The weekend is here! Pour yourself a mug of Peet’s Major Dickasons coffee, grab a seat on the couch, and get ready for our longer form weekend reads:
• Blockchain, the amazing solution for almost nothing: Blockchain technology is going to change everything: the shipping industry, the financial system, government … in fact, what won’t it change? But enthusiasm for it mainly stems from a lack of knowledge and understanding. The blockchain is a solution in search of a problem. (The Correspondent)
• The Broken Algorithm That Poisoned American Transportation. For the last 70 years, American transportation planners have been using the same model to decide what to build. There’s just one problem: it’s often wrong. (Vice)
• Disrupting Bloomberg: People talk about the attention economy in the context of the big social media companies constantly. They rarely talk about Bloomberg in the same terms. Why would they? Bloomberg is a global financial data provider catering to investment managers, analysts and traders. Yet on another level Bloomberg triggers the same Skinneresque response in its users as the social media networks do in theirs. (Net Interest)
• The tyranny of chairs: why we need better design: Sitting for hours and hours can weaken your back and core muscles, pinch the nerves of your rear end and constrain the flow of blood that your body needs for peak energy and attention. Most people’s bodies are largely unsuited to extended periods in these structures. Most chairs aren’t designed to serve human bodies – but a better seat is possible (The Guardian)
• Larry Ellison, one of the world’s richest people, asks for a second chance at charity; $60 billion hangs in the balance. He has basked in positive publicity for promises to donate millions and then retracted offers with little explanation; sunk hundreds of millions into moonshot projects like life-extension research before suddenly pulling funding; and made public promises about charitable giving that he appears nowhere close to fulfilling. Nothing has quite worked out. (Vox)
• How Bacteria-Eating Bacteria Could Help Win the War Against Germs: While microscopic and little known, predatory bacteria are among the world’s fiercest and most effective hunters. (New York Times)
• Heroin’s Hidden Ingredient Is a Chemical Made by U.S. Companies: A $324 jug of acetic anhydride, made in Mexico by a publicly traded American company, is enough to produce 90,000 hits of high-grade “China white.” The cartels are getting as much as they want, and also using it to cook meth. (Businessweek)
• Killing the Truth: A Murder, a Conspiracy Theory, and the Lies of Fox News The murder of Seth Rich was a family tragedy. Fox News helped make it a national spectacle that has haunted his loved ones for years (Rolling Stone)
• Why Are the NBA’s Ratings Going Down? Is it the bubble? Fallout from the China controversy? Something else? (Slate)
• How to not fear your death: You exist, but one day you won’t. An Epicurean perspective can help you feel less afraid, and even grateful for life’s finitude (Psyche)
Be sure to check out our Masters in Business interview this weekend with Salim Ramji, Head of iShares Index and ETFs for BlackRock, Ramji’s division manages over $4 trillion of Blackrock’s $7.1 trillion in assets.
Global Economic Data Beat Expectations Like Never Before
Source: Bloomberg
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