The richest man in America made a rare appearance at the University of Washington to talk about how advances in technology are coming together for the areas cares most about these days, including education and efforts to help the poor. Geekwire has some gems from the session including this quip in answer to a student's question about how she could get rich like him: " "I can understand wanting to have millions of dollars, there's a certain freedom, meaningful freedom, that comes with that. But once you get much beyond that, I have to tell you, it's the same hamburger." Gizmodo thinks Roman Abramovich might disagree, what with his frigate-sized yachts, but they get the idea. Gates also talked about the top 1 percent, Fox News and taxes: "The U.S. tax code is so complex that you don't know where to be outraged and you don't have time to read it."

Top Stories for the Week of September 26-30, 2011

Maybe the old devil Jack Nicholson was right: we can't handle the truth. On Monday some financial talking-head nobody went on the BBC News and confessed (raw video here) that the stock market is "toast" and bad, bad stuff is coming, that "it doesn't matter how much money they want to put in, it's not going to work, because this problem cannot be solved." But he noted that traders like him dream of another recession because, hey, even during the Great Depression, the guys who saw it coming made a mint. He also explained that governments don't really have any power because "Goldman Sachs rules the world" and that everyone needs to bury their nuts like a squirrel to prepare for the worst. What's next, a horrible Facebook revamp? As Mediaite recaps: "It's a video that the Occupy Wall Street gang and Glenn Beck fans can all watch together ... a pretty terrifying clip. It's all the more terrifying because, hey, the guy's just being honest."