Had Gartner, an information-technology consultancy in Connecticut, included graphene-based processes as a stand-alone entry in its latest Emerging Technologies Hype Cycle, such processes would be over two-thirds the way up the slope to its "peak of inflated expectations",which comes before the tip-over into the "trough of disillusionment" (see "Divining reality from hype", August 27th 2014).
While some call for immigration to revive the region, demagogues whip up a new yellow peril, divining a Chinese plot to win back former possessions by sending people over the border.The irony is that though the region has always been the subject of fantasies of great wealth, mineral discoveries have now given substance to those dreams.
The banks, unlike the directors, have not settled).In this section Divining the future Red and redder The price of prominence Banking on Fischer New skills for an old game Mind games Reprints Related items Corporate directors: Stick 'em upJan 13th 2005The circumstances at these companies were surely exceptional, or so one would hope.
Divining who in the Kremlin has the president's ear is tricky; but among them, says Mr Mirsky, are some who are schooled to befriend "any thug in the world who declared himself anti-American".There are some, says Mr Simes, who feel Mr Putin and his predecessor, Boris Yeltsin, were too obliging to America over Kosovo, Iraq and America's incursions in Central Asia.
At the Chicago Board of Trade, the world's busiest futures market, wheat and soyabean traders make their livings by divining the elements as they slide across a huge, wall-mounted digital weather map.
Devising industrial policy, like divining comparative advantage, is a matter of trial and error.
But Americans are nonetheless obsessed by divining the meaning of the choice.
The court once ruled that a nativity scene on city property appeared to have a "secular purpose" because it included a reindeer and Santa Claus.But divining purpose is not easy.
Supported by air power, they should at least be able to protect Iraq's northern oilfields and prevent strife between the Iraqi Kurds and Turkey.If discerning American plans is tricky in the fog of disinformation, divining Mr Hussein's intentions is impossible.
