Weekend Link Fest

I have found heaps of things I want to talk about so I will give brief summaries to mention the gold mine that I found.

1. M&A pace has doubled in Canada this past year. They still see large consolidation in the oil and gas industry, with many resource companies having aggressive acquisition strategies. If this holds pace, there are still many careers opportunities for when Snarl and I move back next year.
2. In the biggest IPO of the year, MasterCard Inc. Shares surged in their stock market debut Thursday even though the world's No. 2 credit-card brand originally priced below expectations.
   MasterCard shares rose $7.00 (U.S.) to $46.00 in trading on the New York Stock Exchange. The shares were priced at $39 each and the initial public offering raised $2.39-billion.
   The long-awaited IPO will go down as one of the market's biggest in the past two years, eclipsing the $1.7-billion raised when Google Inc. went public in 2004. Purchase, N.Y.-based MasterCard is now valued at about $6-billion, an amount projected to move higher as investors clamour to get a piece of one of the most venerable names in financial services. When I see the size of those numbers all I can see our fees.....1.0% of the amount underwritten equates to 60 million dollar fee split among a team. My lips are dripping with anticipation...
3. The coolest thing I have seen in a while is the new training programs created by Apple and Nike. The two companies announced Tuesday they are jointly developing a wireless system so some Nike shoes embedded with a sensor can communicate with Apple's iPod Nano music player to track a runner's performance and help choreograph songs to the moment.The co-branded kit comes with a sensor that fits inside compatible Nike footwear — sold separately — and a wireless receiver that attaches to the iPod. Data on running time, distance, pace and calories burned would be stored on the iPod, which could then display the information on-screen or deliver it audibly through headphones. After the workout, the data also could be automatically sent to a personal runner's log at the new nikeplus.com website whenever the music player is synchronized to Apple's iTunes program. The iPod will also incorporate a new "Power Song" feature, so a user can instantly queue up a piece of music for extra motivation at the push of a button. All I can say is so fucking cool.
4. U.S. scientists at Duke and Penn are developing an invisibility cloak using fabric called "metamaterials", which are engineered with tiny physical structures – metal coils, or rods shaped like aerials. Scientists have been able to ”tune” them to bend electromagnetic waves, and effect that could be extremely important in military applications. Hide an object in a metamaterial cloak, he said, and electromagnetic waves would flow around it as water flows virtually undisturbed around a smooth rock. Light and all other forms of electromagnetic radiation would strike the cloak and simply flow around it, continuing on as if it never bumped up against an obstacle. That would give an onlooker the apparent ability to peer right through the cloak, with everything tucked inside concealed from view. Once, production is complete I think that this technology would not be something that would beveryone'syones hands. Theft, peeping toms and omisusingsings wguaranteeentee to be linked if this technology got into the wrong hands. It is straight out of a sci-fi or Harry Potter story.
5. The Enron executive have been found guilty. Thank god this is over and that the corporate world has put measures into place to protect investors from this happening again. 290 years between Lay and Skilling is as much as a serial killWeirdweird.