That's Interesting
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Planet Money – Episode 864: The Central (Bankers’) Question
07th November, 2018“It used to be central bankers had a powerful lever to guide the pace of the economy: The ability to raise or lower interest rates…But lately, the lever hasn’t been behaving like the textbooks say it should.”
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What we’re reading: Bad Blood
24th September, 2018Fascinating insight into Theranos from the investigative journalist who broke the story.
“In 2014, Theranos founder and CEO Elizabeth Holmes was widely seen as the female Steve Jobs: a brilliant Stanford dropout whose startup “unicorn” promised to revolutionize the medical industry with a machine that would make blood testing significantly faster and easier. Backed by investors such as Larry Ellison and Tim Draper, Theranos sold shares in a fundraising round that valued the company at more than $9 billion, putting Holmes’s worth at an estimated $4.7 billion. There was just one problem: The technology didn’t work.”
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The spectacular power of Big Lens
24th September, 2018A long article but it provides an interesting insight into the eyewear industry and the two dominant companies within it that are in the process of merging.
Essilor is a prescription lens business that manufactures a large share of the worlds prescription lenses and Luxottica is known by many consumers through its retail brand Sunglass Hut.
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Neil and Liam Finn on KCRW
03rd September, 2018“They’ve been playing music together for many, many years, but father/son duo Neil and Liam Finn waited until the time was right to record a proper album together. We air a live session with the New Zealand favorites, hosted by Chris Douridas, on the release date for Lightsleeper.”
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Leonardo da Vinci’s Earliest Notebooks Now Digitized
03rd September, 2018“Famous worldwide as the painter of such masterpieces as the Mona Lisa, Leonardo da Vinci (1452 – 1519) is also renowned for his notebooks in which he recorded his thoughts and inventions. Five of these fascinating notebooks, bound into three small volumes, have been in our collection since 1876 when they were bequeathed to the Museum by John Forster.”
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Tajik teacher makes hydroelectric station from soviet scrap
06th August, 201820-minute film about Raïmberdi Mamatumarov, a teacher and Biologist in Tajikistan who built a hydroelectric station out of soviet scraps.
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PBS: Don’t let the obsession with precision obscure the beauty of imperfection
06th August, 2018Simon Winchester on the idea of precision.
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