Readings 5-23-08

Change is in the air for financial superclass:

Elites make billions on markets whether they go up or down and their institutions win government support while the little guy loses his home. Multinational chief executives 30 years ago made 35 times the wages of an average employee; today it is more than 350 times. The crisis has focused attention on the obscene inequities of this era - the world's 1,100 richest people have almost twice the assets of the poorest 2.5bn.

And after you own everything on the planet, including the air, dirt and water, what will you do with it then?

via John Robb
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Was China's earthquake triggered by a nuclear accident?

"Nuclear experts said that closer to the epicenter of the earthquake, in rugged hills a two-hour drive west of Mianyang, China runs a highly secretive center that houses a prompt-burst reactor. It mimics the rush of speeding subatomic particles that an exploding atom bomb spews out in its first microseconds..."

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Chinese magazine shut down for sexy quake pictures

The New Travel Weekly, a small lifestyle magazine, ran photos of sultry models in their underwear amid the debris in an issue that hit the stands on Monday - the first of three days of national mourning.

The press and publication department of the southwestern city of Chongqing, where the magazine was based, said it decided to close the magazine down for "rectification."

In China, "rectification" means a foot up the ass.

via The Stumbling Tumblr
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The Science of Irrationality: Why We Humans Behave So Strangely

SciAm interview with behavioral economist Dan Ariely, author of Predictably Irrational.
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The Top 15 Vaporware Products of All Time

via Beyond the Beyond
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ends