Weekly Around the Web @ 10 Oct 2008
Filed Under (Around the Web) by Webmaster on 10-10-2008
Tagged Under : 2008 Nobel Price Winner, AIG, Armstrong, Causis of Psoriasis, Facebook, Fennie Mae, freddie mac, information overload, Lamborghini, Lehman Brothers
With so many negative news in the capital market throught out the world, this week Pro Trade Shares will provide some interesting reading on other news.
New Lamborghini Estoque
Lamborghini has just released an official press release and hi-res photos of the Lamborghini Estoque. Interestingly, Lamborghini makes no attempts to call the Estoque a 4-door coupe, instead it refers to it as a 4-door 4-seater super sedan.
Lamborghini says that this will not be the sold engine option. A turbocharged V8 derived from the V10 is one alternative, while a “greener” option could either be a V8 with a mild hybrid motor or a high-performance TDI turbodiesel that can be easily obtained from the Audi and Volkswagen engine stables.
How AIG got into trouble.
A very simple and easy to understand on the why AIG failed due to the sub prime crisis in US. To quote
Fennie Mae and Freddie Mac were formed by the US Congress (in Malaysia they would be Statutory bodies formed by statutes passed in the parliament) to provide funds to banks to lend out money to people who wants to buy houses. McFunnies got their money by selling bonds.
Lehman Brothers was an investment bank. In simple terms, just like normal bank, they make money by lending out the money they borrowed from someone else. The only difference here is, in Malaysia or most of the Asian countries, banks get most of their money from savings account and fixed deposit holders, whereas, in the US, the savings ratio is so low (-1% a year ago), a lot of the money comes from non-US citizens, such as again the Arabs and the Chinese. In 2003, Lehman Bro’s and the other 4 investment banks were allowed to lend out USD40 for every USD1 of their equity.
When the foreigners bought the investment bankers’ bond, it was just good practise for them to insure the bond against default by the issuer. Although before the crisis, nobody thought that there would be a possibility of the banks collpasing due to their good reputations. AIG was the insurer.
Future Information Content
The decline of newspaper popularity has been attributed to the rise of the internet and the proliferation of web-based content. With an extremely low barrier of entry and variable cost, the web allows anyone with a computer to become an independent publisher: As a result, the amount and variety of content online far exceeds print publications in most fields.
If newspapers can’t compete with blogs and online news sites in terms of speed and variety, perhaps they can trump them in terms of depth or trust. After all, feature-length content with solid, investigative reporting is not something you’ll often find on most blogs or personal sites on the web.
Detailed, unique content immediately stands out on its own, even without extensive marketing efforts. People don’t just want to be informed, they want to better grasp a topic in all its nuances. The joy of consumption lies not only in the skimming of a news story but the processing of new perspectives to enrich a personal worldview or professional need.
Publications that provide such content will always have an audience. In the end, it’s just a natural consequence that results from the consumer’s problem of information overload.
Facebook co founder quits
Zuckerberg’s partner quits to form ‘Facebook for business’. Moskovitz and Rosenstein have both left to work on a joint venture that looks like it may be software as a service combined with social networking elements for business, and plan to start a new company where they will “build an extensible enterprise productivity suite, along with a high-level, open-source software development toolkit, built for the web from the ground up,” according to Rosenstein in a goodbye note on his Facebook page.
Western Medicine View : There are various theories on the causes of psoriasis from the western medicine point. One theory with some evidence is that psoriasis can be inherited but there is much controversy over the mode of inheritance. The history of psoriasis in some families seem to suggest a simple autosomal inheritance with reduced penetrance, although evidence has been presented for multifactorial genetic components.
Chinese Medicine View : Chinese medicine blame the disease to deficiency of the blood, blockages of the flow of Qi, the food one consume and the emotional well being of a person. Combination of different type of causes will manifest itself in the pattern or appearance of psoriasis on the skin. For example, if the skin is itchy and red the cause is usually Wind and Heat; thick and purplish patches are likely to be due to Blood Stasis; Heat and Damp are indicated by red, weeping patches and if the patient feels tired easily and the patches are thick, pale and dry this is often due to a deficiency of blood and Qi.
2008 Nobel Price Winner
So far the 2008 Nobel Price winner for the following categories have been announced.Medicine
The Nobel Prize for Medicine was awarded to two French scientists who discovered the HIV virus and a German who found the virus that causes cervical cancer. Luc Montagnier, director of the World Foundation for AIDS Research and Prevention and Prof Francoise Barré-Sinoussi of the Institut Pasteur shared half the award for their work on the HIV virus.
Physics : Two Japanese scientists and a Tokyo-born US citizen shared the 2008 Nobel Prize for Physics for their work in sub-atomic physics. Makoto Kobayashi and Toshihide Maskawa were recognised for work that predicted the existence of at least three families of quarks in nature. They laid the theoretical foundations for modern understanding of how the laws of physics differ for matter and anti-matter. Yoichiro Nambu, now of the University of Chicago, was chosen for his discovery of the mechanism of ‘spontaneous broken symmetry in sub-atomic physics’.
Chemistry : Two US scientists and a Japanese researcher won the 2008 Nobel Prize for Chemistry. Osamu Shimomura of Japan, and Martin Chalfie and Roger Tsien were named for their discovery of the brightly glowing protein GFP.
Literature : French novelist JMG Le Clézio was awarded the 2008 Nobel Prize for Literature. It was the first time since 1985 that a French writer won the Nobel literature prize. Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio, 68, was born in Nice to a mother of Breton origin and a father who was at least nominally British.
Armstrong set for Tour Down Under
Tour de France legend Lance Armstrong has thanked world cycling officials for clearing him to return to the professional peloton in the Tour Down Under in January. Race officials have also declared the ruling a commonsense decision after concerns were raised that anti-doping regulations might delay the Texan’s comeback plans.
Armstrong’s comeback is meant to draw attention to his global campaign to fight cancer, a disease he famously survived before winning seven straight Tours from 1999-2005.
