Battery technology inflection point

Earlier this month, the investment bank Lazard published its first analysis of the costs of various storage technologies, and it showed that for some of them, costs were rapidly declining. The bank said the energy storage industry was at an "inflection point" similar to the one renewable energy saw eight years ago

 Source: On Clean Energy, the Wind Blows From Germany

Problems

"Happiness is not the absence of problems, it's the ability to deal with them"

Happiness is not the absence of problems, it's the ability to deal with them

A photo posted by Posts by Dr Happy (@thehappinessinstitute) on Aug 29, 2015 at 5:12pm PDT

Link

A range of interesting books, available under CC

Lots of interesting books. Found the site through search that led to A Primer on Communication Studies, more specifically - nonverbal communication.

http://2012books.lardbucket.org/

Genetic Maps (of Europe)

Eupedia has a decent section with genetic maps of Europe. These are divided into paternal (Y-DNA) maps and maternal (mtDNA) maps.
For me, the interesting group to follow is I2a1, shown below.

It is a base for a theory of the oldest known inhabitants of Europe, from the last ice age. The concentration is the highest in the Balkans mountaneous area.
More significantly, it also proves that there really is no difference among the many nationalities in the region who were involved in bloody conflicts throughout known history.

Extremely interesting is the full world map of human migration. More specificaly, map of genetic migration:

Politicians in Western Balkans born in Bosnia

Interesting information. A number of current and former officials in the countries of the Western Balkans were born in Bosnia:
BiH, rasadnik balkanskih lidera: Najvažniji političari porijeklom iz naše zemlje  (link)

Zen Stories

I love the koan about the finger and the dog.

http://truththeory.com/2015/11/13/7-zen-stories-that-might-just-give-you-a-glimpse-of-enlightenment/

Islamic State creation contemplated in 2012

Some interesting information is to be found in a declassified document from the Defense Intelligence Agency: “Establish a Salafist Principality in Syria”, Facilitate Rise of Islamic State “In Order to Isolate the Syrian Regime” (link)

In any case, this current development of relations was to be expected, in a way. Al Qaeda was not a much better example.

Dealing with People

The link below contains a great summary of Dr. Rick Brinkman's quadrant for understanding the types of behaviour and their approach.

Source: Dealing with People, Chapter 3: The Road to Hell is Paved with Good Intentions

The end of the article contains the scheme used to understand the type of behaviour while the whole text above explains each of the types.

More on the topic in the book "Dealing with difficult people".

Nestajanje maslacaka

Divno opisano

http://mrakovackabb.com/2015/10/15/nestajanje-maslacaka/
 

How to handle the rise of the robots?

Quite an interesting topic. The book handling it certainly deserved the title of the Book of the Year.

NY Times review

To solve this, we might need an algorithm (a robot).

What ISIS really wants

Excellent (and long) story about ideological and religious pillars of the califate.

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/03/what-isis-really-wants/384980/

The "way of life"

- "What IS your role here?"

- "I'm concerned with a preservation of a way of life."
- "And a damn good one."

Link to the scene from Missing (1982).

All quiet on the Western front, it seems. Nothing's changed in a while. If ever.

More support against sugar

"Diabetes experts tell G20 to tax sugar to save lives and money" - http://uk.reuters.com/article/idUKKCN0T02NZ20151111

Some updated Bosnian stats

Unemployment

IMF estimate: ~28% (link).
CIA World Factbook: ~45%

Income

World Bank puts the country into the Upper middle income group (link). Well situated compared to the rest of the world.

Salary Explorer (link) shows the average monthly salary in Bosnia to be ~1,300 BAM and median 1,200 BAM. This is €650 and €600, respectively.
Of course, to even get to this survey, one would be educated enough to know English, have an access to the computer, *and* be employed, all at the same time. Quite a feat, considering that almost the third of those who are able, actually do not work.
Another survey (link) states that 25,000 BAM is the most common salary. This is clearly expressed on an annual level, making it higher than 2,000 BAM per month. Phew! Again, only 71 correspondent there so hardly a representative sample.

Xinhua reported in 2014 that the average salary in Bosnia was €422 (link). The negative side is that this was 1.4% less than the year before.

GDP

Index Mundi (link) has a generally good collection of statistics. It is great that the GDP doubled since 1998, making it to US$ 9833 in 2014.
The rest of stats - link.

References

Sources:

• Index Mundi (link)
• CIA World Factbook, Bosnia and Herzegovina (link)
• Google Public Data Explorer (link)
• World Bank (link)

Poor Things - First-World Problems

It's been years and I still can't get this image out of my head.

Source: Poor Things

Star and Crescent

Following an interesting tour in the Vienna Museum, and finding that on the top of the St.Stephen's tower (the famous Stephansdom) there used to be a crescent and a star until the second Otoman siege of the city in 1683, this symbol looked quite interesting for further investigation. Wikipedia, as usual, contains excellent information on history.

Wikipedia - Star and Crescent

In addition to this, there is an interesting text titled The six pointed star and the crescent, that describes some history behind the symbols.

Taking breaks at work

http://www.cio.de/i/detail/artikel/2900421/1/695914/EL_1353943804232493944753/

Dubioza Kolektiv - Free.mp3

Genijalno.

This is now an official The Pirate Bay song.

Documentaries Online

Link to the original article

Vic

That Sugar

Wonderfully done. Quite educational with significant new insights.
Plus it was great seeing Melbourne again. Even if only on the big screen.

http://thatsugarfilm.com/

Another useful reference from the film is a book Salt, Sugar, Fat - How the Food Giants Hooked Us.

Here is a 10-minute part of Dr. Oz with some additional information.

Borders reemerge in EU

http://openeurope.org.uk/daily-shakeup/irish-think-tank-warns-brexit-could-reduce-uk-irish-trade-by-20/#section-2

Immortality

http://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/diet-and-fitness/research-finds-increasing-steps-cuts-death-rate-by-48-20151104-gkr20v.html

Story of Carlos the Jackal

http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2014/whats-up-with-the-notorious-terrorist-carlos-the-jackal