Technology is still perceived as necessary evil by most poeple, “it just has to work” or “I don’t want to see it” are frequently used to voice this fear. Building cross disciplinary teams where this fear is removed is what I have been doing the since I graduated 10 years ago. We are now experiencing what it means when this fear is removed. We are envisioning and creating the tools and methods to enable and enhance the activity called creative strategies. You can reach me as jurg@freedomlab.org to discuss technology and it’s impact!
With the global financial crisis everyone is full of ‘responsibility’. The financial institutions should have taken their responsibility, as should have the those who can’t afford the mortgage they have. And if you borrow something you can’t return you are not very responsible. But I think we have not been paying attention to what responsibility actually is. Ever since we consider ourselves enlightened we confuse moral responsibility with responsibility. If you deconstruct responsibility it follows that consensus and regulation are very important. But the essence of responsibility is that it only works when you are held responsibility, perhaps by yourself…
Wal-Mart is notorious for the role of employment in their operations. As a hallmark of modern industrial management it has transformed reducing cost to an art form. And true to their corporate charter of optimizing profits only the law will keep them in check. And law is law only when you get caught, apparently. After a process of years the court of Minnesota judges that Wal-Mart did break the law. At $ 1,000 fine per violation Wal-Mart faces up to $ 2 billion in damages, in Minnesota alone. This is 17% of their net income over the last 12 months.
The UN PRI webinar of last week was about Oil Sands, three presentations on the current situation of extraction. The information on oil sands you can find in wikipedia. But reading wikipedia I did not get the ’sense of urgency’ relating to oil extraction from oil sands in Canada at the moment. Currently Canada is the only country where oil sands are mined. Venezuela also has large deposits but it is rumored they don’t have the means to build this industry. With Canada’s main export market being the USA it makes you wonder what is happening exactly. Is Canada for sale?
The largest system in the world has been launched a couple of months ago, the Large Hadron Collider. While going into hibernation until april (scheduled because of lack of energy) its computer has been launched last friday, the LHC Computing Grid. This network of computers is designed to handle 7,000 researchers dealing with data that accumulates with 6 CDs per second. And a similar GRID has been used to help build this particle accelerator, LHC@Home. It is called volunteer computing, but instrumental in getting the second biggest collision every.
At this moment we are very occupied with what a network is. Everyone has a sense of what a network is but most are unable to give a definition. An interesting angle Arjan recognized was to see it as a paradigm and look from the perspective of a development model. First we saw everything as a machine, that changed to system and now we are starting to shift to a network way of regarding the world. It doesn’t mean a system is obsolete. Some systems might be networks, but some networks are definatelly past the system-point in their development. HIV/AIDS show how these ways of thinking change how the disease can be treated.
We are all still a bit in shock what is happening in the financial worlds. A dutch newspaper opened today with the announcement that capitalism has just got a serious injection of socialism. Two companies that did not get the full socialist treatment were Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers. Both these companies were sold at a bargain. And it is save to assume that this price is only for the bricks&mortar. It is somewhat ironic that the data centers are a significant portion of what is left. For it is the datacenter that has enabled the creation of the complex financial products instrumental to the difficulties the financial market is in today.
The Warhol Economy: How Fashion, Art, and Music Drive New York City
by Elizabeth Currid
2 customers reviewed this article averaging 4.0
Isbn-13: 9780691128375
Which is more important to New York City’s economy, the gleaming corporate office–or the grungy rock club that launches the best new bands? If you said “office,” think again. In The Warhol Economy, Elizabeth Currid argues that creative industries like fashion, art, and music drive the economy of New York as much as–if not more than–finance, real estate, and law. And these creative industries are fueled by the social life that whirls around the clubs, galleries, music venues, and fashion shows…
Some of the people around me voiced their opinions on ‘capacity’ to vote in the general election in the USA. But the sentiment expressed was not of democratic principle, but one of disagreement with differing opinions. Although I was highly surprised this view existed in our democratic and free country I was wondering if everyone has the same right. It turns out that in Holland people with a legal guardian (curatele) are not yet allowed to vote. But a law has been proposed to alter the constitution to ban this restriction. (Because it is a constitutional amendment two consecutive governments need to let this pass.)
Do you know Picasa? Picasa Web Albums is Google’s answer to Flickr. Lately I started to grow tired of the many features Flickr offers. I just want to share my images with anyone I want. So I experimented with Picasa for the last couple of months. Before this weekend I read on slashdot that Google added a new feature to Picasa, the call it name tags but it is facial recognition. And it is incredible…
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Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness
by Richard H. Thaler
52 customers reviewed this article averaging 4.0
Isbn-13: 9780300122237
Every day, we make decisions on topics ranging from personal investments to schools for our children to the meals we eat to the causes we champion. Unfortunately, we often choose poorly. The reason, the authors explain, is that, being human, we all are susceptible to various biases that can lead us to blunder. Our mistakes make us poorer and less healthy; we often make bad decisions involving education, personal finance, health care, mortgages and credit cards, the family, and even the planet itself. Thaler...
