Category: Main

China Banks Getting Subprime Hit

China Banks Getting Subprime Hit

| January 21, 2008 | Reply

Well, so much for containment! It seems that the banks in China were no smarter than the rest of the world, and became investors in the funny money structured investments backed up by questionable loans. From CNN Money: China’s banks feel subprime heat BEIJING (AP) — Shares in China’s banks fell sharply Monday after news […]

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World Markets Take A Pounding – The Beginning Of The Correction?

World Markets Take A Pounding – The Beginning Of The Correction?

| January 21, 2008 | Reply

While the US took MLK day off in the markets, the other parts of the world traded into uncertainty and doubt. As a result all world indexes ended sharply lower: % Today % YTD FTSE 100 (UK) -5.48% -13.61% DAX (Germany) -6.83% -15.49% Nikkei (Japan) -5.49% -14.36% HANG SENG (China) -7.41% -13.22% Why is this […]

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“I Am Legend” redux

“I Am Legend” redux

| January 21, 2008 | Reply

Having seen and reviewed “I Am Legend” (2007) last month, and having re-read the original novella by Richard Matheson, I thought I’d watch the two earlier movies based on that same novella: “The Last Man on Earth” (1964) with Vincent Price, and “The Omega Man” (1971) with Charlton Heston. I now have a much, much […]

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Solid state replacing optical media

Solid state replacing optical media

| January 19, 2008 | Reply

Some 18 months ago, I wrote about the Blu-Ray v. HD-DVD format battle and suggested that both formats were a dead-end, and that the real next-generation video media would be based on solid-state storage (e.g., flash RAM). I predicted this was quite a few years away, though. What I forgot is that there’s another optical […]

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“Cloverfield”: A brief review (w/spoilers at the end)

“Cloverfield”: A brief review (w/spoilers at the end)

| January 15, 2008 | Reply

[Thanks to the incoming links, particularly from io9 and Ace of Spades HQ, two of my favorite blogs; as the saying goes, feel free to look around (and to hit the tipjar over in the right column). Also, the first section of this review is spoiler-free; all the spoilers are in a white-text section at […]

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I’m not a big Katie Couric fan…

I’m not a big Katie Couric fan…

| January 15, 2008 | Reply

…but this video of outtakes while anchoring in New Hampshire makes her downright likable: Doesn’t mean that I’m going to start watching CBS Evening News, though. I haven’t watched network evening news since David Brinkley retired or thereabouts. Hat tip to Suitably Flip. ..bruce w..

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Housing Price Decline – California Cities

Housing Price Decline – California Cities

| January 14, 2008 | Reply

As most of the readers here know, my team has been working with new technology to extract, refine and exploit information that is all around us. We have named that technology Boomerang and one example of it is an application called Hardtack. We are approaching the 1 year anniversary of full scale data gathering with […]

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Stranger than fiction

Stranger than fiction

| January 14, 2008 | Reply

When a science fiction author postulates some bizarre astronomical or planetary configuration, hordes of fans (and not a few scientists) will tsk-tsk, saying that such a system could never possibly exist. And then there’s this: A quartet of stars has been discovered in an intimate cosmic dance, swirling around each other within a region about […]

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Darth Vader vs. Microsoft Tech Support

Darth Vader vs. Microsoft Tech Support

| January 14, 2008 | Reply

Ah a classic YouTube presentation. Thanks to the Fake Steve Jobs for making me aware of this.. The poor fellow from India does not seem to realize that someone has loaded up a swarm of Darth Vader samples and is playing them back.

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A modest proposal

A modest proposal

| January 14, 2008 | 2 Replies

Posted by Frank J over at IMAO: A reader of the Corner sent in an idea that I think was a pretty good suggestion: The Republicans stop their feuding and their fighting and combine announcing Fred Thompson as president, Mitt Romney as Vice President, McCain as Secretary of Defense, and Giuliani as Secretary of Homeland […]

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