April 2007
First individuals, now companies with foreign policies (Google singling out Darfur)
Google singles out Darfur for special attention.
There are a lot of other crises in the world. By singling out this one, Google is both contributing to helping solve it, and also throwing many other situations into the shadows.
As I said before, “I am an individual with a foreign policy.”
The new game of non-state actors is much more complex than it seems at first. The waning power of the state is not really about terrorism, but about the increasing mismatch between the pace of modernity and the pace of the arbitrary glacial rate of change embodied in government.
Kaye Effect (aka dancing shampoo video)
Weird conservation of energy effect where a stream of shampoo jumps back up into the air if it is being poured from a height on to a hard surface.
Seeing polarization with the naked eye
Bizarrely enough, we can see polarization without any instruments.
How weird is that? Anybody tried this?
So it’s not age then
Japanese fisherman, a year younger than me negotiates the hardest obstacle course that the Japanese TV minds could create.
Cat rides the bus
Macavity the cat rides the busses.
Super cute story. Gets on at one stop, gets off at another. Cats figuring out busses has implications. Future species neutral transportation infrastructure designers, please take note.
Crystal Meth, a user’s guide
Reads very much like an advert for Shabu - 95% pure Chinese crystal meth. Much as I like honest reporting from the front line of the war on drugs (”can’t we declare a truce? how’s about armistice for at least the dope smokers?”) to have some integrity, this story really needed to follow these guys not for the 72 hours they were smoking crystal, but at least for the two or three days after the party ended.
Matters. Gotta show the full story, and the reported stopped before the suffering really began.
Click here to ask the designer of the hexayurt questions
Off-grid.net likes hexayuts. A lot.
hexayurt@gmail.com is my address, and I’m hoping this will show up in the trackbacks over there because I tried to post a comment but couldn’t. Welcome, readers!
http://appropedia.org/Hexayurt_Project is the main site.
Global labor shortage == higher wages everywhere?
It turns out that companies only enjoy the advantages of low-cost labor at best for a three- or four-year window. Consider that the cost of living in every city in the United States (outside of New York City) is now lower than in the former Communist capitals of Prague, Budapest, or Warsaw. Second, statistics on education don’t equate with skills. Precious few Chinese and Indian university graduates can play ball on the multinational playing field. Those that do, can write their own (expensive) ticket.
The Global Guru on rising labor demands.
Apparently 40% of companies globally are having problems finding staff!
Remarkably beautiful old pop video (Marc Bolan, T-Rex)
quote
“Hippies: Zerg Rushing for World Peace”