Cosby sweaters to raise money for charity
How ‘bout someone just donate the sweaters to good will and give the charity money. Who would want one of those 80s sweaters, Cosby or no Cosby?
Will someone please tell Kirk Kerkorian that he’s an old fart. The billionaire turned 91 last Friday and he’s going after Ford. At [...]

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Panos Bethanis Went $4.5 million in the Hole to Buy Back His Company –Inc.
He had founded the company five years earlier but had sold a majority stake to a pair of venture capital firms in 2005. Now, with the company struggling, Bethanis saw an opportunity to get his company back.
For Bethanis, then 31, regaining control [...]

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Lord knows I’ve been stuck in this vortex many a time.
Related reading:
Sleeping and Trading –Daily Speculations
Briefly Speaking, from Victor Niederhoffer –Daily Speculations
There are many speculators who have an inclination to trade during night hours. Such behavior exposes one to the possibility of premature death, according to a study of Penev et al “chronic circadian [...]

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How One Smoker Quit -Freakonomics
A few weeks ago, we posted an item about an ad executive in Australia named James Hurman who auctioned off his smoking habit, agreeing to pay a steep fine (about $800) for every cigarette he smoked after the auction closed. He wound up selling the contract, he writes, “for NZ $300 [...]

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How Fairness Is Wired In The Brain -ScienceDaily.com
Now, researchers at the California Institute of Technology have discovered that reason struggles with emotion to find equitable solutions, and have pinpointed the region of the brain where this takes place. The concept of fairness, they found, is processed in the insular cortex, or insula, which is [...]

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I happened on an article about black swans, as Nassim Taleb had recently been speaking at a CFA (Chartered Financial Androids) function and a reporter for the Financial Times was in attendance, blogging, not reporting, because as we all know the two are very different. I wondered with all the talk of recession, and [...]

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The market for collectibles related to the mysterious, mischievous,  and much maligned alcohol Absinthe is hot. An original Absinthe poster recently went for $18,000 on eBay. The antiques at Absinthe Originals, such as this original bistro match striker, are quite pleasing to the eye.
This one’s sold, but other equally hip items are available.
You don’t have [...]

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The computer model that once explained the British economy

A sensation when it was unveiled at the London School of Economics in 1949, the Phillips machine used hydraulics to model the workings of the British economy but now looks, at first glance, like the brainchild of a nutty professor.

Speaking of early computers I just happened [...]

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Venture Capital Wear

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Learning from our mistakes? Flies can do it. Lots of Animals Learn, but Smarter Isn’t Better
It takes just 15 generations under these conditions for the flies to become genetically programmed to learn better. At the beginning of the experiment, the flies take many hours to learn the difference between the normal and quinine-spiked [...]

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