Monday, December 14, 2009
[Update] Just finished Stones into Schools. I couldn’t put it down once I got started. Fascinating, heart-wrenching and insightful. Afghanistan and Pakistan are complicated places! At least I have a clue now. When I think of what a dollar buys in terms of education over there it sickens me to think a single missile [...]
Friday, November 27, 2009
After a while the numbers just don’t make any sense. Enter information visualization. Check out this BBC article on the efficacy of presenting hard-to-comprehend information visually.
Picture links to larger image at InformationIsBeautiful.net.
Stewart Brand’s new book has a great accompanying website with a million cool links
and enough of the book to let you know you’re going to love reading it. But just in case
you’re not sure, check out the talk (and great questions afterwards) from The
Long Now Foundation. Direct link to the mp3 file here.
Are you [...]
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
This is a very inspiring talk on many levels. On the one hand Victoria and her organization are saving lives from diseases you and I have never even heard of. But the business model is non-profit. For a pharmaceutical company, that’s truly world changing.
Simply put, Victoria Hale’s organization has saved thousands of lives. Join the [...]
From PopTech.org
The stars and stripes forever? Futurist and author Juan Enriquez isn’t sure of that.
He cites a long history of borders, countries and flags that have changed, and warns
the United States isn’t immune.
Mp3 QTmov
This is a great talk and there are many more on the PopTech site. Juan mentions this MapsOfWar
movie–fascinating. More on the MapsOfWar.com [...]
Great Marshall McLuhan at John Hopkins lecture found over at StarLarvae. Thanks to Heresiarch for making it available.
In a nutshell, Dance with Chance is all about knowing what you can and cannot predict and, therefore, what you can and cannot control.
Think about it. Every day human beings make decisions. Some are important: should you invest your life savings in the stock market? Others are trivial: should you take an umbrella today? But [...]
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
Personally I’m a little skeptical about a Healthcare X Prize that is sponsored by Wellpoint, (does it not follow that a giant for-profit healthcare provider would primarily be motivated to discover ways to become more profitable?) but after watching the Peter Diamandis “Why design a Healthcare X PRIZE?” video I’m at least convinced that the [...]
I’ve been through the death of two close relatives through the Canadian medical system. In both cases the illnesses were complicated. In both cases my relatives were treated expertly, without concern for expense–or profit– but with dignity and the loving care that befits all of us. All this talk currently about reforming the U.S. Health [...]
From EconTalk.org (Includes full transcript).
Direct link to mp3 interview
Nassim Taleb talks about the financial crisis, how we misunderstand rare events, the fragility of the banking system, the moral hazard of government bailouts, the unprecedented nature of really, really bad events, the contribution of human psychology to misinterpreting probability and the dangers of hubris. The conversation [...]
Alicia Morgan is a musician friend with whom I’ve occasionally had the pleasure of working over the last decade or two. Her blog turned into a book, The Price of Right: How the Conservative Agenda Has Failed America (and Always Will). I’ve just read it and highly recommend it-that is-if you’re in good health and [...]
Saturday, February 14, 2009
Try it as a thought experiment.
What if an extract of Marijuana/Hemp DID cure cancer? Or some cancer. Or even 1% of skin cancers. Wouldn’t you want to try it on yours? Especially if it did no harm? Especially if you’d exhausted whatever treatments your Doctor had advised?
Well, here’s a little science:
Marijuana Cuts Lung Cancer Tumor [...]
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
According to Saul’s calculations, in order to reach a goal of 450 ppm of atmospheric carbon dioxide in time to limit a global rise in temperature to 2 degrees C., we’ll have to reduce the amount of burned fossil fuels to 3 terawatts (of power). That means we’ll need to replace 11.5 terawatts with new [...]
Also filed in
|
Tagged bicycles, google powermeter, math, Peak Cheap Free Energy, Peak Energy, peak oil, politics, Saul Griffith, solar, Stewart Brand, sustainability
|
Sunday, December 14, 2008
A thread over at the neXtPrize blog got me thinking about Early Warning systems–how mobile technologies like SMS can allow Twitter-like real-time monitoring of data for the purpose of discovering emerging disasters. Pragzz pointed me to a couple of non-profs that are already supporting this. Ushahadi (Swahili for ‘testimony’) is an Open Source platform [...]
