Danny's Pathologically Polymathic: March 2009

MIT faculty vote to make publications open access - Arstechnica

"everyone at MIT is expected to retain rights to distribute their works at no cost for their parent institution. Anybody who wants to publish with a journal that refuses to grant these rights will have to submit a written request for an exception to the MIT provost."

a former IMF economist offers advice on dealing with bad banks - Atlantic

Snake Oil Science: The Truth About Complementary and Alternative Medicine [review]

Spanish court begins proceedings against Bush officials for torture - Guardian

Spain debates abortion laws that reflect reality - Guardian

Germany's economic stimulus works through its social net - IHT

Israeli war crimes in Gaza included indiscriminate use of white phosphorus - Guardian

William Black on US mortgage problems, and on the Fed - Huffington - FiredogLake

ratings agencies and mortgage lenders engaged in outright fraud; the Fed's economists were incompetent

Prague's Franz Kafka International named world's most alienating airport - Onion

the Australian Bureau of Statistics is sacking 200 staff - ABC

Australian household debt - ABS

"Between September 1990 and September 2008, the ratio of total household debt to assets held by households rose from 9% to 19%"

Wietse Venema and Creative Commons win free software awards - FSF

were all dinosaurs birds? - Economist

home ownership reduces labor mobility and is bad for the economy - Economist

the First Home Buyers Grant is going to make the coming crash worse - DebtDeflation

"the $2.8 billion [stimulus to the housing market] has come from increased mortgage debt taken on by those most vulnerable to a serious economic downturn"

Madagascar's unusual change of government - Economist

talking to George Soros - Australian

The Photographs of Baldwin Spencer [review]

Galbraith: the crisis is bigger than we think - WashMonthly [via Keen]

the Simpson Desert's Waddi trees - ABC

recession photographs from the US, China and Eastern Europe - Boston

Australian Internet blacklist leaked - SMH - WikiLeaks

"the sites include a slew of online poker sites, YouTube links, regular gay and straight porn sites, Wikipedia entries, euthanasia sites, websites of fringe religions such as satanic sites, fetish sites, Christian sites, the website of a tour operator and even a Queensland dentist"

tips on non-hierarchical management - AaronSW [via CT]

the effects of online recommendation systems on diversity - Whimsley [via CT]

diversity in individual selection versus overall diversity

Sydney Anglicans join atheists against NSW blasphemy laws - ABC [via Bowditch]

they're worried about not being able to attack Islam, Buddhism, etc.

the young in Ireland get a taste of hard times - WP

UK FSA to cap mortgage lending at 3x annual salary - Telegraph

five years too late, but better now than never

Gunns versus the Wilderness Society in court - SMH

the US electoral map has changed since 1976! - Kos

an end to tax havens? - Guardian

"Switzerland opened up its legendary system of bank secrecy and agreed to hand over information on wealthy clients suspected of tax evasion"

Detroit's decline: houses in ruins - Time

details of my quiet computer build - notes

has the United States passed Peak Auto? - CNN

Aus Internet regulator forces forum to remove links to site with prohibited content - AusIT - the prohibited content itself

warning: explicit pictures of aborted foetuses!!

how to convert a 12V computer fan to 5V or 7V - exoid

the GFC will hurt the world's poorest worst - SMH

romantic heroines are now ditzy instead of clever - Guardian

Microsoft versus Iceland - yaxic [vis OSWALD]

Indonesian Islamists attack jaipongan folk dance as too erotic - SMH

I've been researching building a quiet computer - SPCR

I know a lot more about fans, power supplies and heatsinks than I did a week ago

a $1 trillion "run on Britain" - Independent

"an unusually large banking sector, with liabilities four times GDP. Should the taxpayer have to assume these it will represent, in relation to GDP, about double the national debt at the end of the Second World War"

a humanitarian crisis as Sri Lanka corrals the Tigers - Economist

some reading suggestions on the US situation in Afghanistan - Nation

(though this list doesn't have much about Afghanistan in its own right)

the Inspector Montalbano tour of Sicily - TourGuides

Bank of England to create 150 million pounds - SMH

an experiment in quantitative easing

how Iceland became a hedge fund - VanityFair

Debunking Economics: The Naked Emperor of the Social Sciences [review]

concerns about Internet filtering in NSW schools - ZDnet

sacrificing educational benefits in the name of child protection?

Australia offers students visa to work in Indonesia - SMH

but maintains "reconsider your need to travel" advisory

Epidemics Laid Low [review]

a history of public health responses in Western Europe

looking at foreclosures in Minnesota - MinnPost

satellite imagery of the recent southern Australian heat wave - NASA [via /.]

nuclear-armed submarines collide in Atlantic - Guardian

why did it take two weeks for me to hear about this?

Australian backyards are disappearing - SMH

"You could double the Australian housing density and save your backyard by making the front yard smaller and building two storeys"