Glass-Steagall, and Lessons From the Past
Here's the article from the New York Times in 1999 covering the passage of repeal of Glass-Steagall. There are several interesting bits in this.
First, its a reminder that it was passed by a Republican Congress, Democratic President, and the help of most of the Democrats in Congress. Most of the People's representatives, with the help of contributions from the financial industry, thought this was a good idea.
Second, here's what it has to say about the potential downsides. From the forth paragraph:
Aerial Kite Photography
Here's a video and associated web site for aerial kite photography, from this season's Make Magazine. There's an associated web site, here.
The
Its facenating, and has a lot of relevance to remote control/unmanned aircraft photography.
It doesn't talk much about how to build a kite however.
One Difference between Humans & Chimpanzees -- The Role of Ritual in Learning
This is a very interesting video that shows people following rituals even when it appears that that they need not. People usually follow the rituals, while chimpanzees seem less interested in the ritualistic portion. Oddly, the video shows that "Apes don't mindlessly 'ape', while people do", even when it is clear that its not necessary.
The premise of the video is that the chimpanzees copy one another, while children learn from other people. Ritual is a part of that learning. The videos are courtesy of National Geographic.
(Note: you get the gist of things by just watching part 2):
Part 1:
A Biased Reminder of Reagan Fiscal & Tax Policy
This article is biased against Reagan, but it does point out several excellent factual points regarding Reagan's tax and fiscal policies.

Artifical Muscles From Carbon Nanotubes?
Carbon nanotubes are one of the most important discovers of the last twenty five years, and we will be working on their uses for at least the next fifty years (longer, if they are strong enough to build a space elevator with).
Here is a discussion of this week's Science article describing a new use for carbon nanotubes. In a nutshell, it seems possible to build artificial muscles that outperform organic muscles in almost every way. They are far lighter and stronger while compressing better.
From the article
"this apparently unprecedented degree of anisotropy is akin to having diamond-like behavior in one direction and rubber-like behavior in the others."

Clever as A Fox -- Domesticated Fox
This article on a 50 experiment in genetics to domesticate foxes is fascinating. I've occasionally wondered how many generations it took to domesticate an animal and whether it was possible to domesticate other animals.
There are clearly several traits domestic animals have in common that are absent in wild animals, such as "baby-like features", and a lack of pigmentation (discussed in the article).
I've read other works (e.g. Guns, Germs and Steel), which argued that the animals that are domesticated are the only ones that are likely to be domesticatable. This article doesn't quite contradict this, because they used foxes, which seems to me to not be the best choice, because they are closely related to dogs/wolves, which can be domesticated. How about Water Buffalo, or llamas.
What the Financial Crisis is All About -- Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone has an excellent piece that goes through the financial crisis in some detail. In summary, its all about who has the power, and how both congress and the President(s) didn't remember old lessons.
In 1997 and 1998, the years leading up to the passage of Phil Gramm's fateful act that gutted Glass-Steagall, the banking, brokerage and insurance industries spent $350 million on political contributions and lobbying. Gramm alone — then the chairman of the Senate Banking Committee — collected $2.6 million in only five years. The law passed 90-8 in the Senate, with the support of 38 Democrats, including some names that might surprise you: Joe Biden, John Kerry, Tom Daschle, Dick Durbin, even John Edwards.
How to Do Great Work/Significant Things (Hamming)
Here is another version of Richard Hamming's recipie for success in R&D. Its worth reading if you strive for excellence. In fact, it seems to me that there is no other way.
I'm struck by the similarities to Abraham Lincoln's life.
Here's a summary:
How Corporations Got Powerful
This article discusses historical precedents which led corporations from being relatively unimportant to the powerful component of the world economy and world politics they are now.
I'm including the important bits (and correcting the spelling):
The Sixth Sense - Gen 5 I/O Devices
This video from TED shows how future I/O devices might work. It looks like this is FAR ahead of other concepts I've seen. It combines both very innovative display concepts and gesture tracking.
The interface makes the application, and this is ALL interface.



