Mashed brain

I had an MRI recently.
I lay with my head secured in place, my feet cold and a sense of something... dread? I don't know.
I decided to concentrate on the task at hand. It would be noisy they said so they gave me those squishy earplugs and then a set of headphones where they would pipe some 'pop'.
My body was smoothly slid into place, with my head in the machine, and the techno grind started. It was industrial, rough, harsh but it had a beat. At first there was nothing on the headphones so I thought they had forgotten to start the music. Eventually the soft voice of Elvis started crooning 'Love me tender'.
I had to smile as the background mashing machine beat was matching the rhythm, as if they had plugged me into a mashup of Elvis vs German industrial techno. The Beatles followed and with my eyes closed I absorbed the rays of the giant machine as it digitally sliced open my brain and explored my mind.

Special Report: Can Samsung change with the tech times?

Good report on the future challenges of Samsung by Reuters.

Irish economy drowning.

So well put I should probably share the love:

"Here is something I got which was doing the rounds on email – very amusing.

I was asked to explain the Economic crisis in Ireland here is an example
as I understand it….( passed on of course !!)

Mary is the proprietor of a bar in Dublin . She realises that virtually all of her customers are unemployed alcoholics and, as such, can no longer afford to patronise her bar. To solve this problem, she comes up with new marketing plan that allows her customers to drink now, but pay later. She keeps track of the drinks consumed on a ledger (thereby granting the customers loans). Word gets around about Mary’s “drink now, pay later” marketing strategy and, as a result, increasing numbers of customers flood into Mary’s bar. Soon she has the largest sales volume for any bar in Dublin. By providing her customers’ freedom from immediate payment demands, Mary gets no resistance when, at regular intervals, she substantially increases her prices for wine and beer, the most consumed beverages. Consequently, Mary’s gross sales volume increases massively.

A young and dynamic vice-president at the local bank recognises that these customer debts constitute valuable future assets and increases Mary’s borrowing limit. He sees no reason for any undue concern, since he has the debts of unemployed alcoholics as collateral.

At the bank’s corporate headquarters, expert traders figure a way to make huge commissions, and transform these customer loans into DRINKBONDS, ALKIBONDS and PUKEBONDS. These securities are then bundled and traded on international security markets. Naive investors don’t really understand that the securities being sold to them as AAA secured bonds are really the debts of unemployed alcoholics. Nevertheless, the bond prices continuously climb, and the securities soon become the hottest-selling items for some of the nation’s leading brokerage houses.

One day, even though the bond prices are still climbing, a risk manager at the original local bank decides that the time has come to demand payment on the debts incurred by the drinkers at Mary’s bar. He so informs Mary. Mary then demands payment from her alcoholic patrons, but being unemployed alcoholics they cannot pay back their drinking debts. Since, Mary cannot fulfil her loan obligations she is forced into bankruptcy. The bar closes and the eleven employees lose their jobs.

Overnight, DRINKBONDS, ALKIBONDS and PUKEBONDS drop in price by 90%. The collapsed bond asset value destroys the banks liquidity and prevents it from issuing new loans, thus freezing credit and economic activity in the community. The suppliers of Mary’s bar had granted her generous payment extensions and had invested their firms’ pension funds in the various BOND securities. They find they are now faced with having to write off her bad debt and with losing over 90% of the presumed value of the bonds. Her wine supplier also claims bankruptcy, closing the doors on a family business that had endured for three generations, her beer supplier is taken over by a competitor, who immediately closes the local plant and lays off 150 workers.

Fortunately though, the bank, the brokerage houses and their respective executives are saved and bailed out by a multi-billion euro no-strings attached cash infusion from their cronies in Government. The funds required for this bailout are obtained by new taxes levied on employed, middle-class, non-drinkers who have never been in Mary’s bar."

Via: Tutor2u.net

Free high quality photography mag? Yes, please.

http://lifeforcemagazine.com/

A new commenting system that looks quite interesting. Via Stephen Fry

http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/216821/why_you_should_use_stephen_frys_pushnote.html

Eastern Standard Tribe

Reading Eastern Standard Tribe using http://itunes.com/apps/Stanza.
"Chapter 10": I was too smart for my own good. I could always argue
myself into doing the sexy, futuristic thing instead of being a nice,
mundane, nonaffiliated individual. Too smart to settle down, take a
job and watch TV after work, spend two weeks a year at the cottage and
go online to find movie listings. Too smart is too restless and no
happiness, ever, without that it's chased by obsessive maundering
moping about what comes next.