Friday, October 26, 2012
Lance Armstrong and the Prisoners' Dilemma of Doping in Professional Sports
Lance Armstrong and the Prisoners' Dilemma of Doping in Professional Sports: Doping in professional sports?is back in the news, as the overwhelming evidence against Lance Armstrong led to his being stripped of his seven Tour de France titles and more. But instead of focusing on the issues of performance-enhancing drugs and whether professional athletes be allowed to take them, I'd like to talk about the security and economic ...
Smart Cars, Pshaw: Dutch Designers Aim To Reinvent The Highway
Smart Cars, Pshaw: Dutch Designers Aim To Reinvent The Highway:
A five-step plan for modernizing European roadways is drawing attention from civil engineers worldwide.
A five-step plan for modernizing European roadways is drawing attention from civil engineers worldwide.
Preschool can save the world
Planet Money did a fascinating podcast on a long-term study of preschool
Wednesday, October 24, 2012
We Have the Technology: Vehicle to Vehicle
In the future all of our cars will talk to each other and automatically coordinate to maximize traffic flow, travel speed, and fuel efficiency. And the future is now. The basic technology already exists.
How Germany Is Getting Cars to Talk to Each Other (And Traffic Lights): When you think of the "connected car" you're likely envisioning a smartphone interfacing with a vehicle to stream music, update your social media status and keep you up on the day's events. But that's one part of a much larger equation.
Volvo Promises Autonomous Tech by 2014
Volvo Promises Autonomous Tech by 2014: The Swedish automaker known for advanced safety is taking a big bet on autonomous vehicle technology, saying its next generation of products will be able to drive themselves in low-speed traffic.
Watch A Great Short Film On The Future Of Technology And Education
Watch it. No really, watch it!
But first, here's a taste: "There’s a very big difference between access to information, and school. They used to be the same thing.”Watch A Great Short Film On The Future Of Technology And Education:
“Knowing something is probably an obsolete idea. You don’t actually need to know anything. You can find out at the point when you need to know it. It’s the teacher’s job to point young minds towards the right kind of question. The teacher doesn’t need to give any answers. The answers are everywhere…learners who find the answers for themselves retain it better than if they’re told the answer.”
"everyday is going to surprise you…everyday is a surprise. Learning prepares you to cope with the surprises. Education prepares you to cope with certainty. There is no certainty."
We’re still teaching our kids using a 20th-century paradigm, but many visionaries--like the ones in this video--have plans to take our advances in computing and technology and use them to explode the idea of what education can be.
Tuesday, October 23, 2012
Dumplings Are a Good Thing in a Small Package
Dumplings Are a Good Thing in a Small Package: New York has been a dumpling town for a long time, but lately the two-bite delights are being executed with meticulous care — and stuffed, pinched and twisted into fresh manifestations.
Mark Bowden: Closing In
Closing In:
By: Dave Dilegge
Closing In. New York Times book review of ‘The Finish: The Killing of Osama bin Laden,’ by Mark Bowden. Review by Tara McKelvey.
By: Dave Dilegge
Closing In. New York Times book review of ‘The Finish: The Killing of Osama bin Laden,’ by Mark Bowden. Review by Tara McKelvey.
Scenes From World War II Photoshopped Onto Today's Streets
History is everywhere.
Scenes From World War II Photoshopped Onto Today's Streets:
A photography project reminds us that soldiers surrendered and prisoners marched on the same streets we walk along every day.
January 27, 1945, Auschwitz (Jo Hedwig Teeuwisse)
"It is a bit like painting with history," says Jo Hedwig Teeuwisse.
She got the idea for her project, "Ghost of History," a few years ago when she found some old negatives at a flea market in Amsterdam, where she lives. "I was very curious about these mysterious photos and wanted to find out who took them and where. So I started to walk around Amsterdam and made photos in the same spot where the old photos were made and combined them on the computer." She has been slowly building her collection online since 2007. At first the task was easy -- since she lives in Amsterdam she recognized the locations herself. But as her project has expanded to include other sites of World War II destruction, she's found that she can crowdsource the answers. "Sometimes I had to post a photo on the internet and ask people if they knew where it was. ... Now I also put a photo on facebook and ask people if they know where it is and if they can send me 'now' photos. This way I can also make the pictures about subjects in other countries far from where I live." Websites such as PhotosNormandie and Tom Timmermans' Battle Detective also let her use some of the photos they had located.
The process for making the images is pretty simple. "You put the old photo on top of the new photo, you make them line up and then you start removing parts," she says. "It is not about how you do it, because the computer does most of the work and it is not that hard to do. But it is about deciding what you want to show, what you want to remove and where you want the viewer to look at. If you make the right choice the combination tells a story, it makes people think." Here are the two photos she's used to make the image above:
Upper image unknown; lower image Tom Timmermans
The hope is to get people to "stop and think about history, about the hidden and sometimes forgotten stories of where they live." It wasn't all that long ago that Europe's streets were a battlefield.
One the images she believes is the most interesting is this one taken on Rue Armand Levéel in Cherbourg, France. "People walk there every day and don't realize that someone died there."
Jo Hedwig Teeuwisse
In this image, of soldiers running across a the Avenue de Paris in Cherbourg, she's made the last man of the bunch more transparent, as though to suggest that perhaps he didn't make it. "Also it to me sort of suggests the idea of someone being left behind, history hanging around and staying," she said to me via email.
Jo Hedwig Teeuwisse
I've collected a few more of her juxtapositions below. For the complete set, along with many of the original, un-edited images, visit her Flickr collection here and a Facebook page here.
People are waiting for the arrival of the allied forces in Duivendrech, Holland, in May 1945. (Jo Hedwig Teeuwisse)
German soldiers surrendering. Rue des Fossés Plissons in Domfront, Orne, France, 1944. (Jo Hedwig Teeuwisse)
German soldiers walking back to Germany after their surrender, passing a man with a Dutch flag. The Hague, May 1945. (Jo Hedwig Teeuwisse)
German prisoners of war being marched away by American soldiers. Cherbourg, 1944. (Jo Hedwig Teeuwisse)
Place Marie Ravenel in Cherbourg (Jo Hedwig Teeuwisse)
Update: If you find Teeuwisse's images powerful, you may also want to check out the work of American artist Shimon Attie whose Writing on the Wall series captured projections of World War II-era images onto their corresponding locations in modern-day Berlin. He has done other similar installations in Copenhagen, Rome, and the Lower East Side. Thanks to Tim Clifford for the pointer.
Scenes From World War II Photoshopped Onto Today's Streets:
A photography project reminds us that soldiers surrendered and prisoners marched on the same streets we walk along every day.
January 27, 1945, Auschwitz (Jo Hedwig Teeuwisse)
"It is a bit like painting with history," says Jo Hedwig Teeuwisse.
She got the idea for her project, "Ghost of History," a few years ago when she found some old negatives at a flea market in Amsterdam, where she lives. "I was very curious about these mysterious photos and wanted to find out who took them and where. So I started to walk around Amsterdam and made photos in the same spot where the old photos were made and combined them on the computer." She has been slowly building her collection online since 2007. At first the task was easy -- since she lives in Amsterdam she recognized the locations herself. But as her project has expanded to include other sites of World War II destruction, she's found that she can crowdsource the answers. "Sometimes I had to post a photo on the internet and ask people if they knew where it was. ... Now I also put a photo on facebook and ask people if they know where it is and if they can send me 'now' photos. This way I can also make the pictures about subjects in other countries far from where I live." Websites such as PhotosNormandie and Tom Timmermans' Battle Detective also let her use some of the photos they had located.
The process for making the images is pretty simple. "You put the old photo on top of the new photo, you make them line up and then you start removing parts," she says. "It is not about how you do it, because the computer does most of the work and it is not that hard to do. But it is about deciding what you want to show, what you want to remove and where you want the viewer to look at. If you make the right choice the combination tells a story, it makes people think." Here are the two photos she's used to make the image above:
Upper image unknown; lower image Tom Timmermans
The hope is to get people to "stop and think about history, about the hidden and sometimes forgotten stories of where they live." It wasn't all that long ago that Europe's streets were a battlefield.
One the images she believes is the most interesting is this one taken on Rue Armand Levéel in Cherbourg, France. "People walk there every day and don't realize that someone died there."
Jo Hedwig Teeuwisse
In this image, of soldiers running across a the Avenue de Paris in Cherbourg, she's made the last man of the bunch more transparent, as though to suggest that perhaps he didn't make it. "Also it to me sort of suggests the idea of someone being left behind, history hanging around and staying," she said to me via email.
Jo Hedwig Teeuwisse
I've collected a few more of her juxtapositions below. For the complete set, along with many of the original, un-edited images, visit her Flickr collection here and a Facebook page here.
People are waiting for the arrival of the allied forces in Duivendrech, Holland, in May 1945. (Jo Hedwig Teeuwisse)
German soldiers surrendering. Rue des Fossés Plissons in Domfront, Orne, France, 1944. (Jo Hedwig Teeuwisse)
German soldiers walking back to Germany after their surrender, passing a man with a Dutch flag. The Hague, May 1945. (Jo Hedwig Teeuwisse)
German prisoners of war being marched away by American soldiers. Cherbourg, 1944. (Jo Hedwig Teeuwisse)
Place Marie Ravenel in Cherbourg (Jo Hedwig Teeuwisse)
Update: If you find Teeuwisse's images powerful, you may also want to check out the work of American artist Shimon Attie whose Writing on the Wall series captured projections of World War II-era images onto their corresponding locations in modern-day Berlin. He has done other similar installations in Copenhagen, Rome, and the Lower East Side. Thanks to Tim Clifford for the pointer.
"slight improvement in the U.S.'s high-speed rail system"
111 MPH Test Run a Big Deal for Midwest High-Speed Rail: An Amtrak train ran at 111 MPH on a 15-mile section of track between St. Louis and Chicago, ushering in a slight improvement in the U.S.'s high-speed rail system.
What’s Wrong With Punishing Bad Predictions?
The Italians have finally lost it on this one.
What’s Wrong With Punishing Bad Predictions?:
(Photo: Alessandro Giangiulio)
In the heat of a Presidential campaign, it can be hard to pay attention to other news. But a small-seeming story out of Italy yesterday has, to my mind, the potential to shape the future as much as a Presidential election.
As reported by ABC, the BBC, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, and elsewhere, an Italian court has convicted seven earthquake experts of failing to appropriately sound the alarm bell for an earthquake that wound up killing more than 300 people in L’Aquila in 2009. The experts received long prison sentences and fines of more than $10 million. (Addenum: Roger Pielke Jr. discusses the “mischaracterizations” of the verdict.)
What’s Wrong With Punishing Bad Predictions?:
(Photo: Alessandro Giangiulio)
As reported by ABC, the BBC, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, and elsewhere, an Italian court has convicted seven earthquake experts of failing to appropriately sound the alarm bell for an earthquake that wound up killing more than 300 people in L’Aquila in 2009. The experts received long prison sentences and fines of more than $10 million. (Addenum: Roger Pielke Jr. discusses the “mischaracterizations” of the verdict.)
TMQ Stat of the Week
#9: According to Gregg Easterbrook, "South Carolina held Florida to 183 yards of offense, and lost by 33 points."
How is this even possible?
How is this even possible?
Monday, October 22, 2012
Do Your Slides Pass the Glance Test?
Do Your Slides Pass the Glance Test?:
By Nancy Duarte at Harvard Business Review
By Nancy Duarte at Harvard Business Review
An audience can't listen to your presentation and read detailed, text-heavy slides at the same time (not without missing key parts of your message, anyway). So make sure your slides pass what I call the glance test: People should be able to comprehend each one in about three seconds.
Think of your slides as billboards. When people drive, they only briefly take their eyes off their main focus - the road - to process billboard information. Similarly, your audience should focus intently on what you're saying, looking only briefly at your slides when you display them…
Stanford Ovshinsky, an Inventor Compared to Edison, Dies at 89
Stanford Ovshinsky, an Inventor Compared to Edison, Dies at 89: A self-taught scientist, who invented the nickel-metal hybrid battery and contributed to the development of many other devices, including solar energy panels, flat-panel displays and rewritable compact discs.
Friday, October 19, 2012
A Guy Who *Saw* Lincoln Get Shot Was on a TV Show in 1956 That Is Now on YouTube
A Guy Who *Saw* Lincoln Get Shot Was on a TV Show in 1956 That Is Now on YouTube:
On a 1956 game show, a man appeared who had been present at Ford's Theatre on the night of April 14, 1865.
The America of Lincoln and the Civil War can feel like distant history, but every now and then, through the appearance of what Jason Kottke has called a "human wormhole," we are confronted with the brevity of a century and a half.
The above video captures this phenomenon succinctly. Here is a man, elderly but still kicking, who witnessed the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. Yet his setting -- the 1950s/1960s game show "I've Got a Secret" -- is completely recognizable as a modern media production. Sure, it's not in color, the hairstyles are a bit outdated, and a cigarette advertisement is prominently displayed, but those are subtle changes when compared with those this man saw in his lifetime.
Update 11:35 AM: Via Jason Gilbert, here is the newspaper article mentioned in the video.
H/t @justinjm1
On a 1956 game show, a man appeared who had been present at Ford's Theatre on the night of April 14, 1865.
The America of Lincoln and the Civil War can feel like distant history, but every now and then, through the appearance of what Jason Kottke has called a "human wormhole," we are confronted with the brevity of a century and a half.
The above video captures this phenomenon succinctly. Here is a man, elderly but still kicking, who witnessed the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. Yet his setting -- the 1950s/1960s game show "I've Got a Secret" -- is completely recognizable as a modern media production. Sure, it's not in color, the hairstyles are a bit outdated, and a cigarette advertisement is prominently displayed, but those are subtle changes when compared with those this man saw in his lifetime.
Update 11:35 AM: Via Jason Gilbert, here is the newspaper article mentioned in the video.
H/t @justinjm1
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Wednesday, October 17, 2012
What Iran is up to in Iraq: An assessment of its long-range shaping operations
What Iran is up to in Iraq: An assessment of its long-range shaping operations:
I asked
an American friend in Baghdad what Iran is up to there. This is his response:
an American friend in Baghdad what Iran is up to there. This is his response:
Iranian activities in Iraq must be viewed in the context of regional considerations and multiple lines of effort.
Tuesday, October 16, 2012
Email Is The New Pony Express--And It's Time To Put It Down
Email Is The New Pony Express--And It's Time To Put It Down:
In early 2011, the CEO of a French IT company issued an usual memorandum. He banned email. Employees were discouraged from sending or receiving internal messages, with the goal of eradicating email within 18 months. Critics scoffed. Workers rebelled. But Thierry Breton, the CEO of Atos, has stuck to his guns, reducing message volume by an estimated 20%. His company, by the way, has 74,000 employees in 48 countries.
Email is familiar. It’s comfortable. It’s easy to use. But it might just be the biggest killer of time and productivity in the office today. I’ll admit my vendetta is personal. I run a company, HootSuite, which is focused on disrupting how the world communicates using social media. Yet each day my employees and I send each other thousands of emails, typing out addresses and patiently waiting for replies like we were mailing letters on the Pony Express.
Project Gazelle – Tag, Track, Xact
This is genius!
Project Gazelle – Tag, Track, Xact:
Project Gazelle is an effort by Tracking Point, a manufacturer of Precision Guided Firearms (PGFs) and Intelligent Digital Tracking Scopes for Hunting and Tactical Shooting.
tracking-point.com
Project Gazelle – Tag, Track, Xact:
Project Gazelle is an effort by Tracking Point, a manufacturer of Precision Guided Firearms (PGFs) and Intelligent Digital Tracking Scopes for Hunting and Tactical Shooting.
tracking-point.com
Adaptability!
"It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but rather the one most adaptable to change."
Well said, but not by Darwin.
Well said, but not by Darwin.
The Economist's role
“The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design.” ― Friedrich von Hayek in The Fatal Conceit
Or according to the American Economic Association, "Economics is the study of how people choose to use resources.”
Boring.
Or according to the American Economic Association, "Economics is the study of how people choose to use resources.”
Boring.
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