theory: Some students struggle with economics because they do not fully understand the mathematical tools economists use.
“http://worthwhile.typepad.com/worthwhile_canadian_initi/2011/05/bridging-the-mathematics-generation-gap.html
May 30th, 2011 at 7:47 am
Things are looking more and more like Australia down in Texas:
http://climateprogress.org//2011/05/26/texas-worst-drought-dust-bowl-wheat/
May 30th, 2011 at 2:07 pm
We had very stable markets and weather for about 20-25 years. Climate gradually warmed , which was good economically because the 40s, 50s, 60s and 70s were like an ice age compared to now. The economy was stable too, protected by central banks around the World. Now its payback time as climate and the economy get much more problematic as increased weather volatility feeds back into an already unstable economic system. People forget about how incredibly turbulent things were just a few short decades ago. My family had to flee Egypt in April ’67, and when we arrived in Athens, there were tanks in the streets. Then we finally get back to the US and everything was a dead zone because of a record freeze that occurred while we were away. We were wondering wtf was going on.