Didactic Synapse

This episode has a gross title, but it’s a real quote from Dark Pools, the book I’m reading right now about high-frequency trading. Also this episode: stabbing people with letter openers, psychotic robots that follow you into the bathroom, killer super weeds, and cinder blocks to the face! Enjoy.

 DS #82: Trading Through The Puke

Top 3 Links of the Week

• Herbicide-resistant “super weeds” increasingly plaguing farmers
• Dying veteran writes to George W Bush and Dick Cheney
• United by loss, Israeli and Palestinian dads call for a joint nonviolent intifada against occupation
• Take Action: Tell Obama not to appoint fracking advocate Dr. Ernest Moniz to Dept. of Energy
• Also: A Place at the Table

Current Events

• 14 adults “cured” of HIV
• New LBJ tapes: Nixon sabotaged Paris Peace Talks to win election
• Dying Veteran Tomas Young on DemocracyNow
• BBC documentary podcast: After Saddam
• Democracy Now: Iraq is a failed state existing in “utter devastation”
• Torture at Guantanamo
• The Geography of defense cuts (infographic)
• After three years, BP is finally headed to court
• Companies, environmentalists agree on new fracking rules
• Windfarm sickness spreads by word of mouth, Australian study finds
• India covering canals with solar panels
• Two boys killed in Afghanistan airstrike
• Wisconsin legislator admits to never having transvaginal ultrasound
• New Pope chooses “Francis” after the saint of the poor
• Pope Francis’ Junta Past
• CPAC’s “Trump the Race Card” forum derailed by an actual segregationist

Economics

• Iceland President Olafur Ragnar Grimsson: Let banks go bankrupt
• Ha-Joon Chang on laziness and poverty
• Will robots create economic utopia?
• EU’s financial tax is likely to spur trading exodus
• American University law student: SEC will regulate HFT
• Australia finds HFT fears “overstated” but considers minimum hold time
• Demos Report: Cracks in the pipeline part two: HFT
• European officials cap banker bonuses at one year’s salary
• Vandana Shiva on Democracy Now
• Take action against super weeds: JustLabelIt.org

Education

• Value-added teacher evaluation models fail kids and communities
• 100 education experts write to the Independent to protest misguided UK education reform
• Black Agenda Report: Why isn’t closing 129 Chicago public schools news?
• Water into wine? Jeb Bush, Cheapistas, and education reform
• Scott Walker proposes expanding voucher school program in Wisconsin

Killer Robots, Etc

• General Stanley McChrystal on drones
• Pentagon robot hurls concrete blocks
• MarionetteBot fuses Kinect and mannequins
• Tongue computers are just the beginning
• Print your own AR-15
• Dogs understand human perspective: Study
• First came the Russian meteor, now the meteorite deals
• JJ Fad: Supersonic

Hip-Hop

Snoop Lion on Tavis Smiley (Sorry, the PBS embed isn’t working.)