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Wednesday, April 25, 2012
Olivia Fox Cabane: Charisma, Leadership and the Imposter Syndrome, Talks at Google
http://www.askolivia.com/
Olivia Fox Cabane stops by the Googleplex to discuss her latest book: "The Charisma Myth: How Anyone Can Master the Art and Science of Personal Magnetism".
From Google Books:
An expert in the fields of charisma and leadership, Olivia Fox Cabane has lectured at Stanford, Yale, Harvard, MIT and the United Nations. A frequent keynote speaker and executive coach to the leadership of major companies, she helps people increase their ability to influence, persuade, and inspire others.
In The Charisma Myth, Fox Cabane breaks charisma down into its fundamental components, revealing the secrets to what charisma really is and how it works. From a base of thorough behavioral science, Fox Cabane extracts practical tools for business, giving you the charisma-enhancing techniques she originally developed for Harvard and MIT.
Monday, April 23, 2012
Bera's Cheesesteak Truck: Gourmet Custom Cheesesteak in LA Read more: Video: Bera's Cheesesteak Truck: Gourmet Custom Cheesesteak in LA | eHow.com http://www.ehow.com/video_8175061_bera_s-custom-cheesesteak.html#ixzz1squepdHM
Bera's Cheesesteak Truck: Gourmet Custom Cheesesteak in LA -- powered by ehow
Streets of Thailand: LA's Gourmet Thai Food Truck Read more: Video: Streets of Thailand: LA's Gourmet Thai Food Truck | eHow.com http://www.ehow.com/video_8213320_streets-gourmet-thai-food-truck.html#ixzz1sqsynvtf
Streets of Thailand: LA's Gourmet Thai Food Truck -- powered by ehow
Biscuits and Groovy: Local Breakfast Food Truck in Austin Read more: Video: Biscuits and Groovy: Local Breakfast Food Truck in Austin | eHow.com http://www.ehow.com/video_8623438_biscuits-breakfast-food-truck-austin.html#ixzz1sqsCO9Uq
Biscuits and Groovy: Local Breakfast Food Truck in Austin -- powered by ehow
Frysmith: LA's Fresh Fries Truck
Frysmith: LA's Fresh Fries Truck -- powered by ehow
Sugar Shack Food Truck: Slow Smoked BBQ Goodness in Austin Read more: Video: Sugar Shack Food Truck: Slow Smoked BBQ Goodness in Austin | eHow.com http://www.ehow.com/video_8484111_sugar-austin_s-famous-bbq-truck.html#ixzz1sqoIWEKW
Sugar Shack Food Truck: Slow Smoked BBQ Goodness in Austin -- powered by ehow
Lobsta Food Truck: LA's Local Lobster Rolls
Lobsta Food Truck: LA's Local Lobster Rolls -- powered by ehow
Comfort Truck: Eat Comfort Food in LA
Comfort Truck: Eat Comfort Food in LA
Culver City's ultimate curbside comfort food is produced at Comfort Truck, serving up celebrity chef-caliber soul food at the roadside. Explore Culver City food truck cuisine with Mike Weaver in this episode of Curbside Eats.
Friday, April 20, 2012
Hands-on with Arqball Spin, the app that lets you create interactive 3D models
http://getpocket.com/a/read/155782740
Sometimes, standard two dimensional photos, even those taken by a 41-megapixel sensor, simply aren't enough to accurately depict a three dimensional object. Enter Arqball Spin, a free app that lets anyone with an iOS device create high-quality 3D models of whatever they like. Using the iPhone's camera, the app takes a series of images and uses some software black magic to create the finished product. The model, or "spin", can be cropped and adjusted (brightness, saturation and contrast) like a regular photograph, plus users can create custom annotations to identify or comment on specific parts of the "spin" as well. Viewers can then rotate the model 360 degrees and zoom in on any part that piques their interest. While it's currently an Apple-centric affair, support for DSLRs and other hi-res cameras (by uploading videos to the company's website for processing) and other mobile platforms is in the pipeline.
The app works best if the object is situated on Arqball's stage, which rotates at an optimal three RPM -- the stage isn't available yet, but the company's going the Kickstarter route to get the capital needed to start manufacturing. Those who pitch in now can grab a stage for $60, and it'll cost $20 more if you want to wait until it's on sale. Of course, the app still functions if you want to hold your iPhone or iPad and walk around your subject, but you won't get near the quality result that you can when using the stage. Because the "spins" are hosted on Arqball's servers, they can easily be embedded on any website via HTML.
By making photo-realistic 3D modeling so easy and accessible, Arqball sees this technology as a perfect fit for online retailers, educators, and, ahem, even gadget reviewers. While the app holds obvious commercial appeal, the company's not counting out casual users, and hopes to see a future filled with user-created 3D content. We got to see the app in action, and walked away thoroughly impressed with both the speed of the app and the detailed models it produces -- but you don't have to take our word for it, see a sample spin and our hands-on video after the break.
Arqball Spin at DEMO 2012 from arqball on Vimeo.
Arqball: Interactive Media Platform from arqball on Vimeo.
Interactive iPad Museum Catalog from arqball on Vimeo.
Tuesday, April 17, 2012
Monday, April 16, 2012
Atul Gawande: How do we heal medicine?
"Making systems work is the great task of my generation of physicians and scientists. But I would go further and say that making systems work — whether in healthcare, education, climate change, making a pathway out of poverty — is the great task of our generation as a whole.” (Atul Gawande)
Sunday, April 15, 2012
The Ricky Gervais Show- Episode 23 part 1 of 2
Best of Karl Pilkington - Part 1 (God)
Best of Karl Pilkington - Part 2 (Growing up)
Saturday, April 14, 2012
« When to Stop Learning and Start Doing - Kyung Yoon »
In Chapter 3 of 19 in her 2011 Capture Your Flag interview, non-profit executive Kyung Yoon answers "What is Your Comfort Zone and What Do You Do to Break Free of Living in It? Yoon finds her comfort zone is learning something new, as evidenced in her immersion across varied careers in economic analysis, journalism, and, now, philanthropy. Excited by learning, Yoon makes it a priority to then apply that learning in her career. Kyung Yoon is the executive director of the Korean American Community Foundation (KACF) in New York City. An award-winning journalist and documentary film producer, Yoon earned an MA in International Relations from Johns Hopkins University and a BA in History and Political Science at Wellesley College.
Friday, April 13, 2012
an old Late Night w David Letterman - John Cleese
David Letterman talks to John Cleese about Independence Day, the English, fish, British holidays, cricket and his new film "A Fish Called Wanda". And they make toast!!!
John Cleese on creativity
Cleese describes some observations he’s made about creativity from his experiences working in comedy. These were some of the key ideas:
Plan to throw one away?
Cleese describes a situation where he wrote a script for Fawlty Towers and then lost it. He decided to rewrite it from memory and after he’d done that he found the original.
He was surprised to see that the rewritten version was actually an improvement over the original even though he’d written it much more quickly the second time and concludes that his unconscious mind must have still been working on the script even after he’d stopped writing it.
This seems to be similar to the ground that Fred Brooks was covering when he suggested that we should plan to throw one away because we will anyway.
It would be really interesting to see how much more quickly we’d be able to write a software system assuming all other things stay the same and we’re able to build on the mistakes and things we learnt from the first attempt.
Sleeping on a problem
While discussing sketch writing Cleese points out that when he got stuck while writing at night and couldn’t think what to write next he would just go to bed.
He found that when he woke up the next day and went back to the problem the solution was immediately obvious and he couldn’t remember why he’d got stuck in the first place.
This is something that Andy Hunt talks about in Pragmatic Thinking and Learning as a useful technique for ensuring that we get our right brain involved in the problem solving process and I’ve written previously about the advantages of stepping away from a problem when we get stuck.
Creating a tortoise enclosure
Cleese suggests that we need to restrict both time and space in order to be creative.
We need to ensure that we set a restricted period of time during which we won’t be disrupted and use that time to think.
The closest thing I can think of in the agile world is the idea of not context switching but it seems to go beyond that.
I like the underlying idea that we need to create some constraints in order for creativity to happen. It often seems like really good ideas come from someone being put in a situation where they can’t do what they’d normally do and therefore need to innovate in order to ‘survive’
John Cleese on how to be creative
John Cleese's 35-minute lecture on creativity is warm and funny and humane. I find myself disagreeing rather strongly with his central premise, though: Cleese advises giving yourself 30 minutes to sit quietly before being creative, letting all the nagging voices in your head quieten before you try to be creative. I've really found that by having good priority management -- the kinds of to-do lists recommended in Getting Things Done -- means that when distractions arise, I can put them into a queue for later treatment and clear my mind to work. That said, the advice on being unserious, on working together without shooting down each others' ideas, and so on, is fabulous.
Thursday, April 12, 2012
Feeling Good - Nina Simone
Birds flying high you know how I feel
Sun in the sky you know how I feel
Reeds driftin' on by you know how I feel
It's a new dawn
It's a new day
It's a new life for me
It's a new dawn
It's a new day
It's a new life for me, woo...
And I'm feeling good
Fish in the sea you know how I feel
River running free you know how I feel
Blossom in the tree you know how I feel
It's a new dawn
It's a new day
It's a new life for me
And I'm feeling good
Dragonfly out in the sun you know what I mean, don't you know
Butterflies all havin' fun you know what I mean
Sleep in peace when day is done that's what I mean
And this old world is a new world
And a bold world
For me~
Stars when you shine you know how I feel
Scent of the pine you know how I feel
Oh freedom is mine
And I know how I feel
It's a new dawn
It's a new day
It's a new life for me
And I'm feeling good
Tuesday, April 10, 2012
Jason Mraz - I Won't Give Up (Lyric Video)
[Jason Mraz]
When I look into your eyes
It's like watching the night sky
Or a beautiful sunrise
Well there's so much they hold
And just like them old stars
I see that you've come so far
To be right where you are
How old is your soul?
I won't give up on us
Even if the skies get rough
I'm giving you all my love
I'm still looking up
And when you're needing your space
To do some navigating
I'll be here patiently waiting
To see what you find
'Cause even the stars they burn
Some even fall to the earth
We've got a lot to learn
God knows we're worth it
No, I won't give up
I don't wanna be someone who walks away so easily
I'm here to stay and make the difference that I can make
Our differences they do a lot to teach us how to use the tools and gifts
We got yeah we got a lot at stake
And in the end,
You're still my friend at least we didn't tend
For us to work we didn't break, we didn't burn
We had to learn, how to bend without the world caving in
I had to learn what I got, and what I'm not
And who I am
I won't give up on us
Even if the skies get rough
I'm giving you all my love
I'm still looking up
I'm still looking up
I won't give up on us
God knows I'm tough, he knows
We got a lot to learn
God knows we're worth it
I won't give up on us
Even if the skies get rough
I'm giving you all my love
I'm still looking up...
Saturday, April 07, 2012
Friday, April 06, 2012
A Documentary project in New York, NY by Loren Feldman
Synopsis:
The year is 2038. "SoMe" is the story of Social Media as told through the experiences of Loren Feldman. It will feature interviews with luminaries, and stories about both Loren and the many people he has met over the course of his career on the web. It will tell the story of the people and culture that drives the Internet and social media. The good, the bad, the ugly. The underlying narrative to all of it is how these "new technologies" are affecting us. Who we are, how we relate to other people, and who people really are offline as opposed to online. Identity, transparency, persona, these are just a few of the concepts that will be explored.
Thursday, April 05, 2012
Tuesday, April 03, 2012
Jason Marz-I Won't Give Up
When I look into your eyes
It's like watching the night sky
Or a beautiful sunrise
Theres so much they hold
And just like them old stars
I see that you've come so far
To be right where you are
How old is your soul?
I won't give up on us
Even if the skies get rough
I'm giving you all my love
I'm still looking up
And when you're needing your space
To do some navigating
I'll be here patiently waiting
To see what you find
Cause even the stars they burn
Some even fall to the earth
We got a lot to learn
God knows we're worthy
No I won't give up
I don't wanna be someone who walks away so easily
I'm here to stay and make the difference that I can make
Our differences they do a lot to teach us how to use
The tools, the skills we've got yeah we got a lot at stake
And in the end, you're still my friend at least we didn't tend
For us to work we didn't break, we didn't burn
We had to learn how to bend without the world caving in
I had to learn what I got, and what I'm not
And who I am
I won't give up on us
Even if the skies get rough
I'm giving you all my love
I'm still looking up
So easy is our life
What's mine is yours and yours mine
Hardly do we ever find
We'd rather be kind
I won't give up on us
Even if the skies get dark
I'm healing this broken heart
And I know I'm worthy
I won't give up on us
God knows I'm tough, I am love
We got a lot to learn
God knows we're worthy
No I won't give up on us
God knows I've had enough
We got a lot to learn
And we're, and we're worthy
No I won't give up
No I won't give up
Monday, April 02, 2012
Sunday, April 01, 2012
Interview: Georg Petschnigg of FiftyThree, makers of Paper for the iPad
Joshua Topolsky talks to Georg Petschnigg about Paper, a new app from a team of ex-Microsoft employees who were involved with the development of Courier.
Friday, March 30, 2012
Thursday, March 29, 2012
Jer Thorp: Make data more human
Jer Thorp creates beautiful data visualizations to put abstract data into a human context. At TEDxVancouver, he shares his moving projects, from graphing an entire year’s news cycle, to mapping the way people share articles across the internet.
Jer Thorp’s work focuses on adding meaning and narrative to huge amounts of data as a way to help people take control of the information that surrounds them.
Wednesday, March 28, 2012
Billy Collins: Everyday moments, caught in time
Billy Collins: I'm here to give you your recommended dietary allowance of poetry. And the way I'm going to do that is present to you five animations of five of my poems. And let me just tell you a little bit of how that came about. Because the mixing of those two media is a sort of unnatural or unnecessary act.
But when I was United States Poet Laureate -- and I love saying that. (Laughter) It's a great way to start sentences. When I was him back then, I was approached by J. Walter Thompson, the ad company, and they were hired sort of by the Sundance Channel. And the idea was to have me record some of my poems and then they would find animators to animate them. And I was initially resistant, because I always think poetry can stand alone by itself. Attempts to put my poems to music have had disastrous results, in all cases. And the poem, if it's written with the ear, already has been set to its own verbal music as it was composed. And surely, if you're reading a poem that mentions a cow, you don't need on the facing page a drawing of a cow. I mean, let's let the reader do a little work.
But I relented because it seemed like an interesting possibility, and also I'm like a total cartoon junkie since childhood. I think more influential than Emily Dickinson or Coleridge or Wordsworth on my imagination were Warner Brothers, Merrie Melodies and Loony Tunes cartoons. Bugs Bunny is my muse. And this way poetry could find its way onto television of all places. And I'm pretty much all for poetry in public places -- poetry on buses, poetry on subways, on billboards, on cereal boxes. When I was Poet Laureate, there I go again -- I can't help it, it's true -- (Laughter) I created a poetry channel on Delta Airlines that lasted for a couple of years. So you could tune into poetry as you were flying.
And my sense is, it's a good thing to get poetry off the shelves and more into public life. Start a meeting with a poem. That would be an idea you might take with you. When you get a poem on a billboard or on the radio or on a cereal box or whatever, it happens to you so suddenly that you don't have time to deploy your anti-poetry deflector shields that were installed in high school.
So let us start with the first one. It's a little poem called "Budapest," and in it I reveal, or pretend to reveal, the secrets of the creative process.
(Video) Narration: "Budapest." My pen moves along the page like the snout of a strange animal shaped like a human arm and dressed in the sleeve of a loose green sweater. I watch it sniffing the paper ceaselessly, intent as any forager that has nothing on its mind but the grubs and insects that will allow it to live another day. It wants only to be here tomorrow, dressed perhaps in the sleeve of a plaid shirt, nose pressed against the page, writing a few more dutiful lines while I gaze out the window and imagine Budapest or some other city where I have never been.
BC: So that makes it seem a little easier. (Applause) Writing is not actually as easy as that for me. But I like to pretend that it comes with ease. One of my students came up after class, an introductory class, and she said, "You know, poetry is harder than writing," which I found both erroneous and profound. (Laughter) So I like to at least pretend it just flows out. A friend of mine has a slogan; he's another poet. He says that, "If at first you don't succeed, hide all evidence you ever tried."
(Laughter)
The next poem is also rather short. Poetry just says a few things in different ways. And I think you could boil this poem down to saying, "Some days you eat the bear, other days the bear eats you." And it uses the imagery of dollhouse furniture.
(Video) Narration: "Some Days." Some days I put the people in their places at the table, bend their legs at the knees, if they come with that feature, and fix them into the tiny wooden chairs. All afternoon they face one another, the man in the brown suit, the woman in the blue dress -- perfectly motionless, perfectly behaved. But other days I am the one who is lifted up by the ribs then lowered into the dining room of a dollhouse to sit with the others at the long table. Very funny. But how would you like it if you never knew from one day to the next if you were going to spend it striding around like a vivid god, your shoulders in the clouds, or sitting down there amidst the wallpaper staring straight ahead with your little plastic face?
(Applause)
BC: There's a horror movie in there somewhere. The next poem is called forgetfulness, and it's really just a kind of poetic essay on the subject of mental slippage. And the poem begins with a certain species of forgetfulness that someone called literary amnesia, in other words, forgetting the things that you have read.
(Video) Narration: "Forgetfulness." The name of the author is the first to go, followed obediently by the title, the plot, the heartbreaking conclusion, the entire novel, which suddenly becomes one you have never read, never even heard of. It is as if, one by one, the memories you used to harbor decided to retire to the southern hemisphere of the brain to a little fishing village where there are no phones. Long ago, you kissed the names of the nine muses good-bye and you watched the quadratic equation pack its bag. And even now, as you memorize the order of the planets, something else is slipping away, a state flower perhaps, the address of an uncle, the capital of Paraguay. Whatever it is you are struggling to remember, it is not poised on the tip of your tongue, not even lurking in some obscure corner of your spleen. It has floated away down a dark mythological river whose name begins with an L as far as you can recall, well on your own way to oblivion where you will join those who have forgotten even how to swim and how to ride a bicycle. No wonder you rise in the middle of the night to look up the date of a famous battle in a book on war. No wonder the Moon in the window seems to have drifted out of a love poem that you used to know by heart.
(Applause)
BC: The next poem is called "The Country" and it's based on, when I was in college I met a classmate who remains to be a friend of mine. He lived, and still does, in rural Vermont. I lived in New York City. And we would visit each other. And when I would go up to the country, he would teach me things like deer hunting, which meant getting lost with a gun basically -- (Laughter) and trout fishing and stuff like that. And then he'd come down to New York City and I'd teach him what I knew, which was largely smoking and drinking. (Laughter) And in that way we traded lore with each other. The poem that's coming up is based on him trying to tell me a little something about a domestic point of etiquette in country living that I had a very hard time, at first, processing. It's called "The Country."
(Video) Narration: "The Country." I wondered about you when you told me never to leave a box of wooden strike-anywhere matches just lying around the house, because the mice might get into them and start a fire. But your face was absolutely straight when you twisted the lid down on the round tin where the matches, you said, are always stowed. Who could sleep that night? Who could whisk away the thought of the one unlikely mouse padding along a cold water pipe behind the floral wallpaper, gripping a single wooden match between the needles of his teeth? Who could not see him rounding a corner, the blue tip scratching against rough-hewn beam, the sudden flare and the creature, for one bright, shining moment, suddenly thrust ahead of his time -- now a fire-starter, now a torch-bearer in a forgotten ritual, little brown druid illuminating some ancient night? And who could fail to notice, lit up in the blazing insulation, the tiny looks of wonderment on the faces of his fellow mice -- one-time inhabitants of what once was your house in the country?
(Applause)
BC: Thank you. (Applause) Thank you. And the last poem is called "The Dead." I wrote this after a friend's funeral, but not so much about the friend as something the eulogist kept saying, as all eulogists tend to do, which is how happy the deceased would be to look down and see all of us assembled. And that to me was a bad start to the afterlife, having to witness your own funeral and feel gratified. So the little poem is called "The Dead."
(Video) Narration: "The Dead." The dead are always looking down on us, they say. While we are putting on our shoes or making a sandwich, they are looking down through the glass-bottom boats of heaven as they row themselves slowly through eternity. They watch the tops of our heads moving below on Earth. And when we lie down in a field or on a couch, drugged perhaps by the hum of a warm afternoon, they think we are looking back at them, which makes them lift their oars and fall silent and wait like parents for us to close our eyes.
(Applause)
BC: I'm not sure if other poems will be animated. It took a long time -- I mean, it's rather uncommon to have this marriage -- a long time to put those two together. But then again, it took us a long time to put the wheel and the suitcase together. (Laughter) I mean, we had the wheel for some time. And schlepping is an ancient and honorable art.
(Laughter)
I just have time to read a more recent poem to you. If it has a subject, the subject is adolescence. And it's addressed to a certain person. It's called "To My Favorite 17-Year-Old High School Girl."
"Do you realize that if you had started building the Parthenon on the day you were born, you would be all done in only one more year? Of course, you couldn't have done that all alone. So never mind; you're fine just being yourself. You're loved for just being you. But did you know that at your age Judy Garland was pulling down 150,000 dollars a picture, Joan of Arc was leading the French army to victory and Blaise Pascal had cleaned up his room -- no wait, I mean he had invented the calculator? Of course, there will be time for all that later in your life, after you come out of your room and begin to blossom, or at least pick up all your socks. For some reason I keep remembering that Lady Jane Grey was queen of England when she was only 15. But then she was beheaded, so never mind her as a role model. (Laughter) A few centuries later, when he was your age, Franz Schubert was doing the dishes for his family, but that did not keep him from composing two symphonies, four operas and two complete masses as a youngster. (Laughter) But of course, that was in Austria at the height of Romantic lyricism, not here in the suburbs of Cleveland. (Laughter) Frankly, who cares if Annie Oakley was a crack shot at 15 or if Maria Callas debuted as Tosca at 17? We think you're special just being you -- playing with your food and staring into space. (Laughter) By the way, I lied about Schubert doing the dishes, but that doesn't mean he never helped out around the house."
(Laughter)
(Applause)
Thank you. Thank you.
(Applause)
Thanks.
(Applause)
Tuesday, March 27, 2012
Now Is The Time For All Good 16-Year-Olds To Make Scientific Calculators In Minecraft
Minecraft is a game about placing blocks to build anything you can imagine. At night monsters come out, make sure to build a shelter before that happens.
Caligraphy
Before the dawn of the internet: People used to..............
Perfect calligraphy and write it backwards at the same time? amazing!
Too many fancy lines at the end.
caligrafia por jorge enrique pulido - calligraphy
WITH A PENCIL
Fancy one.
http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif
http://youtu.be/Q8lJWGnhyP4
Monday, March 26, 2012
Sunday, March 25, 2012
Draw Something
Drawing is a really funny thing. Most people fall into one of two categories: excellent or incredibly terrible. What better way to expose people and complicate the matters further than by forcing you to use your chubby fingers to draw crude, cave painting-like images with a friend, and then try to guess what the other person drew? Well, that seems to be the thinking at OMGPOP, because they made a little game called Draw Something that does just that, and it's all the rage these days.
Online Meetings Made Easy®
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Saturday, March 24, 2012
Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson on being a living 'badass' meme - On The Verge episode 004
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/7215670/Slingshot/Pictures/01.gif
SciCafe: Life the Universe and Everything with Neil deGrasse Tyson (2010)
American Museum of Natural History's Director of the Hayden Planetarium, Neil deGrasse Tyson, hosted "Life the Universe and Everything: A Conversation with Neil deGrasse Tyson" at the Museum on June 2, 2010 as part of the ongoing free SciCafe series.
Friday, March 23, 2012
Thursday, March 22, 2012
Wednesday, March 21, 2012
iPad and Photography
We hang out and talk about the new iPad and the impression it makes on photography and photographers.
Joining us this week in the hangout: Leo Laporte, Andy Ihnatko, Eric Kim, Teresa Stover, Victor Cajiao, Steve Stanger, RC Concepcion.
Irish Team Comes to U.K. to Kickstart Coding for Children
Emma Mulqueeny @hubmum at #codingforkids Guardian 12/10/11
Tuesday, March 20, 2012
An Interview With Rob Schmitz, The Reporter Who Fact-Checked Mike Daisey [TCTV]
Rob Schmitz is a reporter and Marketplace Correspondent based in Shanghai, China. He has spent time in many factories – as well as a bit of time outside of the Foxconn factory in Shenzhen, the same factory fabulist Mike Daisey interviewed workers he purported were 12 and 13 years old. Schmitz’s findings definitely didn’t jibe with Daisey’s and I decided to sit down for a few minutes to go over his experiences reporting on Chinese manufacturing practices and problems.
“I think the truth is pretty complicated,” he said. “Foxconn has a little over one million employees in China.” Schmitz spent time talking to employees with Daisey’s translator, Cathy, and found a whole range of problems, from low wages to, oddly enough, complaints about the food. He didn’t see much of what Daisey described, but there’s a reason: Foxconn is one of the tightest-run manufacturers in China and Taiwan. There are problems, he said, but many of these problems are being addressed and when issues arise, workers are actually beginning to strike.
The truth, as Schmitz said, is complicated, and Daisey’s fabrications sadly cloud the real and pressing safety issues found in many of China’s lesser suppliers. To go after Foxconn and Apple is an easy ploy to gain eyeballs and attention, but the real concerns happen away from the bright media glare.
Sunday, March 18, 2012
Friday, March 16, 2012
A bicycle light that’s safe, bright, and thief-proof
With many more urban cyclists hitting the streets, most cities are constantly playing catch-up to make their roads a safer place for both riders and drivers. However, even when a city has a good handle on how to make bikers and cars play nice, accidents are almost inevitable.
Painted bike lanes, neon jackets, lights and flashers all help to prevent run-ins on the road, but there’s much we can’t control: like theft. Bicycle and accessory theft has plagued the cycling world since its inception– it’s just an accepted reality of urban cycling. Now, a bike light has been designed with both the problems of safety and theft as its inspiration.
After a friend was hit while riding his bike in the dark because his light had been stolen, Brad Geswein and Slava Menn wanted to develop a light that fended off thieves. As it turns out, their friend wasn’t the only one with this problem: one in three urban cyclists have had their lights stolen, and eighty per cent of riders frequently forget their lights at home.
In their quest to make city biking safer, the pair developed The Defender. The light locks sturdily to your handlebars making it extremely difficult to remove. Plus, it looks like a gun.
The light was designed by Ori Levin of Tsor Design, and is made of lightweight aluminum, ultrabright LEDs, and uses AA batteries that give the rider around 100 hours of battery life. “We’ve put it through extensive durability and reliability testing and it’s nearly indestructible. No tool from a hardware store can remove it,” says the Defender’s Kickstarter page.
In fact, the security screwdriver included with the light is the only thing that can remove it, an the allen key provided is the only thing that can release the battery door.
The seventy dollar light is waterproof, uses around 40-60 lumens, and can be switched from steady to blinking mode.
Wednesday, March 14, 2012
Tuesday, March 13, 2012
The cockroach beatbox
By dissecting a cockroach ... yes, live on stage ... TED Fellow and neuroscientist Greg Gage shows how brains receive and deliver electric impulses -- and how legs can respond. This talk comes from the TED-Ed project.
Why you should listen to him:
As half of Backyard Brains, neuroscientist and engineer Greg Gage builds "spiker boxes" -- small rigs that help kids understand the electrical impulses that control the nervous system. He's passionate about helping students understand (viscerally) how our brains and our neurons work, because, as he said onstage at TED2012, we still know very little about how the brain works -- and we need to start inspiring kids early to want to know more. He is a 2012 TED Fellow.
Before becoming a neuroscientist, Gage worked as an electrical engineer making touchscreens. As he told the Huffington Post: "Scientific equipment in general is pretty expensive, but it's silly because before [getting my PhD in neuroscience] I was an electrical engineer, and you could see that you could make it yourself. So we started as a way to have fun, to show off to our colleagues, but we were also going into classrooms around that time and we thought, wouldn't it be cool if you could bring these gadgets with us so the stuff we were doing in advanced Ph.D. programs in neuroscience, you could also do in fifth grade?"
Sunday, March 11, 2012
Kasama-Yaki (Made in Kasama)
ABOUT THIS PROJECT
SYNOPSIS
The triple disasters of March 11, 2011, shook Japan to its core. It claimed over 18,000 lives, with 3,000 still missing. Many thousands were displaced by the tsunami, and those who lived near the Fukushima nuclear reactors will probably never return home. It has been a year since the disasters but the people of Japan are still coping with the emotional trauma of that day. The disasters brought forth many truths about the power of nature, the limitations of the government, and the unpredictable nature of life. “Kasama-Yaki” is an intimate portrait of two potters, Katsuji and Shigeko Kokubo, filmed by their daughter, Yuki. Heartfelt conversational interviews are woven throughout the film, as they reflect on life, death, family, and art. The film is a journey into the minds of two individuals whose outlooks were inevitably touched by the disasters, and a glimpse into the heart of Japan.
概要
２０１１年３月１１日に起こった３つの災難で日本は大きな打撃を受けた。１万８千人以上の命が奪われ、今もなお３千人の行方不明者がいる。津波の被害により数千人が家を失い、福島原子力発電所付近の住民は再びふるさとで暮らせる可能性を失ってしまった。あれから１年、日本の人々はあの日の衝撃を今も抱えながら日々の生活を送っている。今回の震災で、多くの事実が明らかになった。自然の力、政府の欠点、そして人生は予測できないということ。本作品「笠間焼」は陶芸家の小久保勝司（こくぼ・かつじ）さんと恵子（しげこ）さんの親密な生活を追ったドキュメンタリー映画。監督は陶芸家の娘、小久保由紀（ゆき）。心のこもった対話型インタビューが織り込まれ、小久保夫妻の生と死、家族、アートについての観点を探る。震災で人生観が変わった２人の陶芸家の物語を巡り、日本人の心を垣間見ることのできる作品である。[日本語はページの下に続いています]
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