Saturday, October 11, 2014

Columbus Day Weekend Links

Here are some entertaining stories for your weekend:

The best of Bad St. Louis Cardinals Writing - SBNation.  Also, to dampen down the Cardinals fans are great meme, we've got: Some Fools Are Selling Darren Wilson Cardinals Shirts - Deadspin

Hunter S. Thompson's 1958 cover letter for a newspaper job - BoingBoing

Finding a Video Poker Bug Made These Guys Rich, Then Vegas Made Them Pay - Wired

Shale Boom Tested as Sub-$90 Oil Threatens U.S. Drillers - Bloomberg

The Great Lightbulb Conspiracy - IEEE Spectrum.
On 23 December 1924, a group of leading international businessmen gathered in Geneva for a meeting that would alter the world for decades to come. Present were top representatives from all the major lightbulb manufacturers, including Germany’s Osram, the Netherlands’ Philips, France’s Compagnie des Lampes, and the United States’ General Electric. As revelers hung Christmas lights elsewhere in the city, the group founded the Phoebus cartel, a supervisory body that would carve up the worldwide incandescent lightbulb market, with each national and regional zone assigned its own manufacturers and production quotas. It was the first cartel in history to enjoy a truly global reach.
The cartel’s grip on the lightbulb market lasted only into the 1930s. Its far more enduring legacy was to engineer a shorter life span for the incandescent lightbulb. By early 1925, this became codified at 1,000 hours for a pear-shaped household bulb, a marked reduction from the 1,500 to 2,000 hours that had previously been common.
Farmers Gain Weapon Against Devastating Pig Virus - New York Times

EPA Withdraws From Clean Water Case, Farm Bureau Declares Victory - Modern Farmer

Why History Should Replace Economics in the 21st Century - io9 (h/t Crazy Canuck).  Also,see Bonfire of the Humanities - Aeon

The Team That Invented the Birth Control Pill - The Atlantic

Our cities' water systems are becoming obsolete. What will replace them? - Vox

In Defense of Obama - Krugman

When The Snows Fail - National Geographic.  See also, Draining California






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