Here is some of what I have been reading since April 17th:

• Acts of kindness spread surprisingly easily
  "When people benefit from kindness they pay it forward by helping others who were not originally involved, and this creates a cascade of cooperation that influences dozens more in a social network."
• Brief meditative exercise helps cognition
  "new research now suggests that the mind may be easier to cognitively train than we previously believed. Psychologists studying the effects of a meditation technique known as "mindfulness " found that meditation-trained participants showed a significant improvement in their critical cognitive skills…after only four days of training for only 20 minutes each day."
• Memristor emulates neural learning
  One more step to the singularity: electronic circuits that can learn similar to hos synapses of the brain work
• Investing Insights From a Top Fund Manager
  From Morningstar's domestic stock manager of the decade and manager of the year for 2009: "In investing, there are really two ways to go: to predict or to react to what happens. My prediction abilities are zero. So I go the other way: When what I don’t know happens, I make sure to be in a position with enough cash to take advantage of it."
• How to find gold in SEC filings
  "In 10-Ks and 10-Qs, look for the list of the company's risk factors and look at the financials. See whether there are significant differences from what the company reports in its press release."

Here is some of what I have been reading since April 12th:

• Hussman Funds: Extend and Pretend
  "Given the current state of valuations, and the likelihood of several years of additional credit deleveraging, it seems that economic conditions, valuations, and the typical duration of secular bear markets converge on the likelihood of several more years of interesting but unrewarding market volatility."
• Simple Demographics Shows Major Economic Trends
  "It turns out that population pyramids are something you can trade, buying the good ones and shorting the bad ones."
• A solution to the consumer spending mystery?
  "It's a theory: Americans are refusing to pay their mortgages and using the cash windfall for a spending spree"
• Optimism Bias in Equity Analysts
  "all that data is no match for a deep-seated bias, which leads us to accentuate the positive and downplay the prospect of potential losses"
• Policymaking the Darwinist way
  "Politicians and their expert advisers need evolutionary theory for the best of reasons: it provides new tools for making humane decisions on everyone’s behalf. "
• Laurentian Neuroscience Professor Finds Quantum Telepathic Link?
  Same guy that invented the God Helmet. "If you flash a light in one person’s eye, even though they’re in a chamber that’s closed up, the person in the other room that’s receiving just the magnetic field now, they’re not aware of the light flashing or not, they will show similar changes in frequency in the room. And we think that’s tremendous because that maybe the first macro demonstration of a quantum connection or so-called quantum entanglement."
• US military warns of massive oil shortages by 2015
  "Shortfall could reach 10m barrels a day…cost of crude oil is predicted to top $100 a barrel"

Photos of every painting on the 4th and 5th floors of the MoMA in New York, set to piano music. The MoMA is one of my favorite places in the world, if you watch this video it’s easy to see why.

Disclosure: the MoMA is a former client.

An introduction to the questions about leadership and management raised by new new research in cognitive neuroscience, by Executive MBA ESCP Europe faculty member Dr. Robert Piret.

• Secret of Annoying Crowds Revealed
  "Up to 70% of people in crowds socially glue themselves into groups of two or more, slowing down traffic. What's worse, as crowds gets denser, groups bend into anti-aerodynamic shapes that exacerbate the problem."
• Stephen Hawking on th future of humans
  We are entering a stage of "self-designed evolution". We will change our DNA at first to repair genetic defects, then to control complex qualities like intelligence.
• Improving the Peer Review Process
  A social network for "anonymous author-reviewer communication", incentives for high quality reviews, and ditch paper copies of journals
• How mind games can destroy a portfolio
  "Our brains weren't wired for long-term planning, and that makes it tough to make the right investing moves"
• In Pursuit of Silence
  "George Prochnik argues that this barrage of noise is more than just a nuisance; it poses a real threat to our cardiovascular system and mental health, our ability to concentrate, and, perhaps most dangerous of all, it turns our political discourse into a shrill barrage."
• How Not to Run an Empire
  "Ignoring human rights in favor of stability is backfiring not just in Kyrgyzstan, but all over Central Asia – big time."
• Why Businesses Don’t Experiment
  Experiments require short term losses for long term gains, and "experts" provide a false sense of security. Innovation requires risk and failure.
• Working With Afghanistan's Karzai
  The central government needs to become stronger to govern effectively. Despite Karzai's many flaws, there is no credible alternative – and undermining him is counterproductive.