I read Barry Ritholtz’s “Ritholtz’s Reads” in Bloomberg every day.  Today’s reads are nearly all worth a look:

Fake News, Obsessions and Life-Changers

From Deutsche Welle:

Clocks in Europe are running late because of the Kosovo conflict

For weeks, digital clocks in Europe have been lagging behind. The unexpected source of the problem: Kosovo and Serbia, whose power grid operators can’t find common ground.

I have read quite a bit on blockchain / cryptocurrencies and can’t say I ever understood what all the fuss is about.  I have joked that bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies have all the disadvantages of a credit card combined with all the disadvantages of cash.    I believe the original goal (like PayPal) was to make a new payment system.  Lots of the claims and directions the technology has taken since then seem … unusual, at least to me.  A good write up from The Verge:

‘BLOCKCHAIN’ IS MEANINGLESS

One quote I liked:

“‘Private blockchain’ is just a confusing name for a shared database,” wrote Arvind Narayanan, an assistant computer science professor at Princeton who co-teaches a popular blockchain class on Coursera.

For my money, the funniest movie ever made.  But I was a fan of the Cohen Brothers already and went in expecting something different.  I also recall reading a review in a local paper before I saw the movie that said something like “looking for the point is to miss the point entirely”.  From the Washington Post:

‘The Big Lebowski’ is 20. We reached out to the critics who panned it to see what they think now.

All sorts of things happening around here.  Horns win a big one in overtime against WV, Saw Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds and had some good food.

A good on from the London Review of Books on Brexit:

What are they after?

William Davies writes about the Tory Brexiteers

A good one from New York Magazine on the Opioid Crisis, and why it is different (and not so different) this time.

The Poison We Pick

This nation pioneered modern life. Now epic numbers of Americans are killing themselves with opioids to escape it.

Like Jimmy Buffett said:  Don’t ever forget that you just may wind up being wrong.  From the blog A Wealth of Common Sense:

The Curse of Intelligence

“… The smarter you are, the better you are at constructing a narrative that supports your beliefs, rationalizing and framing the data to fit your argument or point of view.”

How To Become A Centaur

The old story of AI is about human brains working against silicon brains. The new story of IA will be about human brains working with silicon brains. As it turns out, most of the world is the opposite of a chess game: Non-zero-sum — both players can win.

From Statista:

Only 22 countries have never been invaded by Britain