Remarkable stories from the web in a new, easier format. Travel without passport. The latest in virtual reality. Morgan Stanley’s outlook for commodities. China’s credit crunch and many more remarkable stories from the web
Already, designers and architects are considering more ecological urban design, especially in the way that resources are used.
BBC – Future – Technology – New designs to breathe life back into our cities
Dr Lina Gega, of the university’s Norwich Medical School, said: “People with social anxiety are afraid that they will draw attention to themselves and be negatively judged by others in social situations. “Many will either avoid public places and social gatherings altogether, or use safety behaviours to cope, such as not making eye contact. “Paradoxically, this sort of behaviour draws attention to people with social anxiety and feeds into their beliefs that they don’t fit in.
BBC News – Out-of-body virtual scenarios ‘help social anxiety’
Fugitive Edward Snowden is hoping to get to Ecuador, despite not having a valid passport. So when can you legally travel without one?
BBC News – Who, what, why: When can you legally travel without a passport?
Morgan Stanley’s commodities team, led by Adam Longson, offers multi-year outlooks for 13 major staples including energy, metals, and food commodities. In a nutshell: buy food, sell metals.
Morgan Stanley’s Outlook For Commodities – Business Insider
There are two factors driving us to believe that the store brand version of Excedrin is somehow less powerful than the name brand stuff
Generic vs. Name Brand Drugs – Business Insider
comments from no less than three central bankers over the past 24 hours that have calmed markets and dispelled some myths.
U.S. & Chinese Central Bankers Seek to Calm Markets | Breakout – Yahoo! Finance
The Shanghai Composite Index finished 0.2 percent lower Tuesday on hopes of intervention by the central bank, but not before plunging as much as 5.7 percent earlier in the session.
Is Meltdown in China Stocks About to Get Worse?
analysts told CNBC that investors need to re-examine their expectations of the gold market and that prices are likely to fall to levels before the Federal Reserve opted for unlimited bond-buying.
Gold Prices Are Headed to Pre-QE Days: Credit Suisse
Interest rates are “nowhere near” a return to “normal”, austerity measures in some eurozone countries had been a “disaster”, and we may be “many years” away from the end of quantitative easing were the mournful numbers King picked for his final compilation.
Mervyn King exits with an air of gloom | Business | The Guardian
An incredible wealth of data
Bloomberg Best (& Worst): Most Prone to Vice: Countries
“It’s one thing to change the world you’re in so that you perceive yourself to be above a great abyss, that’s interesting, but when you turn into a lobster or something, that’s really profound,”
The Quest for Seamless, High-Quality Virtual Reality – Chris Baraniuk – The Atlantic
After applying “machine learning algorithms” to a “very large amount of meeting data” they identified the words most commonly used to gain support for proposals or take the lead in discussions. These were “yeah, give, start, meeting” and “discuss”.
The five words that can swing a meeting in your favour | TechRepublic
