It’s Very Clear That was Some Year
2011 was so packed
Revolutions and riots, phones hacked
Protesters v army
World crisis, tsunami
I can’t really think what it lacked.
Author Archives: Hamish MacEwan
Fraunhofer-Verbund Mikroelektronik: Data from an LED ceiling light
Commercially available light-emitting diodes (LEDs) can do more than just generate light. Researchers at the Fraunhofer Heinrich Hertz Institute HHI have succeeded in transmitting broadband data streams within visible light via LED lamps to computers or other end devices that can receive data. ???Visible light communication??? is the name of this new transmission technology
Vint Cerf: Internet access isn’t a human right
There is a high bar for something to be considered a human right. Loosely put, it must be among the things we as humans need in order to lead healthy, meaningful lives, like freedom from torture or freedom of conscience. It is a mistake to place any particular technology in this exalted category, since over time we will end up valuing the wrong things.
via news.cnet.com
Abstract the right to information.
P&G???s Notepad Grocery Bag Lets You Make Your List On The Outside
The UAE uses over 20 billion plastic bags each year. This has become such an environmental problem, that the Minister for Environment has a set goal for the UAE to become plastic bag-free by 2013.
via psfk.com
How Apple won the West (and lost the world) ??? The Register
Thom Holwerda is thus largely correct in asserting that “the iPhone’s impact on the world is negligible”, whatever its impact on markets for the rich. This isn’t to disparage what Apple has done, but to put it in context, and to serve as a reminder of just how revolutionary Android promises to be for the world.
Why The Movie Industry Can???t Innovate and the Result is SOPA
This year the movie industry made $30 billion (1/3 in the U.S.) from box-office revenue.
But the total movie industry revenue was $87 billion. Where did the other $57 billion come from?
From sources that the studios at one time claimed would put them out of business: Pay-per view TV, cable and satellite channels, video rentals, DVD sales, online subscriptions and digital downloads.
The Movie Industry and Technology Progress
The music and movie business has been consistently wrong in its claims that new platforms and channels would be the end of its businesses. In each case, the new technology produced a new market far larger than the impact it had on the existing market.
via steveblank.com
It’s always cheaper to whinge than the change and if you have the ear of the State, reality never checks you. Until later.
Lockheed Martin goes to bat for oppressive regime – lobbying
David Mastio, deputy editorial page editor at the Washington Times, said in an email that the disclosures in the piece were adequate:
I don???t know further details on the relationship between the author and the PR firm [Sanitas].
When I published the piece, I was focused on making sure the author???s relationship to the subject was disclosed. The piece mentions the author???s personal ties to members of Bahrain???s government and his bio line mentions his Bahrain-related position with the U.S. government as well as his current employment with a major defense contractor.
I am satisfied that readers were informed of the author???s connections.
via salon.com
Word Spy – humblebrag
n. An ostensibly humble comment that also demonstrates the person’s wealth, fame, or importance. Also: humble-brag, humble brag.
via wordspy.com
This word has become somewhat famous thanks to the Humblebrag Twitter feed, created and maintained by the comedian and writer Harris Wittels, which retweets humblebrags of the rich and famous.
Lockup Everyone – The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
Lockup Everyone
The last thing Barack Obama did in 2011 was sign a bill that eliminates due process for anyone suspected of terrorism in America.
via thedailyshow.com
Next step
It’s time to admit defeat – Iraq war
As great as was the feat of building the infrastructure for a military occupation and war in Iraq, and then equipping and supplying a massive military force there year after year, it was nothing compared to what the U.S had to do in Afghanistan. Someday, the decision to invade that country, occupy it, build more than 400 bases there, surge in an extra 60,000 or more troops, masses of contractors, CIA agents, diplomats and other civilian officials, and then push a weak local government to grant Washington the right to remain more or less in perpetuity will be seen as the delusional actions of a Washington incapable of gauging the limits of its power in the world.
Talk about learning curves: Having watched their country fail disastrously in a major war on the Asian mainland three decades earlier, America???s leaders somehow convinced themselves that nothing was beyond the military prowess of the ???sole superpower.??? So they sent more than 250,000 American troops (along with all those Burger Kings, Subways and Cinnabons) into two land wars in Eurasia. The result has been another chapter in a history of American defeat ??? this time of a power that, despite its pretensions, was not only weaker than in the Vietnam era, but also far weaker than its leaders were capable of imagining.
via salon.com
Try The March of Folly: from Troy to Vietnam and The Folly of Fools: The Logic of Deceit and Self-Deception in Human Life for guidance on how, and how often we do this. Logic? Oh yes, for the few it makes perfect sense to throw away those lives and materiel for their aggrandisement.
Hamish MacEwan 