May 26th, 2012 § § permalink
White House taps private sector to help feed world’s hungry By Christopher Doering, Gannett Comments WASHINGTON – President Obama vowed Friday to accelerate efforts to relieve hunger and malnutrition in Africa and unveiled as part of his plan a $3 billion commitment from multinational companies to make it easier for small farmers to grow their…
via: www.usatoday.com
this is a hard topic. here’s why:
- they are trying to raise $3B, which is arguably a lot of money. however…
- semi-random college startup just IPO‘d at $104B market cap, Apple has $10B cash reserves, Microsoft $10B cash reserves …
- also, USA yearly defense budget is over $500B, the new fancy UK aircraft carrier will cost $12B, war in Afganistan cost $500B so far.
- … and in the end, the hard problem is not cash to buy food, but how to actually distribute it in the end. if they have a good plan for that, the cash should be easier to find.
May 25th, 2012 § § permalink
Geeks live their lives peacefully in the online world most of the time, but every now and then reality hits us on our heads - this article beautifully outlines how old-fashioned housing legislation in silicon valley is limiting the ability of online business to grow.
THE financial press went ape this week over the highly anticipated IPO of one Facebook, the Harvard social network turned $100 billion phenomenon. Facebook’s soaring valuation has focused attention on a Silicon Valley that is once again booming, and it has led many to wonder whether social networking isn’t inflating into yet another tech bubble.
via: www.economist.com
(Photo credit: Wikipedia)
May 23rd, 2012 § § permalink
iceland (Photo credit: osmium)
Iceland has a unique opportunity to lead the world by defining a Internet Enterprise Zone, Brad Burnham of Union Square Ventures defined this term to me while he was in Iceland. What do we mean by this IEZ? We mean a Policy framework focused on allowing innovation in the Internet space.
via: blog.startupiceland.com
I recently visited Iceland (again) and had a privilege to meet some of young entrepreneurs there. The amount of startups and interest in
entrepreneurship is amazing, specially if you consider that the whole country is the size of Ljubljana, Slovenia Capital.
The locals told me that the financial crisis hit everyday people pretty badly, specially because they actually weren’t doing anything wrong -
normal people were as scrappy as you’d expect from a scandinavian. They have also been very resourceful throughout history, probably a result of
harsh weather and soil conditions.
Oh, and every citizen has Facebook profile, which makes them super efficient at forming a new constitution. The rest of us should observe and learn.
May 21st, 2012 § § permalink
Springfield, Illinois, USA. Barack Obama, his wife Michelle, and daughters. “The Future First Family Waves. Senator Obama’s family was on hand for the announcement, and he invited them on stage to wave to the crowd before he began his speech.” (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Everyone around the world remembers Obama‘s superb grassroots campaign nostalgically, knowing that something so organized won’t happen anywhere else anytime soon.
Well, now at least we are getting a proper campaign management system:
Joe Green and Jim Gilliam, the founders of a new software platform called NationBuilder, envision a world where any campaign — from local school board to issue-based protest movement, without regard to ideology — could access the same versatile, inexpensive suite of software and instantly have at its fingertips the ability to connect with voters and donors online, a capacity that was supposed to reshape American politics in the age of the Internet, but has yet to be fully realized.
Via The Atlantic
next step? NationDashboard.
May 17th, 2012 § § permalink
yet another crazy fellow slovenian!
Matevz Lenarcic, a Slovenian pilot, biologist and photographer, opens the door of his plane after landing from an around the world flight, at the Ljubljana Airport. -AFP Photo LJUBLJANA: Slovenian adventurer Matevz Lenarcic successfully concluded a 100-day eco-friendly trip around the world on Thursday in an ultra-light plane boasting super-low…
via: dawn.com
as I usually say, we have a long and proud history of eccentric mad scientists and extreme sportsmen. cheers to all!
May 11th, 2012 § § permalink
finally! this is so incredibly important for the global society!
not only it is possible to read anything by auto-translating web pages, now anyone will be able to communicate to anyone else. next step – transparent translations of IM and phone call in real time!
Now, you would be able to comprehend emails you receive in other languages. Google has just announced that it would be rolling out the automatic translation feature in Gmail over the next few days. “Over the next few days, everyone who uses Gmail will be getting the convenience of translation added to their email,” Jeff Chin, Product Manager,…
via: www.buzzom.com
May 8th, 2012 § § permalink
“I live by morals, I don’t live by laws, laws are something made by assholes.”
Read more
I find this quote incredibly telling of the revolution we are witnessing now. New generation of geeks is dumping everything the human race learned in the last 500 years and is going back to basics, figuring out new world order as we go.
Laws used to be codification of morals, then they were hijacked by assholes who can’t use the internet to control us anymore, which gives us a temproray upper hand.
It’s necessary, and it’s dangerous.
April 16th, 2012 § § permalink
We, the new kids, have no idea what America was like in the fifties:
The 1950′s were perhaps the peak of American Culture. The Post-War economy was booming and a future of flying cars driven by robot housemaids was all but guaranteed. On the West Coast, one local transit authority even had a bus for cleaning other busses.
via: gizmodo.com
the first time I realized this, was when I read that the 50s were the original golden age for 3D cinema (!).
April 13th, 2012 § § permalink
well, at least for a little while longer – there’s 800 of them left. go get them while they’re cold!
Back in March, it was announced that after centuries of being a print staple, the venerable Encyclopaedia Britannica was moving- for better or worse- to the digital realm. It was certainly the end of an era for people old enough to remember when encyclopedias like Encyclopaedia Britannica were the be all and end all of research,…
via: www.inquisitr.com
I’m sure they will reprint them though, at least once per century.
April 5th, 2012 § § permalink
This project is the closest we’ll get to teleport for a while.
it’s also an amazing collection of bits and pieces of the world, that we would never see otherwise.
there’s something poetic about it.
Browsing Google Maps you can see lots of interesting landmarks and fun occurrences captured by the Streetview cameras. Finding all of those fun and interesting views can sometimes be tricky. That’s when the Google Sightseeing blog becomes handy.
via: www.freetech4teachers.com
