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Electric bus was killed off 100 years ago
Nature & Environment

Electric bus was killed off 100 years ago

...German-born lawyer and including the nephew of the Greek prime minister and his astrologer, a music hall artist, a crooked judge, and a gunrunner. Shareholders were systematically deceived by “solicitors and accountants who could not be trusted to add up the pennies in a child’s piggy bank.” “On top of the fraud, bribery and blackmail, there was champagne, sex,...
How can we say Bitcoin is overvalued when we don't know how to value it?
Money & Business

How can we say Bitcoin is overvalued when we don't know how to value it?

...Germanic cash register] Bitcoin is a “speculative mania” according to the governor of the Reserve Bank of Australia. But it’s not so easy to say that Bitcoin is a bubble - we don’t know how to value it. Recent price rises (close to A$18,000 in the past three months) may be too great and can’t continue. But the Bitcoin market is only just maturing as an...
Hat makers, Greek gods and the great poisoners
Science, Maths & Technology

Hat makers, Greek gods and the great poisoners

...German physician Paracelsus explored the relationship between dose and response. To paraphrase his conclusion: All things are poison and nothing without poison. Solely the dose determines that a thing is not a poison. The toxicity of a chemical is often stated in a way that relates the dose to the subject, such as an animal or human, and the time of exposure. For example,...
A day at Doncaster - and an hour out of Durham
History & The Arts

A day at Doncaster - and an hour out of Durham

...course it is not hard to think well of a king if you are under him, just as it is not hard to think ill of him if you are not under him; but there is no use being bigotedly republican when there is nothing to be got by it, and I own the fact that his subjects like him willingly. Probably no man in his kingdom understands better than Edward VII. that he is largely a form,...
Solving the perplexing mathematicians' problem of the spectre
Science, Maths & Technology

Solving the perplexing mathematicians' problem of the spectre

...courses. Periodic tiles Imagine tiling your bathroom with square tiles. Square tiles will fit together perfectly to cover the whole wall. In fact, if you had infinitely many square tiles, you could use them to cover an infinite flat surface. The downside is that the pattern is quite boring. In fact, if you take a copy of the pattern, and slide it to the right, all the...
The moderate authoritarians: Labour's soft middle gets tough
Society, Politics & Law

The moderate authoritarians: Labour's soft middle gets tough

...German intellectual Jurgen Habermas: the outcome is disgraceful because forcing the Greek government to agree to an economically questionable, predominantly symbolic privatisation fund cannot be understood as anything other than an act of punishment against a left-wing government. This centrist repression is ultimately less about economics and more about politics. It is a...
Strangers on a train platform: Refugees feel the hostility of Hungary
Society, Politics & Law

Strangers on a train platform: Refugees feel the hostility of Hungary

...German government has signalled that it’s ready to receive Syrian refugees stuck in Hungary. Thanks in no small part to Hungary’s behaviour, the current picture of the refugee crisis paints much of the EU as a hotbed of civil disruption and unmanageable borders, rather than a safe haven. This is yet another sign that the EU’s structures, designed originally for a...
Why are the Paris attacks given greater attention than the ISIS killings in Beirut?
Society, Politics & Law

Why are the Paris attacks given greater attention than the ISIS killings in Beirut?

...Germans found themselves in. Auschwitz and other concentration camps serve as reminders of the terrible events that followed. Similarly, we find that deprivation, unemployment, marginalisation and poverty fuel the imagination of some angry youth, who are motivated to join terror groups in an effort to claim back some form of agency. Corrupt governments entrench absolute...