Europe’s big problem, over and above the fact that the euro was a disastrously flawed concept, is that the banking system is not fit for purpose. As the IMF noted last week, a third of eurozone banks have no prospect of being profitable without urgent and meaningful reform. That requires two things: to reduce the number of banks and to do something about the €900bn (£715bn) of bad loans sitting on their books at the end of 2014.

The bad smell hovering over the global economy | Business | The Guardian

Commodities have passed the worst of a rout amid brighter prospects for Chinese demand, a weaker dollar and signs of tighter supplies, according to Citigroup Inc. “There is growing evidence that virtually all commodities have stared at a price bottom and are groping for a return to normal,” analysts including Ed Morse said in a report received Monday. Petroleum and natural gas markets are recovering, while industrial metals are advancing as China’s property market picks up, they said. Iron ore’s rally will fade amid oversupply.

Commodities Have Seen Bottom as China Fears Ebb, Citigroup Says - Bloomberg

The Pyongyang Metro is the deepest metro system in the world at over 360 feet, conveniently doubling as a nuclear bunker, just in case. It’s an almost four-minute descent to reach the train platform. At the top and bottom of the escalators, the hallways are protected by thick steel blast doors. You can see these most notably at Yonggwang and Kaeson stations.

North Korea metro photos - Business Insider

The IMF has been pushing the world’s largest economies to boost government spending—or slow down belt-tightening plans—to help give central-bank efforts traction as their easy money policies run out of steam and the global economy risks stalling. Few countries, from the U.K. to Japan and China to Germany, are heeding that advice. Then comes Canada and its freshly installed Liberal government, which is now breaking with the policies of its Conservative predecessors to ramp up spending on infrastructure while cutting taxes for the middle class. All of this will add to Canada’s debt, but as Mr. Morneau is eager to point out, Canada is uniquely well positioned to take on more debt. “If you look at our balance sheet, our net debt to GDP, we’re in a very advantageous position compared to all other G-7 countries,” he said, referring to the Group of Seven industrialized countries.

The New Face of the IMF’s Global Growth Strategy - Real Time Economics - WSJ

"He loved the game so much and I loved that energy. I played him once in an exhibition match and what should have been a bit of fun became just so intense. "While I was at the table potting all the balls, I could sense everyone was watching him smoking four cigarettes at a time and drinking pint after pint of lager. He was more entertaining sitting in his chair than I was playing. "Suddenly, he called the waitress over and asked for another beer. He never did anything quietly, he always made a big song and dance about it. She brought the beer over and all of a sudden, out of the corner of my eye, I could see him pouring his pint of beer into a half-pint glass that was already on the table. The beer was frothing up like Mount Vesuvius, going all over the table. And because he was still staring at me, he didn't even know it was happening."

Steve Davis: Retired snooker great says life 'like living in a big holiday camp' - BBC Sport

More than perhaps any other era, the 1970s had a way of producing pop songs that got little to no respect at the time but that are now regarded as irresistible classics. Songs like Abba’s Dancing Queen, ELO’s Can’t Get It Out of My Head, Stealers Wheel’s Stuck in the Middle with You, or even a ditty like the Partridge Family’s I Woke Up in Love This Morning were once the guiltiest of guilty pleasures. But now they tend to hit our ears like pure gold. What’s changed? It may simply be that these songs, and others like them, were always beloved, but that a certain critical snobbery that was once in the air has now mercifully melted away. Finally, we can just admit it: when it comes to ‘70s pop, we’re all hooked on a feeling.

BBC - Culture - Vinyl: What was the sound that really defined the ‘70s?

Klein's warning sign is the measure's substantial drop over the past few years. As of Friday, the reading stands at 74.8%. "The reading has declined 4.8% from its November 2014 peak," wrote Klein. "Throughout the near five decade history of the series, a slip of a commensurate amount has always coincided with a recession. The second derivative of the chart has also turned more negative to counter any hope for an imminent shift upward in the data."

Capacity utilization US recession - Business Insider

But to get the desired six-pack does take an awful lot of work. In a small randomised controlled trial in Illinois in 2011 one group did daily abdominal exercises while the lucky control group did none. After six weeks detailed measurements were taken and it was found that the sit-ups made no difference to waist size or the amount of fat around their stomachs.

BBC - Future - The surprising downsides of sit-ups

Don't expect a spinoff of "Rich Kids Of Beverly Hills" to hit China anytime soon. As part of its efforts to downplay inequality, China's media regulator has just banned the children of celebrities from appearing on reality television, according to Chinese news agencies.

China bans rich kids from reality TV: Reports

Humans have a terrible track record of predicting financial crises in time to fend them off. Some computer scientists think that algorithms might help. Given the right information, some crises can be foreseen. In “The Big Short,” Michael Lewis told the story of the scattered few who saw the imbalance growing in the mortgage market and profited as a result. Over decades, academic research has shown that many banking crises come with early warning signals, such as rapidly increasing debt and leverage. Yet economists and policy makers routinely miss such danger signs, in part because the financial world is so complex.

The Financial Threats That Machines Can See - Bloomberg View

You know, some people have been hurt in love. It's OK. Maybe those people will consider $1,750 (around about AU$2,250 or £1,220) a small price to pay for peace of mind. That's how much Spanish company Durmet is asking for the Smarttress, a smart mattress with a built-in "Lover Detection System" (yes, that's what it's called) that will send an alert to your smartphone "whenever someone is using your bed in a questionable way." It uses 24 sensors to detect whenever the mattress starts a-bouncing, then pings the user's Android or iPhone.

Smart mattress lets you know when your lover is cheating (or jumping on the bed) - CNET

Given that the vulnerabilities and the possibilities of spying on users relies on systems outside of user control, there is very little you can do to protect yourself beyond not using the services. For text messages, avoiding SMS and instead using encrypted messaging services such as Apple’s iMessage, Facebook’s WhatsApp or the many others available will allow you to send and receive instant messages without having to go through the SMS network, protecting them from surveillance. For calls, using a service that carries voice over data rather than through the voice call network will help prevent your calls from being snooped on. Messaging services including WhatsApp permit calls. Silent Circle’s end-to-end encrypted Signal also allows secure voice communications. Your location could be being tracked at any stage when you have your mobile phone on. The only way to avoid it is to turn off your phone or turn off its connection to the mobile phone network and rely on Wi-Fi instead.

SS7 hack explained: what can you do about it? | Technology | The Guardian

They say 60 million people play snooker in China. There is an exact replica of the Crucible Theatre near Beijing. Hong Kong’s Marco Fu is ranked 14 in the world, with Ding Junhui and Liang Wenbo, both from China, also in the top 20. Steve Davis did this, his focused, relentless excellence throughout the 1980s inspiring the world’s most populous nation just as it alienated his own. When Davis turned up in China for a friendly competition in 1987 the country’s then president, Deng Xiaoping, decreed it be televised live so that he could personally witness the phenomenon in action.

Steve Davis: snooker’s giant who played longest black-ball game of all | Simon Burnton | Sport | The Guardian

Ireland has no effective government at the moment, and hasn't had one since February's election. Further, with talks on forming a governing coalition going nowhere, a new election now seems likely. Such political uncertainty should lead to bond market jitters, right? Wrong

Bond Market to Periphery Politicians: You Don't Matter - Bloomberg

In 2007, shortly after the final volume in the Harry Potter series was released, a woman named Anne Jones read all 784 pages in exactly 47 minutes. To prove that she’d actually read it, Jones — who has won the World Championship Speed Reading Competition six times — summarized the major plot points to a group of reporters. They were satisfied with her impromptu book report, which suggests Jones had successfully read the book at 4,200 words per minute. In comparison, even adults who would be considered “good readers” can only read about 200 to 400 words per minute.

The Sad Truth About Speed-Reading: It Doesn’t Work -- Science of Us

If you close your eyes and imagine a brick wall, you can probably come up with a pretty good mental image. After seeing many such walls, your brain knows what one should look like. A startup in the U.K. is using machine learning to enable computers and smartphones to model visual information in a similar way. A computer could use these visual models for various tasks, from improving video streaming to automatically generating elements of a realistic virtual world.

Artificial Intelligence Can Now Design Realistic Video and Game Imagery

The proprietor of a web hosting company appears to have deleted his entire company and the sites of his clients by inserting a single line of bad code. The Independent reports that Marco Marsala used the infamous "rm -rf" line and inadvertently wiped the servers, which also housed his 1535 customers’ data. The command is used to delete items on a specific part of the computer. However, as one was not specified, Marsala just nuked everything.

When coding goes wrong: Man wipes entire company with one command

“What’s your nightmare scenario?” I ask her. “The truth is I’m exhausted,” she says. “So I’m worried I may misspeak, and that thing will become the headline and the cycle will start all over again.”

Monica Lewinsky: ‘The shame sticks to you like tar’ | Technology | The Guardian

Having sex is fun. Having sex in front of your co-workers, with a co-worker, is the stuff of anxiety dreams to the power of 10. I once had an anxiety dream about having to do a sex scene the night before I had to do a sex scene. It was the most bizarre experience to wake up in horror, then to feel the massive wash of relief that it was just a dream only to be hit with the realization that it was about to be real. That’s some meta shit right there.

The Secret Actress on sex scenes: my co-star warned ‘forgive me if I harden' | Film | The Guardian

The denim industry is one of the largest in the world and the Netherlands is its capital. Major denim brands such as Tommy Hilfiger, Scotch & Soda, Calvin Klein and Pepe, design, develop and manufacture here, benefitting from the country’s long-standing excellence in logistics, its business-friendly incorporation and tax laws, and its ready access to the European Union, not to mention its consistently high-ranking quality of life. Powerhouse jeans-makers such as G-Star Raw were founded here.

Amsterdam Denim Days: Cleaning Up A Dirty Business - Forbes

In some cases, however, a lightning strike can lead to strange super talents. In a blog post for Psychology Today, University of Miami neuroscientist Berit Brogaard writes about an incident where an orthopedic surgeon who was struck by lightning developed an urge to learn to play the piano. He began to compose music he had mysteriously started hearing in his head since the strike. After a few months he abandoned his career as a surgeon and became a classical musician. This type of phenomenon baffles scientists.

What to expect when you survive lightning - Business Insider

The world’s hottest startup isn’t located in Silicon Valley—it’s in suburban Florida. KEVIN KELLY explores what Magic Leap’s mind-bending technology tells us about the future of virtual reality.

The Untold Story of Magic Leap, the World’s Most Secretive Startup | WIRED

The Dow industrials and the S&P 500 may be hurtling toward record highs, but the American people, whose love affair with stocks has understandably waned since the Great Recession, look to be more hesitant than ever to buy into the rally. According to Gallup, only 52% say they currently have money invested in the stock market, matching the lowest ownership rate in the poll’s 19-year history.

People are falling out of love with stocks in a big way - MarketWatch

Topol says that the results suggest that healthy long-lived people are genetically distinct from people who reach extreme old age having survived major health problems. Other researchers think that the jury is still out. Marian Beekman, a genetic epidemiologist at Leiden University Medical Center in the Netherlands, says that the well elderly are also more educated, on average, than the general population — and higher educational attainment is known to be associated with longer lifespan.

Genetic secrets of the healthy elderly unveiled : Nature News & Comment

Their admittedly controversial answer is that the entire universe, from the fireball of the Big Bang to the star-studded cosmos we now inhabit, popped into existence from nothing at all. It had to happen, they say, because "nothing" is inherently unstable.

BBC - Earth - Why is there something rather than nothing?

Front-running central bank government debt purchases has become a fledgling tradition in a world awash with unconventional monetary policy, with Jefferies LLC's Chief Market Strategist David Zervos describing the practice as traders taking "a rich asset and [making] it stupid rich."   Hans Lorenzen, European credit strategist at Citigroup Inc., brings up the possibility that the European Central Bank's corporate bond purchases might cause this perverse dynamic to run in the opposite direction, with investors in effect rushing to get out of a debt issue in anticipation of central bank selling.

This Might Be the Biggest Problem With the ECB's Plan to Buy Corporate Debt - Bloomberg

The gross domestic product of the Eurozone is still lower than it was in 2008, in marked contrast to the US and the UK. Unemployment in its Southern member states, including France, is very high, with youth unemployment of more than 50% in Greece and Spain, leading to a lost generation in terms of economic and social participation.

Long-term causes of the Eurozone crisis | OUPblog

Greece could crash out of the eurozone as early as this summer if Britons vote to leave the European Union in the upcoming referendum, economists have predicted.

Greece 'could leave eurozone' on Brexit vote

Despite returns of over 65 percent in a year where the S&P 500 is up 4 percent, gold miner ETFs have seen half a billion in outflows. That is practically unheard of as inflows and performance are usually highly correlated when it comes to ETFs. Gold miner ETFs it seems, are the rare exception... There is one gold miner ETF that is seeing some significant inflows, however. The only problem? It's the Direxion Daily Gold Miners Bear 3X Shares (DUST), which is down 88 percent. Meanwhile, the Direxion Daily Junior Gold Miners Index Bull 3x Shares (JNUG) has put in a jaw-dropping return of 294 percent (along with outrageous volatility that is 10x that of the S&P 500). JNUG is returning four times the returns of its underlying index due to the compounding effect of re-setting leverage daily into a upward-moving market. No ETF has ever returned more than 300 percent in a year. Yet still, JNUG has still seen $83 million in outflows.

Gold Miner ETFs Are Having the Rally of a Lifetime and Burned Investors Are Missing It

No sooner had he noted these observations than he began to feel the “balloon sickness” himself. His arm had been resting on the table, but it failed to respond when he tried to lift it. Alarmed, he tried to call out to his aeronaut, Henry Coxwell, but the words froze in his mouth and his head lolled helplessly to one side.

BBC - Future - The Victorians who flew as high as jumbo jets

It was the kind of crime that sears the soul, the gang rape of a 13-year-old ethnic Russian girl by a trio of immigrants in Germany. The first reports galvanized the Russian diaspora, bringing tens of thousands into the streets to protest Chancellor Angela Merkel’s open-door policy. Trouble is, the attack never happened. It was just a teenager’s tall tale, police quickly concluded. German officials say the controversy -- known as the “Lisa Affair” -- was ginned up by President Vladimir Putin’s propaganda machine to undermine Merkel in the run up to last month’s regional elections, which resulted in stinging losses for her party.

From Rape Claim to Brexit, Putin Machine Tears at Europe's Seams - Bloomberg

Google's leading futurist, Ray Kurzweil, thinks his diet can help him live forever, a goal he recently told Playboy we could be close to achieving by as early as 2029.  Kurzweil says he spends "a few thousand dollars per day" on diet pills and eating right, or roughly $1 million a year.

What Ray Kurzweil eats to live forever - Business Insider

Although it’s rare, with the odds of getting struck in your lifetime being roughly 1 in 12,000, every now and then a human will provide an attractive target for lightning bolts to unleash their energy. And of the roughly 500 people who are struck by lightning each year, about 90% survive. Here’s what you should expect if you ever find yourself in the path of lightning.

What to expect when you survive lightning - Business Insider

Sex boosts intelligence True According to research at the University of Maryland, sex greatly increased the creation of neurons within the hippocampus, a part of the brain responsible for forming long-term memory. The tests were on mice, though; the results have yet to be proved in humans.

Sex: the myths debunked | Life and style | The Guardian

June 6, 2005, seemed to be a triumphant moment for Intel. The chipmaker was already dominating the market for processors that powered Windows-based PCs. Then Steve Jobs took the stage at Apple's World Wide Developers Conference to announce that he was switching the main Windows alternative, Macintosh computers, to Intel chips as well. The announcement cemented Intel's status as the leading company of the PC era. There was just one problem: The PC era was about to end. Apple was already working on the iPhone, which would usher in the modern smartphone era. Intel turned down an opportunity to provide the processor for the iPhone, believing that Apple was unlikely to sell enough of them to justify the development costs.

Intel made a huge mistake 10 years ago. Now 12,000 workers are paying the price. - Vox