the population of internet
every pothole has no tax
why are they so happy?
the kardashian unit
Ethan Zuckerman is musing, “The Kardashian is a unit I proposed a few classes back as a measure of attention.”
A Kardashian Unit is the amount of global attention Kim Kardashian commands across all media over the space of a day.
We determine a Kardashian by measuring the percentage of media dedicated to Kim Kardashian.
For example by using Google Insights you can discover the Kardashian Unit for global warming is merely 11.
our brain has a grid
Based upon the The Guardian’s Neurophilosophy blog, there’s a tremendous collection of brain images archived at Neuro Images.
doesn’t have to be like this
What must be done is not an expanding economy… but a stable economy.
There is something fundamentally wrong in treating the Earth as if it were a business in liquidation. ―Herman E. Daly
slick stump politics
1) The black line is the improving jobs outlook under Obama.
2) The red line shows the continuing trend…
3) See Romney riding on Obama’s back ?!
our calories go up and up
happy endings erect corrections
de-clutter city streets
Philips has invented suspended street lighting —no streetlight poles.
our essential national purpose
Where does our humanity begin?
The USA is in 25th place among best countries to be a mom.
“Though they can be as opinionated as the adults that surround them, most children are more willing to open up to new ideas, to be fascinated by conflicting information, to make an attempt to learn a new skill or be beguiled by a new concept. They are quick to dispense hugs and they love to share.”
“There is one high promontory within the sprawling panorama of life on earth that does indeed afford a perspective upon the whole…
“…where the living creature not only acts out its own significant existence, but is capable of contemplating this existence along with that of all other living things.
“…where life’s own power of survey blossoms and reaches its fullest fruition: the understanding consciousness of man.”
grid dancing through the ages
In 2006, Li and his colleagues began working on a hydraulic hybrid vehicle.
They were in the process of developing an energy storage system for that purpose when they realized that their idea was better suited to grid-scale energy storage.
And on the other hand….
Specifically, he teaches them that the food and bathroom waste they produce every day can be transformed by a biogas digester into fuel to clean and cook plus a compost to fertilize crops.
http://www.
One flame in a room.
There once were 10s of 1000s in old rural China; so simple, so common, but now?
where we all live
here’s all the water on earth
The blue sphere is all the water in the oceans, seas, ice caps, lakes and rivers as well as groundwater, atmospheric water, and even the water in you, your dog, and your tomato plant.
think small to solve big
The USDA isn’t seeing the problem.
Walter wrote, “We need many smaller processing facilities.”
A network of nano-scale facilities will give us all better food security.
purchasing our mood
“I’ve known rich people, and why not, since I’m one of them. The majority would rather douse their dicks with lighter fluid, strike a match, and dance around singing Disco Inferno than pay one more cent in taxes to Uncle Sugar.” —Stephen King
science+art+wonder
from car to school bus
our national parking snarl
We are a nutty nationhood:
In the United States hundreds of engineers make careers out of studying traffic.
Entire freeway systems like L.A.’s have been hardwired with sensors connecting to computer banks that aggregate vehicle flow, monitor bottlenecks, explain congestion in complicated algorithms.
Yet cars spend just 5 percent of their lives in motion… !
…and until recently there was only one individual in the country devoting his academic career to studying parking lots and street meters: Donald Shoup.
free lunch of economic rent
Suppose you were alive back in 1945 and were told about all the new technology that would be invented between then and now: the computers and internet, mobile phones and other consumer electronics, faster and cheaper air travel, super trains and even outer space exploration, higher gas mileage on the ground, plastics, medical breakthroughs and science in general.
You would have imagined what nearly all futurists expected: that we would be living in a life of leisure society by this time. Rising productivity would raise wages and living standards, enabling people to work shorter hours under more relaxed and less pressured workplace conditions.
Why hasn’t this occurred in recent years? In light of the enormous productivity gains since the end of World War II – and especially since 1980 – why isn’t everyone rich and enjoying the leisure economy that was promised?
If the 99% is not getting the fruits of higher productivity, who is? Where has it gone?
can you honor what you steal??
99% of musicians, writers, actors are just “working the land”. They don’t need to get rich, they just want the honor of getting paid for their work.
Levon Helm and Garth Hudson made a good living ($150,000 a year) off royalties from The Band’s eight recordings in the 60′s and 70′s up until 2001 when the Big Pirate sites like Limewire and (in 2003) Pirate Bay really got going.
And then the record royalties came to a halt.
andy warhol did not do this
mountains said I could find you here
Try this elegant hello:
They told me to be careful up there
Where the wind blows a venomous rage through your hair
They told me to be careful up there
Where the wind rages through your hair
if we knew, we would do
1) The US government has no spending constraint.
2) There is no such thing as the USA not paying its debt.
Sovereign is a word that means we do what we choose.
3) We should not have a debt ceiling. We should have an inflation ceiling.