cool..

Inside the White House: Beer Brewing

wow.

Atlanta Mourners Shut Down Highway With Donuts For Dead Friend

Impressive marketing.

Nice Marketing...

The cult of equity is dying. Like a once bright green aspen turning to subtle shades of yellow then red in the Colorado fall, investors’ impressions of “stocks for the long run” or any run have mellowed as well. I “tweeted” last month that the souring attitude might be a generational thing: “Boomers can’t take risk. Gen X and Y believe in Facebook but not its stock. Gen Z has no money.” True enough, but my tweetering 95-character message still didn’t answer the question as to where the love or the aspen-like green went, and why it seemed to disappear so quickly. Several generations were weaned and in fact grew wealthier believing that pieces of paper representing “shares” of future profits were something more than a conditional IOU that came with risk. Hadn’t history confirmed it? Jeremy Siegel’s rather ill-timed book affirming the equity cult, published in the late 1990s, allowed for brief cyclical bear markets, but showered scorn on any heretic willing to question the inevitability of a decade-long period of upside stock market performance compared to the alternatives. Now in 2012, however, an investor can periodically compare the return of stocks for the past 10, 20 and 30 years, and find that long-term Treasury bonds have been the higher returning and obviously “safer” investment than a diversified portfolio of equities. In turn it would show that higher risk is usually, but not always, rewarded with excess return.

The problem with all of that of course is that inflation doesn’t create real wealth and it doesn’t fairly distribute its pain and benefits to labor/government/or corporate interests. Unfair though it may be, an investor should continue to expect an attempted inflationary solution in almost all developed economies over the next few years and even decades.

Gross: Cult of Equity “Dying”

"Larry Eats A Pancake" - That's the title of the first episode of Jerry Seinfeld's "Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee," which features a 1952 Volkswagen Beetle and long-time Seinfeld friend, Larry David. The web series can be seen on the website ComediansInCarsGettingCoffee.com.

The Bug is beautifully restored and there are lots of shots of it looking out of place on the roads of Los Angeles throughout the 13-minute video. Seinfeld sums up the 25-horsepower car perfectly, "And if like me, you believe true humility is always in short supply, this is the car for you."

There's also a funny bit when Seinfeld pulls up next to a Bugatti Veyron and points out both are made by Volkswagen.

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To sum it up: A car show about nothing

Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee

The 18-year-old Taiwanese man named Chuang was found dead at an internet cafe. He had apparently been playing Diablo III for 40 hours without any food or sleep and had collapsed after the ordeal.

Chuang had checked himself into a private room in the café on the 13. An employee of the café found the man resting. When found him, Chuang managed to take a few steps before collapsing. He was pronounced dead soon after.

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I wonder how many red bulls or coffee's this guy was drinking too.

Taiwanese Man Dies After 40-hour Diablo III Marathon

Many owners are complaining that their tablets' displays have begun to come apart from the bezel -- the adhesive seemingly isn't working correctly. Affected users are thus complaining to Google but are having difficulties getting anything resolved.

The second issue with the Nexus 7 is dead pixels. Owners are reporting that these black spots appeared after first boot, or shortly thereafter. Obviously there's no real fix for that, so customers who purchased the tablet directly from Google will find info on returns and exchanges here. The company will ask affected users to contact device support here.

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I was planning on ordering one this weekend but think I will wait until they can resolve some issues.

Some Nexus 7 Already Plagued With Hardware Problems

Interesting read on the crisis in Europe.

Remarks at the Festival of Economics, Trento Italy

Scioneaux, also known as Madd Wikkid, is the recording engineer at the venerable jazz Mecca, Preservation Hall and for the Preservation Hall Jazz band, the musical griots of the city. He is also a producer and musician. He is responsible for one traditionally non-traditional project already, Electronola, which melds the Crescent City's traditional sounds with electronica, and features, among other musicians, drummer Jason Marsalis, bassist James Singleton, and vocalist John Boutte.

Now, however, he is blasting the future back into the brass past. He's remaking Daft Punk for a brass band.

Like Electronola, "Brassft Punk" has also been funded through Kickstarter.

Daft Punk gets the New Orleans treatment

Imagine if the incoming Greek Prime Minister were to try out something novel: Telling the truth! Addressing our European partners and telling them that, even if every Greek man, woman and child strove to stick to the nation’s ‘bailout’ commitments, Greece’s debt-to-GDP ratio will remain on an explosive path which guarantees an ignominious exit from the Eurozone. And then add:

- that Greece will not borrow another euro from the troika until and unless a rational plan is in place
- that this ‘rational plan, must apply to all member-states, rather than privilege Greece at the expense of Ireland, Portugal, Spain etc.
- that until such a plan is in place, Greece will strive to live within its meagre means within the Eurozone, suspending temporarily all payments to all creditors

For Europe’s sake Greece must renege on its bailout commitments