Fascinating photos of bookshops from around in the world in the this article in Salon via Twitter from Mark Bernstein who has been to 3 of them. I’m pretty sure I have been to the final one in San Francisco, may visit the London shop this year.
An interesting article from the Atlantic which compares the modern derivates trading environment with playing a sophisticated computer game.
Trading as a high-stakes video game
Worth reading through as it speculates that the scenario described will become a component of more jobs in the future.
I have been reading two books by Douglas Rushkoff. “Program or Be Programmed” and “Life Inc”. These books have well reasoned arguments that encourage a subversive approach to two pervasive elements of modern life
This is fascinating stuff and fits into a rare category of books that change the way you view the world around you.
There are many videos linked from his website and they are great viewing as he is a gifted orator and spruiker for change.
Rushkoff.com
Tom Malone on collective intelligence and the “genetic” structure of groups
The average intelligence of the people in the group and the maximum intelligence of the people in the group doesn’t predict group intelligence.
and
So how do you engineer groups that can problem-solve effectively? First of all, seed them with, basically, caring people. Group intelligence is correlated … with the average social sensitivity — the openness, and receptiveness, to others — of a group’s constituents. The emotional intelligence of group members, in other words, serves the cognitive intelligence of the group overall. And this means that — wait for it — groups with more women tend to be smarter than groups with more men.
Profound - timely.
Long Term Life Tips Top 5 Regrets People Make on their Deathbed By Bronnie Ware (who worked for years nursing the dying)…When questioned about any regrets they had or anything they would do differently, common themes surfaced again and again. Here are the most common five:
- I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me. This was the most common regret of all… read the full post here
Some fascinating images in the Atlantic article linked below - the long distance air travel proposal may well turn out to be the low carbon future of air transport
What Might Have Been: The French View The French National Library has a wonderful exhibit of prints from 1910, imagining the wonderful new world of the year 2000.
Long-distance air travel of the future
Chris Andersons' email charter is well worth checking out and following. I especially like rule 2 - Short and Slow is not Rude.
"Because we don’t know when we will die, we get to think of life as an inexhaustible well. Yet everything happens only a certain number of times, and a very small number really. How many more times will you remember a certain afternoon of your childhood, an afternoon that is so deeply a part of your being that you can’t even conceive of your life without it? Perhaps four, five times more, perhaps not even that. How many more times will you watch the full moon rise? Perhaps 20. And yet it all seems limitless.”
Paul Bowles"
(Via Maxistentialism)
Steve Jobs practised Zen! - the dharma talk below from teacher Peg Syverson (Appamada.org) considers Steve’s legacy and how to apply his approach to our lives.
Many people don’t even know that Steve Jobs practiced Zen. His teacher was Kobun Chino, a beloved Zen teacher who also performed Steve’s wedding to Laurene. Kobun Chino died in 2002 trying to save his five year old daughter Maya when she fell off a dock in Switzerland. They drowned together. Here is a taste of his teaching:.."
read the full dharma talk
(Via Peg Syverson’s Posts - APPAMADA.)
I had missed the interesting social experiments Ruskofff describes, the local media is adopting its usual superficial view.
CNN: Occupy Wall Street is not a Protest but a Prototype
“Occupy” is anything but a protest movement. That’s why it has been so hard for news agencies to express or even discern the “demands” of the growing legions of Occupy participants around the nation, and even the world. Just like pretty much everyone else on the planet, occupiers may want many things to happen and other things to stop, but the occupation is not about making demands. They don’t want anything from you, and there is nothing you can do to make them stop. That’s what makes Occupy so very scary and so very promising. It is not a protest, but a prototype for a new way of living. (Via Douglas Rushkoff.)
Tim Bray on Occupying Wall Street:
• A large number of people in the finance business enriched themselves to the tune of billions in a manner that feels essentially like bald-faced theft. Nobody has been punished. Very few of these people even experienced much in the way of financial setbacks, because they were bailed out with other people’s money. As in, yours & mine.
• The general degree of inequality, whether measured in money or power, seems unreasonable.
• The political system seems structurally unable to take any action which runs counter to the interests of the finance-industry elite.
I think those perceptions are broadly correct, and I think it’s reasonable to be angry about them, and to engage in political action: This is what politics is for. (Via ongoing by Tim Bray.)
Right on - a succinct summary of why many people are emphasising with this movement.
Since I subscribed to the Harvard Business Review blog posts I have seen a steady stream of sharply observed and well thought out pieces. Many are aimed at corporate efficiency however a good smattering challenge the existing order and some are just timely good advice like this one
Maintaining Physical, Social and Mental Fitness for Peak Performance
Mental fitness involves the following seven practices — some of which cross over into the physical and social domains: good night’s sleep (7–8 hours is recommended), physical activity, focus, reflection, down time, connecting time, and play time. This approach to mental fitness is similar to the Human Performance Institute’s Corporate Athlete program which focuses on physical, emotional, mental and spiritual (or purpose) sources of energy to build resiliency and drive peak performance. (Via HBR.org)
Great post over at MyMicroISV from Jarie Bolander. Very timely for me as I in the process to creating a day off a week to allow time to grow a new venture.
- Keep an idea journal: An idea journal is an invaluable tool to find trends and cluster ideas. Just reading through a journal can give you all sorts of inspiration.
- Have a hobby: Hobbies are great to spark creativity and innovation. I once had a friend who created an entire remote control toy business because he was sick and tired of not having enough frequencies to use.
- Be well read: Reading a wide variety of topics and styles creates opportunities for cross over innovation. Great ideas will come from looking at a problem from a different perspective.
- Take long walks: Wander, stroll, skip or run. Anything to get you out of a building and thinking. Many of my best ideas come when I’m working out.
- Volunteer: Volunteering is not only tremendously rewarding but a great place for inspiration. You would be amazed at how much you can help an organization and yourself by just giving a few hours a week.
- Help others innovate: Get out there and help someone else create. This is just like the recruiting others above and it’s for the same reason – the more brains, the better the idea flow.
Jarie Bolander (Via MyMicroISV)
Douglass Rushkoff is always worth reading, here is a rousing speech he gave to Occupy Wallstreet
Occupy Reality - Transcript
You are not fighting against people, but against a machine.It was put in place over 500 years ago.
By a wealthy elite - trying to repress a booming peer to peer economy.
Those people are all dead, but their program lives on.
(Via Douglas Rushkoff)
As he says in the opening lines this speech covers the material that is exhaustively documented in his book Life Inc which is a fascinating read.
Sophisticated campaign orchestrated by Greenpeace using the same Star Wars theme that feature in the latest VW adds. The aim is to raise pressure on Volkswagen to put more effort into bringing its green technology to bear across its fleet. Worth checking the video’s out and sign up..
There is good in Volkswagen. We feel it -
Volkswagen is a big part of many of our lives – indeed many rebel vehicles are VWs. But it seems the bosses at Volkswagen have been seduced by the dark side of the Force and left us with little choice but to challenge them. But it’s not too late. There’s a chance that together we can turn Volkswagen away from the dark side and into a Force for good, leading to a brighter future for us all. via vwdarkside.com
There is a visually striking and information rich diagram from the BBC showing how the Euro countries are indebted to each
Also check out this incredible graphic from xkcd
A video of a US policeman calmly capsicum spraying unarmed sitting protestors has created an international storm. James Fallows has exhaustive coverage and Mark Bernstein summarises the story with key links and adds his own view in this excellent post Shame
The walk of shame, as UC Davis Chancellor Katehi walks to her car before rows of silent students, was extraordinary. James Fallows wrote of the affectless sadism of the campus police, captured forever in film. If the euro collapse does usher in the second great depression, that video is going to become an icon and this behind-the-scenes account will someday be treasured the way we cherish stories of riding in the car with Martin.Bob Ostertag wrote a terrific piece on the shameful militarization of campus police. He doesn’t go far enough. Chancellor Katehi claimed that the quad was cleared because of “the encampment raised serious health and safety concerns.” Ostertag argues treats this as an error, a stupid failure of understanding and planning. But it’s not just a mistake.It was a lie. (Via Mark Bernstein)
Perhaps all law enforcement officers should be trained in the fundamentals of non violent action to enable them to more appropriately respond to these situations. Thoreau's essay) is a good starting place (full text here), Ghandis' biography is another valuable source.
Just bought a bundle from A Book Apart, excellent value - especially as eBooks.
I already had the CSS3 book by Dan Cederholm and its a good little book. Its the little part that I particularly like, these days I find I do not have the time to work through large technical books and much prefer condensed focused works like the ones published by A Book Apart. Another thing they have right is providing multiple formats so I can read this on my Kindle and the Macbook Air, the prags led the way on this and another favourite publisher.
Matt Gemmell is such a good writer, his post Dear TextMate is a beauty and must reflect the thoughts of many former Textmate fans.
His recent Simplicity post has me looking into Octopress.
Another great piece by Matt, Accessibility for iPhone and iPad apps is must read for anyone designing a User Interface. I sent this to a friend who suffers the condition Matt was referring to and he was blown away by the insight shown.
Rings true to my own experience How to Accomplish More by Doing Less
It's not just the number of hours we sit at a desk in that determines the value we generate. It's the energy we bring to the hours we work. Human beings are designed to pulse rhythmically between spending and renewing energy. That's how we operate at our best. Maintaining a steady reservoir of energy — physically, mentally, emotionally and even spiritually — requires refuelling it intermittently
Stress isn't the enemy in the workplace. Indeed, stress is the only means by which we can expand capacity. Just think about weightlifting. By stressing your muscles, and then recovering, you gradually build strength. Our real enemy is the absence of intermittent renewal.
(Via HBR.org)
This is right on the money - so to speak.
If you pay for a product, you’re a customer. If you don’t, you’re the product. On Facebook, you are the product. The difference between content and advertising continues to slip.
(Via inessential.com)