The stock selloff that started last week continued through this one… right up until words like “constructive” and “conciliatory” popped up after the first fiscal cliff talk. Doomsaying and hand-wringing, followed by irrational exuberance in response to modestly encouraging signs? This is feeling unfortunately familiar. The week’s other highlights included news that Hostess is shutting down, the founder of McAffee antivirus software is wanted for murder in Belize, and Israel began live-tweeting the IDF’s military operations in Gaza. It’s a strange world out there. For more of the strangeness, check out our weekend reads:
- Why Things Fail – a fantastic long read on product testing and engineering. (Wired)
- The winners of the World Press Photo contest. Warning: some haunting/shocking photos in the set. (Daily Mail)
- Tired of those standard “red vs blue” election maps? Try a population-adjusted cartogram. (University of Michigan)
- Living without pain – not as great as it sounds. (New York Times)
- The best inventions of 2012 – indoor clouds, gloves that convert sign language to speech, and more. (Time Tech)
Just for fun…
- Google’s amazing interstellar exploration program. (Chrome Experiments)
- Never trust a mullet. (Long or Short Capital)