I rarely post anything finance related on here, but this is simply too on-point to pass up.
“Cowards. Criminal toadies. Chickenshit pimps who would sell their mothers into forced prostitution for a buck. That is Merrill Lynch, and the fact that a single goddamned dollar of my tax money went to these spineless, money-grubbing parasites makes my stomach turn. If Goldman Sachs is a vampire squid, then Merrill Lynch is Escherichia coli of banking. Whatever they touch gets sick, and occasionally dies.
I’ve said this before, and I will repeat it here: If you are a Merrill Lynch client, and they lose you money, you have forfeited the right to complain to anyone — its your own damned fault. Anyone who gives money to these incompetents, fools and weasels gets exactly what they deserve . . .”
– Barry Ritholtz, from his must-read blog The Big Picture, summing up Michael Lewis’s Vanity Fair piece on Merrill and Ireland.
“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; because there is not effort without error and shortcomings; but who does actually strive to do the deed; who knows the great enthusiasm, the great devotion, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement and who at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly. So that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.” – Theodore Roosevelt
(hat tip to Andy P at CFLA)
It seems that every 365 days I’m drawn to this post by Anil Dash. So true.
On another note, Nine Inch Nails has a new record out.
I’m not a tremendous gamer (with a few notable PS3 exceptions) – and I’ve tried a few games on the iPhone but end up losing interest rather quickly. Eliss, on the other hand, has me hooked. I won’t explain the point – it’s more fun to figure it out – and it should be noted that the vector-graphics design brings back fond memories of a childhood spent in arcades spending quarter after quarter on Tempest. Bonus points go to a suite of tools from processing.org that went into making this. Lovely.
See newspapers from around the world at Newsdesigner and at the Newseum.
Go there now. Be happy.
Last Friday, in the midst of the market meltdown, this news item showed up on Bloomberg terminals.
Not exactly sure why, but lately I’m completely obsessed with IFR maps, which basically are what pilots use to reference flight plans when you can’t see the ground due to weather. They’re road maps for the ether, complete with inscrutable codes and a graphic simplicity that has had me scrambling for reference material to understand what it all means. You can view the entire continental United States in both VFR (visual flight, which look like regular maps) and IFR maps (as above) at skyvector.com. (My wife got me a telescope for my b-day, so I’ve been looking up at the skies a lot lately.)
The meltdown has a face: the sad, sad traders that populate the Business section (or lately the front page) of your local paper.
This is the internet, so of course there’s a blog that aggregates them.
Some of these just need Bill Viola with a slow motion camera, some proper lighting design and *boom*, you got art.
Global recession got you down? Start posting these around the neighborhood. Or try drinking. Or both.
Get all of ‘em at The Poster List
A years-long effort to recreate the “Venice” sign that hung over Windward Street many many years ago (back when most of the streets here were canals) has finally come to fruition. After seeing it lit up for the first time last night, you can’t help but think that it was a really good idea. It’s simple, unique and beautiful, casting a warm glow on a street that needs some warmth.
