11 Dec The Weekend Starts Here...
Photo on Visualhunt
I cannot begin to imagine what it must have been like to be a senior politician this year. Having to make life and death decisions in the face of conflicting scientific evidence while balancing the needs of the economy must be incredibly stressful. Watching this video of Angela Merkel speaking earlier this week brought tears to my eyes. (It also made me long for the UK’s equivalent number, just once, to display such raw veracity) [1:37 video]
In similar vein, the logistics behind vaccinating most people on the planet is mind boggling. There were some things in this piece which I hadn’t considered [Tim Harford 3 min read]
“The ease of underestimating how bad things can be in the short run and how good they can be in the longer run is a leading cause of bad forecasts, bad decisions, and confused people.” The Reasonable Optimist [Morgan Housel 4 min read]
“I was like 10 when I told my parents that I wanted to research carbon nanotube sensor technology at the Denver Water quality research lab, and my mom was like, “A what?”” Meet Time magazine’s first ever Kid of the Year [8 min read]
After this year, I’m willing to believe almost anything is possible. Scientist Dominic Walliman explains his Map of Doom (can’t remember the last time I heard someone say “Crikey” 😂) [via Kottke 21:31 video]
I saw a demonstration of this portfolio management software when I was at a conference in the US last year. Imagine you want to adopt an evidence-based investment philosophy, but you work for Google and have stock options worth hundreds of thousands? Imagine you don’t want to go for a full blown ESG investment strategy, but really don’t want to invest in tobacco stocks? Or arms manufacturers? Welcome to Custom Indexing. It’s a great concept and – were it available in the UK now – I can think of several clients for whom this would be appropriate. This could very well be the way a sizeable number of people invest in the future [OSAM 4 min read]
How do people across the world spend their time and what does this tell us about living conditions? [Infographic]
What if major elections, wars, and events had turned out differently? The BBC looks at how world maps might have been affected [BBC 5 min read]
This year’s Top Ten Christmas Cracker jokes [The Guardian 2 min read]
And finally. Cat Wearing A Shark Costume Cleans The Kitchen On A Roomba [1:54 video] You’re welcome 😊
Whatever you’re up to this weekend, I hope it’s a good one.
Carolyn