All your banking details will be given to the Americans, who can then also pass it on to third parties as they so wish. The EU will not be able to sift through US banking data. Why the EU gave away our private data is a totaly mystery. Privacy rights? Whatever. EU to approve more Read more about US gets EU Swift data[…]
Some background on the cost/value of gold and fiat currencies. In a world with multiple fiat moneys, the zero value of money equilibrium lurks for each of the fiat currencies, including gold. Admittedly, as regards gold, so far so good. Gold has positive value. It has had positive value for nigh-on 6000 years. That must Read more about Gold, a 6000-year old bubble[…]
Which goes to show – it’s the Ipod / Iphone which is floating the Apple. Nope, Macs just suck and their fanboy users are a teeny tiny minority. And the rest of the I-Have-A-Mac smug bastards are hypocrites. You wouldn’t need a PC if your Mac was so perfect, now would you, mister I’m a Read more about 85% of Mac users own a PC[…]
St. Anthony’s Central hospital charged a man $730,- for a couple of tablets he takes regularly at home. The cost for him at home? Around $30,-. After a complaint he got a 40% discount. Still ridiculous. Patient Disputes Mark Up In Medication – cbs4denver.com.
What if we could turn all the plastic waste we create on a daily basis into fuel to power our cars? A Washington, DC-based company called Envion claims it can do just that with a process that turns plastic into an oil-like fuel for just $10 per barrel. According to Envion, the resulting fuel can Read more about Inhabitat » New Envion Facility Turns Plastic Waste into $10/Barrel Fuel[…]
Massachusets, USA, is doing something that should have been done a long time ago: Car manufacturers are computerising their cars to a greater and greater degree. This is great – more power, more control, more safety, more fun. Unfortunately, the software and interfaces for these computers are closed – repairmen are not given access to Read more about Right-to-repair bill[…]
The Germans want to create a swarm power plant by putting gas fired fridge sized units in people’s basements. They should release less CO2 than other power methods and they want to roll out 100,000 in the coming year, which will create the same amount of power as 2 nuclear plants. They’re calling it SchwarmStrom Read more about German power plant swarm[…]
Hot on the now allready very old news about the Apple vs Microsoft TV ads (where Apple has just released it’s answer to Laptop Hunters) and the Apple vs Palm Pre Itunes Sync and the Apple vs Palm “let’s make an illegal agreement not to poach each others’ employees any more” comes the latest installment: Read more about Apple makes big fight with everyone![…]
Super Repo men get back your 747, learjet, whatever. They’ll reposess from men with guns, whole helicopter fleets, whatever. They make low to middle 7 figures every year. James Bond, eat your heart out..
Apple has decreed that any user may buy an application and have it refunded within 90 days – but that Apple will keep the protection money – euhm commission. So who pays the commission? The developer!
All those greedy content producers trying to hang on to their old delivery and economic models by their fingernails must be crying about this: Monty Python decided to put all their content onto YouTube for free and in high quality with links to their stuff. This raised their sales by 23000%. So it’s not about Read more about It’s all about content quality![…]
The size of the bailout plan is truly staggering. Not just a little bit huge but immensely massive. Did you know it was larger than the following combined: • Marshall Plan: Cost: $12.7 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $115.3 billion • Louisiana Purchase: Cost: $15 million, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $217 billion • Race to the Moon: Read more about The size of the Bailout package[…]
In the US wind farm power is so subsidised, that in Texas power prices around 33% of the year were negative, ie. the more power a consumer user, the more they got paid to use it!
In a surprise move, e-gold was dumped on by the US justice system because prosecution stated they must have known crooks were using the system to transfer money. Doesn’t this now mean that all banks in the US have to be slapped in the face, because, well, let’s face it – there are a load Read more about e-gold spanked by US judicial system[…]
This is one of the reasons why defence contracting costs can go through the roof. This man wants to donate a high grade piece of marble and the costs of transporting it to the US military graveyard to fix a break on the Tomb of Unkowns. The cost of the marble, selected from the same Read more about Hit & Run > We’re the Government. We’d Rather Pay for It – Reason Magazine[…]
Where cocaine smugglers used to use cigarette boats, very fast boats and small aircraft to move drugs into the US, now they’re using partial submersibles, which travel just below the surface of the water and are easily scuttled. If the crew is caught by the navy, they sink the ship and the navy is left Read more about Cocaine technology[…]
The Office of Fair Trading (OFT) is to pay up to £100,000 for tip-offs leading to action against price fixing and other anti-competitive behaviour. The new policy of financial incentives for information will initially run for 18 months and is similar to a scheme in South Korea. A business found to be part of a Read more about Cash reward for cartel tip-offs[…]
The U.S. economy lost the title of “world’s biggest” to the euro zone this week as the value of the dollar slumped in currency markets. … Taking official estimates of 2007 GDP — $13,843,800 billion for the United States and 8,847,889.1 billion euros for the euro zone — the economy of the latter passed the Read more about Europe is world’s largest economy![…]
This is the second time I’ve seen one of these calculations, and they’ve always made sense to me: according to the Netherlands’ National Institute for Public Health and Environment, which found that while “a person of normal weight costs on average £210,000 over their lifetime”, a smoker clocks up just £165,000 and the obese run Read more about ‘unhealthy’ habits cost less[…]
Hardly surprising, but putting points on a person’s licence isn’t going to stop them speeding. Or at least, not the 3.7 million motorists in this study. It increased the insurance company’s profits by around $36 million, as they charge more insurance fees if you get points. The way to stop drivers from repeat speeding offences, Read more about Driving Licence points have one winner: Insurance companies[…]
This law firm in Amsterdam, Jeroen Zandt, insures you for unlimited judicial help, regardless of the amount of traffic violations you have, for around EUR. 200,- per month.
There’s a test people did a few times where they put different stock names at the end different exits of a maze and let a hamster ‘pick’ his favorite stock. It turns out that the hamster is no worse (and sometimes better) than real life stock brokers, showing how the market is random. The Sun-Times Read more about Stock Market Randomness[…]
Welcome to the sad state of the world: here we have a possible inexpensive treatment for a variety of cancers which won’t get funded, because the molecule involved isn’t patented, so probably won’t get funded by pharmacutical companies due to ‘market forces’.
The US was looking into it, but Australia has decided – tax stuff done on-line. If there is a monetary benefit. I guess a whole load of tax boards are going to be looking at Australia to see if it can actually be done.
The Dutch Connexxion and Helinet companies are planning a helicopter public transport service between Amsterdam and Brussels, stopping in The Hague, Rotterdam and Antwerp on the way. They almost have all the necessary licences in, so it’s looking good.