Link Banana

The Financial Times confirms the good new (assuming of course, that you’re not invested in corn-based ethanol):

Six of the biggest publicly traded US ethanol producers have lost more than $8.7bn in market value since the peak of the boom in mid-2006 and the beginning of this month, according to an analysis by the Financial Times. The boom followed a 2005 law requiring refiners to mix billions of gallons of the biofuel with petrol.

(via Passport)

This may be the greatest thing I’ve seen today.

From: Bill Gates
Sent: Wednesday, January 15, 2003 10:05 AM
To: Jim Allchin
Cc: Chris Jones (WINDOWS); Bharat Shah (NT); Joe Peterson; Will Poole; Brian Valentine; Anoop Gupta (RESEARCH)
Subject: Windows Usability Systematic degradation flame

I am quite disappointed at how Windows Usability has been going backwards and the program management groups don’t drive usability issues.

He goes on — and on and on — to personally make just about every gripe that every other user of Microsoft software has.

(via BBGadgets)

I was rather surprised to hear that the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has detractors. After examining their claims, however, The Economist decides that they’re (mostly) meritless.

Therein lies an irony. The WHO, one of whose captains now calls the Gates Foundation monopolistic, used itself to hold a monopoly in the fight against malaria, and it did a lousy job as a result. Indeed, Dr Kochi himself has been refreshingly frank about the WHO’s poor record in fighting the disease. The agency has also been criticised for accepting poor data from member countries which may downplay bad news. As Dr Chan says candidly, that charge “is a reality”. It is not her role, she says, to “name and shame” countries; she prefers to exert private pressure. But she acknowledges that some public pressure is essential, and applauds the role played by the media and charities in “shining the light” on previously obscure places.

A big new non-government organisation, crashing into the jungle like a young elephant, is bound to cause resentment, and perhaps bound to have unintended ripple effects. But without this elephant’s input of new money and ideas, the battle-front against malaria and other deadly diseases might present an even worse picture, especially if the field were left to governments and inter-governmental bodies.

The captains of the business world (perhaps that’s just “the world”) met in Davos, Switzerland. The Economist’s Business.view column highlight’s what’s worth knowing from it, but the basic answer is not much you couldn’t have guessed.

Mood of the meeting: Eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we must die. “The mood was moderately optimistic,” said Klaus Schwab, the founder of the WEF, but he was not at the same parties as The Economist, where Davos Man and Woman found escape from their economic gloom in boozing, dancing and singing.

The column has some interesting tidbits though. Perhaps this:

From realpolitik to virtualpolitik: Henry Kissinger. The venerable statesman, one of the co-chairs of this year’s WEF, was said to be considering becoming an avatar in the online fantasy world, Second Life.

What value a man like Kissenger — or any man or woman or child — would get out of Second Life is truly beyond me.

At Fortune, Patricia Sellers has a great piece about Melinda Gates that ranges from her childhood use of an Apple II (gasp!) to the intimidation she feels before adressing a roomful of malaria experts.

The impact [of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation] comes from the combination of Melinda’s holistic vision and Bill’s brainpower. Bono, the rock star-humanitarian who is both a friend of the Gateses and a grantee (through his One antipoverty campaign), calls their relationship “symbiotic.” Noting Bill’s fierceness, Bono says, “Sometimes I call him Kill Bill. Lots of people like him - and I include myself - are enraged, and we sweep ourselves into a fury at the wanton loss of lives. What we need is a much slower pulse to help us be rational. Melinda is that pulse.” Buffett also believes that Melinda makes Bill a better decision-maker. “He’s smart as hell, obviously,” Buffett says. “But in terms of seeing the whole picture, she’s smarter.” Would Buffett have given the Gates Foundation his fortune if Melinda were not in the picture? “That’s a great question,” he replies. “And the answer is, I’m not sure.”

(via Gizmodo)