Oddly Relevant (Thanksgiving)

Turkey’s economy remains delicate: As the once burgeoning domestic demand slows, Turkey is now reliant on exports as the propulsive force behind its economic growth (currently 3%) —at the same time reining in lending to tame inflation. Stark challenges remain ahead—the country needs higher saving rate, looser labor restrictions, and better education/training, but at least the country only has 38% debt to GDP. [Note: Build solid and judicial infrastructure, and the rest will come]…Source: http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/10a2aeba-17b1-11e2-8cbe-00144feabdc0.html#axzz2CvCtAlI4

Meet Titan, the world’s new fastest computer: Currently residing at Oak Ridge National Lab, Tennessee, Titan is a 37,376-processor open system with half its units in GPUs—ungodly efficient in processing polygons. Its edge comes from breaking a problem into thousands of tiny pieces and farming each out to a single processor (kind of like hiring 50 college kids to paint your fence at the same time). The raw power is there, the question now is breaking down the problem. [Note: More like a number-crunching monster than a supercomputer]…Source: http://www.economist.com/news/science-and-technology/21566611-world-has-new-fastest-computer-thanks-video-games-deeper-thought

The Company library, more interesting than you think: Let me just pull you a list: The SPAM Museum in Austin, Minnesota, as the Guggenheim of pork products. The Kohler Design Centre in Kohler, Wisconsin for  bathroom fixtures. The Cumberland Pencil Company’s museum in Keswick, England for old pencils. Harley-Davidson’s museum in Milwaukee and BMW’s museum in Munich with past and pervious models; Hershey’s museum of deliciousness, and the obvious Coca-Cola museum of caffeinated happiness.[Note: curious what a bank has to offer]...Source: http://www.economist.com/news/business/21566628-company-museums-are-not-dull-they-sound-museums-mammon

The Quiet traveling undertaking: Amtrak’s Quiet Car, in case you don’t know, is usually the first car in Amtrak’s coach section, right behind business class. Loud talking is forbidden there — any conversations are to be conducted in whispers. Cellphones off; music and movies on headphones only. There are little signs hanging from the ceiling of the aisle that explain this, along with a finger-to-lips icon. [Note: We need more of such settings, like a bar or a restaurant.]… Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/18/opinion/sunday/the-quiet-ones.html?smid=tw-nytimes&pagewanted=all&_r=2&

[On a relevant note, Susan Cain wrote a marvelous book on the power, beauty, and justification of introverts in a world that is not so quiet: http://www.amazon.com/Quiet-Power-Introverts-World-Talking/dp/0307352145/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1353646744&sr=8-1&keywords=Quiet%21+the+power]

The surprising correlation between a turkey and a short-gamma trader: http://peterlbrandt.com/the-suprising-correlation-between-a-turkey-and-a-short-gamma-trader/