Category: Business

Insurance pricing to change soon, warns AA

Posted by Nexus – 26/02/2011

[via bbc.co.uk]

Car insurance prices may fall for men but rise for women

The European Court of Justice is considering banning insurance companies from using gender to decide how much of a risk customers are.

If it does happen, it would mean young men would eventually see their premiums go down, and young women would end up paying extra.

But the AA is warning that, at least in the short-term, the confusion could lead to higher prices all round. At the minute, young women pay less because they are seen as safer drivers. Statistics show men in their late teens and early 20s are more likely to speed, to be involved in drink driving accidents, and to claim on their policies.

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Wall Streeters’ Chain Email Reveals They’re Even Worse People Than We Thought

Posted by Nexus – 05/05/2010

[via disinfo.com]

Think that the financial crash has left investment banking hotshots humbler and wiser? Not likely. The National Review blog The Corner has a defiant email that has been circulating over the last couple days among discontented Wall Streeters. Seriously, these people are as douche-y as you imagined:

We are Wall Street. It’s our job to make money. Whether it’s a commodity, stock, bond, or some hypothetical piece of fake paper, it doesn’t matter. We would trade baseball cards if it were profitable. I didn’t hear America complaining when the market was roaring to 14,000 and everyone’s 401k doubled every 3 years. Just like gambling, its not a problem until you lose. I’ve never heard of anyone going to Gamblers Anonymous because they won too much in Vegas.

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Business calls for urgent action on “oil crunch” threat to UK economy

Posted by Nexus – 04/03/2010

[via peakoiltaskforce.net]

  • Taskforce warns Britain is unprepared for significant risk to companies and consumers
  • Poorest to be hit hardest by price rises for travel, food, heating and consumer goods
  • New policies must be priority for whoever wins the General Election
  • Recommended packages include legislation, new technologies and behaviour-change incentives
  • Fundamental change in demand patterns triggered by emerging economy countries
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Save the BBC: stop the cuts!

Posted by Nexus – 02/03/2010

[via avaaz.org]

After attacks by the Murdoch media empire, the BBC is considering sweeping cuts

The BBC is considering sweeping cuts, cutting its website in half and dropping TV and radio stations. The reason: to enrich corporate media. According to a story in the Times, the proposal is a bid to “shrink” in order to “appease the BBC’s rivals.” If this goes forward, it’s a giveaway to Rupert Murdoch, who sees the BBC as a threat to his profits.

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nVidias Fermi GTX480 deemed “broken and unfixable” pre-launch

Posted by GODDAMN SEXUAL TYRANNOSAURUS – 23/02/2010

[via semiaccurate.com, originally written by Charlie Demerjian]

WITH ANOTHER LAUNCH of the Nvidia GT300 Fermi GF100 GTX480 upon us, it is time for an update on the status of that wayward part. Production parts have been coming back from TSMC for several weeks now, and the outlook for them is grim.

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Who said banks were heartless?

Posted by Nexus – 18/02/2010

[via brisbanetimes.com.au]

Even after posting a $1.6 billion first quarter profit, Westpac was a melancholy bank shortly before 4pm today.

“Oh so very over it today,” Westpac announced to the world via its Twitter account.

The sullen tweet spread like wildfire and tugged at heart strings across the social networking site.

“Maybe you can go dive in a swimming pool full of my money to make you feel better,” said one concerned Tweeter in response.

“You’re a bank. You made a $1.6 billion first-quarter profit. Cheer up,” said another.

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Congressman Demands FTC Probe Of Cash4Gold

Posted by Nexus – 20/01/2010

[via nytimes.com]

Representative Anthony D. Weiner denounced what he called the predatory practices of Cash4Gold in New York’s diamond district on Tuesday.

The flashy ads have become a staple on late-night television, sometimes featuring figures like the late Ed McMahon or M.C. Hammer, trumpeting promises of quick dollars in exchange for bits of old gold jewelry.

The company behind the ads is called — plainly enough — Cash4Gold, but on Tuesday afternoon, Representative Anthony D. Weiner said that the company’s business practices were not always straightforward.

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China’s Loongson Processor Could Power First Natural-Born Chinese Supercomputer

Posted by Nexus – 20/01/2010

[via gizmodo.com]

The People’s Republic has unveiled more details on its quest to phase U.S.-made processors from its microchip diet. China’s next supercomputer will run purely on Chinese processors, possibly before the end of this year.

China has been developing its own CPUs at the state-run Institute of Computing Technology (ICT) for several years, but iterations of its chip – known as Loongson or “Dragon Core” – have been incapable of breaking into the elite ranks of supercomputing. China’s last supercomputer, the Dawning 5000a, was intended to run on Loongson processors, but was eventually constructed around AMD processors when the ICT couldn’t deliver a powerful enough chip quickly enough.

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FDA Wants Tobacco Companies To Submit Ingredients List By June

Posted by Nexus – 19/01/2010

[via consumerist.com]

Photo: ellievanhoutte

“Tobacco products today are really the only human-consumed product that we don’t know what’s in them,” the director of the FDA’s Center for Tobacco Products said to the Associated Press. To address that, the agency has told tobacco companies to provide a list of the ingredients in their cigarette brands by June 2010.

The FDA says it won’t publicize a lot of the data in order to protect trade secrets, but that by June 2011 it will publish a list of “harmful and potentially harmful” ingredients, at which point tobacco companies will have to start listing the amounts of each one on their products.

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