Riding with Robots writes “NASA reports that the Phoenix Mars Lander has detected snow falling from Martian clouds. According to the Canadian team running a weather experiment, a laser instrument designed to study how the atmosphere and surface interact on Mars has detected snow from clouds about 4 kilometers above the landing site. Data shows the snow vaporizing before reaching the surface, but one of the mission scientists said, ‘We’ll be looking for signs that the snow may even reach the ground.’ Spacecraft soil experiments have also provided evidence of past interaction between minerals and liquid water.”

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Plechazunga passes along this note from The Hill: “The House is limiting e-mails from the public to prevent its websites from crashing due to the enormous amount of mail being submitted on the financial bailout bill. As a result, some constituents may get a ‘try back at a later time’ response if they use the Home website to e-mail their lawmakers about the bill defeated in the House on Monday in a 205-228 vote.”

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Filed under: Rumors, Products and services, Competitive strategy, Wal-Mart (WMT), Marketing and advertising, Viacom (VIA), Best Purchase (BBY)

Billboard announced last week that Best Purchase Stores, Inc. (NYSE: BBY) is rumored to be the exclusive retailer for the continuously pending Guns n’ Roses album, Chinese Democracy, by the end of 2008. For anyone who does not know about this album, it is likely to be one of the longest produced and most expensive in the history of the music business; it went into production in the mid-1990s.

Helping to fuel this rumor is the band’s new management, Irving Azoff’s Front Line Management, which has a history of releasing new albums exclusively through single retailers. Front Line released the Eagles return album Long Road Out of Eden through Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE: WMT) a year ago with big success. The “new” Guns n’ Roses album would predictably see similar success when and if it is ever released, and Best Buy is smart to be grasping at the exclusivity if it is more than a rumor.

But will the album’s release recoup the amount of money spent producing it? This is one of the major reasons the album is continuously unreleased, despite rumors of release dates and its appearances on release schedules. A March 2005 article by the New York Times stated that production costs had reached $13 million, a figure that could only have increased in the following three and a half years. These high figures raise the question of whether the album will truly be worth release financially, even if it is critically or popularly successful.

Continue reading Good news for Best Buy (BBY): Exclusive deal for Guns n’ Roses album

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mknewman writes to tell us that NASA is no longer receiving data from the Hubble Space Telescope, which could possibly delay the shuttle launch planned just two weeks from now. There is a backup system installed which may be used instead of training the astronauts on the installation of the new component, but that would itself leave no fallback option. “NASA is reviewing whether the mission should be delayed a couple of months so that plans can be made to send up a replacement part for the failed component, said NASA spokesman Michael Curie. It would take time to test and qualify the old replacement part and train the astronauts to install it in the telescope, Curie stated. NASA also would have to work out new mission details for the astronauts who have trained for two years to carry out five Hubble repair spacewalks.”

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World caught in large cash crisis - BBC News
As well as lending money to people and businesses, banks around the world have always lent cash to each other too. But too many American banks lent money to people who couldn’t pay it back, which means some banks have now run out of cash and can’t

More eating in to save money - Cincinnati.com
Arnisha Keyes admits she’s no Rachael Ray. Until recently, she spent $30 a day to eat breakfast, lunch and dinner at restaurants. But the high price of gas has her testing her cooking skills to save money, packing lunch for work and experimenting

McCain focusing on Iowa despite polls - Miami Herald
DES MOINES, Iowa — John McCain’s second visit to Iowa in less than a month is heartening Republicans who say it is proof their presidential candidate intends to compete for the state, despite polls showing him behind Democrat Barack Obama. Democrats

Microsoft to stick with licensing fees for Windows Mobile - Reuters
OSLO (Reuters) - Microsoft (MSFT.O: Quote , Profile , Research , Stock Buzz ) plans to continue charging licensing fees from handset makers for using its mobile operating system and not follow the free offerings of Google and Nokia, Chief Executive

10k asbestos cancer pay-out - BBC UK News
Mesothelioma is a cancer of the lining of the lungs or abdomen. The time between diagnosis and death is on average about nine months. A Department of Social Development spokesman said the money would be made available shortly after diagnosis, as

News - Business Tech - CNET News
Yahoo’s Zimbra software now can work hand-in-hand with other server software for e-mail, calendar, and contacts, including Microsoft’s widely used Exchange. Zimbra Collaboration Suite, an open-source software package, now has an “open extension

Brown refuses to guarantee savings - Croydon Guardian
Prime Minister Gordon Brown has welcomed cross-party co-operation on the economy but rejected calls for the Government to guarantee all savings. He repeated his pledge to do “whatever is necessary” to get Britain through the global financial turmoil

Evidence-Based Investing: M.D. Turned Financial Advisor Diagnoses What - MSN MoneyCentral
Investment Advisory Firm Turns to Medical Professional to Apply Rigors of “Evidence-Based Medicine” to Investing; Why Do So Many of Us Let Advisors Give Bad Advice About the Best Medicine For Portfolios? ROCKFORD, Ill. , Sept. 30 /PRNewswire

Dollar stores help shoppers stretch for deals - MSN MoneyCentral
PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) - A buck will still buy you a bottle of shampoo, two rolls of paper towels or four containers of generic breath mints at some dollar stores. It even buys a bit of excitement in the hunt for a deal. But it won’t buy motor oil. Or a

US shares rebound on fresh hopes of a deal - Times On the internet
The $700bn bet that failed | The World is heading for a recession | Leader: a dangerous moment | Feds join global effort | The bailout will happen | Depositors flee Glitnir | Sarkozy summons French bankers | Citigroup buy Wachovia | Mitsubishi shore

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Filed under: Bad news, Consumer experience, Economic data, Housing, Financial Crisis

The housing market isn’t done “adjusting.” The Case-Shiller index of home prices fell at a record rate in July 2008. Its 20-city index fell 16.3% from the previous year, while the 10-city index declined an even greater 17.5% — more than it ever has in its 21 year history. Las Vegas had the worst decline at 30%.

The large picture is that the ratio of the median house price to median income has risen from 2.8 to 4 in the last several years. That’s because the mortgage-backed security (MBS) industrial complex needed more raw material for its factory. So it lent money to people who could not pay it back — this is the $1.3 trillion subprime market. Now that it’s becoming clear that more and more people will not be paying back those mortgages, the credit wind is coming out of the sails of the housing market.

The decline in housing prices could be good news if it leads to a change in American culture. We need to recognize that the celebrity industrial complex has gone hand-in-hand with the consumer lending business to create a need to live beyond our means and then fill that need with reckless borrowing. Would it be so bad for people to actually be able to afford what they own or rent rather than to feel like they are one missed payment away from losing it all?

Peter Cohan is President of Peter S. Cohan & Associates. He also instructs management at Babson College and edits The Cohan Letter.

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asoduk writes to tell us that a new world record has been set for the most efficient photovoltaic device. Topping the scale at 40.8% efficiency, the new solar cell differs significantly from the previous record holder. “Instead of using a germanium wafer as the bottom junction of the device, the new design uses compositions of gallium indium phosphide and gallium indium arsenide to split the solar spectrum into three equal parts that are absorbed by each of the cell’s three junctions for higher potential efficiencies. This is accomplished by growing the solar cell on a gallium arsenide wafer, flipping it over, then removing the wafer. The resulting device is extremely thin and light and represents a new class of solar cells with advantages in performance, design, operation and cost.”

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Filed under: Economic data, Politics, Housing, Recession, Financial Crisis

Few economists / analysts would deny that the financial crisis is so complex, with numerous casual factors, that there’s more than enough blame to go around: no one party can or should be seen as ‘the culprit.’ Moreover, what’s paramount now is to identify what works, i.e. what helps solve the crisis, and implement it.

The U.S. Congress’ bailout / rescue bill (pdf) is one tool: it will help. If it goes reasonably according to plan, the U.S. Treasury, and the companion agencies the rescue creates, will slowly remove distressed / bad assets from the financial system and in the process would both stabilize the credit markets, and equally important, restore confidence in the financial system.

Another tool: mortgage help in the form of refinanced mortgages for homeowners having trouble paying their mortgage / nearing default.

Economist David H. Wang stated Congressional Democrats were unsuccessful in their effort to get U.S. bankruptcy laws amended so that judges could adjust the terms of mortgages — Congressional Republicans were adamantly opposed to it — but the bailout / rescue package does authorize the U.S. Government to further assist homeowners who face mortgage defaults.

Continue reading Next rescue step - moratorium on home mortgage foreclosures?

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Smivs writes “The BBC reports that Earth’s most ancient rocks, with an age of 4.28 billion years, have been found on the shore of Hudson Bay, Canada. Writing in Science journal, a team reports finding that a sample of Nuvvuagittuq greenstone is 250 million years older than any rocks known. It may even hold evidence of activity by ancient life forms. If so, it would be the earliest evidence of life on Earth — but co-author Don Francis cautioned that this hadn’t been established. ‘The rocks contain a very special chemical signature — one that can only be found in rocks which are very, very old,’ he said.”

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Simple questions unravel complexities of subprime crisis - International Herald Tribune

Easy questions unravel complexities of subprime crisis International Herald Tribune, Share This Share This No Comments » « Previous Entries

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