R.I.P. Eugene Lang ~ Financed "Dream" Tuition!

James Hagerty in the WSJ writes of Eugene Lang's passing at 98 and his spontaneous philanthropic promise at a Harlem elementary school graduation to underwrite college tuition for all who finished high school. This begat the "I Have A Dream" Foundation which to-date has supported thousands of collegiates. R.I.P.

Saving Timbuktu's Treasures ~ Heritage Writings

in the WSJournal writes of The Librarian Who Saved Timbuktu’s Cultural Treasures From al Qaeda...

"Mr. Haidara knew that many of the works in the city’s repositories were ancient examples of the reasoned discourse and intellectual inquiry that the jihadists, with their intolerance and rigid views of Islam, wanted to destroy. The manuscripts, he thought, would inevitably become a target. [...] Mr. Haidara recruited his nephew, and they reached out to archivists, secretaries, Timbuktu tour guides and a half-dozen of Mr. Haidara’s relatives. The result was a heist worthy of “Ocean’s Eleven.” They bought metal and wooden trunks at a rate of between 50 and 80 a day, made more containers out of oil barrels and located safe houses around the city and beyond. They organized a small army of packers who worked silently in the dark and arranged for the trunks to be carried by donkey to their hiding places. [...] By the time French troops invaded the north in January 2013, the radicals had managed to destroy only 4,000 of Timbuktu’s nearly 400,000 ancient manuscripts. “If we hadn’t acted,” Mr. Haidara told me later, “I’m almost 100% certain that many, many others would have been burned.”

Capitalist Cure ~ De Soto on Unlikely Heroes...

Peruvian economist and founder of ILD Hernando de Soto writes in the WSJournal about The Capitalist Cure for Terrorism...

"Military might alone won’t defeat Islamic State and its ilk. The U.S. needs to promote economic empowerment. [...] Today we hear the same economic and cultural pessimism about the Arab world that we did about Peru in the 1980s. But we know better. Just as Shining Path was beaten in Peru, so can terrorists be defeated by reforms that create an unstoppable constituency for rising living standards in the Middle East and North Africa. To make this agenda a reality, the only requirements are a little imagination, a hefty dose of capital (injected from the bottom up) and government leadership to build, streamline and fortify the laws and structures that let capitalism flourish. As anyone who’s walked the streets of Lima, Tunis and Cairo knows, capital isn’t the problem -- it is the solution. [...] The people of the “Arab street” want to find a place in the modern capitalist economy. But hundreds of millions of them have been unable to do so because of legal constraints to which both local leaders and Western elites are often blind. They have ended up as economic refugees in their own countries. To survive, they have cobbled together hundreds of discrete, anarchic arrangements, often called the “informal economy.” Unfortunately, that sector is viewed with contempt by many Arabs and by Western development experts, who prefer well-intended charity projects [...] All too often, the way that Westerners think about the world’s poor closes their eyes to reality on the ground. In the Middle East and North Africa, it turns out, legions of aspiring entrepreneurs are doing everything they can, against long odds, to claw their way into the middle class. And that is true across all of the world’s regions, peoples and faiths. Economic aspirations trump the overhyped “cultural gaps” so often invoked to rationalize inaction."

Moto 360 ~ WSJ Reviews Wearable Wallclock

WSJ's Joanna Stern reviews the Moto 360 wearable wallclock...

"The round display isn't perfect. The bottom of the circle is frustratingly chopped off. Motorola explains that it's where the engineers had to put the display driver and ambient light sensor. All I know is every time I looked at it I was reminded of making construction-paper squircles in kindergarten. And the problem for women like me, with thin wrists, is that the watch may sound small -- 1.8 inches in diameter and just a half-inch thick -- but it almost looks like I grabbed a clock off the wall and strapped it to my arm."

PowerUp 3.0 ~ Smartphonified Paper Airplane;-)

Jack Nicas in the WSJ spots the PowerUp 3.0, a smartphone-controlled paper airplane just successfully Kickstarted!

"Aerial drones have fought in wars, filmed movies and factored into the ambitious plans of high-tech executives who want to supply Internet service from the air. Now there is a new but familiar shape to the fast-growing world of unmanned aircraft: the paper airplane. The PowerUp 3.0, brainchild of former Israeli Air Force pilot Shai Goitein, is a lightweight guidance-and-propulsion system powered by a dime-size battery. It clips onto origami aircraft and connects to iPhones using Bluetooth, transforming them into remote-control drones."

Here's their successful Kick video...

1M/km2 ~ HK's KWC Superdense Vertical Village!

VICE Motherboard takes A New Look at Kowloon Walled City, the Internet's Favorite Cyberpunk Slum...

"Borne out of longstanding tensions between the British and Chinese governments. It was spawned by the agreement, completed in 1898, to lease Hong Kong to the British for 99 years, which didn't include the Walled City [...] The result was a heavily isolated, ramshackle city-state. [...] The lack of outside support meant the Walled City was built on itself largely by itself, with commerce and industry mixed into itself as produced by a self-sufficient population. [...] Ingenuity was spawned by the city's isolation. There was little in the way of public services, meaning sanitation, public safety, and crime prevention were all the purview of locals. [...] The Kowloon Walled City continues to captivate people because of those problems, and its ills are also what make it such powerful inspiration for fictional portrayals of what's to come."

See WSJ's City of Imagination: Kowloon Walled City 20 Years Later... Plus definitely check out -- and please support financially -- the ambitious and timely City of Darkness Revisited book publishing project on Kickstarter by co-authors Ian Lambot and Greg Girard...

"We are working together again to produce City of Darkness Revisited, an all-new edition that will combine the best of the original book with several new sections that will fill in some of the gaps and bring the story up to date. We will explore the City’s dramatic architectural evolution from a near bare site in 1945 to a 17-storey megalith housing over 33,000 people at the time of its clearance. And we will explain the City’s unique legal and political status -- under two jurisdictions but effectively managed by neither -- and how this coloured every aspect of life there. A third theme will delve into the myths and realities of the Triads’ activities within the City and how these might -- or might not -- have been effectively policed. And finally we will describe how the influence of the Walled City has spread into popular culture worldwide, and how this has allowed interest in the City -- either as myth or physical reality -- to flourish."

And as extra bonus, Ian and Greg and friend Lisa point out Kowloon Walled City, Hong Kong, Urban Fabric -- Historic project prepared by Lia Tramontini, Haneen Dalla-Ali, Mona Dai, and Christopher Glebe...

New Routes ~ Asia-to-Europe Translogistics...

Costas Paris writes in the WSJournal that Ship Travels Arctic From China to Europe ~ Northern Passage Shaves Two Weeks of Travel Time Off Journey...

"China's Yong Sheng is an unremarkable ship that is about to make history. It is the first container-transporting vessel to sail to Europe from China through the Arctic rather than taking the usual southerly route through the Suez Canal, shaving two weeks off the regular travel time in the process. The 19,000-ton Yong Sheng, operated by China's state-controlled Cosco Group, left the port of Dalian Aug. 8 and is scheduled to reach Rotterdam, in the Netherlands, via the Bering Strait Sept. 11. The travel time of about 35 days compares with the average of 48 days it would normally take to journey through the Suez Canal and Mediterranean Sea."

Of course, things get even more interesting when you throw in the prospects of trans-Siberian railway links...

"So which routes have been tested? [...]

• Shanghai China to Duisburg Germany (18 Days) 
• Chongqing to Duisburg (16 Days) 
• Xiangtang, China, to Hamburg (17 Days) 

The freight lead times are very good in comparison to sea freight where the usual shipping time can be 36 days or more depending on the end location in Europe. The scale of the railway is immense as it crosses 11 time zones and more than 11,000 km."

Secret Science? ~ WSJ OpEd on EPA Perfidy...

US Rep Lamar Smith, Chair of the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology reveals in an WSJ OpEd The EPA's Game of Secret Science the unsavory and appalling fact that the bloatocracy refuses to reveal its research...

"As the Environmental Protection Agency moves forward with some of the most costly regulations in history, there needs to be greater transparency about the claimed benefits from these actions. Unfortunately, President Obama and the EPA have been unwilling to reveal to the American people the data they use to justify their multibillion-dollar regulatory agenda. [...] the agency is moving forward with strict new limits on ozone that by its own estimates will cost taxpayers $90 billion per year, which would make the regulation the most costly in history. [...] the EPA has obstructed the committee's request at every step. To date, the committee has sent six letters to the EPA and other top administration officials seeking the data's release. [...] Simple transparency is not the only reason this information should be released. The costs of these rules will be borne by American families. They deserve to know what they are paying for. [...] The federal government has no business justifying regulations with secret information. This principle has been supported by two of the president's own science and technology advisers [...] The EPA should reveal the research it uses and let the American people decide whether the agency's costly regulations are justified."

More evidence of complete and total corruption permeating government. Fire them all, I say.

Twisting History ~ WSJ's US Tornado Infographic!

WSJ infographic by Andrew Garcia Phillips, Rob Barry and Tom McGinty on US tornadoes of scale F1 or greater since 1950...

No Barriers Boston ~ More Prosthetic Innovations!

MIT Media Lab Professor Hugh Herr writes in the WSJournal about Bionics and the Boston Bombing Victims and introduces No Barriers Boston initiative to provide the injured with sport-ready prosthetics...

"Dance teacher Adrianne Haslet-Davis, who suffered a below-the-knee amputation as a result of the Boston bombings, vows to dance again and to run in next year’s Boston Marathon. [...] I believe Adrianne will succeed. She has the will, which is essential. [Beyond this...] technology will be paramount to Adrianne’s participation in the Marathon next year. It will also shape the rest of her life. [...] To help those injured in the Boston bombings, my research group at the MIT Media Lab is collaborating with a nonprofit, No Barriers, which is establishing a No Barriers Boston Fund. The fund will provide individuals with prosthetic limbs specifically designed for athletic activities [...] Adrianne will successfully run in next year’s Boston Marathon. And that she will dance. When she runs the marathon next year, I will join her, along with other athletes using artificial limbs and wheelchairs. We will participate as a beautifully defiant statement to the world that we the people will not be intimidated, brought down, diminished, conquered or stopped by acts of violence."

Yes, indeed.

Evidence of Commerce ~ Obsidian Archeonomy!

Obsidian allows for archeological economics points out Matt Ridley in WSJ Mind & Matter column on A King's Overreaching, Traced in Black Glass...

"Obsidian was once one of humankind's most sought-after materials, the "rich man's flint" of the stone-age world. This black volcanic glass fragments into lethally sharp, tough blades that, even after the invention of bronze, made it literally a cutting-edge technology. Because sources of obsidian are few and far between, obsidian artifacts are considered some of the earliest evidence of commerce: Long-distance movement of obsidian, even hundreds of thousands of years ago, suggests the early stirring of true trade. Differences in the trace elements in each volcanic source let archeologists trace the origin of individual obsidian artifacts and reconstruct trade routes. A new study [Environment and collapse: Eastern Anatolian obsidians at Urkesh (Tell Mozan, Syria) and the third-millennium Mesopotamian urban crisis] by Ellery Frahm of the University of Sheffield and Joshua Feinberg of the University of Minnesota, has used such obsidian tracing to shed light on how trade collapsed in the Akkadian empire of the early Bronze Age around 4,200 years ago in what is now northern Syria."

Fascinating! Here's just few of the study maps & data...

Supercomplications ~ Today We Call Them Apps

Lovely review in the WSJ, The Watch Men, by John Steele Gordon of Stacy Perman's new book A Grand Complication...

"In the watch trade, anything beyond the marking of the hour, minute and second, is called a "complication." So my $80 Swatch has two complications, indicating both the day of the week and that of the month. A pocket watch sold by the firm of Patek Philippe in 1933 has 24 complications, including an alarm, several sets of chimes (one of which plays the same melody as London's Big Ben), the appearance of the night sky over New York City at any given moment, moon phases, even sidereal time. No wonder it is known as the "supercomplication." Today, of course, any iPhone has far more complications (we call them apps). [...] The spine of Ms. Perman's story is a sort of informal game of horological one-upmanship between two very rich Americans, James Ward Packard and Henry Graves Jr. They never met, but their silent competition to own the world's most complex watch pushed the design of these mechanical devices nearly as far as it could go and produced some of the most stunning mechanisms ever constructed."

Glorious stuff!

Extraordinary Measures ~ On Fixing Big Problems

Bill Gates writes in WSJournal about Extraordinary Measures ~ his plan to fix the worlds biggest problems...

"In the past year, I have been struck by how important measurement is to improving the human condition. You can achieve incredible progress if you set a clear goal and find a measure that will drive progress toward that goal. [...] An innovation -- whether it's a new vaccine or an improved seed -- can't have an impact unless it reaches the people who will benefit from it. We need innovations in measurement to find new, effective ways to deliver those tools and services to the clinics, family farms and classrooms that need them. [...] The lives of the poorest have improved more rapidly in the past 15 years than ever before. And I am optimistic that we will do even better in the next 15 years. The process I have described -- setting clear goals, choosing an approach, measuring results, and then using those measurements to continually refine our approach -- helps us to deliver tools and services to everybody who will benefit."

Gates gives multiple examples from health, education, agriculture and others.

Transportation Trustbuster ~ WSJ on Uber Leader

WSJournal's Andy Kessler interviews Travis Kalanick, the Transportation Trustbuster and co-founder of Uber, the disruptive limo service that's sticking it to the taxi cartels by providing quality private driver transit experiences...

"Uber launched as an iPhone app in June 2010. The cars that iPhone users summon are typically town cars owned by a limousine company but not on a call. Instead of idly waiting for work, the nearest available driver answers the app call. Other cars are simply privately owned vehicles whose drivers have been vetted by Uber. The idea worked. How could Mr. Kalanick tell? Four months after the launch in San Francisco, Uber was served with a "cease and desist" order from the California Public Utility Commission and the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency. "Given my background," Mr. Kalanick says, alluding to being sued at Scour.com, "this was like homecoming." He verified with his lawyers that what Uber was doing was indeed legal, then the company took its case to the public through Twitter and email. [...] there's been so much corruption and so much cronyism in the taxi industry and so much regulatory capture that if you ask for permission upfront for something that's already legal, you'll never get it."

Read the rest. Fantastic!

Exponential Technologies ~ Diamandis on WSJ

WSJ's Alan Murray at CIO Network interviews X-Prize founder and Abundance author Peter Diamandis on Eight Technologies Are Making the World Better...

"We’re literally at the knee-curve of a massive explosion of innovation. [...] The gap between the wealthiest and the poorest people may well increase, but that the definition of poverty will keep changing, much as it has over the last 100 years. He noted that 99% of the poorest people in the U.S. have amenities that the wealthiest people of 100 years ago couldn’t imagine. “It’s not about creating a world of luxury, but of creating a world of possibility" [...] I think it’s an amazing world."

P.S. The Diamandis Eight...

1. Biotech ~ Everyday editing of life; 
2. Computational Systems ~ Modeling everything; 
3. Networks & Sensors ~ Embedding for understanding; 
4. Artificial Intelligence ~ Personal super-assistants; 
5. Robotics ~ Automating ever-more activities; 
6. Digital Manufacturing ~ 3D printing all objects; 
7. Medical Technology ~ Anticipatory diagnostics; 
8. Nanotechnology ~ Materializing tomorrow. 

Bring them on!

True US Debt ~ $87T = 550% GDP = $8T/Yr Tax

Bipartisan commissioners on entitlement and tax reform, Chris Cox and Bill Archer, shock us with facts in their WSJ OpEd piece Why $16 Trillion Only Hints at the True U.S. Debt...

"For years, the government has gotten by without having to produce the kind of financial statements that are required of most significant for-profit and nonprofit enterprises [...] it does not include the unfunded liabilities of Medicare, Social Security and other outsized and very real obligations. [...] We most often hear about the alarming $15.96 trillion national debt (more than 100% of GDP), and the 2012 budget deficit of $1.1 trillion (6.97% of GDP). As dangerous as those numbers are, they do not begin to tell the story of the federal government's true liabilities. The actual liabilities of the federal government -- including Social Security, Medicare, and federal employees' future retirement benefits -- already exceed $86.8 trillion, or 550% of GDP. [...] When the accrued expenses of the government's entitlement programs are counted, it becomes clear that to collect enough tax revenue just to avoid going deeper into debt would require over $8 trillion in tax collections annually. [But] if the government confiscated the entire adjusted gross income of these American taxpayers, plus all of the corporate taxable income in the year before the recession, it wouldn't be nearly enough [...] to fund the growth of U.S. liabilities."

This means political malfeasance and governmental incompetence of titanic proportions. We need a new generation of leaders in DC to steer the ship of state, which means electing more reality-minded and ethical people like MIT alumnus Representative Tom Massie!

Preserving our Freedoms ~ Why Veterans Day...

Both Memorial and today -- Veterans Day -- are seasonal complements to the more celebratory Fourth of July and Thanksgiving. It's worth remembering why we observe them, and for this let's read President Eisenhower's proclamation about November 11th...

"Let us solemnly remember the sacrifices of all those who fought so valiantly, on the seas, in the air, and on foreign shores, to preserve our heritage of freedom, and let us reconsecrate ourselves to the task of promoting an enduring peace so that their efforts shall not have been in vain."

This honors all vets of all wars, including those avoided.

Fading Faith ~ On God's Increasing Irrelevance...

The WSJ Numbers Guy Carl Bialik notes that Tracking Religious Trends Takes a Leap of Faith...

"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."

Election Mapping ~ Barron's on US Vote Calculus

Barron's spotlights demographer John Morgan's map of what he thinks will happen in the 2012 US election...

P.S. And here's the actual results posted on WSJ on Wed 7 Nov 2012...

Tiger Immigrants ~ America's Newest Additions

Bard College professor Walter Russell Mead writes in the WSJournal about America's New Tiger Immigrants...

"The conventional picture is of an unstoppable wave of unskilled, mostly Spanish-speaking workers -- many illegal [...] But this picture is both out of date and factually wrong. [...] America needs and benefits from both kinds of immigration. Like all waves, the Asian influx mixes the skilled and the unskilled. But overall it resembles earlier waves of educated and already urbanized immigrants. [...] most of them have in spades what Max Weber called the Protestant work ethic. Arguably, in America's long history of immigration, the group that the new immigrants resemble most is the original cohort of Puritans who settled New England. [...] More Asian-Americans (69%) than other Americans (58%) believe that you will get ahead with hard work. Also, 93% say that their ethnic group is "hardworking." There also seems to be some truth in the "Tiger Mom" syndrome described by author Amy Chua. While 39% of Asian-Americans say their group puts "too much" pressure on kids to succeed in school, 60% of Asian-Americans think that other Americans don't push their kids hard enough. Other family values are strong as well. [...] The world's best, the world's hardest-working and the world's most ambitious are still coming our way."

And that's what has and continues to make America great.