Nuclear Weapons, Rape In India, Life-Logging, Classic Vinyl, Samsung, Zimbabwe
The Nuclear Addiction
Briefing | The Economist | 5th March 2015
The worldwide stock of nuclear weapons has gone down since the end of the Cold War but the possibility of a nuclear strike has gone up. Nuclear weapons are scattered ever more widely. Some of the holders — North Korea, Pakistan, Russia — have little interest in the global status quo. If there was ever a moment for nuclear disarmament it has long since passed; the trend is towards nuclear re-armament (2,800 words)
Delhi Rapists Blame Dead Victim
Leslee Udwin | BBC | 3rd March 2015
The gang-rape and murder of an Indian student on a Delhi bus in 2012 shocked the world. Prepare to be shocked again by this film-maker's account of her meetings with the "apparently normal" rapists. They blame the victim; they show no remorse; they seemingly cannot accept that they have done wrong. "A decent girl won't roam around at nine o'clock at night. A girl is far more responsible for rape than a boy" (1,580 words)
Year Zero: Our Timelines Begin
Alistair Croll | O'Reilly Radar | 3rd March 2015
"In 10 years, every human connected to the Internet will have a timeline. It will contain everything we’ve done since we started recording, and it will be the primary tool with which we administer our lives. This will fundamentally change how we live. We’ll look back at the time before our feed started as a huge, unknowable black hole". We already have the tech, and the data; it's a matter of knitting it all together (2,330 words)
The Thousand-Dollar White-Hot Stampers
Rene Chun | Wired | 4th March 2015
At the top end of the vintage record market you don’t just want a classic album, you want the best pressing of the album. Aficionados will pay $1,000 for a “white-hot stamper”, such as the very first 1969 pressing of Led Zeppelin II, mastered by Bob Ludwig, which had “such energy and dynamic range” that the cheap record players of the day couldn’t cope, causing Atlantic Records to dull down the sound on later masters (2,750 words)
Samsung On The Line
Simon Mundy | Financial Times | 5th March 2015
Samsung desperately needs a big hit with its new Galaxy S6 smartphone, as it struggles to remain competitive against Apple and Xiaomi. Its refusal to buy the Android operating system may prove to have been one of the worst business decisions ever. Samsung still has a huge place in the Korean economy, and big plans for the internet of things, but analysts wonder if the company's high-growth years are behind it (2,800 words)
Zimbabwe: From Hemorrhage To Stability
Tendai Biti | Center For Global Development | 3rd March 2015
Zimbabwe's former finance minister tells all. Some nice moments, including a brisk account of abolishing the national currency: "This was not a typical dollarization. Zimbabweans holding Zimbabwean dollars woke up to find their money had lost all value. Most people had long abandoned the local currency. All the government did was formalize what had already happened. As a result, the change was smooth and seamless" (10,000 words)
Video of the day: A Very Short Film
What to expect: If Magritte had made a video with help from De Chirico it might look like this (1'34")
Thought for the day
Wealth, in even the most improbable cases, manages to convey the aspect of intelligence
J.K. Galbraith (http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/John_Kenneth_Galbraith)