Specifically designed to be a “collective tool for transparency and sustainability,” SourceMap’s intended to demonstrate how important supply chains are, and what the consequences of each part of the chain work out to be. It’s set up like a social network, so that anyone from producers to end-users can take part (as long as you’re a registered member).
The Singularity and Society | Fast Company
Once possible view of the future:
The use of the term “Singularity” comes from physics, where it describes a point of collapsed space-time, typically at the center of a black hole; the underlying claim is that all of our knowledge of how the universe works is irrelevant within a Singularity. This is the root of the metaphorical use of the term–after a Singularity event, everything we know will change in ways we can’t now understand. In the early 1990s, Mathematician and science fiction writer Vernor Vinge was the first to clearly articulate this usage of the term, and begins his essay as follows:
Within thirty years, we will have the technological means to create superhuman intelligence. Shortly after, the human era will be ended.
The Cure For Unhappyness | Peter Mehit
I would break into sweat. Not a glistening sheen but rolling drops down the side of my face. My back would soak through my shirt. It didn’t matter that room was air conditioned or that it was a Ventura winter day of fifty degrees. Anyone who looked at me would assume that I was crossing the Mohave in the teeth of summer.
My physician, a strikingly beautiful Italian woman whose calm green eyes and lilting accent I can still remember clearly, told me that I was having a ‘thyroid storm’. It’s a condition where the thyroid gland goes crazy and starts over producing hormones. The sweats were the spikes in production. She scheduled me for tests and prescribed Inderal, a blood pressure medication, saying that it would reduce the symptoms.
My girlfriend at the time and I had a good sex life. It was a long distance relationship and we enjoyed, no, needed it to be that way. So it wasn’t a happy event when the desire was there, but the ability to perform suddenly wasn’t. She was confused, I was embarrassed. Basically uncool all around.
Continue reading “The Cure For Unhappyness | Peter Mehit”
Time Magazine’s Justin Fox: “Some Financial Market Conspiracies Are Real” | zero hedge
If you’ve swallowed the blue pill, this article will be too strong:
Tyler Durden at Zero Hedge blew the whistle on Goldman’s high-frequency trading and other frontrunning activities, and has also been called a conspiracy theorist.
PhD economist, former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury, and former Wall Street Journal editor Paul Craig Roberts says that the government and mainstream media are lying to the American public about how bad the economic situation really is.
PhD economist Dean Baker said in February that the true purpose of the bank rescues is “a massive redistribution of wealth to the bank shareholders and their top executives”.
PhD economist Michael Hudson says that the financial “parasites” have killed the American economy, and they are “sucking as much money out” as they can before “jumping ship”.
PhD economist Michel Chossudovsky says that the giant banks which received the most bailout money also finance a portion of the government’s debt, and are exercising their power as creditors to buy public assets for a song and to impose IMF-style austerity measures on the U.S. government.
If you want to understand so you can make a way for you and your loved ones read this.
Toyoda says company is ‘grasping for salvation’, fears big sales loss | AutoWeek Magazine
We are grasping for salvation,” Toyoda said, adding that the company already has spiraled through the first three stages: (1) hubris born of success, (2) undisciplined pursuit of more and (3) denial of risk and peril. His self-admonitions echoed the apologies commonly made by Japanese executives who take responsibility for financial turmoil or corporate scandal.
With Latest Attack, Birds Send a Message to Humans, Sully | Daily Intel New York Magazine
With Latest Attack, Birds Send a Message to Humans, Sully
Last night, a Delta flight approaching La Guardia was the victim of a vicious kamikaze bird attack that left blood, feathers, and a surprisingly large dent in the nose of the plane (which landed safely).
Not at all coincidentally, it was announced the day before that Captain Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger, hero pilot of the Miracle on the Hudson and the sworn enemy of birds everywhere, would be returning to the cockpit as some kind of safety adviser for US Airways, which seems pretty appropriate.
Clearly then, this collision, with its unavoidably gruesome results, was a symbolic act of muscle-flexing. Just as Iran or North Korea test missiles when they feel threatened, the birds meant this as a message and a warning:
We are not afraid. We can strike at will. And your precious Sully cannot protect you.
Bernie Madoff Gored By Wall Street Bull
I appreciate the sentiment expressed by this sculpture by Chinese artist Chen Wenling, but it’s confusing. What is coming out of the ass of this bull? How would you frame a critique of this piece?
The criminal is pinned to the wall of justice by a raging, avenging, fart powered bull, demonstrating that crime is dealt a swift, brutal and smelly blow.
Sometimes, I just don’t understand fine art.
The Future of Local News?
Newspapers are caught in a graveyard spiral. Reduced advertising budgets mean cuts in reporting staffs which in turn lead to less and less reporting on local news. People stop reading the paper because there is no content relevant to them.
EveryBlock is a highly localized new website that provides information about everything from crime to food establishment inspections, fire calls and car crashes. Is this what the future of local news looks like?
Scam Alert | You Have Been Selected
You may receive this happy announcement:
I am pleased to announce that Whiteboard Partners LLC has been selected for the 2009 Best of Chino Hills Award in the Industrial & Labor Consulting Services category by the US Commerce Association.
After the initial wave of ‘Yeah, I’m all that’, you start asking yourself, who is bestowing this honor.
A quick trip to the Better Business Bureau reveals this:
Recent emails notifying businesses that they have won prestigious awards from a national association appear to be part of a widespread scheme designed to get companies to pay for “vanity” awards and plaques.
A Google search produces a much more entertaining result.
Continue reading “Scam Alert | You Have Been Selected”
Showdown At The Web Corral: Convincing Your Boss to Fix a Hideous Website | Fast Company
Q: I work for a nonprofit with a hideous website. Hideous in the sense that the copy is generic and bland and filled with jargon. Supremely unsticky, in other words. Some of my colleagues and I have lobbied to change it but, whenever we suggest new copy, our executive director inevitably waters it down until it sounds like what we’ve already got. What can we do to convince her to stick-ify our site? – Stickless in Seattle
