
Star-crossed
is not bunkum, news site Quartz would like you to know – it’s simply been ruined by modern psychology. That is the startling conclusion of Ida C. Benedetto, who claims that the exact science of astral fortune telling as practised by the Ancient Greeks has been cast aside in preference for digestible feel-good aphorisms.
In addition to Carl Jung and his ilk, Benedetto blames New Age hippies and turn-of-the-20th-century mystics for astrology’s debasement into pseudoscience. The deterministic powers of fashionable newcomers Neptune, Uranus and Pluto are given disproportionate emphasis in modern readings. And the familiar bestiary of star signs, we are told, is “a recent creation designed to appeal to mass audiences”. Perish the thought.
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Now that Ancient Greek texts on astrology have been translated, the unsullied form can be revived. This heralds a return to the rigorous practice of observing stars for hidden meaning, which Feedback had naively thought lived on as astronomy.
“Alan Beasley’s local supermarket cafe has provided a microwave for warming baby food. A sign placed nearby warns customers: “Heated food can be hot””
Like the best soothsaying, Benedetto never quite gets round to identifying just what makes this authentic astrology any better than the regular variety, nor what benefits we can expect to reap. Feedback feels comfortable making its own prediction: traditional astrology will prove every bit as insightful as its latter-day offspring.
Look here
STILL, no less than the big guns at the University of Oxford seem to be getting on board. Ian Witham picked up a “Classic Telescope” from its Young èƵ series of gifts for curious children.
“On the back of this box, we are told that Oxford University is committed to science, our children can do their own experiments, and that Oxford graduate Roger Penrose identified the properties of black holes in 1969,” he says. But on the front, it encourages him to “have fun exploring the wonders of astrology”.
MORE fortune telling: Steve Etzel finds tech reporter Timothy Lee discussing the yo-yoing value of bitcoin on NPR. “I think it’s going to continue to be volatile,” he told host Scott Simon . “I think it will probably go up more, but I don’t know how much more. And then I think it will probably crash. But I don’t know how much – you know, how far down it will decline.” So now you know.
Making a mint
KODAK has seen better days since the advent of digital cameras destroyed the market for photographic film faster than you can say ISO 800. . But earlier this month, Kodak’s stock price tripled in less than a day after it announced the launch of its own bitcoin-style cryptocurrency, .
This is by no means an isolated incident. Last month, US soft drinks retailer Long Island Iced Tea – surely more at home with beverages than blockchains – announced it was moving into cryptocurrencies, and watched its stock price jet up by 500 per cent.
Bloomberg Technology recounted a series of similar pivots from firms that previously dealt in cigars, real estate, mobile games, e-cigarettes and sports bras, full circle back to the drinks industry with SkyPeople Fruit Juice, now trading as Future FinTech Group. Launching your own cryptocurrency? It’s a licence to print money.
Market bulge
A NEWSLETTER delivered to John de Rivaz offers a digest of the latest trends on the London Stock Exchange, “Just Eat was the best performer at the open, up 2.1 per cent after Barclays raised the online takeaway platform to Overweight from Equal Weight.” Fans of home-delivered dinners will no doubt know the feeling.
Bed bugs
“AUSSIE flu to kill 750,000 people,” the UK’s Daily Star eclared earlier this month, adding there were “fears deadly epidemic will wipe out Brits”.
That last part is true, of sorts: it is based on the government’s recent disaster planning report, which singled out a pandemic flu as a substantial threat. The estimate of 750,000 deaths, however, is modelled on the catastrophic 1918 flu pandemic, not the current Aussie variant.
Hold the vaccines, however, as a follow-up article identifies an unusual preventative measure. The newspaper reports that couples who enjoyed regular bouts of sex showed increased levels of infection-fighting immunoglobulin A in the blood, and were therefore more likely to ward off winter bugs.
All the more reason to fear a shortage of hospital beds?

You’re having a giraffe
GREEN energy provider Bulb offered customers a beastly start to the year with a breakdown of their reduced environmental impact.
“Together we could save the weight of a pride of 13 lions in CO2 a year,” Neil McKay is discovered that he is saving “the weight of a giraffe in CO2 every year”.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen lions used as a unit of measurement before,” says Neil, “but taking pride in our efforts to reduce our carbon footprint can only be a good thing.”
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