Athens (AFP) - Greece stood Saturday on the brink of a make-or-break general election which could sweep the anti-austerity Syriza party to power and set the country on a collision course with its international creditors.

The possibility of Syriza winning Sunday's vote has sparked fears that Greece could fail to keep up its debt repayments and leave the euro.

Alexis Tsipras' radical left-wing party have a clear lead of around four points over the incumbent conservative New Democracy party of Prime Minister Antonis Samaras, according to opinion polls.

In his final appeal to voters on Friday, Tsipras promised he would restore "dignity" to Greece.

He wants to renegotiate Greece's massive 318 billion euro ($357 billion) debt and put an end to years of austerity measures linked to an international bailout.

Samaras told his party's supporters in his closing rally that it would be crazy to elect Syriza just when the fiscal reforms he has supported could be about to pay off.

"Syriza will turn all of Europe against Greece.... They don't understand Europe, they don't believe in Europe," he said.

- 'Make debt manageable' -

Greece has endured deep budget cuts tied to its 240 billion euro bailout from the so-called troika -- the European Union, International Monetary Fund (IMF) and European Central Bank (ECB).

Unemployment is around 25 percent and the economy has shrunk by a quarter since the start of the eurozone crisis.

Tsipras has said he wants to work out a solution on the debt with the ECB by July, and has promised to cut the amount by half.

A supporter, Paris Lizos, 59, said at Syriza's final rally on Thursday that many Greeks were pinning their hopes on a new approach, even if it was a leap into the unknown.

"We don't know if Tsipras will manage to cut the debt but we hope he will be able to make it more manageable," said the father of three children who lost his job in the private sector two years ago.

On Saturday, campaigning is banned under Greek law, so Tsipras met journalists covering his campaign.

Samaras visited New Democracy party workers in rainy central Athens, where he was greeted by a media scrum.

He said he took hope from polls showing around 10 percent of voters remained undecided and predicted they would choose the "stability" he represented.

Greek newspapers told voters the country was on the cusp of a potentially crucial turning point.

"Fasten your seatbelts" said the Proto Thema weekly.

It warned that Greece had "one foot outside the eurozone" if it failed to stick to the ECB's debt repayment schedule.

The pro-government Kathimerini newspaper said whichever party won, Greece faced "suffocating deadlines" imposed by its international creditors.

In Germany, which is widely seen by Greeks as the driving force behind the stringent cuts linked to its bailout, the weekly centre-left Die Zeit newspaper said if Tsipras won, he could no longer be "demonised" by the rest of Europe.

"(ECB chief) Mario Draghi and Alexis Tsipras, of all people, could be the men to save the euro," it said in an editorial.

"Tsipras knows that reforms that hurt the Greek people cannot be sustained forever and he could be the man to give Europe's austerity policy the legitimacy it has so far lacked with the Greek people. Draghi senses this, and as yet nobody has come up with better proposals," it said.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Friday appealed to Greece to stay in the eurozone.

"At the heart of our principles lies solidarity. I want Greece, despite the difficulties, to remain part of our story," she said.

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If you haven't experienced the magic of wearing wool socks in the wintertime, now is the time to change that.

In cold, wet weather, cotton athletic socks just won't cut it. When it gets wet, cotton loses all insulating properties, so you may as well not be wearing anything on your feet at all.

And it doesn't matter how warm your winter boots are. If you're wearing cotton socks, your feet will perspire, and you will end up with cold, damp feet.

The solution is to invest in some quality wool socks. Wool, especially super-soft merino wool, offers several unique advantages over cotton that make it the fabric of choice for winter wear.

These include:

• Unlike cotton, wool is an excellent insulator. When it's cold out your feet will be toasty and warm in your wool socks.

• Wool can absorb a significant amount of moisture — much more than cotton. Wool can actually hold a third of its weight in moisture before it even starts to feel "wet."

• Wool keeps its insulating properties even while wet, which is perfect for sweaty feet.

• Not only that, but wool also dries much more quickly than cotton or other synthetics.

• Wool fibers are naturally anti-bacterial and, therefore, odor resistant....

• ...which means they don't have to be washed every time you wear them. Indeed, they can be worn multiple times before washing.

However, the world of wool is not all unicorns, rainbows, and warm, toasty feet. There are some downsides to wool.

They're not super convenient to wear all the time. Most manufacturers advise against machine washing their socks, so hand washing and laying flat to dry is most often recommended. This is tiresome and annoying, even if you don't have to do it every single time the socks are worn. (Some companies use wool blends that enable the socks to take the beating of the machine, however. Check the label before purchase.)

It's also inadvisable to wear wool socks for prolonged periods while walking on a carpet since the fiber friction isn't good for the socks' longevity.

Also, if you buy low-grade non-merino wool socks, be prepared for some itchiness. Merino wool doesn't itch at all, but lower grade quality wool definitely does. No one likes itchy feet.

As for brands, both SmartWool and Wigwam make excellent socks. Every year Wigwam also makes a sock for Costco released under the Kirkland Signature brand that are highly regarded — I personally swear by them. Look out for them next fall, because they're long sold out this year. 

SEE ALSO: 4 Winter Accessories Every Man Should Own

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This week at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, we caught up with Reid Hoffman, the billionaire venture capitalist and cofounder of LinkedIn, a $28 billion public company.

For the past couple years, Hoffman has been on a quest to teach the workers of the world that they need to think about their careers differently.

"The notion of a career ladder is broken," says Hoffman.

"As a student or as a young professional or even as a midcareer professional you need to look at your career like an entrepreneur looks at building a company."

For example, Hoffman told us this week: "If everyone’s the entrepreneur of their own life, they also have to have a brand." To Hoffman, that means you have to use networks of people you know to burnish your brand and make it discoverable. An easy first step is to use LinkedIn. Next, you can start writing blog posts, LinkedIn posts, or tweets to get attention. Finally, you should try to speak at conferences. 

Hoffman also says new college graduates having a hard time figuring out what they want to do in life should attempt to solve the problem by "getting out in the world and doing things." They should pick an interest, pursue it rigorously, learn from the experience, and adapt.

To explain these notions and more, Hoffman and Ben Casnocha coauthored a book called "The Start-Up Of You."

Then, expanding on ideas from that book, they created a slideshow presentation for college grads called, "The 3 Secrets Of Highly Successful Graduates" and allowed us to republish it here. 

European Central Bank board member Benoît Cœuré today explained why the ECB embarked on its latest, massive quantitative easing program: With Europe suffering weak and non-existent growth, and with deflation already a reality in some countries, he said: "We had to do something. That became pretty clear. The only discussion was how to do it."

The ECB approved a €60 billion bond purchase program for each month until the end of September 2016.

But then he added something that, in some quarters, might be interpreted as a criticism of Germany.

"We all have our job to do. Others have to do their part. We have done our part. We can make it cheaper to invest but others have to want to invest. That's the job of government."

He didn't name a specific government, of course. But there is one European government that has balked at doing "their part" of the ECB plan: Germany.

German leader Angela Merkel has been against further stimulus packages from the ECB because she believes it lets countries like Greece, Italy and Spain off the hook for failing to get their act together and balance their budgets. (Indeed, the Greeks have already stopped paying taxes again in the hopes that a new government will trash the country's existing debt agreements.)

The QE package shows that the central bank believes stimulating economic growth is a bigger priority than forcing fiscal discipline in Southern Europe. But the package will only work if banks and countries use the new ECB money to invest in new companies, new infrastructure and other job-creating work that will increase aggregate economic demand.

Germany has the strongest economy in Europe right now, and it could comfortably do the rest of the continent (and itself) a favour if it used some of that ECB money on some big new infrastructure projects (roads, bridges, high-speed rail and so on). Those projects would grow the economy in the short term, creating jobs, and increasing demand for supplies and services across Europe. They would also help Germany modernise itself. Half of all autobahn bridges are in need of repair, Der Spiegel reported recently, in an article titled "A nation slowly crumbles."

But to do that, Germany would also need to run some deficits. Most people believe those deficits would be well within comfortable margins for Germany's GDP. Generally, deficits aren't a problem if your country is growing its way out of them. The problem is that culturally the Germans are savers not spenders. They hate debt. And that's why they hate the ECB's QE programme.

As such, Coeure's statement, at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, sounds very much as if he's talking about Merkel and Germany.

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Kiev (AFP) - A top pro-Russian rebel on Saturday announced the launch of a major offensive on Ukraine's government-held port of Mariupol, confirming responsibility for rocket fire that killed at least 20 people.

"Today, we launched an offensive against Mariupol," Russia's RIA Novosti news agency quoted Donetsk separatist leader Alexander Zakharchenko as saying. "This will be the best tribute possible for all our dead."

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Analysts are cheered for pithy research note titles, often laden with cheesy puns. But it's fair to say the one from Bank of America Merrill Lynch on Friday morning is not quite up to scratch.

BAML's regular Flow Show email was titled "Je Suis Bullish," a play on "Je Suis Charlie," the phrase that became internationally famous after the massacre of 12 people at the offices of the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo by jihadist gunmen earlier in January.

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In the ongoing battle between cat-lovers and dog-lovers, dog people have a hefty weapon in their arsenal: a bizarre, mind-controlling parasite you can catch by cleaning your cat's litterbox.

It's true that this parasite exists, and it's true that you can get it from your cat. But cat-lovers take heart — the truth is more complicated than the other half would have you think. And, yes, you can keep your cat.

The parasite

Toxoplasma gondii — Toxo for short — is a tiny, single-celled parasite with a weird life history and a weirder host of consequences.

Cats get it by eating infected rodents. After being swallowed, the parasites invade the walls of the cat's intestines, where they sexually reproduce, leaving behind millions of tiny cysts containing Toxo zygotes — these are called oocysts. Interestingly, cats (though all felines, not just house cats) are the only animal Toxo can use to sexually reproduce.

Later on, an infected cat will shed these oocytes in its feces — where, yes, you can then pick up the parasite from your cat's litterbox. An infection with Toxo is called Toxoplasmosis, and once it's in the body, it stays there. After an oocyst enters the body of a non-cat, it opens up and allows the Toxo zygotes to spill out, where they develop into a mobile, rapidly dividing life stage. Once they get into the blood stream, they are carried around to the body's organs, including the brain.

Luckily, the human immune system is usually able to keep the parasites from getting out of hand. Pressure from the immune system forces them to cluster into little cysts in the brain and muscles. These cysts usually lie dormant, suppressed by the immune system. However, in the sick or the elderly, whose immune systems are weaker, the parasite can break free and cause serious illness, attacking organs — most notably the brain and eyes.

It's also not exactly rare. The CDC reports that 22.5% of the US population over 12 has been infected with Toxo. In other parts of the world, the incidence of infection may be as high as 95%.

The symptoms

The most interesting thing about Toxo is what it does to an infected animal's mind. Infected mice become more adventurous and less fearful of cats — in fact, they even seem to become drawn to cats. This sinister effect increases the rodent's likelihood of being eaten and providing a chance for Toxo to enter the cat and reproduce.

Infected humans can be subject to some equally weird symptoms, which Kathleen Mcauliffe described in her extensive coverage for The Atlantic. Groundbreaking research showed that infected men tend to be more suspicious, withdrawn, and prone to breaking rules, while infected women are more trusting, outgoing, and law-abiding.

Both infected men and women are also more likely to be involved in traffic accidents, engage in self-violence, and — oddly — develop schizophrenia.

And for people with weakened immune systems, severe Toxoplasmosis infections can attack the eyes, brain, and other organs, and in extreme situations can result in death.

Pregnant women and the immunocompromised are the most at risk for adverse effects. Newly infected women, especially those infected during pregnancy, can pass the infection on to their child. This can result in severe consequences for the babies, such as damage to the eyes or nervous system.

The good news

But here are some facts to ease your minds, cat-owners.

First, cats only shed Toxo oocysts for three weeks after ingesting the parasite. That means indoor cats who aren't running around gobbling up infected mice are basically safe. As for outdoor cats, The Atlantic writer Mcauliffe consulted Jaroslav Flegr, a Czech scientist who has devoted much of his career to the study of Toxoplasma gondii.

She writes:

As for outdoor cats, they shed the parasite for only three weeks of their life, typically when they're young and have just begun hunting. During that brief period, Flegr simply recommends taking care to keep kitchen counters and tables wiped clean.

Once they've shed the parasite, outdoor cats typically acquire immunity and will not become reinfected, meaning they'll only shed the parasite once in their lives. So, to be honest, your beloved house cat is probably not controlling your mind after all.

Your food, on the other hand, is another story. While your pet kitty is almost certainly safe, some feral outdoor cat somewhere could still be infecting you — via the food you eat. Foodborne toxoplasmosis can help explain the high rate of infection in the United States and around the world.

The bad news

Infected cats can contaminate soil with their feces. The parasite stays viable in the wild for up to 18 months. The parasite can then be picked up by grazing animals — including food animals like pigs or cattle — or else it can rub off onto fruits and vegetables.

This means humans can contract the parasite by eating undercooked meat or unwashed veggies. In fact, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) consider Toxoplasmosis to be a leading cause of death by foodborne illness in the United States.

Toxo-infected wildlife

And it's not just humans who are at risk. Toxoplasmosis in the California watershed poses a serious threat to sea otters, too.

It turns out cat feces can wash into waterways, which carry the Toxo parasites out into the sea. There, they can infect mussels, clams, and other shellfish that otters like to eat. Unfortunately, otters aren't as good at fighting off the parasite as humans — once it has been ingested by the otters, it attacks their brains, causing lesions in the brain tissue and potentially death.

Since the late 90s, scientists have tracked toxoplasmosis infections in sea otters in California, and in the early 2000s it became apparent that Toxo was a major problem for California sea otters.

In 2006, the BBC reported that Toxo caused 17% of deaths in sea otters between 1998 and 2001. Other research has shown even higher infection rates. A 2005 study found that 52% of dead otters that washed up on the California coast between 1998 and 2004 were infected, and 38% of live ones had the parasite.

Scientists believe the problem is caused by cat feces washing into the California watershed. While both wild cats and feral domestic cats probably contribute to the problem, a 2013 study concluded that domestic cats were likely to have the biggest effect — despite generally having a lower parasite load than wild cats — because their populations are larger.

In general, for humans, thoroughly cooking your meat, washing your fruits and vegetables, and keeping surfaces in the house clean are a good protection against infection. And while Toxoplasmosis remains a strange and potentially scary presence in the world, it's a pretty safe bet that you can go home and hug Fluffy tonight without too much anxiety.

SEE ALSO: 5 Reasons Life Is Better For Cat People

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This weekend, Obama will head to India for the second time in his two-term presidency.

He'll be the first president to visit the South Asian nation twice -- and the first in ages to make a long-distance trip just to stop in one single country. Obama also hosted India's new prime minister, Narendra Modi, in D.C. back in September.

It's clear that diplomatic relations with India have become a priority for the president – especially since pro-business, pro-America Modi rocketed to power last May. So if we're going to sidle up next to India and become better friends, we'd best get to know the country.

Here's our list of 18 fascinating facts you should know about India.

There's a lake near the Chinese border where, for one month of the year, the water clears and you can see a few hundred ancient skeletons.

The lake is called Roopkund and the skeletons are 1,200 years old.

Local legend has it that an ancient king went on a pilgrimage through the Himilayas with his pregnant wife and a troupe of servants when a hailstorm sent them all toppling over the edge.

Source: Deccan Herald

Mumbai's high court has a 300,000-case backlog, some of which are 20 years old.

As of a couple of years ago, there were some 4 million pending cases across all high courts in India. And only two-thirds of available high court judge positions are filled.

Source: CNN International

Mumbai has just 1.1 square meters of open space per person.

Open space is defined as gardens, parks, recreation grounds, and playgrounds.

Compare that with New York's 26.4 square meters, or London's 31.68.

Source: Times of India

In September 2013, Chris Collins purchased health insurance.

Three months later, he was diagnosed with thyroid cancer.

Collins, a single 55-year-old in Houston, Texas, is self-employed at his personal training business Collins Innovative Personal Training.

Before September, he had been operating for a few months without insurance, but says, "I knew it was the right thing to do, and I just made the decision to do it. If you don't have health insurance, you are one diagnosis away from financial ruin."

Amidst a flurry of tests, hospital visits, and surgeries, Collins realized his new coverage — a catastrophic plan with a $10,000 deductible — wasn't holding up.

Soon, he had racked up $130,000 of medical debt.

"When I was seeing the doctors, I discovered that this policy wasn't doing me a lot of good," Collins explains. "So I decided to look into obtaining a better policy through the marketplace — Obamacare. Long story short, I was able to find amazing insurance through Blue Cross Blue Shield of Texas, which has saved me from financial ruin. I was able to get a policy with a premium of $496 per month, which has been a godsend."

Collins' treatments were successful and today he is free of cancer, and free of medical debt — his new insurance policy was able to eliminate nearly all of that $130,000.

Here, Collins shares his average spending for 2014, as he paid follow-up medical costs. Note that these are averages taken from a year's worth of spending, so a single month isn't represented. His average before-tax income was $4,134.

Being self-employed, he works with an accountant to determine that he should pay taxes in four quarterly increments of $1,000 each, but due to medical costs was unable to make the full payments in 2014. He hopes these same medical costs will decrease his tax bill.

It's also worth noting that Collins doesn't budget in the traditional sense of the word, planning out his expenditures for the next month. Instead, he mostly uses a spreadsheet that was created in Excel, but which he prefers to print and fill out by hand, to log his purchases. He says that so far, his method has kept him in the black.

The "healthcare" category includes his insurance, doctor's visits, dentist visits, prescriptions, and even parking at the hospital, for which Collins has paid as much as $30 a month. The "car" category includes insurance and maintenance. "Miscellaneous" covers everything from clothes to haircuts.

Collins keeps a separate checking account and credit card for his business, to cover everything from facility fees at the gym where he trains his clients to polo shirts with his logo. In terms of his spending and budget, he categorizes those business expenses in his personal budget as "training business."

Aside from his unpredictable medical costs, Collins finds the trickiest category of his budget to be "vacations.""As a self-employed personal trainer, when I'm on vacation I'm not only spending money, but also not adding to the bottom line. That's the challenge of being self-employed," he says. 

One conspicuously absent category from his budget is savings. Collins has a $16,000 emergency fund, plus about $50,000 of retirement savings in an IRA. In 2014, he wasn't able to contribute. "I did not do a good job of saving for retirement in 2014 and hope to do a better job of that in 2015," he says. "I am 55 years old and am very concerned about my ability to ever be able to retire. Fortunately, I enjoy my job and figure I will be doing it for at least another 20 years."

Collins also has a $7,000 auto loan, which is his only existing debt. "Of course I could pay off the auto loan with the emergency money," he explains, "but I'm choosing not to at this point to have the cash available."

Want to share your budget with the Business Insider community? Email lkane[at]businessinsider[dot]com. Anonymous submissions will be considered.

SEE ALSO: Here's The Budget One Woman Used Before And After Paying Off $32,000 Of Debt

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Siri is a way more powerful tool than you might think. Apple's intelligent and sometimes snarky personal assistant has plenty of little tricks built in to make your life easier, and maybe even a little more fun.

Produced by Matt Johnston

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"Shock" and "awe."

It's been a busy two weeks for markets, particularly currency markets, with the Swiss National Bank abandoning its peg against the euro and the European Central Bank's quantitative easing announcement causing huge volatility.

In an email on Friday, analysts at Deutsche Bank noted that the ECB's QE program is significantly larger than the SNB program that kept the franc pegged at 1.20 against the euro, but the market reaction to the SNB's announcement was significantly larger. 

Why?

Because the SNB surprised the market, and nothing makes markets move like getting caught off guard. 

From Deutsche Bank:

Eurozone QE: Impressive yes, but Mr. Draghi's trillion euro announcement was not even the eurozone's biggest monetary policy easing measure of the last several days. Why? Take currency moves — an important policy transmission channel — as a yardstick for measuring impact. In trade-weighted terms the euro weakened 1.7 per cent on Friday, a big fall but less than the 2 per cent depreciation in the single currency after the Swiss National Bank's bombshell last Thursday. The SNB action also shifted gold prices higher by four times as much as the ECB's announcement, while eurozone stocks rose by a similar magnitude following both central bank moves. The ECB will buy more assets every fortnight than the SNB added to its balance sheet during the last year. And yet the SNB delivered a more exaggerated market reaction. Shock and awe remains a powerful weapon indeed.

SEE ALSO: The Swiss National Bank Decision Was A Shock, And There Are More Surprises Ahead

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Mark Carney just finished a great panel here at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. In a wide-ranging discussion of the current state of global economy, he listed two "false assumptions" that he worries investors will have now that Europe is awash with new money from the European Central Banks' new quantitative easing stimulus. Toward the end of the debate he listed a third worry, about how Britain might fall behind economically.

He said that when new money becomes available at zero interest rates he worried that it might trigger a period of "reckless risk-taking" by some investors. "Reckless risk-taking is built on a false assumption," he said, and there are two main false assumptions that investors might take on:

1. The false assumption that "the central bank will always be there" to bail out institutions when they screw up. He didn't elaborate on that, but it felt as if he was trying to communicate that investors shouldn't assume that the BofE was just going to keep throwing money at them forever.

2. "An illusion of liquidity that has existed in a number of markets." The extra money being pumped in can make it look as if all assets can be shifted at will when in fact some of those markets can suddenly dry up.

Toward the end of the discussion — he was on a stage with a bunch of other central bankers, including Benoît Coeuré of the European Central Bank, Haruhiko Kuroda of the Bank of Japan, Brazil finance minister Joaquim Levy and Min Zhu of the International Monetary Fund — Carney mentioned a third fear:

3. The UK is not at the frontier of tech and may be 20 years behind. The discussion had turned to the way some nations use tech and innovation to spur growth while some fall behind because they fail to adapt."I'm a tech optimist," Carney said, "but more fundamentally ... the vast majority of the world is not at the frontier [of tech], the UK included. ... even if nothing else is invented in the next 20 years, just catching up is a huge task."

His remarks echo a theme we've been obsessing over at Business Insider: The fact that the US has really robust economic growth while the UK does not, and the fact that the US has much bigger job growth in the tech sector while jobs in the UK are mostly being added at the low-wage end of the spectrum. Carney apparently just told us that yes, the two things are connected.

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Japan early on Sunday strongly criticized a recording purporting to announce the execution of a Japanese citizen held by Islamic State militants and demanded the immediate release of another captive depicted as appearing on the image.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, in a brief televised statement, said the recording appeared to show captive Haruna Yukawa being killed.

"This is an outrageous and unacceptable act," Suga said. "We strongly demand the prompt release of the remaining Mr. Kenji Goto, without harm."

Suga read the statement and declined to take questions.

The graphic video claims to show Goto holding Yukawa's head, according to NPR.

"They no longer want money," a voice apparently belonging to Goto says in the video. "So, you don't need to worry about funding terrorists. They are just demanding the release of their imprisoned sister, Sajida al-Rishawi." 

Sajida al-Rishawi took part in the 2005 bombings in Amam and was sentenced to death in Jordan. 

Before demanding the return of al-Rishawi, ISIS had asked Japan on Tuesday to pay $200 million within 72 hours in exchange for the return of their citizens, according to The New York Times.

Goto, the one whose voice appeared in the video, was a freelance journalist who covered war zones before vanishing in October. It's believed he went into territory in Syria held by the Islamic State in order to try to free Yukawa, the prisoner who was recently beheaded. Yukawa, who described himself as a military contractor, vanished himself in August, according to The Times.

Junko Ishido, the mother of Goto, begged for his release earlier this week.

“Kenji has a strong sense of justice,” she said of her son in a news conference The Times reported on. “If things turn out good with his release, I think he would devote himself to the future, to the children.”

Reuters reporting by William Mallard.

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Microsoft spent 2.5 hours announcing the newest version of Windows, Windows 10, at its campus in Redmond, Washington this week.

That's a long time. That's about as long as a Lord Of The Rings movie. But, Windows 10 doesn't have the narrative pull, or plot twists of Lord Of The Rings. 

And yet, the traditionally cranky, crabby tech press didn't seem to mind. In fact, the folks that were dragged to that remote Northwest town of Redmond seemed to — shock — enjoy the presentation. 

That's because at the end of the presentation, Microsoft unveiled a genuine surprise: "Windows Holographic," which is a new computing platform.

You put on Microsoft's "HoloLens," which are goggles with a glass lens in front of them. Through the goggles you see images in front of you that you can manipulate. This is what the HoloLens looks like on people.

Words don't do it justice, so here's a GIF to illustrate how it works. With goggles on, you see all sorts of things appear in your world.

Microsoft let the press do a brief demo of the HoloLens, and the initial reactions were overwhelmingly positive. 

Farhad Manjoo of the New York Times called it"wondrous," saying, "it blew me away."

Our own Matt Rosoff tried them, and came away declaring, "I'm convinced that personal computing is on the verge of a major change." 

There was no word on pricing, or a release date for Windows Holographic. So, for now, this is mostly just a cool demo of something that could some day be in our homes.

This is a nice win for Microsoft. For years, Microsoft has been the tech industry's punching bag. It's been trashed for not being innovative. 

Yet, it's always been an innovative company that produced interesting technology products.

In 2013, I was invited to Microsoft's headquarters for a bunch of briefings with its executives. As part of those briefings, I got an off-the-record look at some of the things Microsoft was developing in its experimental labs. 

I don't think I am breaking any codes or trust by saying the things Microsoft was developing were cool. 

And yet, in 2013, Microsoft wasn't getting any credit from anyone for being a company capable of doing cool stuff. In 2013, all the love went to Google for Google Glass, and other projects coming out of its Google X labs like self driving cars. 

While I was at Microsoft, I said to someone, why do you think Google gets so much credit for its innovations compared to you, even though you do just as much innovative stuff?

This person speculated that Google was at a different point in its life as a company where it was rewarded for showing off zany ideas. People (in 2013) thought Google could actually accomplish everything it said it could. This person said that at the same period in Microsoft's corporate life, it was just as proudly ambitious as Google is today. It announced tablet computers, and TV stations, and all sorts of other things that ultimately fizzled. 

While that might be true, I believe that part of the reason Microsoft didn't get credit for the innovative things it was doing was that its CEO was Steve Ballmer. 

Ballmer is a bombastic, larger than life character. He's also really old school in his view of technology. 

For instance, last October he said Amazon is "not a real business" because it doesn't make money. This is such an absurd statement it's hard to believe it's real. And yet, it is. 

Meanwhile, as Ballmer scoffs at Amazon, Amazon's web services business is crushing Microsoft, taking away customers, and driving down prices. 

This is not some isolated incident from Ballmer. His most famous business gaffe was laughing at the iPhone. When it was first released, Ballmer said, "There's no chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant market share. No chance. It's a $500 subsidized item. They may make a lot of money. But if you actually take a look at the 1.3 billion phones that get sold, I'd prefer to have our software in 60% or 70% or 80% of them, than I would to have 2% or 3%, which is what Apple might get."

Apple is now the most valuable company in the world, and the iPhone is a bigger business than all of Microsoft. The iPhone is expected to generate $39.6 billion in revenue for the December quarter of 2014. Microsoft is expected to do $26.3 billion.

Here's Ballmer on the iPhone. This video is stunning to watch. It tells you a lot about Ballmer's Microsoft.

Ballmer is not a dummy. He's actually whip smart, and had a mastery of Microsoft's businesses. But because of his oafish behavior, and his tendency to incorrectly dismiss Microsoft's biggest rivals, Microsoft itself came to be seen as an uncool, oafish company company. 

If Ballmer was still the CEO of Microsoft, I believe the press reaction to Windows Holographic would have been completely different. I think it would have been more negative.

But, Microsoft has a new CEO, Satya Nadella. Nadella is more considered in his approach to the business world. He released a touch version of Microsoft Office for the iPad, before he released a touch version of Office for Microsoft's Surface. He's bridged the divide with long time Ballmer nemesis Salesforce.com. He's shut down Microsoft's ham fisted attack on Google called Scroogled. 

And as a result, the perception of Microsoft is changing. 

That's what Windows Holographic is about, more than anything else. It's Microsoft's attempt at rewriting the story of Microsoft. Microsoft no longer wants to be seen as a lumbering dinosaur. It believes (correctly) that it can innovate as rapidly as Google. And it believes it deserves credit for inventing the future just as much as any other major technology company.

Windows Holographic might be a great product. It might be a dud. It doesn't matter right now. What matters right now is that people see what Microsoft is capable of doing.

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In the fall of 2007, newly appointed Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang went to Apple CEO Steve Jobs for help turning the foundering internet giant around.

Jobs gave him and Yahoo's top executives a simple but profound piece of advice.

At an off-site meeting with about 200 Yahoo execs, Jobs explained in a presentation that many companies will make a list of 10 things they want to achieve in a year, but "the smart companies will take that list and shrink it to three or four items," Business Insider's Nicholas Carlson writes in his new book "Marissa Mayer and the Fight to Save Yahoo!"

Then Jobs said, "This is how I do it. I take a sheet of paper, and I say, 'If my company can only do one thing next year, what is it?' Literally, we shut everything else down."

During his second, famously successful run as Apple CEO, Jobs applied this strategy to the "top 100" retreats he would hold with Apple's leadership, biographer Walter Isaacson writes in the Harvard Business Review.

On the retreat's last day, Jobs would stand in front of his employees with a whiteboard and write down suggestions for what Apple should be doing next. Jobs would then cross off the ones he considered "dumb," Isaacson says, and "after much jockeying" finally come up with a list of 10. Then he'd cross out the bottom seven for the final list.

When Google cofounder Larry Page was about to become CEO in 2011, he turned to Jobs in the same way Yang had. Jobs, who was nearing the end of his life, decided to be gracious with Google, an Apple competitor. "The main thing I stressed was focus," Jobs told Isaacson.

The same technique that Jobs used for his company can be used to arrange your day, says Tim Ferriss, author of "The 4-Hour Workweek."

Before starting your day, Ferriss advises in an episode of his podcast, write down three to five things causing you the most stress. Ask yourself about each point, "If this were the only thing I accomplished today, would I be satisfied with my day?" Then ensure that you do whatever it takes to accomplish that task.

"If I have 10 important things to do in a day, it's 100% certain nothing important will get done that day," Ferriss says.

This strategy is remarkably simple but allows people to take the abstract concept of "focus" and boil it down to a practical application.

SEE ALSO: Here's The Definition Of Power From The Man Who's Studied It Most

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The collapse in crude oil prices has primarily attributed to a glut in supply.

And while it's unlikely that a nearly 60% decline in the price of any asset can be attributed to just one factor, this chart from George Pearkes at Bespoke Investment Group shows that no one can deny the amount of supply in the oil markets is way, way above normal. 

Go read the rest of George's Saturday morning chart-storm on Ello »

SEE ALSO: The two things that really move markets

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As China's gambling revenue falters, the high rollers that account for 60% of Macau's revenue are taking their bets elsewhere.

As they retreat from Macau, junket operators are directing their efforts to locations with less restrictions. Countries working to build up their own gambling assets may stand to gain from the offset of Macau's wealthy players.

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Markets have been taken by surprise recently by central banks loosening monetary policy. But with inflation falling across the developed world, they really shouldn't be.

Recent weeks have seen the Bank of Canada joining the Swiss National Bank in cutting rates, while the Bank of Japan stepped up its lending programme and the Bank of England returning its first unanimous decision not to raise rates in six months. And today the European Central Bank (ECB) is widely expected to launch a large asset purchase programme, with rumours that it could amount to as much as €50 billion a month for at least a year.

So what's going on?

Well the first piece of the puzzle comes from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in the latest update to its World Economic Outlook. The report contains inflation forecasts for advanced economies as well as the better publicised growth outlook.

Here's how the inflation forecasts have developed:

As you can see, the forecast for inflation across advanced economies has halved from around 2% in 2015 to 1%. This is a problem for central banks as most of them have a 2% inflation target, which is the level that is seen as consistent with economies running as close as possible to full capacity (e.g. the largest amount of economic output possible with stable price rises).

The decline is predominantly a consequence of the collapse in oil prices, which have fallen more than 50% since June last year. Both benchmark Brent and West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude oil spot prices have fallen from over $100 a barrel to around $50 a barrel today.

For oil exporters, falling oil prices are clearly bad news as they reduce export revenues and that feeds through to lower domestic demand. As the Bank of Canada made clear in its statement on Wednesday, its move to lower rates came in "response to the recent sharp drop in oil prices, which will be negative for growth and underlying inflation in Canada".

Yet falling oil prices have an impact on net importers of the commodity too. They directly reduce costs for consumers through lower fuel prices, which impacts the prices of energy and transport, but also indirectly lead to declines in the prices of other goods as it reduces the cost of production.

Indeed such has been the scale and pace of price falls that in a number of countries inflation is either forecast to drop to or already below zero, meaning consumer prices would begin to fall.

But if lower prices mean that consumers can get more for less, surely that would be a good thing that central banks shouldn't be worried about?

Well, yes and no. A so-called positive supply shock, whereby firms discover that they can produce more at the same cost, is certainly a positive for an economy as it increases its productive capacity (the total amount that an economy is able to produce). However, there is a reason that central banks have arrived at their 2% targets after decades of trial and error with alternative policies.

In the minutes of its latest meeting, the Bank of England's Monetary Policy Committee provide a clue as to why falling inflation might pose a problem for central banks:

That is, if consumers and businesses start to expect that falling prices are here to stay they could either hold back spending in the hope of lower prices at a later date or cap wage increases. In those circumstances low inflation could lead to self-fulfilling deflation, which would mean lower demand for goods and services and reduced economic growth.

Deflation is a particular problem when central bank interest rates around the developed world are already at or very near to zero, as they are today. The conventional answer to deflation would be for a central bank to lower interest rates in order to make it cheaper for businesses and consumers to borrow and reduce the incentive for people to hold on to cash as it is earning less interest income.

But at the zero lower bound central banks are limited in what they can do and are forced to rely on relatively untested policies (such as quantitative easing). Here the IMF offers a suggestion — governments can use lower borrowing costs to invest in infrastructure in order to push inflation back towards target:

Of course, this has been an option for some years now and few governments have shown any inclination to heed this advice. However, with interest rates on German, Swiss and Japanese government bonds now in negative territory it may well now be irresponsible for these governments not to spend when the markets are effectively paying them to do so.

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When Olympic snowboarder Ross Rebagliati tested positive for a small amount of marijuana in his blood at the 1998 Japan games, his first-place finish was temporarily called into question.

But THC, the main mind-altering chemical in marijuana, wasn't even included in the International Olympic Committee's banned-substances list at the time (it is now, but at a much higher level than the one he tested at). Rebagliati was allowed to keep his victory and medal. (He is now in the medical-marijuana business.)

Even though it's on the banned list now, does anyone really think of marijuana as a performance-enhancing drug in the first place?

After all, as Robin Williams later joked, "the only way it's a performance-enhancing drug is if there's a big f---ing Hershey bar at the end of the run," right?

Maybe not.

It turns out marijuana might actually help some people perform better at certain sports.

This may sound crazy. After all, we're all familiar with the image of the couch-locked, Cheetos-covered stoner.

Yet there are people that say training while high has helped them unlock new performance gains.

In November, Men's Journal interviewed elite triathlete Clifford Drusinsky, a Colorado gym owner who also leads training sessions fueled by marijuana edibles.

"Marijuana relaxes me and allows me to go into a controlled, meditational place," Drusinsky told Men's Journal. "When I get high, I train smarter and focus on form."

Outside Magazine correspondent Gordy Megroz wrote in the February issue of that magazine that while he has never been much of a pot smoker, he heard enough close friends — especially skiers — say that getting high helped their performance that he decided to give it a shot.

Megroz first tried a cannabis gummy while on one of those snow-covered mountains and wrote that with a "slight yet very functional high," he "felt invincible and proceeded to attack the steepest lines without fear"— ski-speak for feeling able to tackle the craziest parts of a mountain. It's easy to see how this kind of fearlessness could be appealing to an expert skier, but could lead anyone — especially a novice — into making a dangerous decision.

Stanford Medical School professor Keith Humphreys explained to Megroz that there's a scientific explanation for this. "We have cannabinoid receptors throughout our brains, and when the THC hits those receptors, it triggers a system that reduces anxiety," Humphreys said. "That you would feel more aggressive is a natural reaction to the drug."

In the World Anti-Doping Association's current ban on competing while stoned, the organization cites studies that show marijuana can decrease anxiety and increase airflow to the lungs by acting as a bronchodilator, something that decreases resistance in the airways.

So Megroz decided to perform further tests, with the help (and under the supervision) of a physiologist.

The basic test was simple. He got on a treadmill, set the pace for five miles per hour, and then increased the ramp angle 2.5% every two minutes.

Sober, he could keep it up for 19 minutes. But stoned, he could last 19:30 — a "substantial performance gain," according to the physiologist. He repeated the test twice more with similar results.

He also found that he got less sore after a heavy squat session.

In other words, getting stoned helped him perform and recover better.

But while testing mountain-biking performance, results weren't quite as good. He writes that while he started off feeling "flowy and fast, [riding] much better than when" sober, he soon misjudged his speed and rode off the trail.

So what does the science say about marijuana and exercise?

Here, we have a big problem. There isn't much research available yet on how pot affects performance. As long as marijuana is considered a Schedule 1 drug by the Drug Enforcement Agency, it's incredibly difficult for researchers to study its effects. It's becoming easier as states legalize medical and recreational use, but there isn't a ton of research yet, and it'll still be hard to do unless the government changes that policy.

And some research (along with the aforementioned anecdotal evidence) would seem to show that pot doesn't help anyone do anything athletic.

Megroz cites a 1975 paper that found a 25% decrease in power output among study subjects after smoking marijuana — but there were only eight people in that study and they all had asthma, which means this tells almost nothing about the general population, especially since smoking could have triggered already-existing problems in asthma patients. Another 1977 paper he cites found some decreased motor control among a group of six experienced pot smokers when they got high, though they didn't show significant changes in reaction time.

But the little evidence we have on pot also explains some potential performance gains. Researchers say that marijuana has an anti-inflammatory effect and that the chemical compounds that come from weed might mimic the body's natural endorphins, which could help increase our pain threshold like a natural runner's high and make it easier to push through a tough workout.

So there's evidence that pot can help people deal with pain and inflammation while decreasing anxiety and improving mood, but it also has potentially risky motor-control side effects that could lead to an accident, especially in a sport where a wrong turn (like mountain biking or skiing) could be disastrous.

Anecdotally, both Outside and Men's Journal found endurance athletes, professional fighters, and mountain athletes like skiers and rock climbers that say that pot can help them train — and there's a big argument that NFL players might be better off using pot instead of painkillers to deal with their day-to-day injuries.

Yet decreased anxiety can lead to dangerous decisions. There is also a temporary elevated heart rate associated with consuming marijuana, which could be a negative side effect for athletes and a risky complication for anyone with a preexisting heart condition.

There just isn't much research out there yet.

We should clarify that we don't advocate going and exercising while high, as that's illegal in most states and whatever effect it does have on performance, there is certainly the possibility that decreased motor control could lead to a serious accident.

But is this something that should be researched and discussed more as the wave of decriminalization and legalization continues to sweep across the country? Absolutely.

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SEE ALSO: 23 Medical Benefits Of Marijuana

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