Marc's Point Of View

General AI today

2009-02-06T21:50:00.004-02:00

Adaptive AI just announced their (and humanity's) first commercial general AI product:

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16560-innovation-artificial-brain-for-sale.html?DCMP=OTC-rss&nsref=online-news

If you Adaptive guys read this, I'm planning to attend the Burning Man :-).

Genomic sequencing for US$ 5000

2009-02-06T21:47:00.001-02:00

I haven't been writing on this blog for some time, basically because it made me sad to report all the awful things that I feel will son happen, so I go for a good piece of news: the price for the sequencing of a genome just fell to 5000 US$:

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16552-genome-sequencing-falls-to-5000.html?DCMP=OTC-rss&nsref=online-news

Russian Professor predicts break-up of the U.S.

2008-12-31T22:01:00.001-02:00

...

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123051100709638419.html

Viruses: The unsung heroes of evolution

2008-12-28T13:06:00.002-02:00

Very interesting article on the advances in virus research by New Scientist:

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg19926711.600-viruses-the-unsung-heroes-of-evolution.html

Frankenstein's time has come

2008-12-27T13:24:00.001-02:00

This very interesting article reports on advances in synthetic life:

http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=de&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.spiegel.de%2Fwissenschaft%2Fmensch%2F0%2C1518%2C596579%2C00.html&sl=de&tl=en

Peter Schiff on the US Government

2008-12-27T03:32:00.003-02:00

Peter Schiff is the president of http://www.europac.net/.

It's 5 parts.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gapZx0bJiRU&feature=related

Peter Schiff on Madoff and the US Government

2008-12-27T03:22:00.002-02:00

Scary.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUv8rjBAdbk.

Chrysler to idle all factories for at least a month

2008-12-18T02:28:00.001-02:00

It's beginning...

http://www.marketwatch.com/News/Story/Story.aspx?guid=%7B20EA3667%2D4149%2D4E76%2DAF74%2DF873264CACA4%7D

Brain image scanning

2008-12-17T00:50:00.002-02:00

What for many years sounded like science fiction has just become reality:

http://www.pinktentacle.com/2008/12/scientists-extract-images-directly-from-brain/

Thanks to Nick Westgate for this great article.

US Dollars are for free (meaning they are worthless?)

2008-12-16T22:48:00.002-02:00

The U.S. Federal Reserve just announced that the US Dollar rate was dropped from 1.0 % to 0 to 0.25 %...

this is horrible news...

http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSN1550484520081217

Evolution and Islam

2008-12-11T23:49:00.000-02:00

Very interesting to read:

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16258-how-to-stop-creationism-gaining-a-hold-in-islam.html?DCMP=OTC-rss&nsref=online-news

Russia's military build-up

2008-12-03T12:19:00.002-02:00

http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSTRE4B03QA20081201

UN team warns of hard landing for dollar

2008-12-03T12:16:00.003-02:00

Financial Times reports on a possible dollar scenario. I personally believe this is going to happen after mid january and before mid march. Main reason: companies' announcements of exceptionally poor results.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/12eab3b4-bf06-11dd-ae63-0000779fd18c.html?nclick_check=1

30' Genome

2008-12-01T16:04:00.003-02:00

Pacific BioSciences in Menlo Park, California, has found a way to sequence a genome in 30 minutes for a price under 1000$:

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20026846.800-molecular-fireworks-could-produce-30minute-genomes.html?DCMP=OTC-rss&nsref=online-news

Gold @ 2000$/ounce

2008-11-30T19:07:00.003-02:00

Citigroup just announced that gold might reach 2000 U$S/once next year. Which in plain english could mean it could get quite worse than this.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/ambroseevans_pritchard/3526645/Citigroup-says-gold-could-rise-above-2000-next-year-as-world-unravels.html

India and Pakistan tension

2008-11-30T19:05:00.004-02:00

Another automagically translated article. Keywords are: india pakistan tension, escalation, soldiers moving to pakistani borders, end of peace talks.

Who is organizing all of this?

http://translate.google.com/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.spiegel.de%2Fpolitik%2Fausland%2F0%2C1518%2C593610%2C00.html&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&sl=de&tl=en

Iceland

2008-11-22T22:43:00.001-02:00

This interesting article (automagically translated from german to english) discusses the current state of affairs of Iceland (and what the writer of this blog considers might spread to other countries as well):

http://translate.google.com/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.nzz.ch%2Fnachrichten%2Fwirtschaft%2Faktuell%2Fkollektive_wut_schock_und_ungewissheit_praegen_island_1.1297542.html&sl=de&tl=en&hl=es&ie=UTF-8

Switzerland bankrupt?

2008-11-22T00:20:00.001-02:00

The people of Crooked Timber think Switzerland might go bankrupt.

http://crookedtimber.org/2008/11/21/end-of-the-beginning/

Treasury Capital Purchase Program (TARP)

2008-11-20T23:04:00.003-02:00

Again from http://calculatedrisk.blogspot.com/... here are the details from the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act, as released of November 17th:

CAPITAL PURCHASE PROGRAM: $158,561,409,000 Total

http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/CalculatedRisk/~3/460106104/treasury-capital-purchase-program-tarp.html

Comparing four market crashes

2008-11-20T13:37:00.005-02:00

This very interesting plot was done by the author of http://calculatedrisk.blogspot.com:

India on the moon

2008-11-15T15:28:00.002-02:00

India successfully deployed it's first lunar lander. This is quite an accomplishment and says much about India's technological future:

http://www.physorg.com/news145950216.html

Technology Milestone: First extrasolar planet photos

2008-11-13T22:45:00.000-02:00

This is a very important step in technology evolution:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/13/AR2008111302267.html?hpid=artslot

Worse than Great Depression

2008-11-12T21:19:00.001-02:00

John C. Whitehead sees slump worse than Depression:

http://www.reuters.com/article/Finance08/idUSTRE4AB7HT20081112

iPhone most sold handset in Q3 US market

2008-11-10T20:49:00.001-02:00

This is more of an entertaining post (not a revealing one). See for yourself:

http://www.macrumors.com/2008/11/10/apple-iphone-1-amongst-u-s-consumers-in-q3-2008/

The Fed doubles its bank reserve... to 2 billion US dollars

2008-11-10T01:22:00.002-02:00

From 700 billion to 2 trillion USD in 5 weeks:

http://dallasfed.org/news/speeches/fisher/2008/fs081104.cfm