Great Mistakes

This is a nice little piece. About the great mistakes that have been made by famous people. Or perhaps the great predictive mistakes they've made.

7. Nobody would ever need more than 640KB of memory on their personal computer– Bill Gates in 1981, allegedly.

It's possible that that one would have been true if it wasn't Bill Gates writing the software for us but I digress. The one I really wanted to take issue with was this:

3. "Nuclear-powered vacuum cleaners will probably be a reality within ten years" – Alex Lewyt, president of the Lewyt Corp vacuum company

Given that 20% of the Uk's electricity supply comes from nuclear stations I'd say that we've got quite a large number of nuclear powered vacuum cleaners in the UK. About 20% of the total actually.

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This is good news....no, really, it is

Politicians must prepare themselves for the possibility that global economic growth shrinks for the first time since the Second World War, according to the World Bank

No, negative growth isn't the good news. Rather that the global economy is now sufficiently integrated that we're moving in lock step.

So why is this good news?

Well, just as we're used to all those people calling for an "integrated transport system" so also do we want a globally integrated economy.  We want whatever resources there are, anywhere in the world, to be put to their most productive uses, whatever and...

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Daily Brief

What kinds of innovative industries will America's next generation create that will help propel the country back to economic dominance? Don't expect them to come from the sciences.

Reconfirming what we've always known, kids in America continue to lag far behind other countries in math and science skills, according to the latest study. The results from the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study conducted by Boston College show that American kids made improvements in math skills since the last test four years ago, but they made almost no progress in science. And despite its advancement in math,...

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The auto bailout, in a nutshell

What is that fugly minivan, anyway? And why do I get carsick just looking at it?

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Ooooh! The criminals!

More than £2 billion a year is lost through tax evasion but fraudsters have a “minimal” chance of getting caught, the public spending watchdog will announce today.

The Public Accounts Committee says HM Revenue & Customs are struggling to crack down on the estimated two million people involved in tax evasion. Its report, HMRC: Tackling the Hidden Economy, says that the detection rate was only 1.5 per cent and the penalties imposed were relatively slight.

Yes, yes, I know, in these straightened times no one should be allowed to get away without paying for their share of...

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