Wednesday, March 20, 2013

The World Just Get's Odder - News

I am going to try and get everyone caught up on the news. I have no extensive comments; but, just wanted to bring up the real news, the things that will actually impact you that you don't know.

Yahoo News - The Week - How Facebook knew a man was gay before he came out. Stories like this are meant to let you know that your online activities can tell others a lot about you. Basically the moral of the story, according to the writer, was you just have to accept it.

KABC - Chase Bank customers temporarily see '0' balance. A "glitch" made lots of people's money disappear on Saturday; but, it came back.

Laptop - Samsung Confirms Smart Watch as Apple War Moves to Wrist. Not a lot to say about this yet; but, there is a reason they want to put computers on our wrists. Personally, I keep thinking it has something to do with electronic money. Nobody buys watches anymore.

Fox News - Stricter COPPA laws due in July to govern underage kids on Facebook, Tumblr. COPPA is an old law to protect kids online. Most websites meet it's requirements by having people attest to their age or say they are over 18. It is most likely that websites will require people to prove their real identity. My guess is that in the end Google or Facebook will require you prove your identity and age and then they will certify you in some manner to access any and all adult sites.

Huffington Post - Reuters - Freddie Mac Sues More Than A Dozen Banks Over Libor Losses. More attempts to lead us to destroy the banking system and put all of the control in the hands of government.

Yahoo - Business Insider - Scientists Want to Bring Some Animals Back from Extinction. There we are playing God again.

Silicone Angle - DARPA Project Aims To Record Every Single Word You Ever Speak. I am not really familiar with this website; but, it doesn't really matter because the information was all over the net.

Forbes - Will Body Monitoring Implants Be The Future of Healthcare?. This article questions whether or not you might have to have an implant that monitors your health in order to get health insurance. Here is the last paragraph from the article, "While Obamacare limits how rates can be set, it does appear that discounts for wellness and prevention programs of some form will be allowed. It’s unclear whether or not this would include discounts for healthy behavior as reported by implantable biosensors. But if healthcare costs continue growing and technological innovation in this area improves the economic pressure will be on lawmakers to allow this, insurance companies to promote it, and individuals to abide by it. Obviously this will strike many today as extremely invasive, but if healthcare costs take up enough of our income then I predict the invasiveness will seem less and less consequential."

Fast Coexist - Organs On A Chip Might Soon Simulate The Entire Human Body. Here is another way to consider it YouTube - Rocky Horror.

EUobserver - Germany to Cyprus: your banks might never re-open. Here are the choices in Cyprus. Lets us steal from your bank accounts, let us tax you to unheard of levels, let us stop providing any services or give up your mineral rights to your own country. Basically, we are going to shoot you, pick where.

The Guardian - Press regulation deal sparks fears of high libel fines for bloggers. Many are calling this the end to freedom of the press in the UK.

France24 - AFP - Revolt against City of London's medieval elders. So the City of London is like a nation to itself. It is also where all the finances are. It is the heart and essence of all of their finances and their biggest industry and now people want to end it's special privileges.

BBC - IMF head Lagarde's flat searched in Bernard Tapie probe. This could be a very big story, we will have to wait and see what they found.

NBC News - Bernanke: Cyprus poses 'no major risk' to U.S. banks, economy. Either this man is always wrong or always lying and he seems like a smart man. Still, he hasn't been right about the housing bubble, the market crash, our non-recovery. The issue is not Cyprus, the issue is what is going to be told to Spain, Italy, Ireland and Greece. What options will the EU give them? The concern over that in these other countries could very well cause a run on the banks.