Laniakea ~ Our Supercluster Neighborhood!

Thanks to Randy from Cool Infographics for spotlighting nice Nature coverstory on Laniakea, our home supercluster!

Earth's Ocean ~ Driver of Weather & Climate...

Richest People ~ Money Project History Infograph

The Money Project spotlights the historically -- i.e. pre-Industrial Revolution -- richest people...

Global Urban Footprint ~ Hi-Rez Auto-mapping...

TR spots Global Urban Footprint Revealed in Unprecedented Resolution...

"What’s needed is a way of mapping urban areas from space at high resolution and in a way that is unaffected by cloud cover and without the ambiguities that traditional imaging introduces. [Now revealed is] a global map of urbanization that meets all these requirements. The result is a data set of the entire planet at a resolution of 12 meters that maps the global urban footprint with unprecedented accuracy and resolution. [...] Esch and co have created a global database of built-up areas based on synthetic aperture radar images from an Earth-orbiting mission called TanDEM-X. This consists of a pair of spacecraft that have been orbiting Earth in close formation -- just a few hundred meters apart -- since 2007. These spacecraft take radar images of the ground from slightly different angles, allowing researchers to create a 3-D map of the planet. In total, Esch and co have processed 470,000 pairs of images to create their map of the entire planet."

R.I.P. Ootje Oxenaar ~ Designed NL Banknotes...

Sad to hear that Ootje Oxenaar, the graphic designer of beautiful Dutch money and RISD instructor, has passed away at 87. I particularly liked his Sunflower design for the 50 Guilder note, which was NL orange plus harkened to Van Gogh and was a complete contrast to monolithic American currency at the time... 24Oranges spotted this self retrospective video by Oxenaar...

Global Incomes ~ Distribution Change over Time...

Thanks to Daniel Mitchell from International Liberty for spotlighting a great chart by Professor Max Roser of Oxford using Gapminder data showing the distribution of income globally at key point in recent history...

"There are three takeaways from this data. The first conclusion [...] is that the world is getting richer. Hundreds of millions of people have been lifted out of extreme poverty. That’s wonderful news. The second conclusion, as seen by the red section of the chart, is that a modest bit of reform in India and China has paid big dividends (and, given the success of Indian-Americans and Chinese-Americans, I imagine those nations could become much richer with additional market-friendly reform). But I want to focus today on a third conclusion, which is that pro-growth policies are the best way to help the poor, not redistribution driven by a fixation on inequality."

Wealth & World-Class ~ Universities & Growth...

Thanks to a WEForum post for spotting infographics created for Times Higher Education by Ben Hennig, an associate professor at the University of Iceland, which spotlight the relationship between wealth and world-class universities...

"What are the essential ingredients needed to make a world-class university? [...] The answer always involves a discussion of the importance of institutional autonomy and academic freedom, and a recognition of the crucial fact that without great people, there can be no great university. But one element is undeniably more important than any other: cold, hard cash. [...] You can’t create the appropriate research facilities, or provide the appropriate teaching environment, without money -- but most importantly, you can’t attract and retain the required talent in a highly competitive global recruitment market without the resources to pay attractive salaries."

History of War Deaths ~ Global Rates since 1400

Oxford's Max Roser spotlights Global Deaths In Conflict Since the Year 1400 which shows the rate of warkills over the past ~600 years...

Canals ~ Early Disruptive & -ted Infrastructure!

Bill Warner spotlights how Before the Internet, There Was the Middlesex Canal...

"When you take a look at the history of the Middlesex Canal, built from 1794 to 1802, you’ll find a surprising similarity between the issues facing technology investors today, with those over 200 years ago. [...] The technology of moving goods at great scale and at low cost started with the Middlesex Canal. Then the railroads took over. Now containerization [...] Like all technology change, those in control of the current technology fight hard to hold on [...] But the march of technology is relentless when new approaches cut costs and increase speed."

Be especially sure as you read Bill's story to check out his MapJunction tool to visualize the historic pathway overlaid over contemporary photo-map!

R.I.P. Peter Spier ~ Epic Dutch Inspiring Illustrator

Richard Sandomir in the NYTimes shares the sad news that inspirational illustrator Peter Spier has passed away at 89 from congestive heart failure. My very earliest favorite book -- i.e. when I was a toddler and my parents read to me -- was about Hendrika the Cow Who Fell in the Canal but as a teen I really spent endless hours on Of Dikes and Windmills. Amazing stuff about Dutch history, epic civil engineering, and the power of nature!

Making of Metropolis ~ Silent-Era Urban SF Epic!

The Making of Metropolis -- and its painstaking restoration story! Incredible special effects! Changing our futurevision!

K V Switzer 261 ~ 50 Years of Women's Marathon!

Today marks 50 years of women racing in the Marathon. It's a great story...

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.

New Amsterdam ~ US x NL @ NYC...

How the Dutch influenced NYC and USA via New Amsterdam...

R.I.P. Paul Kangas ~ "The Best of Good Buys!"

Alas, Paul Kangas, the Walter Cronkite of business broadcasting has passed away. He started the broadcasting of business info. Indeed, others, like CNBC, “all started mimicking us.” “But as my wife, who is an artist, says,” he added, “the original is always the best.” I personally loved his panache and his epic and memorable signature signoff...

“Wishing all of you the best of good buys”

Global Pie ~ $74T Economy in One Chart...

Jeff Desjardins at Visual Capitalist shares The $74 Trillion Global Economy in One Chart...

"The full circle, known as a Voronoi Diagram, represents the entirety of the $74 trillion global economy in nominal terms. Meanwhile, each country’s segment is sized accordingly to their percentage of global GDP output. Continents are also grouped together and sorted by color."

P.S. The actual graphing was done by HowMuch.net

R.I.P. Hans Rosling ~ Edutainer Extraordinaire

Pancreatic cancer has laid low Hans Rosling, the Gapminder co-founder and my favorite public health statistician and data edutainer extraordinaire.  He has many remarkable TED talks and other videos online, but I personally favor his appearance at TEDIndia speaking on Asia's Rise where he compares global growth over 200 years and predicts exactly when India and China converge with the rich!

MIT Media Ventures ~ Thurs 10a-12n Spring '17

UPDATE: Due to MIT's snow closing, our kickoff class was Thursday morning 10a-12n February 16th, 2017 in Media Lab E14-633.

Our MIT Media Ventures ~ Media Lab Entrepreneurship & Digital Innovations class surveys a broad landscape of emerging media technologies interwoven with live- and historic-cases of intre- and entrepreneurship-based on new media ideas, culminating in a term project. The core goal of this Action Lab offering is for students to gain increased understanding of how emergent media and digital innovations translate into commercial reality and transform society.

We survey case examples of both successful and failed businesses and generally grapple with the difficulties of deploying and diffusing products and as a means of exploring a range of business models and opportunities enabled by emerging Media Lab and related innovations. This year we will be especially emphasizing urban innovations, personal data rights, health, civic engagement, financial service innovations, mobile transactions, and social media generally with special focus on social networks, quantified self and society, AI, robotics, automation, and data analytics. Join us at first class Thursday morning 10a-12n February 9th, 2017 in Media Lab E14-633.

CityScope Kendall ~ Model Innovation District

I'm co-teaching CityScope Kendall Square class this Spring 2017 together with MIT Media Lab colleague Kent Larson and team, starting Wednesday, 8 February at 2pm, as part of our MIT Cities Initiative. Kendall Square is considered by many to be an ideal innovation district -- but it is dysfunctional as a community due to an extreme lack of amenities, housing, cultural venues, and after-work activity. MIT’s selection as the developer for the 14-acre Volpe Center creates one last opportunity to transform the district into a vibrant and creative center for entrepreneurship. Students will explore an evidence-based, data-driven process that makes use of the CityScope augmented reality platform to design, iterate, and reimagine Kendall Square. Join us at first class Wed afternoon 2pm February 8th, 2017 in Media Lab E15-359.

MIT Nuts & Bolts of New Ventures ~ IAP 2017

On Tuesday night, 24 January 2017, Joe Hadzima and I kick off the latest incarnation -- the 28th year (!!) -- of our MIT Nuts & Bolts of New Ventures course over the MIT Independent Activities Period (IAP 2017). Joe starts with the essence of business planning as a process of iterative imagination and special guest speaker Bob Jones shares how to present venture essentials. My primary topic is Team & Organizational issues, our special guest speakers (mostly MIT alums, all entrepreneurs) cover the essentials everyone ought to know about new venturing, including how to identify customers, pitch a concept, raise money, model financials, deal with legalities, negotiate with people, and holistically integrate this all together.

Sessions are evenings over the next two weeks Tue, Wed, and Thurs nights 1/24-2/2 from 6-9p in 10-250 -- i.e. in our prime MIT lecture hall under the iconic Great Dome. Folks can choose whether to attend all sessions, plus doing the (useful) written homework assignment, and registering For Credit (3 Units, Pass/Fail for 15.S21 online via Websis) or to come for any (or all) nights and simply participate as a Listener. All MIT affiliates and colleagues -- including students, faculty, staff, post-docs, alums, spouses, relatives, and friends -- are welcome on a space-available basis with priority for registered full-time undergrad and grad students. We also continue to welcome students from our sister schools in Boston-metro (e.g. Wellesley, Harvard, BU, Tufts, etc) as well as Members of the MIT Enterprise Forum network. Those interested, please simply join us at 6pm in our MIT 10-250 classroom.