So now I'm basically sitting around the house waiting to change laundry loads and drinking.

Be nice to America. Or we'll bring democracy to your country.

It sounds like there were - not enough, but at least some first steps in the right direction.


Wind power

Shaming the banks into better ways

The Barclays affair may lack the spice of some recent banking scandals, involving as it does the rather dry "crime" of misreporting interest rates. But few have shone such an unsparing light on the rotten heart of the financial system.

The bankers involved have betrayed an important public trust  (...)  It is hard to think of anything more damning - or more corrosive of the reputation of capitalism.

What is shocking is the casual way in which this con was perpetrated, and how few checks were in place to stop it.

(...)  Bob Diamond, the bank's chief executive, gave a lecture last year in which he stressed the importance of culture in establishing an ethos of trust and integrity. "Culture is difficult to define," he explained, "but for me the evidence of culture is how people behave when no one is watching." Well, now we know.

(...)

As for Mr Diamond, (...) If he had an ounce of shame, he would immediately step down.

But beyond questions about legality there is a bigger worry about the wayward behaviour of the financial sector. The pursuit of unrealistic returns seems to have inculcated a culture of recklessness. This is not something that can be fixed by a few rule-tweaks, or by bolstering the capital that banks are required to hold. It is a question of culture and morality.

If, as now seems likely, many banks were involved in fiddling rates, this raises questions not just about the leadership of one bank but that of the whole industry. For there to be a real change of heart and expectation, it may therefore be necessary to retire this generation of flawed leaders. This newspaper does not endorse banker-bashing for its own sake. But if the bashing is to stop, the banks themselves must change.

I can't put it off.

I don't have a slave graduate student.

Life, sometimes, sucks.

(QED)

Ever since I learnt about confirmation bias I've started seeing it everywhere

I L.  

OL.

(No links, as it's not really an ET-topic.)

Ever since I learnt about confirmation bias I've started seeing it everywhere

1. First test date : the examiners were on strike.
   
2. The test was going well, until the examiner made her enter a busy motorway by a short on-ramp. She hesitated, he took control. That's a fail.
   
3. Too much snow, test canceled.
   
4. Having lost her ID card, she showed up without it and was turned away.
   
5. Yesterday, the test was going well until (see 2 above).

Discovery Magazine

Back in 2006 Harry Potter was all the rage in the engineering world. That year a team at Duke University built the first rudimentary device for hiding objects, akin to the boy wizard's invisibility cloak. But in technology as in the movies, Harry Potter is now old news. Over the past six years, scientists have moved beyond mere invisibility: If they could build cloaks for light waves, then why not design materials to conceal sound and even ocean waves?

With the German government's formal announcement of its bankruptcy and the total cessation of all payments including deliveries in kind, the first phase of reparations during which Germany continuously paid large sums--probably up to the full limit of her capacity--has come to an end. It may be that no more will ever be paid. This is therefore an appropriate moment for reviewing and estimating her past performance.

The mind of the public has been extremely confused by the variety of estimates which have been current, varying from German official claims that she has already paid more than £2,200,000,000 to press headlines that she has paid nothing at all.

Some of the other schools that have been approved to receive state-funded vouchers "use social studies texts warning that liberals threaten global prosperity; Bible-based math books that don't cover modern concepts such as set theory; and biology texts built around refuting evolution".