Multiple-TED attendee and human factors expert, Ash Donaldson, wants us to better understand why we believe what we do. In this talk, Ash explains how our minds build belief and then breaks it down, showing us how and why humans are fooled into believing that things like Power Bands, anti-aging treatments and supplements actually work. Along the way, he tells us how as a trainee pilot he managed to nearly get himself killed by allowing his beliefs to rule logic and provable fact.

Strongly recommend this piece at the Huffington Post by Jeff Connaughton, a former aide to Senator Ted Kaufman. Jeff is one of the smartest guys on the Hill and is particularly strong on issues surrounding Wall Street and the regulatory system. In this piece, he takes apart the oft-stated mantra that what Wall Street firms did during and after the crisis was maybe unethical, but not illegal.

He takes particular aim at Barack Obama, who recently tossed that line out on 60 Minutes in what I thought was one of the real low moments of his presidency. Here’s Jeff’s take:

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A wandering mind is an unhappy mind (Harvard)

• Don’t forget to yawn (Penn Gazette)

• Stress management tips for a better work/life balance (Accounting Web)

• How to extend your life and health for as long as you can (James Altucher)

• A bad mood causes us to take risky decisions (BPS Research Digest)

• The only way to avoid wasting time is to say no as much as possible (James Altucher)

• The riddle of experience vs memory (TED)

• How to exploit your employer (James Altucher)

• Why freedom is bad for entrepreneurs (Peter Shallard)

• Feeling stuck? 4 strategies to break free (Gigaom)

• The 4 steps to reinventing yourself (James Altucher)

• Five unexpected things I learned about life through TED (Open)

• Control your mind, improve your game. It really is possible (Open)

• Do you have an on-off switch? (Wally Bock)

• 8 life lessons (Lifehack)

• What’s on your bucket list? (MakeUseOf)

• Coconut water: myth or miracle? (The Huffington Post)

• Laugh often! (Dalai Lama)

• 63 ways to build more confidence (LifeHack)

• Ways to live forever (James Altucher)

• What not to say when pulled over by a cop (Chris Rock)

• How to simplify your life (Frugal Zeitgeist)

• The minimalist’s guide to cultivating passion (Zen Habits)

• How great leaders inspire action (Ted)

• Success in most arenas of life is thus not a reflection of innate skill but rather devoted effort (Peter Orszag)

At TED2010, mathematics legend Benoit Mandelbrot develops a theme he first discussed at TED in 1984 — the extreme complexity of roughness, and the way that fractal math can find order within patterns that seem unknowably complicated.

Even as most investors are focusing on Europe, Libor, Euribor, Ted Spreads, the ECB, etc, many have noticed that over the past 10 days China’s seven-day interbank rates have doubled from 1.8% to 3.2%. Is this latest episode of liquidity turmoil indicative that the PBoC is becoming less successful at communicating an “all clear” to the domestic (and international) markets? Or are there more troubling undercurrents in the sea of (previously) excess Chinese liquidity?

The primary driving force behind the BRIC (re)growth story of the past year has been the mirroring by China of the US excess liquidity policy, coupled with an extremely loose fiscal policy. Which is why every minor blip in any of the liquidity metrics in China tends to be analyzed under a microscope, due to huge implications on the commodity (and thus every other) trade. As the chart below highlights, in the last week, there has been a very disturbing move in the Chinese seven-day repo rate.

What may be the reasons for this surprising move? Bank of America’s Ting Lu ventures one explanation:

 

 

Recent anomalies in China’s money market bewildered most investors who are trying to detect any small change in policy direction amid the European debt crisis. Markets became nervous about a possible credit seizure as China’s seven-day interbank rates doubled from 1.8% to 3.2% in 10 days. While some took the net injection of RMB224bn in May as a sign of policy easing, others cite the latest rise of the one-year PBoC bill’s yield at issuance as a sign of imminent rate hikes in June. However, we believe the ongoing mess in short-term rates tells us much more about the PBoC’s technical problems than its policy intentions. >> Read More