Bamboo Innovator Daily: 16 May (Sat) – The Upright Thinkers: The Human Journey from Living in Trees to Understanding the Cosmos; Isaac Newton stuck needlelike bodkins into his eyes to better understand changes in light and color; Antoine Lavoisier drank nothing but milk for two weeks to examine its effects on his body

Life

• It Is, in Fact, Rocket Science; Why do we reduce great discoveries to epiphany myths? NYT
• Imagination as a Journey of Survival and Discovery: WSJ
• Rather Than Fight or Flee, Take Responsibility: NYT
• The Greatest Generation of Scientists: NYT
• When Personal Tragedy Strikes, Downshifting at Work Doesn’t Always Help: HBR
• A psychiatrist says this skill is the best indicator of a person’s ability to succeed: BI
• The man who oversaw electronics design on Dyson’s first robotic vacuum cleaner came to Silicon Valley this week to deliver a blunt message: keep it simple and test relentlessly. EETimes
• Where Would the Kardashians Be Without Kris Jenner? The mother, and manager, of reality TV’s most famous clan has created a strange new form of family business — and changed the nature of celebrity. NYT
• CEO who raised the minimum wage at his company to $70,000 a year reveals the most important quality he looks for when hiring: BI
• How removing fear can be your innovation trump card; WaPo
• To Lead Effectively, You Must Handle Uncertainty: Forbes
• Nikesh Arora: Tough player at SoftBank; Armed with $100 and two suitcases, he rose to the top of US tech. Now he is taking on Japan: FT
• MIT lecturer explains 5 key skills that separate innovators from imitators: BI
• 4 psychological tricks to instantly appear more competent: BI
• Why Tesla employees fear Elon Musk, as told by one of the company’s co-founders: BI
• In Praise of Moonshots: WSJ
• The Future Is in the Quaking Swamps; the remarkable connection between Peter Thiel and H.D. Thoreau: IFG
• Why the art market is about Piketty and Picasso; Paintings are of high value because of inequality: FT
• How to Get People to Pitch In: We cooperate because it makes us look good. NYT
• How to Understand Italy: NYT
• Decoding the Enigma of Satoshi Nakamoto and the Birth of Bitcoin: NYT
• Use Stress to Your Advantage: To perform under pressure, research finds that welcoming anxiety is more helpful than calming down: WSJ
• How Homo Economicus Went Extinct: Consumers and investors don’t act rationally, but for generations economists have pretended they do.: WSJ

Books

• The Upright Thinkers: The Human Journey from Living in Trees to Understanding the Cosmos: Amazon
• The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil: Amazon
• Numbers Rule Your World: The Hidden Influence of Probabilities and Statistics on Everything You Do: Amazon
• Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me): Why We Justify Foolish Beliefs, Bad Decisions, and Hurtful Acts: Amazon

Investing Process

• The Ease of Fooling the SEC’s “Edgar”: WSJ
•  Investors in Timbercorp forestry scheme slapped with bankruptcy notices: TheAge
• Bucket of cold water dumped on this hot investing strategy: Paper on smart-beta ETFs: No big risk-adjusted outperformance: MarketWatch
• Value ETFs don’t really live up to their name: Globe&Mail
• Avon hoax raises SEC filing questions; Chaos Ensued in Arb Shops Over Fishy Avon Bid; FBI Delves Into Dubious Avon Bid; FBI, SEC, U.K. officials looking into apparently bogus offer to buy beauty-products company: FT, WSJ, WSJ2
• Time for regulators to take major look at dual class shares: FP
• Warren Buffett Wannabes: 10 Stocks Trying To Be The Next Berkshire Hathaway: Forbes
• Buffett’s Berkshire adds to favorites IBM, Wells Fargo; Buffett has long praised his “Big Four” stock holdings Wells Fargo, IBM, Coca-Cola and American Express, which comprise 58% of Berkshire’s equity investments. Reuters
• Can You Use ETFs to Beat the Market?: WSJ
• Hertz Accounting Fix Keeps CFO in Financial No-Man’s Land: WSJ
• Speaking Out for Shareholders in Corporate Bankruptcies: NYT
• ‘Blind Spots’: CapitalIdeas
• Tocqueville Asset’s François Sicart: The Discovery of Ignorance: Tocqueville

AsianExtractor: Unearthing Accounting Fraud in Asia

• Detecting Accounting Fraud in Asia (Part 4): Introducing Six New Measures: AsianExtractor
• Sihuan (460 HK) Updates on Audit Delay: Improper accounting treatment in consolidation trick of using MRAs (Market Research Agents) to exclude hidden sales and distribution expenses to artificially boost profits: AsianExtractor
• China Environment FY2014: Significant Deterioration in Receivables Collectability And No Provision for Impairment: AsianExtractor
• China Environment (SES: 50U, Bloomberg: CENV SP): Auditor Emphasis of Matter raises more questions on potential accounting tunneling risk: AsianExtractor
• Open Letter to SGX/MAS: Reply to CFO of SGX-Listed China Environment (CENV SP) on report “Potential Accounting Tunneling Fraud at China Environment?” – Address the accounting and governance concerns in an SGX/MAS announcement: AsianExtractor
• Does Auditor Explanatory Language in Unqualified Audit Reports Indicate Increased Financial Misstatement Risk? “Emphasis of matter” language predicts restatements + China Environment’s Auditor Emphasis of Matter: AsianExtractor

Greater China

•  Long-term care service bill clears Taiwan Legislature; An estimated 760,000 individuals with disabilities and their families are expected to benefit after a long-awaited long-term care service bill which cleared the Taiwan Legislature: WCT
• Charged With Graft in China, Some Fugitives Are Finding Luxury in U.S.: NYT
• China orders banks to keep lending to insolvent state projects: FT
• China is reversing course on a major effort to tackle its hefty local government debt problem, marking a setback for a priority reform aimed at getting its financial house in order. WSJ
• TV programs in China become more interactive to keep viewers watching: WCT
• China Hits Panic Button; Beijing’s latest rate cut may not be enough to revive growth in the debt-laden economy. Why China’s problems are a warning to the rest of Asia.: Barron’s
• Chinese shipyards face rig contract cancellations in the face of oil rout : SCMP
• Hong Kong to Ban Individual Investors from ‘Dark Pool’ Trading: Ban will come into effect on December 1: WSJ
• Netflix in Talks to Take Content to China: WSJ
• Third Point Sells Entire $1 Billion Stake in Alibaba: WSJ
• Chinese Rare Earth Glut Triggers A Price Collapse And Environmental Crisis: Forbes
• Alibaba On M&A Steroids With New Series Of Deals: Forbes

India

• Myntra spearheads India’s move away from desktop browsing: FT
• So far, the Modi government has done nothing but talk: Jim Rogers; Kotak Mahindra Asset MD Nilesh Shah: It will be unfair to judge India based on headlines: Livemint1, 2

Japan & Korea

• Startups Upend Japan’s Famous—And Famously Old-Fashioned—Fish Market: WSJ
• Korea bubbles over with craft beer rush; Microbreweries thrive on demand for new, different tastes: KH
• The Missing Arrow of Abenomics: PS
• Automakers should invest in future while yen is on their side: analysts: JT
• Share index may hit the off switch on Toshiba: JT
• Toshiba sets up new panel to expand accounting probe which will look at the parent company and its 593 consolidated subsidiaries: Reuters

ASEAN

• Tan Sri Robert Tan Hua Choon: From Casio King to King of Coincidences; Robert Tan is widely known as the Casio King because he has done well in the distribution of Casio products, particularly watches. Star

Macro

• Have bonds reached a tipping point?: FT
• Violent bond moves and half a trillion dollars in losses in two weeks signal tectonic shifts in global markets: FP
• £325 for a cup of coffee – has the world gone mad? The world is getting richer – and the ones who get left behind will be those without skills: Telegraph

TMT

• Menulog sale means millions for Russian refugee Leon Kamenev: TheAge
• Tech and media groups draw battle lines for mobile superiority; Verizon-AOL deal and Facebook’s news tie-up reveal industry shift: FT
• Google to Test Bubble-Shaped Self-Driving Cars in Silicon Valley: NYT
• Can Reddit find a way to become a business without losing its soul?: Fortune
• More media companies need to think of themselves the way Quartz does: Fortune
•  Intelligent machines are ousting low-skilled workers now. Next they’ll start encroaching on white-collar livelihoods. WSJ
• Monitoring Tiny Vibrations to Avert Big Problems: WSJ
• Can Google Outsell Amazon and eBay? Company will launch buy buttons on its search-results pages in coming weeks: WSJ
• Nielsen Explains How It’s Adapting to the Rise of Online Video: WSJ
• Google’s self-driving cars to hit roads, with steering wheels: Reuters

Consumer & Others

• Why Wal-Mart is testing an answer to Amazon Prime: WaPo
• 11 McDonald’s menu items that were huge failures: BI
• A classic childrens’ brand is reinventing itself as a hangover cure. As a result, adult consumption of the beverage has increased by more than 57% in the past five years. One in three of the brand’s consumers are now adults. BI
• The world’s most iconic toy store FAO Schwarz is suddenly shutting down its famous toy store in midtown Manhattan. The closure will leave the 153-year-old brand without a physical store. BI
• Canadian Tire no longer the ‘deer in headlights’ against retail giants, CEO says; U.S. competition from retailers like Wal-Mart and Home Depot proved to be stiff medicine that made Canada’s biggest housewares, sporting goods and automotive chain a whole lot stronger. FP
• An investment firm backed by South Africa’s fourth-richest man has agreed to pay £780m for a majority stake in the UK fashion retailer New Look.: Guardian
• The Grocery Wars: Whole Foods vs. Aldi: Forbes
• Here’s how McDonald’s became the king of burgers: Fortune