General Motors is literally tearing its competition to bits – Ars Technica
“The room is the VEC’s Teardown Area, the workshop of GM’s Competitive Benchmarking team. Nearby, dozens more vehicles were in various stages of deconstruction. Some were past model years from GM, but more were current models from other manufacturers. All of them were in the process of being digitized. Like Jeff Bridges in TRON, they were being converted from metal, plastic, and glass into “math,” reverse-engineered into computer models for benchmark trials on GM’s simulation grid. The result is data that’s almost as good as having direct access to competitors’ original engineering data.”
How Brazil’s Richest Man Lost $34.5 Billion – Bloomburg Businessweek
“To say Batista overreached would be to seriously undersell what has happened in the 18 months since that self-regarding presstravaganza of hubris and magical thinking. In what is shaping up to be one of the largest personal and financial collapses in history—if not the largest—Batista may be nearing bankruptcy.”
Juan Linz’s Bad News for America – Slate
“And his analysis has a disturbing message for residents of the contemporary United States. The current atmosphere of political crisis isn’t a passing fad and it isn’t going to get better. In fact, it’s very likely to get worse. Much worse. And lead to a complete breakdown of constitutional government and the democratic order.”
The Tiger Cure – New York Magazine
“She fell into sex surrogacy by accident. She had been a bartender, she’d run a boutique, and she’d been a call girl. Then a friend wanted to learn how to have sex with women and wondered if Tiger could help. (Actually, one of the first things I learned about Tiger was that her name wasn’t Tiger—she never told me her real name.) She agreed, the work went well, and the friend related this to his doctor, who was Helen Singer Kaplan, one of the country’s leading authorities on sexual dysfunction. Kaplan had founded the country’s first clinic for sexual disorders connected to a medical college and served as the director of the Human Sexuality Program at New York Hospital–Cornell Medical Center.”
The Good Catch – Aeon
“Nor does he have to. For Seitz and a handful of other fishermen in California, the testosterone-frenzied, fish-till-you-drop lifestyle is becoming a thing of the past. This is no accident. Rather, it is the deliberate work of old enemies who have teamed up in the face of environmental tragedy to chart a new course in collaborative resource management. If the venture is successful, it could not only revolutionise the way the American fishing fleet does business: it might forever alter the way we think about our planet’s last great frontier.”
The Bizarre, Misguided Campaign to Get Rid of Single-Sex Classrooms – The Atlantic
“Wealthy families have always had the option of sending their children to all-male or all-female schools, but parents of modest means have rarely had that choice. That changed in 2001, when four female senators sponsored legislation that sanctioned single-sex classes and academies in public schools. Today, there are more than 500 public schools that offer single-sex classes and 116 public all-girl or all-boy academies. Many are in struggling urban neighborhoods and many have proven to be hugely successful.”
Anatomy of a Tragedy – Texas Observer
“In late 2010, Dr. Christopher Duntsch came to Dallas to start a neurosurgery practice. By the time the Texas Medical Board revoked his license in June 2013, Duntsch had left two patients dead and four paralyzed in a series of botched surgeries.”
