ripperdoc's clinic

jessnevins:

From a fascinating Foreign Policy article on the global black market:

System D is a slang phrase pirated from French-speaking Africa and the Caribbean. The French have a word that they often use to describe particularly effective and motivated people. They call them débrouillards. To say a…

cruisingwithgunhead:

Among 37 million companies and investors, 147 control 40% of all capital.

Unless you’ve been locked up behind faraday cages, analog links and 12m reinforced concrete for too long, you will know that BitCon is one of the most cyberpunky things to have happened recently. In any case - this article from The Bit Coin Sun gives a quick summary about the whole thing.

An interesting read on US biggest privately held company, Koch Industries, which is largely unknown to the public.

Koch Industries, Inc. owns a diverse group of companies that are engaged in trading, operations and investments worldwide. It has a presence in 50 countries in such industries as petroleum, chemicals, energy, fibres, resins, fertilisers, pulp and paper, ranching, securities and finance. 

(via @GreatDismal)

This article will get your sci-fi neurons working. As stock trading becomes more automatic and about milliseconds, latency (network delay) to the originating stock markets is crucial.

It has been found that certain locations in Africa, Siberia and in the Oceans are optimally placed to be right between the globe’s markets. Of course, only the data centers has to be there, but now it suddenly makes sense why EvilCorp (TM) would have high-tech compounds located in remote areas.

Here and now, Africa is being sold to corporations, looking for arable land or resources. This is nothing new, but Africa is the place where nation states are the weakest - if corporations would take control anywhere first, it would be Africa.

Yep, don’t count on having pilots flying planes (unless, as Futurismic suggests, you pay a pilot surcharge). It has already been suggested to remove the co-pilot and educate the flight attendants for emergency landing. At some point, that emergency training will be all we need, and the plane is flown by itself and the air-controllers.

Anything can be traded. But this one has some interesting implications, making litigation more of a venture for profit and less of a way to compensate wrongdoings.

The Bay Area in California, dominated by San Fransisco, has a very active economy, where the rest of the state is suffering. Will we see a Bay Area city state? It certainly sounds Gibson- or Stephenson-esque! (via always excellent Futurismic)