09-24-2015, 09:36 PM
A range of companies now produce eye-wateringly priced loudspeakers like these. Take the £130,000 ($200,000) Magico M Project units, for instance – or the space age-style Transmission Audio Ultimate system that sells for over £1m ($1.5m). Are such units really worth the money? To find out more, BBC Future decided to take a closer look at the engineering decisions that go into making one of these high-end loudspeaker designs, as well as the exotic ways they are tested – using everything from lasers to strange, noise-free chambers.
BBC - Future - Why are the world’s best loudspeakers so expensive?
Scientists create and discover new materials all the time. But few are so jaw-droppingly cool that they deserve to be recognized.
The coolest chemicals ever created by humans - Tech Insider
The argument that zero rates are unhealthy and impure is to let Calvinist psychology intrude on the hard science of monetary management. The chorus of demands – and just from ‘internet-Austrians’ – that rates should be raised in order to build up reserve ammunition in case they need to be cut later, is a line of reasoning that borders on insanity.
Fed is riding the tail of a dangerous global tiger - Telegraph
Contrary to much noise, China is not in fact collapsing. It had a recession earlier this year as a result of a triple shock: a fiscal cliff from a botched reform of local government, a monetary squeeze that went too far, and the sharpest appreciation of its trade-weighted exchange rate of any country in the world. There was also an equity crash on the Shanghai and Shenzhen casinos, though this is of no relevance beyond puncturing the illusion that the Chinese authorities known what they are doing. Self-evidently they do not. These shocks have been absorbed. The recession touched bottom in April. Credit is growing at the fastest pace in two years. Fiscal spending is back on track. House prices are shooting up again in Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen. Bond issuance by local governments is soaring.
Fed is riding the tail of a dangerous global tiger - Telegraph
Pay hasn't budged in years. It's a problem that goes far beyond those earning minimum wage and fighting for $15 an hour. The middle class is stagnating too. American household income is just shy of $54,000. It's barely moved from where it was 20 years ago.
Unemployment keeps going down. So why aren't wages going up? - Sep. 21, 2015