JPMorgan admits to losing $5.8 billion this year so far
JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon tells reporters early Friday that the botched deal overseen by then-Chief Investment Officer Ina Drew is now believed to have cost the bank around $4.4 billion in the second quarter for 2012. Originally JPMorgan staffers saw the gaffe as costing them only around $2 billion, but between Friday morning’s revelation and the revisions made on its first quarter losses, the actual amount lost in 2012 for the bank stands to be around $5.8 billion, notwithstanding any further developments.
JPMorgan admits to losing $5.8 billion this year so far
As striking as it is, the illusion of depth now routinely offered by 3-D movies is a paltry facsimile of a true three-dimensional visual experience. In the real world, as you move around an object, your perspective on it changes. But in a movie theater showing a 3-D movie, everyone in the audience has the same, fixed perspective — and has to wear cumbersome glasses, to boot.
Despite impressive recent advances, holographic television, which would present images that vary with varying perspectives, probably remains some distance in the future. But in a new paper featured as a research highlight at this summer's Siggraph computer-graphics conference, the MIT Media Lab's Camera Culture group offers a new approach to multiple-perspective, glasses-free 3-D that could prove much more practical in the short term.
Instead of the complex hardware required to produce holograms, the Media Lab system uses several layers of liquid-crystal displays (LCDs), the technology currently found in most flat-panel TVs. To produce a convincing 3-D illusion, the displays would need to refresh at a rate of about 360 times a second, or 360 hertz. Such displays may not be far off: LCD TVs that boast 240-hertz refresh rates have already appeared on the market, just a few years after 120-hertz TVs made their debut.
Glasses-free 3-D TV at MIT
D.C. officer allegedly made threatening comments about first lady
A D.C. police officer who worked as a motorcycle escort for White House officials and other dignitaries was moved to administrative duty Wednesday after he allegedly was overheard making threatening comments toward Michelle Obama, according to several police officials.
The police department’s Internal Affairs Division is investigating the alleged comments and notified the U.S. Secret Service Wednesday, said the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to give details of the investigation.
D.C. officer allegedly made threatening comments about first lady
One More Time: The Break-Up-the-Banks Debate
The LIBOR scandal has brought back to the fore the debate over what to do with the banks -- though more so in the UK than the U.S., which with the exception of the usual critical voices, like Simon Johnson, have mostly been preoccupied with other matters. (That may well change when big U.S. banks such as Citigroup and JPMorgan Chase & Co., and U.S. bank regulators like the Federal Reserve, get called into the principal's office.)
One More Time: The Break-Up-the-Banks Debate
Imprisoned U.S. Drug Offenders Skyrockets from 41,000 to 507,000 in 30 Years
According to statistics compiled by The Sentencing Project, a nonprofit dedicated to prison reform, the total number of people in jails and prisons for violating drug laws soared from 41,000 in 1980 to 507,000 by 2010.
During this same 30-year period, the overall prison and jail population more than quadrupled, from 502,886 to 2,266,832 inmates. The United States leads the world in per capita incarceration at 743 per 100,000, ahead of Rwanda (c595) and Russia (568).
By 2010, just over half (51%) of all inmates in federal prisons were convicted of drug-related crimes. For state prisons the percentage is much smaller, 17.8% (violent offenders make up the largest share in these prisons, 53.2%).
Imprisoned U.S. Drug Offenders Skyrockets from 41,000 to 507,000 in 30 Years
Confidence in organized religion hits all-time low in Gallup poll
Americans' confidence in religious institutions has hit an all-time low, with only 44 percent expressing a "great deal" of confidence in organized religion, according to a new Gallup survey.
This follows a downward trend since the 1970s, when 68 percent of Americans had a high degree of confidence.
Gallup cites two big blows to confidence in organized religion: 1980s scandals involving televangelists like Jim Bakker and the Catholic sex abuse scandal in the 2000s.
Confidence in organized religion hits all-time low in Gallup poll
Manning’s lawyer: WikiLeaks whistleblower treated worse than a terrorist
The lawyer defending Bradley Manning against charges that he “aided the enemy” by disclosing state secrets to the whistleblower website WikiLeaks, is arguing that US soldiers are being treated more harshly in application of the law than terrorists.
David Coombs, the civilian lawyer who has been representing the soldier for the past two years after he was arrested in Iraq on suspicion of being the WikiLeaks source, will be pressing his case in a military court next week. In a motion that he has lodged with the court as part of the lead up to a full court martial, he warns that unless the “aiding the enemy” charge is clarified it would leave Manning in a more onerous legal position than terrorists facing exactly the same count.
“It defies all logic to think that a terrorist would fare better in an American court for aiding the enemy than a US soldier would,” Coombs writes in the motion.
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