Fascinating and blunt Bloomberg interview with Home Depot co-founder Ken Langone, donor to NYU and namesake of (and recent patient in) the evacuated medical center...
Tweet of the Day
1 hour ago
Exponential Innovations Everywhere
* * *
Joost Bonsen's Opinions on How Money, Ideas, and Talent can
Enable Health, Wealth, and Happyness for Each plus Achieve Liberty, Prosperity, and Vitality for All and Ultimately Help Us Spread Beyond Our Cradle Planet Earth
"...to design tools and activities which allow kids of all ages to create circuits and explore electronics using play dough."Check out her TED talk! (Plus see MakerEd)
"An important aspect of hospital operations is to prepare for the unexpected, a catastrophe that can cause a major disruption to patient care. All hospitals plan for such things, [plus we] drill."Practice makes perfect and the NYU team (and their NYPD, FD, and ER brethren) stayed cool and dealt magnificently with a very severe situation. See more in David Goodman and Colin Moynihan's NYTimes piece Patient Evac From City Medical Center After Power Failure...
"Light from the changing angles of the sun highlight the structure of the clouds. [...] The "super rapid scan" images -- one every minute from 7:15 a.m. until 6:30 p.m. EDT -- reveal details of the storm's motion. Animation by Kevin Ward with images from NOAA and University of Wisconsin-Madison Cooperative Institute for Meteorological Satellite Studies."And here gCaptain posts Sandy Wave Height buoy data...
"Back in the 1960s and 1970s, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology was in the university-building business. [...] More than a generation later, MIT is at it again. [...] MIT is not stamping its name on campuses overseas. Instead it has seemed content to be a less-showy, largely silent partner in its international ventures. [...] these upstart institutions are being built in the spirit of MIT's motto, Mens et Manus, or Mind and Hand. They are meant to have real-world impact. [In the words of our new President...] "We cannot replicate MIT anywhere else," says Mr. Reif, a former provost and longtime faculty member. "It took us 150 years to get what we've got."It's a fascinating piece, missing as much as it reveals, including essential history and failures. But read the whole thing!
"17-million Americans get subsidized phone service through the Lifeline program and the world's richest man is benefiting."
"Nigeriens should not need help from rich countries to combat natural disasters and poverty: 'If we benefited from our resources, we would no longer need to do that.' Niger's uranium, gold and oil are not used to help alleviate poverty, he argues. Instead, there is exploitation, including child labour and exposure to cyanide."
"The biggest threat scenario involves the hurricane colliding with a cold front from the West, creating a "superstorm" that could stall over the Eastern seaboard for days. Residents [should] prepare for the possibility of a week or more without power."NOAA forecasts possible paths...
"...the world’s largest floating bookstores. The Logos Hope is operated by a German charity organization, and its mission is to take books, education, and community outreach around the world. [...] Part of the ship’s mission is to make low-cost books available in parts of the world where books are hard to come by–this includes not only selling books below retail prices, but also establishing libraries in local schools, children’s homes, and other community organization wherever the Logos Hope sails. In addition to book-distribution, the Logos Hope hosts educational programming about fitness, AIDS prevention, and a variety of other subjects. Since it set sail in 2004, the Logos Hope has distributed more than 3 million books and had more than 2.5 million visitors onboard."
"Pollsters are turning to religion just as more Americans are losing theirs. In the past decade, the number of people asked in surveys about their religious identities, beliefs and practices has risen sharply, resulting in a wealth of new data on how many Americans belong to each of the world's religions, or to none."
"Differences in metropolitan populations may help explain gaps in productivity and incomes. Western Europe’s per-person GDP is 72% of America’s, on a purchasing-power-parity basis. A recent study by the McKinsey Global Institute, the consultancy’s research arm, reckons that some three-quarters of this gap can be chalked up to Europe’s relatively diminutive cities. [...] Cities today have a productivity advantage for different reasons, to do with ideas rather than costs. When one firm in a city comes up with a new technique, product or design, nearby firms may quickly build on it or hire its creator. One firm’s innovation boosts its own productivity but also spills over to other businesses. Companies that prefer seclusion cut themselves off from these "knowledge spillovers."
"... there are challenges -- modernity, commerce, and the politics of Kenya and neighbouring countries -- all lapping at the shores of this island city. Portugal, Oman, India and Britain all left their mark in the past. Today, Somalia is very much part of the cultural mix. Mombasa is now a safe haven for many Somalis leaving behind decades of fighting in their native land. [But one example of the positives is gathering in] a funfair in the centre of the city to celebrate the end of Ramadan. The place was full of families -- Muslim, Christian and Hindum -- all having fun together. That is the picture of Mombasa that sticks in my mind. A bustling place, a bit ramshackle in parts, with the beautifully restored areas of the Old Town, and others in dire need of a good spring clean. Most importantly, a place marked by the tolerance of its people, and a strong sense of what it means to be from here."
"SimCity, a city-building simulation series that was first released in 1989, has always been a virtual sandbox for aspiring urban planners, with a seemingly endless array of options -- you could lay down roads; zone houses, industrial complexes, and commercial real estate; put up nuclear power plants; adjust taxation; and more. In the end, you could destroy your whole empire with a UFO or a well-placed asteroid strike. The newest version of SimCity, set to be released in February 2013, retains most of the game’s previous elements (including its addictive quality) while bringing a whole new level of complexity to the tilt-shift inspired world."
"The rock musician, actor and performance artist Mat Fraser looks at how prosthetics have been used to improve, adapt and augment human performance."
"...a financial structure in which a large number of biomedical programs at various stages of development are funded by a single entity to substantially reduce the portfolio’s risk. The portfolio entity can finance its activities by issuing debt, a critical advantage because a much larger pool of capital is available for investment in debt versus equity. By employing financial engineering techniques such as securitization, it can raise even greater amounts of more-patient capital."To exemplify this, they propose a cancer megafund. Read the paper for more details, but these illustrate flows...