TouchStone Reads - December 6th, 2024

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We often set aside articles that are longer, deserve a re-read, are broader in scope…or just for fun — for weekend reading. Below are some from this week — pour yourself a hot cup of coffee & enjoy...

  • Best Practices: Wealthy older investors with cognitive decline are at higher risk of investment loss. Here's how to safeguard this (Globe and Mail)

  • There’s a real math problem with MicroStrategy’s obscene valuation premium: MicroStrategy is worth around 3x as much as its bitcoin holdings. (Sherwood)

  • Feds: Tether Has Become a Massive Money Laundering Tool for Mexican Drug Traffickers: Tether (Bitcoin's etc. bank conduit) is being used on a massive scale by large scale drug traffickers. (404)

  • Heather Cox Richardson, who always writes about American politics, on… “a break from the craziness of the news.” (Letters from an American)

  • The roulette of reality. Nassim Nicholas Taleb brought us the idea of Black Swans, which are sudden unexpected events with major effects, like 9/11. Here he is on reality which is “far more vicious than Russian Roulette.” (Delanceyplace.com)

  • The slow, steady, frustrating, relentless, remarkable rise of Reddit: After nearly two decades, Reddit is breaking out into the mainstream. (Sherwood)

  • The ‘mad egghead’ who built a mouse utopia: John Calhoun designed an apartment complex for mice to examine the effects of overcrowding. (The Guardian)

  • Why the Flying Experience Feels So Much Worse: The front of the plane is now a haven of luxury, while coach has turned into a low-cost shakedown. The real winner: Airlines. (Businessweek)

  • The AI Machine Gun of the Future Is Already Here: The Pentagon is pursuing every available option to keep US troops safe from the rising tide of adversary drones, including a robotic twist on its standard-issue small arms. (Wired)

  • 17 key charts to understand the COVID-19 pandemic: The pandemic has resulted in over twenty million deaths. In this article, we review the key insights from global data on COVID-19. (Our World in Data)

  • Boomers say it takes $100k a year to be financially successful, Gen Z says it takes $600k: Salaries Americans say they consider the minimum to be “financially successful” (Axios)

  • Inside the Booming ‘AI Pimping’ Industry: AI-generated influencers based on stolen images of real-life adult content creators are flooding social media. (Wired)

  • Enjoying...
     -  The new streaming series,
    Say Nothing based on Patrick Radden Keefe’s 2020 book about the IRA. (Disney+)

     -  Eagerly Awaiting National Geographic series Endurance - about Shackleton's fated voyage (Dec 6th)

  • Chinese Carmakers Are Trouncing Once-Unbeatable Japanese Rivals (Source: Bloomberg)

What are you reading or listening to?