"The energy required to produce a unit of GDP is falling in most countries around the world. As countries industrialise, energy-intensive businesses make up a bigger share of the economy. Peaks generally correlate to the high point of heavy industry, before lighter industry and higher value-added businesses (such as services) begin to replace old-fashioned smokestack manufacturers. This often coincides with gains in energy efficiency, too."
RISD and the NSF are hosting Bridging STEM to STEAM... "...to imagine, explore and invent ways to enhance Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics learning through the infusion of Art and Design thinking."This is along the lines of RISD President John Maeda's appeal to add creativity and IDEA-thinking to STEM-thinking, and ideally to come up with a better spinonym (like STEAM) to describe it...
"...that American women ages 16 - 25 possess many characteristics necessary to become inventors, such as creativity, interest in science and math, desire to develop altruistic inventions, and preference for working in groups or with mentors -- yet they still do not see themselves as inventive."
"I don't know what will happen now. We've got some difficult days ahead. But it doesn't matter with me now. Because I've been to the mountaintop. And I don't mind. Like anybody, I would like to live -- a long life; longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the Promised Land."I'm not of his creed, but these are powerful words.
This week Tuesday, 18 January 2011, Joe Hadzima runs the latest incarnation of our MIT Nuts & Bolts of Business Plans course over the MIT Independent Activities Period (IAP). Joe will give an overview of the essence of a business plan and special guest speaker Bob Jones will share his lessons-learned in marketing and sales. Stay tuned this week in MIT Stata Center room 32-123 from 6:00pm to 9:00pm on Tue, Wed, Thurs (plus a special session on Friday) and again next week Tue, Wed, and Thursday. I host the entrepreneurs panel on Tuesday, 25 January 2011, featuring Owen Johnson, Conor Walsh, Satayan Mahajan, and Michael Cima!
I'm very interested in the prospect for autonomous automobile systems leading to efficient roadtrains on highways where drivers release control of their cars to a central system which runs them fast and efficient and coordinated together as platoons. 
While fully autonomous cars operating on everyday streets in mixed-use systems are probably quite a ways away, it is plausible and even likely that properly equipped cars and trucks could use what are today thought of as High Occupancy/Toll lanes or HOT lanes. 
P.S. One final bonus is that any future model HOT Car equipped with the requisite HOT Controls technology could not only use a HOT Lane, but could also park (and retrieve) itself in a HOT Parking lot, thus eliminating a major hassle for the everyday driver. Check out this Stanford prototype... P.S. Addendum to this post: Turns out today 18 January 2011, the BBC's Mark Ward writes about 'Road train' technology trials get rolling.
Maseeh Rahman writes in The Guardian that India's outcasts put faith in English... "When India's prime minister Manmohan Singh recalled, during a lecture at Oxford University in 2005, the legacies that his country had inherited from British rule, he placed the English language and the education system above all others. This was a direct challenge to a century of nationalist rhetoric that had characterised the language of the British Raj as an "enslaving tool" imposed by colonisers. [...]"Without English, nothing is possible for us Dalits." The idea isn't new. It was propagated first by Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar, a giant of India's early 20th-century freedom movement and chief architect of its constitution, who was himself an "untouchable". "Ambedkar compared English to the milk of the lioness, and said those who drink it become stronger," said Chandra Bhan Prasad, Dalit columnist, researcher and chief promoter of the pro-English campaign. "If your child learns English it's as if he or she has inherited 100 acres of land." D Shyam Babu, a Dalit scholar, agrees: "English is no longer just a language -- it's a skill. Without it you remain an unskilled labourer." This idea resonates today especially due to the association of English with India's technology boom, which is responsible for creating a new middle-class of software programmers."
Similarly, Martin Davidson writes in The Guardian that Sudan needs English to build bridges between North and South... "The question that Sudan has been asking itself is, when faced with massive political upheaval, poverty and a shortage of basic of services, can English really make a difference? The answer, in short, is "yes". English language training is not a "quick fix" for Sudan's problems but it can encourage development, is relatively cheap and most importantly, sustainable, underpinning other capacity building projects. This is recognised at all levels of Sudanese society but is especially important in the South where the government views English as an important tool for development and future nation building. In the North, Arabic is and will remain the primary language, coexisting with English as the international language of the internet, trade and international engagement. In 2007 the government of South Sudan took English as their official language. English, however, provides a way for the North and South to communicate when Arabic is still viewed with suspicion by the South. If the country is to hold on to the fragile peace that has held for the last five years, it is supremely important that these communication channels stay open. In Sudan, there are currently three national armies and two police forces that the British Council is working with. When we asked them what their greatest need was, their responses were unanimous: "English."And maybe, in due time, direct-translation Babelfish technologies will accelerate this even faster!
Here in Lisbon, Portugal...
In Zagreb, Croatia...
Above Bergen, Norway...
Here the CSMonitor spots Brazilian cable cars to hillside favelas...
And there's even the Norwegian Trampe, a bicycle lift for hilly cities!
Geeta Anand and Amol Sharma write in the WSJournal, A Glimpse at India, Minus the Red Tape... "Western India's Gujarat state has transformed itself into one of the country's economic and export engines by presenting an alternative to the red tape and widespread corruption that have stymied big projects elsewhere in the country, turning it into a springboard for the apparent national political ambitions of its controversial leader [Narendra Modi]. [Gujarat] has averaged more than 11% economic growth in recent years, well outpacing the national rate. It accounts for 5% of India's 1.2 billion people but 22% of the country's exports. Gujarat's approach -- mirrored in a handful of other business-friendly states such as Tamil Nadu -- offers one model for how India can fulfill its economic potential in the next decade and pave the way for hundreds of millions of poor Indians to move from subsistence living to an industrialized economy that will be a potent rival to China's."Of course there are controversies and complaints from many quarters, but this is a fascinating economic testbed and market microcosm for India as a whole to learn from.
