SpaceX didn’t just reinvigorate the rocket industry—it seeded an eco-system of new space technology companies. Relativity Space is one, a company that hopes  to use its advanced 3D printer to assemble virtually an entire spacecraft , engines and all, driving down the cost of getting to space. It was founded by two young engineers who cut their teeth at SpaceX and Blue Origin, Jeff Bezos’ space company. Today (Aug. 20), the firm announced that Tim Buzza, one of the earliest employees at SpaceX, will become an official advisor. Buzza will advise the company on “everything from launch site selection and trades, structures and avionics, architecture for the rocket, how we’re going to organize the company structure,” Tim Ellis, Relativity’s CEO, told Quartz. Buzza spent the first part of his career as engineer at McDonnell Douglas and then Boeing before joining the rag-tag band of engineers  who signed on to Elon Musk’s rocket company . He spent 12 years helping...

The psychological importance of wasting time There will always be an endless list of chores to complete and work to do, and a culture of relentless productivity tells us to get to it right away and feel terribly guilty about any time wasted. But the truth is, a life spent dutifully responding to emails is a dull one indeed. And “wasted” time is, in fact, highly fulfilling and necessary. Don’t believe me? Take it from the creator of “Inbox Zero.” As Oliver Burkeman reports  in The Guardian , Merlin Mann was commissioned to write a book about his streamlined email system. Two years later, he abandoned the project and instead posted a (since deleted) blog post on how he’d spent so long focusing on how to spend time well, he’d ended up missing valuable moments with his daughter. The problem comes when we spend so long frantically chasing productivity, we refuse to take real breaks. We put off sleeping in, or going for a long walk, or reading by the window—and, ...

Many believe that wealth inequality is the defining issue of our time. Economists like  Thomas Piketty  argue that the owners of capital are set to earn such high returns on investment that inequality will get even worse. But whether the rich actually earn higher returns than the rest of us is not well established. A  new paper  looks at the Indian stock market to measure whether wealthier investors earn higher returns and, if so, how much this contributes to inequality. Wealth inequality among owners of equity in India has widened between 2002 in 2011: Over that period, the authors estimated that the 10th percentile of accounts fell in value, from $71 to $60, while the 90th percentile jumped in value, from $7,274 to $19,258. The economists tried to figure out how much of the growing inequality was due to rich people earning higher returns and how much stemmed from having more wealth to buy stocks in the first place. What is surprisin...

Kevin Spacey’s “Billionaire Boys Club” made $126 on opening day. That’s not a typo By  Adam Epstein August 19, 2018 If you’re reading this, you probably didn’t go see Kevin Spacey’s new movie,  Billionaire Boys Club , at the theater this weekend. How do we know this? Well, according to the Hollywood Reporter, the film  made $126  when it opened across 10 theaters in the US on Aug. 17. One hundred and twenty six. Dollars. In other words, the film grossed about $12 per theater. That’s roughly the price of one movie ticket in the US nowadays. So, in total, approximately 10 actual human beings paid to see  Billionaire Boys Club  in a movie theater when it came out on Friday. We’re guessing you weren’t one of them. Based on the  real life 1980s social club  of the same name,  Billionaire Boys Club  was one of the last films Spacey completed before a number of  sexual assault allegations  against the actor came to l...

Apple appears to be dipping back into its greatest hits collection. Bloomberg is reporting today (Aug. 20) that  Apple will revive its Mac Mini  desktop computer, and release a redesigned version of its MacBook Air laptop later this year. Apple’s computer sales have been  surprisingly durable  over the last few years, regaining the mantle as the company’s second-largest hardware division in 2016—behind the iPhone—and generating over $25 billion in the last four quarters alone.   The Mac Mini, a favorite for consumers looking to turn their TVs into streaming devices in the pre-smart-TV days, has not been updated at all in the last four years, and hasn’t had a design refresh  in about eight years . The Mini is Apple’s cheapest desktop, starting at about $500 (though it doesn’t come with a monitor, keyboard, or mouse). This year’s model, Bloomberg reports, will be marketed to more “pro” users—the audience Apple targets with its Mac Pro, MacBook Pro...

After decades of work, scientists found direct evidence of ice on the Moon By  Katherine Ellen Foley August 21, 2018 The idea that there was ice on the Moon tantalized astronomers for years, even before NASA’s Apollo mission to send astronauts to the lunar surface began. When the NASA spacecraft  Clementine  brought sent back data that hinted at the possibility that there was ice on the surface of the Moon in 1994, it stirred excitement once again. The trouble was, the measurements recorded weren’t definitive. Since then, scientists have been plugging along for proof of lunar surface ice. Today (Aug. 20), a team of scientists led by researchers at the University of Hawaii found the first direct evidence of  frozen water on the Moon’s poles (paywall).  The discovery is based on data gathered by the Moon Mineralogy Mapper, a NASA instrument that flew to the Moon back in 2008. Reanalyzing these data today, the researcher...

The rise in the US unemployment rate isn’t bad news By  Eshe Nelson July 6, 2018 In June, the  US unemployment rate unexpectedly rose  to 4% from 3.8% the month before, coming off an 18-year low. Rather than being an omen of bad things to come, the rise suggests a positive outlook for the US economy as it coincides with more than 600,000 people entering the labor force. These new entrants to the labor market have good reason to think their prospects of finding a job are good: Job growth is really strong. Last month, US employers added 213,000 jobs, exceeding already high expectations of 195,000. The figures for the previous two months were also revised higher. It’s the 93rd consecutive month of job gains, an  impressively long and strong stretch of growth . That said, the labor market isn’t perfect. Pay increases remain the missing part. Even with more and more jobs, annual wage growth has remained stubbornly below 3% since early 2009. In...

The BRICS are considering an internal gold trading platform, according to Russian officials. When this happens, the global economy will be significantly reshaped, and the West will lose dominance, predicts a precious metal expert. In 2016, 24,338 tons of physical gold were traded, which was 43 percent more than in 2015, according to Claudio Grass, of Precious Metal Advisory Switzerland. Read more ‘Gold price will explode & dollar get wiped out’ – warns investor Peter Schiff Gold moving from the West to the East “We have to put the BRICS initiative into a broader context. It is just part of a geopolitical tectonic shift which started decades ago. We have seen a constant outflow of physical gold from the West to the East. At the same time, the West has lost the economic war, and as a consequence, the focus now turns to the financial system. China dominates the world economy and has displaced the US as the world’s most formidable economic powerhouse, ”  he told RT...

BEIJING:  China, seeking to skirt US sanctions, will use oil tankers from Iran for its purchases of that country´s crude, throwing Tehran a lifeline while European companies such as France´s Total are walking away due to fear of reprisals from Washington.  The United States is trying to halt Iranian oil exports in an effort to force Tehran to negotiate a new nuclear agreement and to curb its influence in the Middle East. China, which has cut imports of U. S. crude amid a trade war with Washington, has said it opposes unilateral sanctions and defended its commercial ties with Iran.  On Monday, sources told Reuters Chinese buyers of Iranian oil were beginning to shift their cargoes to vessels owned by National Iranian Tanker Co (NITC) for nearly all their imports. The shift demonstrates that China, Iran´s biggest oil customer, wants to keep buying Iranian crude despite the sanctions, which were reimposed after the United States withdrew in May from a 2015...

LAHORE: The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) is a mutually beneficial project for both Islamabad and Beijing, and its immediate benefit to China would be the drastic reduction in the transportation cost to Europe and Middle East. The short term benefit for Pakistan would be the fee it would charge for transportation of goods through this trade corridor. The benefits would be similar to those that are available to Panama from Panama Canal and Egypt from the Suez Canal. If we succeed in providing a suitable environment to China in relocating its labour intensive industries, we would gain more. Long-term benefits are linked to improvement of education, health and skill indicators of the country. This would pave the way for investments in higher tech industries. Currently, goods shipped to Europe from central China travel a cumulative distance of 19,132 miles of which 16,507 is by sea, and 2,625 miles by land (distance from Shanghai port to central China).  After complet...

EVERYBODY knows that the country has all the resources to become an economic power but nobody knows 'whats wrong with us. By 1969, Pakistans  manufac tured exports were higher than the exports of Thailand, Ma laysi a and Indonesia combined and today they are far ahead of us individually. Let me share with you some of the glaring facts that need to be brought into the limelight so that the people at large could ha ve an understanding of the potential the country has. Pakistan  i s  t h e 24th largest economy in the world (according to Purchasing Power criterion), 45th Largest economy in the world (according to a b solute US Dollars term), 6th Biggest Country in the world (according to population out of 230 countries), 36th Biggest country in the world (acco rding  to area), Largest irrigation network in the world, One of the eighth Nuclear Powers in the World and second biggest technical workforce (in absolute numbers) in the Muslim world (after Turkey). Surprised?...

Pilgrims pray outside Namira Mosque on the plains of Arafat during Hajj on August 20,2018. PHOTO:REUTERS More than two million Muslims began the Hajj pilgrimage on Sunday. Tens of thousands of security personnel have been deployed for the pilgrimage, which was struck three years ago by what was termed the worst ever disaster when around 2,300 worshippers were crushed to death in a stampede. The interior ministry said on Saturday that the number of pilgrims arriving in Makkah already surpassed the two million mark, mostly from abroad including large contingents from Egypt, India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. Most of the pilgrims began moving on Sunday from Makkah to the nearby Mina valley where they will spend the night in fire-resistant tents. Pilgrims arrive at the plains of Arafat outside Mecca on the eve of Hajj, August 19, 2018. PHOTO:REUTERS A pilgrim from Syria gestures as others gather on Mount Arafat in the background during Hajj on August 20, ...