June, 2012 archive
Facebook Frolics, Take the Money and Run Dept. 0
A drag on the market. Reducing the IPO hysteria is likely a good thing for investors, if not for banksters. Bloomberg (emphasis added):
(snip)
“We’ve reached a breaking point where sentiment is so negative and scrutiny is so high that companies don’t want to go public and investors aren’t prepared to look at them,” said Sica, who oversees more than $1 billion as chief investment officer of the Morristown, New Jersey-based firm. “You’re talking about long-standing damage to the psyche of companies wanting to go public and investors.”
Long-standing damage to the psyche my anatomy. Fancy way of saying, “OMG we might have to have a product worth investing in.”
The Entitlement Society 0
Robyn Blumner considers the entitlements of one well-known bonus baby. She gives an example of one of his favorite entitlements:
Dade Behring went bankrupt, leaving Main Street creditors empty-handed, but not before Romney’s firm took $242 million out of it. In fact, of Bain’s 10 top business investments that made up 70 percent of the $2.5 billion Bain made for investors, four eventually went bankrupt, according to the Wall Street Journal.
That’s called winning for losing, a game perfected by top 1 percenters.
Follow the link for the rest.
Totally Tubular 0
It all comes down to copper.
Fresh Air looks at the physical infrastructure of the internet, how it works, and how it’s connected. If you use the internet and don’t understand how it works, this would be a good start. It also give you a basis to start separating fact from hype that emanates from the Cyberwar Consortium for Full-Employment of Consultants.
A snippet from the story from the bit about the transoceanic cables:
“They’re about the thickness of a garden hose, and they’re filled with a handful of strands of fiber-optic cable,” he says. “And light goes in one end of the ocean and out the other end of the ocean. And that light is accelerated along its journey by repeaters that look like bluefin tuna underwater.”
Follow the link for the story, the transcript, and the audio.
Droning On, Terminator Dept. 1
At Asia Times, Nick Turse looks to the future Drone Wars. A nugget:
Both Sides Now 0
Sally Kalson examines the recent kerfuffle over Joe Ricketts (grandowner of the Chicago Cubs, may they dwell forever in the cellar that they have made their own) and yet another attempt by the Republican Party to stir up racial animosity. She considers the duplicitous role of PACs. A nugget:
OverOutreach
0
Stephen Colbert analyzes Mitt the Flip’s outreach efforts and enumerates the groups to which he must reach out:
Congratulations, HPR 0
Today, Hacker Public Radio releases episode 1,000.
Help celebrate: Hop over and have a listen. You will certainly find something that interests you (it embraces much more than computers and computing).
Better, contribute a podcast. It’s as easy as making a phone call.
QOTD 0
James Beard, from the Quotemaster (subscribe here):
A gourmet who thinks of calories is like a tart who looks at her watch.