Maggie's Farm

I don't get in nearly as many scrapes on Saturday Night as I once did. I'm always the toughest guy at the Olive Garden at 4:10, so no one dares front me over the newly rationed bread sticks, and I'm usually home in bed before the real heavy stuff comes down past 5:00.

I'm no shrinking violet, though. I was a welterweight pacifist back in the day. Since I didn't believe in violence, I was only allowed to fight with other pacifists in my weight class. I once gave an Indian burn to a Hare Krishna in an airport terminal that I bet he's hasn't forgotten yet.

Anyway, if you venture out this evening with a glint in your eye and the devil in your heart, be careful of hanging around known tough guys like Elton John. Did you ever listen to the lyrics of Saturday Night's All Right (for Fighting)? That dude would kick your ass with his crepe-soled sneakers at the drop of a straw boater.

Here are the Saturday Morning Links:

The world is entering a third stage of a rolling debt crisis, this time centred on emerging markets

Householders in America have struggled for years to work off the excess borrowing taken on during a global housing boom in the 2000s. The economy has suffered from a shortfall of spending as a consequence. The world economy was dealt a second blow, after 2010, when the delayed effects of that earlier boom were played out in a debt crisis at the fringes of the euro area, one that at several points threatened to break up the currency union.

Housing debt? Ten years roll by and somehow everything is still George Bush's fault.

Stop-and-Seize Turns Police Into Self-Funding Gangs

The threat to individual liberty from stop-and-seize is painfully clear. Without requirements for an arrest or for a warrant, the power to confiscate cash is a clear diminution of property rights. Effectively, the police have been given official sanction to commit literal highway robbery without the threat of punishment. People whose property was seized must pay a lot of money and spend a long time in court for even the chance of getting it back, and police who seize money with no good reason don't, apparently, suffer any threat of discipline.

I have solved this problem with insolvency.

Vincent Asaro, Accused in Lufthansa Heist, Is Found Not Guilty

The verdicts, delivered after little more than two days of deliberations, left many in the courtroom stunned, most visibly prosecutors from the United States attorney’s office, which had spent years building a case against Mr. Asaro, 80, with testimony from high-ranking Mafia figures and recordings by an informer for the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

People are stunned that jurors don't want a purported mafia member angry at them. That is stunning.

Paris attacks: Bataclan and other assaults leave many dead

France has declared a national state of emergency and tightened borders after at least 128 people were killed in a night of gun and bomb attacks in Paris. Eighty people were reported killed after gunmen burst into the Bataclan concert hall and took hostages before security forces stormed the hall.People were shot dead at restaurants and bars at five other sites in Paris. At least 180 people were injured. These are the deadliest attacks in Europe since the 2004 Madrid bombings.

Hmm. It would appear they don't - want - to live like a refugee. Don't want to live like a ref-huge-gee.

Apple is Shutting Down Beats Music, Just Like Most Companies it Buys

Apple bought Beats last year for $3 billion in large part for the technology behind its streaming-music service. Unlike so many recent acquisitions, Apple let Beats Music live on instead of its more typical strategy of immediately shutting down acquisitions after incorporating their technology into its own products.

William Howard Taft wouldn't leave a scrap of flesh on Tim Cook's bones.

Microsoft Invented Google Earth in the 90s Then Totally Blew It

Terraserver could have, should have been a product that ensured Microsoft would remain the world’s most important internet company well into the 21st century. It was the first-ever publicly available interactive satellite map of the world. The world’s first-ever terabyte-sized database. In fact, it was the world’s largest database for several years, and that Compaq was—physically speaking—the world's largest computer. Terraserver was a functional and popular Google Earth predecessor that launched and worked well before Google even thought of the concept.

Oh look. The same people who said Microsoft was an evil monopoly because they made an operating system and a web browser are mocking them for not taking over the whole Internet.

MIT team invents efficient shockwave-based process for desalination of water.

...the system uses an electrically driven shockwave within a stream of flowing water, which pushes salty water to one side of the flow and fresh water to the other, allowing easy separation of the two streams. The new approach is described in the journal Environmental Science and Technology Letters, in a paper by professor of chemical engineering and mathematics Martin Bazant, graduate student Sven Schlumpberger, undergraduate Nancy Lu, and former postdoc Matthew Suss.

Somehow I don't think Mizzou students would have come up with this.

Can the vocabulary of deceit reveal fraudulent studies?

The deceitful papers tend to be vaguer, more difficult to read, and have fewer quantifying words, the authors found. They also use a bit more jargon, with fraudulent publications containing 1.5% more technical terms. Another trend, Markowitz told ScienceInsider, is that spurious papers generally had more references. Such characteristics tend to make fraudulent papers more “convoluted” and “costly” in terms of readers’ time, he says.

I just look for the word "consensus." Saves time.

Beware of ads that use inaudible sound to link your phone, TV, tablet, and PC

The ultrasonic pitches are embedded into TV commercials or are played when a user encounters an ad displayed in a computer browser. While the sound can't be heard by the human ear, nearby tablets and smartphones can detect it. When they do, browser cookies can now pair a single user to multiple devices and keep track of what TV commercials the person sees, how long the person watches the ads, and whether the person acts on the ads by doing a Web search or buying a product.

I only watch football on TV so I imagine the continuous stream of high-pitched swearing will interfere with this scheme.

Have a lovely Saturday!