Tuesday, December 06, 2011

Time Magazine Pieces - Familial DNA testing / Rhode Island Pension Reform / Jon Huntsman / Nest Thermostat

Quite a few interesting stories from the December 5 issue of Time Magazine.



All pieces require a magazine subscription to read online and first of note was The Case of the Grim Sleeper by Terry McCarthy. Pretty fascinating content on familial DNA testing and how it was used to locate a suspected serial killer in Los Angeles.

Another feature was by the excellent David Von Drehle titled The Little State That Could about the recent Rhode Island pension reforms enacted by State Treasurer Gina Raimondo. Her efforts might run counter to those from AFL-CIO labor leader Richard Trumka (profiled well in this Esquire piece), but Raimondo comes across in the story as someone extremely intelligent driving necessary change.

With the subject being in the same adult voice in the room category, Joe Klein's column was Jon Huntsman's Big Idea. As Klein writes, the top six banks hold assets of almost 65% of U.S. GDP and Huntsman's idea is to reduce their power (via a targeted fee) and hold on the economy.

Final thing of note from this issue of Time was the short Reinventing the Wheel on the new high-tech home thermostat from Nest. Very interesting product designed to foster energy conservation through both it's technology and stellar user interface (with the company founded and led by Apple iPod creator Tony Fadell.)