The weekend is a great time to catch up on some longer reads from the prior week. This week includes a little bit of catch up from later in the week. Enjoy!
Investing
Offensive sectors won in 2013. (Afraid to Trade)
Dividends rose 12% in 2013. (Crossing Wall Street)
Does trend following work on stocks? With updated data to 2013. (Trendfollowing)
What they are buying to start 2014 at “Pariah Capital.” (Brett Arends)
Advice
Grow up, change your mind. (The Reformed Broker)
It’s usually not different this time. (Farnam Street)
Scott Adams’ advice on how to be happier in 2014. (Washington Post)
Economics
In defense of academic ethics. (Econbrowser)
How to manage under conditions of scarcity. (Turnkey Analyst)
Respect is a scarce commodity these days in America. (Noahpinion also Marginal Revolution)
Business
Why hasn’t Microsoft ($MSFT) picked a new CEO yet? (WSJ)
Why big box retailers are mismanaging their workforces. (NYTimes)
It isn’t the mega-corporation that is taking over it is the technology “mega-network.” (TechCrunch)
Startups
Uber is just the first of many startups that are encroaching on established offline business. (Next City)
American-style startups are taking root in India. (Dealbook)
Everybody wants their own thriving “tech hub” these days. (FT)
Technology
Why are there so many haters in Silicon Valley? (recode)
What does it take to get girls interested in coding? (A VC, TechCrunch)
Why I am interested in Bitcoin. (Chris Dixon)
Food
Why passenger pigeons went extinct: they tasted too good. (New Yorker)
The latest big attraction at Disney World: oversized turkey legs. (NYTimes)
What’s with all the spice all of a sudden? (Time)
Entertainment
If Hollywood had its way Netflix and the iPod never would have existed. (TechCrunch)
Netflix ($NFLX) ain’t what it used to be. (Felix Salmon)
Books
An excerpt from Eric Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee’s new book The Second Machine Age. (The Second Machine Age)
James Grant reviews Walter Friedman’s Fortune Tellers: The Story of America’s First Economic Forecasters. (WSJ)
A look at the “object-oriented ontology” underlying Timothy Morton’s Hyperobjects: Philosophy and Ecology after the End of the World. (Newsweek)
The Wolf of Wall Street
How The Wolf of Wall Street engaged in his signature fraud(s). (WSJ)
The original Forbes article that highlighted Jordan Belfort, The Wolf of Wall Street. (Forbes)
Earlier on Abnormal Returns
My non-prediction, prediction for 2014. (The Exchange)
My pick for a “must read” book from 2013. (Business Insider)
What you may have missed in our Thursday linkfest. (Abnormal Returns)
Mixed media
Do Fields Medal winners subsequently lack off? (Priceonomics Blog)
Why some Americans are stockpiling incandescent light bulbs. (Scientific American)
The 124 states (that could have been) of America. (The Fix)
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