Scientists reveal favourite ‘deep, elegant or beautiful’ scientific theories

January 15, 2012

By Sharon Begley

NEW YORK – From Darwinian evolution to the idea that personality is largely shaped by chance, the favourite theories of the world’s most eminent thinkers are as eclectic as science itself.

Every January, John Brockman, the impresario and literary agent who presides over the online salon Edge.org, asks his circle of scientists, digerati and humanities scholars to tackle one question.

In previous years, they have included “how is the Internet changing the way you think?” and “what is the most important invention in the last 2,000 years?”

This year, he posed the open-ended question “what is your favourite deep, elegant or beautiful explanation?”

The responses, released at midnight on Sunday, provide a crash course in science both well known and far out-of-the-box, as admired by the likes of Astronomer Royal Martin Rees, physicist Freeman Dyson and evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins.

Several of the nearly 200 scholars nominated what are arguably the two most powerful scientific theories ever developed. “Darwin’s natural selection wins hands down,” argues Dawkins, emeritus professor at Oxford University.

“Never in the field of human comprehension were so many facts explained by assuming so few,” he says of the theory that encompasses everything about life, based on the idea of natural selection operating on random genetic mutations.

Einstein’s theory of relativity, which explains gravity as the curvature of space, also gets a few nods.

As theoretical physicist Steve Giddings of the University of California, Santa Barbara, writes, “This central idea has shaped our ideas of modern cosmology (and) given us the image of the expanding universe.”

General relativity explains black holes, the bending of light and “even offers a possible explanation of the origin of our Universe – as quantum tunneling from ’nothing,”’ he writes.

Many of the nominated ideas, however, won’t be found in science courses taught in high school or even college.

Terrence Sejnowski, a computational neuroscientist at the Salk Institute, extols the discovery that the conscious, deliberative mind is not the author of important decisions such as what work people do and who they marry. Instead, he writes, “an ancient brain system called the basal ganglia, brain circuits that consciousness cannot access,” pull the strings.

Running on the neurochemical dopamine, they predict how rewarding a choice will be – if I pick this apartment, how happy will I be? – “evaluate the current state of the entire cortex and inform the brain about the best course of action,” explains Sejnowski. Only later do people construct an explanation of their choices, he said in an interview, convincing themselves incorrectly that volition and logic were responsible.

To neuroscientist Robert Sapolsky of Stanford University, the most beautiful idea is emergence, in which complex phenomena almost magically come into being from extremely simple components.

For instance, a human being arises from a few thousand genes. The intelligence of an ant colony – labor specialization, intricate underground nests – emerges from the seemingly senseless behavior of thousands of individual ants.

“Critically, there’s no blueprint or central source of command,” says Sapolsky. Each individual ant has a simple algorithm for interacting with the environment, “and out of this emerges a highly efficient colony.”

Among other tricks, the colony has solved the notorious Traveling Salesman problem, or the challenge of stopping at a long list of destinations by the shortest route possible.

THE OTHER PAVLOVIAN EFFECT

Stephen Kosslyn, director of the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford, is most impressed by Pavlovian conditioning, in which a neutral stimulus such as a sound comes to be associated with a reward, such as food, producing a response, such as salivation.

That much is familiar. Less well known is that Pavlovian conditioning might account for placebo effects. After people have used analgesics such as ibuprofen or aspirin many times, the drugs begin to have effects before their active ingredients kick in.

From previous experience, the mere act of taking the pill has become like Pavlov’s bell was for his dogs, causing them to salivate: the “conditioned stimulus” of merely seeing the pill “triggers the pain-relieving processes invoked by the medicine itself,” explains Kosslyn.

Science theories that explain puzzling human behavior or the inner workings of the universe were also particular favourites of the Edge contributors:

* Psychologist Alison Gopnik of the University of California, Berkeley, is partial to one that accounts for why teenagers are so restless, reckless and emotional. Two brain systems, an emotional motivational system and a cognitive control system, have fallen out of sync, she explains.

The control system that inhibits impulses and allows you to delay gratification kicks in later than it did in past generations, but the motivational system is kicking in earlier and earlier.

The result: “A striking number of young adults who are enormously smart and knowledgeable but directionless, who are enthusiastic and exuberant but unable to commit to a particular work or a particular love until well into their twenties or thirties.”

BEAUTIFUL IDEAS

* Neurobiologist Sam Barondes of the University of California, San Francisco, nominates the idea that personality is largely shaped by chance. One serendipitous force is which parental genes happen to be in the egg and sperm that produced the child.

“But there is also chance in how neurodevelopmental processes unfold – a little virus here, an intrauterine event there, and you have chance all over the place,” he said in an interview. Another toss of the dice: how a parent will respond to a child’s genetic disposition to be outgoing, neurotic, open to new experience and the like, either reinforcing the innate tendencies or countering them.

The role of chance in creating differences between people has moral consequences, says Barondes, “promoting understanding and compassion for the wide range of people with whom we share our lives.”

* Timothy Wilson nominates the idea that “people become what they do.” While people’s behavior arises from their character – someone returns a lost wallet because she is honest – “the reverse also holds,” says the University of Virginia psychologist. If we return a lost wallet, our assessment of how honest we are rises through what he calls “self-inference.” One implication of this phenomenon: “We should all heed Kurt Vonnegut’s advice,” Wilson says: “’We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.”’

* Psychologist David Myers of Hope College finds “group polarization” a beautiful idea, since it explains how interacting with others tends to amplify people’s initial views. In particular, discussing issues with like-minded peers -increasingly the norm in the United States, where red states attract conservatives and blue states attract liberals – push people toward extremes. “The surprising thing is that the group as a whole becomes more extreme than its pre-discussion average,” he said in an interview.

* Martin Rees, professor of cosmology and astrophysics at the University of Cambridge, nominates the “astonishing concept” that what we consider the universe “could be hugely more extensive” than what astronomers observe.

If true, the known cosmos may instead “be a tiny part of the aftermath of ’our’ big bang, which is itself just one bang among a perhaps-infinite ensemble,” Rees writes. Even more intriguing is that different physics might prevail in these different universes, so that “some of what we call ’laws of nature’ may … be local bylaws.”

By Sharon Begley

[VIDEO] Somebody That I Used to Know – Walk off the Earth

Now and then I think of when we were together
Like when you said you felt so happy you could die
Told myself that you were right for me
But felt so lonely in your company
But that was love and it’s an ache I still remember

You can get addicted to a certain kind of sadness
Like resignation to the end
Always the end
So when we found that we could not make sense
Well you said that we would still be friends
But I’ll admit that I was glad that it was over

But you didn’t have to cut me off
Make out like it never happened
And that we were nothing
And I don’t even need your love
But you treat me like a stranger
And that feels so rough
You didn’t have to stoop so low
Have your friends collect your records
And then change your number
I guess that I don’t need that though
Now you’re just somebody that I used to know

Now and then I think of all the times you screwed me over
But had me believing it was always something that I’d done
And I don’t wanna live that way
Reading into every word you say
You said that you could let it go
And I wouldn’t catch you hung up on somebody that you used to know…

But you didn’t have to cut me off
Make out like it never happened
And that we were nothing
And I don’t even need your love
But you treat me like a stranger
And that feels so rough
You didn’t have to stoop so low
Have your friends collect your records
And then change your number
I guess that I don’t need that though
Now you’re just somebody that I used to know

I used to know
That I used to know

Somebody…

Goyte De Backer

[VIDEO] Slavoj Zizek: The Monstrosity of Christ

The Monstrosity of Christ
Paradox or Dialectic?
Slavoj Zizek and John Milbank
Edited by Creston Davis

What matters is not so much that Žižek is endorsing a demythologized, disenchanted Christianity without transcendence, as that he is offering in the end (despite what he sometimes claims) a heterodox version of Christian belief.
—John Milbank

To put it even more bluntly, my claim is that it is Milbank who is effectively guilty of heterodoxy, ultimately of a regression to paganism: in my atheism, I am more Christian than Milbank.
—Slavoj Žižek

In this corner, philosopher Slavoj Žižek, who represents the critical-materialist stance against religion’s illusions; in the other corner, “radical orthodox” theologian John Milbank, an influential and provocative thinker who argues that theology is the only foundation upon which knowledge, politics, and ethics can stand. In The Monstrosity of Christ, Žižek and Milbank go head to head for three rounds, employing an impressive arsenal of moves to advance their positions and press their respective advantages. By the closing bell, they have proven themselves worthy adversaries–and have also shown that faith and reason are not simply and intractably opposed.

Žižek has long been interested in the emancipatory potential offered by Christian theology. And Milbank, seeing global capitalism as the new century’s greatest ethical challenge, has pushed his own ontology in more political and materialist directions. Their debate in The Monstrosity of Christ concerns nothing less than the future of religion, secularity, and political hope in light of a monsterful event—God becoming human. For the first time since Žižek’s turn toward theology, we have a true debate between an atheist and a theologian about the very meaning of theology, Christ, the Church, the Holy Ghost, universality, and the foundations of logic. The result goes far beyond the popularized atheist/theist point/counterpoint of recent books by Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, and others.

Žižek begins, and Milbank answers, countering dialectics with “paradox.” The debate centers on the nature of and relation between paradox and parallax, between analogy and dialectics, between transcendent glory and liberation.

Short Circuits series, edited by Slavoj Žižek

About the Authors

Slavoj Zizek is a philosopher and cultural critic. He has published over thirty books, including Looking Awry, The Puppet and the Dwarf, and The Parallax View (these three published by the MIT Press).

John Milbank is an influential Christian theologian and the author of Theology and Social Theory: Beyond Secular Reason and other books.

Creston Davis, who conceived of the encounter between Slavoj Žižek and John Milbank, studied under both men.

ENDORSEMENTS

“The contemporary return to the theological most dramatically occurs in this book, as Zizek fully realizes his earlier Hegelian and Lacanian theological work, a work that Milbank can essentially know as a uniquely modern expression of nihilism. Nonetheless Milbank enters into a genuine theological dialogue with this nihilism, and a truly new theological discourse occurs. This effects a paradoxical union between orthodoxy and heterodoxy, and between radical orthodoxy and radical heterodoxy, which is perhaps the deepest motif of the contemporary return to the theological.”
—Thomas J. J. Altizer, author of Godhead and the Nothing

“In this dazzling dialogue, Zizek and Milbank change words and cross swords, until the point where both recognize that Christ and Hegel, in their monstrosity, look very much alike. A phenomenal achievement!”
—Catherine Malabou, Maître de Conferences, Philosophy Department, Université Paris-X Nanterre

[AUDIO] ‘EL DESIERTO’ – LHASA DEL SERA (1972 – 2010)

[VIDEO] PAS DE DEUX (SANS LES PERSONNES)

[FILM] GLORIA: IN HER OWN WORDS. Gloria Steinhem’s life and the Women’s Movement.

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CLICK MOVIE POSTER TO WATCH FULL DOCUMENTARY

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Despite decades of opposition from the right, and recent personal setbacks, Gloria Steinem remains one of the most outspoken and visible symbols of the women’s movement today. Produced and directed by Emmy®-winning documentary filmmaker Peter Kunhardt (HBO’s “JFK: In His Own Words” and “Teddy: In His Own Words”), GLORIA: IN HER OWN WORDS blends interviews of Steinem in her Manhattan apartment, archival footage, photographs from throughout her life and clips from press interviews over the years. Among those interviewing Steinem in the film are Barbara Walters, Helen Gurley Brown, Phil Donahue and Larry King. The documentary also features archival footage of such prominent women’s movement figures as National Organization for Women (NOW) co-founder Betty Friedan, congresswoman Bella Abzug and civil rights advocate Flo Kennedy. 

GLORIA: IN HER OWN WORDS chronicles Steinem’s emergence as a driving force in the modern women’s liberation movement. She recalls beginning her career as a journalist in New York City in the early 1960s and making headlines with an expose on the working conditions of Playboy Bunnies, noting, “I learned what’s it’s like to be hung on a meat hook.”

Having had an abortion at age 22 (which she kept secret at the time), Steinem’s political awakening accelerated when she covered an abortion hearing for New York Magazine in 1969 and learned of the horrifying and humiliating experiences women endured attempting to exercise their right to reproductive freedom. She began to seek out everything she could find on the burgeoning women’s movement and helped lead the nationwide Women’s Strike for Equality march on Aug. 26, 1970, the 50th anniversary of the enactment of women’s suffrage. It was, Steinem notes, “the first time in my life, and I think for many other women too, that we marched for ourselves.”

Since then, Steinem has been ever-present on the front lines of social activism, co-founding Ms. Magazine, where she continues to serve as a consulting editor, in 1972, despite media speculation about the publication’s viability. She recalls that at the time “there was nothing for women to read that was controlled by women.” Steinem became the public face of the women’s rights movement, participating in marches, making media appearances and also weathering the inevitable backlash, feeling she had to work twice as hard to not be judged by her looks. Indeed, Steinem would become almost as well-known for her distinct style as for her political activism, remembering that her streaked blonde locks were inspired by the character Holly Golightly in “Breakfast at Tiffany’s.” Her signature aviator glasses were about concealment, she reveals, saying, “The bigger they were, the more I felt I could hide behind them.” GLORIA: IN HER OWN WORDS also explores Steinem’s early days. Born in 1934 in Toledo, Ohio, she studied tap dance as a child and watched her mother give up a career as a journalist to have children. Her parents had a rocky marriage and ultimately divorced. Steinem, who attended Smith College, wonders whether devoting so much of her time and energy to the women’s movement was a way to avoid the kind of suffering her mother experienced.

The film also looks at the challenges Steinem has faced in later years. Diagnosed with breast cancer soon after turning 50, she underwent surgery and radiation.“The cancer served a real purpose, making me a little bit more conscious of time,” she observes. Taking a break from public life after decades of traveling nonstop, Steinem “hit bottom” and began to look internally, writing the self-esteem book “Revolution from Within” in the early ‘90s. Interviewed at the time, she noted, “Being a social activist can be a drug that keeps you from going back and looking at yourself.” 

And after decades of remaining single, she married entrepreneur David Bale – father of actor Christian Bale – in 2000, but he died after they had been married just over three years. GLORIA: IN HER OWN WORDS is produced by Peter Kunhardt and Sheila Nevins; directed by Peter Kunhardt; editing and graphic design by Phillip Schopper; original music by Michael Bacon. For Kunhardt McGee Productions: executive producer, Dyllan McGee. For HBO: supervising producer, Jacqueline Glover.

[AUDIO] Amazing song–unfortunately everyone will now think i’m gay: “Every Man I Fall For – Cold War Kids”

Every Man I Fall For - Cold War Kids
Every man I fall for
Drinks his coffee black
Love and hate are tattooed on his knuckles, and
My name is on his back

Every man I fall for
Works the graveyard shift
He kiss me softly to wake me up
Then takes my place in bed

And I fall
I live with one concern
It's the law of
Diminishing returns
It's the law of
Diminishing returns

Every man I fall for
Keeps his anger on a string and holds it tight
When other men walk by blinking their eyes at me
He always picks a fight

I go walk alone down Ocean Boulevard
Peek in your windows
Tired housewives naggin at their husbands, but
Is this the life you chose?

And I fall
I live with one concern
It's the law of
Diminishing returns
And I fall
I live with one concern
It's the law of
Diminishing returns

Every man I fall for
Nearly every man
Every man I fall for
Nearly every man




__________
[VIDEO] Jess McAvoy perfoming "Dusk" live. When I think of music, I think of this.

[VIDEO] DAVID ATTENBOROUGH’S ‘FIRST LIFE’–WHERE AND HOW LIFE ON EARTH BEGAN

In fifty years of broadcasting, Sir David Attenborough has travelled the globe to document the living world in all its wonder. Now, in the landmark series First Life, he goes back in time in search of the very first animals.

From the fog bound coastline of Newfoundland to the deserts of North Africa and the rain forests of Queensland, in First Life David Attenborough finds evidence in fossils and living animals of an extraordinary period in Earth’s history, half a billion years ago, when animals first appeared in the oceans. From the first eyes that saw, to the first predators that killed and the first legs that walked on land, these were creatures that evolved the traits and tools that allow all animals, including us, to survive to this day.

This is a story that can only be told now because in the last few years, stunning fossil finds at sites across the world have transformed our understanding of the First Life forms, and technology now allows us to recreate the first animals and their environments with photorealistic computer generated imagery

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WATCH EPISODE ONE: ARRIVAL

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WATCH EPISODE TWO: CONQUEST

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The Burgess Shale fossils, a Rocky Mountain treasure trove found in 1909 just west of the B.C.-Alberta border, represent the planet’s single most important snapshot of life as it existed during the so-called “Cambrian explosion” of organisms about 530 million years ago.

The Ontario Municipal Board: Villain or Scapegoat?

 I wrote (quoting liberally from Moore) for my Law Class paper last year. Personally i think the media sensationalizes and the public react. We as planners should focus more on the facts behind the cover stories. 

-rudhro

________________

View this document on Scribd

December 13, 2011

Written by Isidoros Kyrlan

Aaron A. Moore Ph.D. explores the question ‘Is the OMB a problem to Toronto’s development or just the scapegoat?’ Moore presented his research at the University of Toronto’s Institute on Municipal Finance and Governance last week. The presentation “Villain or Scapegoat?: The OMB and land use planning in Ontario” was a lead up to his upcoming book “Planning Institutions and Politics – The Ontario Municipal Board and Toronto” due out the summer of 2012. It was a timely presentation given City Council’s upcomingFebruary vote on whether to ask the Province to abolish the OMB for Toronto.

Moore’s research spans the past 10 years and he finds that the OMB is indeed masking the real issue. That issue is one of a flawed planning system that is arbitrary, and constantly challenged. He cites Section 37 of The Planning Act ’Density Bonusing’ as an example of how a well intentioned intensification initiative may lead to poor city zoning decisions. Density Bonusing is when a developer requests to surpass the maximum density allowed by zoning. The City of Toronto can ask for compensation to allow for the increased density, usually a monetary amount. The idea is that the city will use the money to accommodate the area for the increased density. In the last 3 years there were 261 zoning changes and 118 times Section 37 was implemented to compensate the city. The problem is that the city has an incentive to leave zoning densities low and request developers to compensate for exceeding the zoning. In the case for the City of Toronto, Density Bonusing funds are not accurately tracked to ensure they are invested back in the neighbourhood.

The OMB comes into play when developers exceed zoning density and neighbourhood associations feel they have justification for challenging the development. Neighbourhood associations rally their City Councillors to oppose the development, even if the City Planning Committee favours the proposal. The development is voted down at City Council and then appealed to the OMB. The OMB puts weight on professional planning expertise such as that of the Planning Committee recommendations instead of City Council’s. A development with planning support, but not council support will likely be approved. A Councillor can side with the voters of the neighbourhood association and blame the OMB as to why the development went through without risking growth and development in their ward. Moore cites that the number of OMB decisions favouring developers over city council has increased in correlation to the number of increased neighbourhood associations in the city. The OMB has become a relief valve for local politics.

With the Section 37 incentive and the councillors having the option to blame the OMB, a contentious environment is created of developer versus city planning versus city council versus the OMB. An outsider would view it as a chaotic system where there is no point to planning and zoning if it can all be challenged and changed at the OMB. Moore notes it is not like this in other jurisdictions; the State of Oregon was presented as an example of having institutions similar to the OMB, but with better planning that reduced appeals to those bodies. Moore noted that in Oregon planning is not just done at the local level, but at the state level as well. The state sets a land-use plan and approaches each city for a comprehensive plan of how their zoning will compliment the overall plan. Ontario has a growth plan often referenced in intensification challenges, but the province does not approach every city and ask for how their zoning will meet the growth plan targets. Instead, zoning has to be challenged, often at the OMB level, to meet the intensification objectives on a case by case basis. For comprehensive planning to take place in Ontario more resources would be required. Even in Toronto, Moore notes that city planning staff are evenly distributed among all wards, even though development is usually concentrated in a few wards.

Moore did raise a concern about the Toronto’s recent proposal to abolish the OMB in the city. Councillor Kristyn Wong-Tam and Councillor Josh Matlow recommend that the OMB be replaced by the Committee of Adjustments, and any challenge to City Council decisions would be made in a court of law. In Moore’s research he found the courts to be expensive, time consuming, and possibly more in favour of developer arguments of fairness, rather than planning expertise. Where neighbourhood associations today feel powerless against the OMB due to a lack of planning expertise, in the proposed system they could be shut out due to legal costs and endless litigation. The current City proposal does not address Moore’s areas of improvement: comprehensive and transparent planning involving not just local but regional jurisdictions. Moore would like to see the Province and cities agree on growth objectives and have in place the zoning to accommodate those objectives, then developers, residents, and municipalities could stop wasting resources challenging each proposal. Moore has the research and numbers to show the OMB does not have to be a scapegoat. The only concern is that with comprehensive planning, Toronto could lose some of its current dynamism. Twenty years ago who could have planned for Maple Leaf Gardens to become a grocery store or Etobicoke’s motel strip to become a skyline?

Written by Isidoros Kyrlan

[VIDEO] A LOSS OF A GREAT ANTITHEIST SOLDIER, NO DOUBT: Christopher Hitchens (1949 – 2011) The Best of the Hitchslap

[VIDEO] THE ORIGIN OF SANTA AND HIS FLYING REINDEER –THE HALLUCINATING SAMI OF FINLAND

[VIDEO] LATERAL THINKING – I NEVER REALIZED THERE WAS A NAME FOR THE WAY I THINK

Lateral thinking is solving problems through an indirect and creative approach, using reasoning that is not immediately obvious and involving ideas that may not be obtainable by using only traditional step-by-step logic. The term lateral thinking was coined by Cherry Thomas.

Critical thinking is primarily concerned with judging the true value of statements and seeking errors. Lateral thinking is more concerned with the movement value of statements and ideas. A person uses lateral thinking to move from one known idea to creating new ideas. Edward de Bono defines four types of thinking tools:

• Idea generating tools that are designed to break current thinking patterns—routine patterns, the status quo
• Focus tools that are designed to broaden where to search for new ideas
• Harvest tools that are designed to ensure more value is received from idea generating output
• Treatment tools that are designed to consider real-world constraints, resources, and support^[1]

Random Entry Idea Generating Tool: Choose an object at random, or a noun from a dictionary, and associate that with the area you are thinking about.

For example imagine you are thinking about how to improve a web site. Choosing an object at random from an office you might see a fax machine. A fax machine transmits images over the phone to paper. Fax machines are becoming rare. People send faxes directly to phone numbers. Perhaps this could be a new way to embed the web site’s content in emails and other sites.

Provocation Idea Generating Tool: choose to use any of the provocation techniques—wishful thinking, exaggeration, reversal, escape, distortion, or arising. Create a list of provocations and then use the most outlandish ones to move your thinking forward to new ideas.

Movement Techniques: develop provocation operations by the following methods: extract a principle, focus on the difference, moment to moment, positive aspects, special circumstances.

Challenge Idea Generating Tool: A tool which is designed to ask the question “Why?” in a non-threatening way: why something exists, why it is done the way it is. The result is a very clear understanding of “Why?” which naturally leads to fresh new ideas. The goal is to be able to challenge anything at all, not just items which are problems.

For example you could challenge the handles on coffee cups. The reason for the handle seems to be that the cup is often too hot to hold directly. Perhaps coffee cups could be made with insulated finger grips, or there could be separate coffee cup holders similar to beer holders.

Concept Fan Idea Generating Tool: Ideas carry out concepts. This tool systematically expands the range and number of concepts in order to end up with a very broad range of ideas to consider.

Disproving: Based on the idea that the majority is always wrong (Henrik Ibsen, John Kenneth Galbraith^[who?]), take anything that is obvious and generally accepted as “goes without saying”, question it, take an opposite view, and try to convincingly disprove it. This technique is similar to de Bono’s “Black Hat” of the Six Thinking Hats, which looks at the ways in which something will not work.

Lateral thinking and problem solving

Problem Solving: When something creates a problem, the performance or the status quo of the situation drops. Problem solving deals with finding out what caused the problem and then figuring out ways to fix the problem. The objective is to get the situation to where it should be.

For example, a production line has an established run rate of 1000 items per hour. Suddenly, the run rate drops to 800 items per hour. Ideas as to why this happened and solutions to repair the production line must be thought of, such as giving the worker a pay raise.

Creative Problem Solving: Using creativity, one must solve a problem in an indirect and unconventional manner.

For example, if a production line produced 1000 books per hour, creative problem solving could find ways to produce more books per hour, use the production line, or reduce the cost to run the production line.

Creative Problem Identification: Many of the greatest non-technological innovations are identified while realizing an improved process or design in everyday objects and tasks either by accidental chance or by studying and documenting real world experience….

-wikipedia

[VIDEO] The 40 second annihilation of an old bus (HD tilt-shift)

By law, all buses in Colombia that have been in service for over 20 years have to be sent to the junkyard.

How to be an effective Googler

 

CHINA 2011: 16 VERY INTERESTING FACTS

ONE: 

By 2025, China will build TEN New York-sized cities.

“[By 2025,] 40 billion square meters of floor space will be built — in five million buildings. 50,000 of these buildings could be skyscrapers — the equivalent of ten New York Cities.”

Source: Mckinsey, “Preparing for China’s urban billion”

[VIDEO] “Does science ruin the magic of life? Robin Ince argues no. The more we learn about the astonishing behavior of the universe — the more we stand in awe.” The unfortunate thing is, the majority of humanity continues following conceptualizations from a time before science aided every humans understanding of reality YET not living outside of science. I think they should not be able to do both. Those who any follow primitive thought should be obliged to live in a world as primitive as well. There were no cars, electricity, computers, modern medicine, nor higher learning mentioned in ‘holy books’–as those who wrote them were limited in their understanding of reality. You should not have it both ways.

Live life as though your reality matches your perceptions. One donkey, one cave…and a bucket full of ignorance of what is going on. -rudhro

‘Deliciously creamy’: Breast-milk cheese

I would love to try this! Actually, the strange thing is that we as humans are not repulsed by the fact that we drink bovine mammary fluids and not our own. Seriously! Just think about that for a second.  Even monkey milk seems more appropriate.  We’ve abducted these slothful massive grass eating creatures from the prairies and we steal their babies’ nourishment, put it in supermarkets…yet we find human milk cheese odd? Humans are hilarious. They things we normalize and the things we abnormalize….

-rudhro

A dish from chef Daniel Angerer, who made cheese from mother’s milk (breast milk) that came from his wife Lori Mason. He did not serve the human cheese in his restaurant. Shown: mommy’s milk cheese rolled in dehydrated porcini mushroom powder with burned onion chutney

Kathryn Blaze Carlson

January 18, 2011

The Wisconsin Bang variety is “deliciously creamy,” City Funk has a “dizzying sweet finish,” and Sweet Air Equity is a “mild, hard cheese that crumbles in your mouth.” The fromage connoisseur might salivate at these tantalizing descriptions, but for those who know the key ingredient — human breast milk — these culinary accounts elicit everything from curiosity to utter disgust.

To New Yorker Miriam Simun, a breast-milk cheese-maker who recently served up the creations as part of a university project, the question is: To eat or not to eat. We consume breast milk as a baby, so why not spread it on a baguette as an adult? We consume cow’s cheese, so why not sink our teeth into cheese coagulated from human milk?

Why not eat Wisconsin Bang, made from milk purchased form a lawyer’s assistant in the Cheese State? (The going rate for human milk is $2 an ounce).

“Human cheese is initially a pretty shocking concept to most people,” said Ms. Simun, whose project emerged from a Living Systems course at New York University’s Interactive Technology Program. “Many people feel uncomfortable because they don’t know the woman or what she is eating, but the women that participated shared their diets, their feelings, some biographical information. I think you’d be hard pressed to find a cheese where you can know this much about the cow.”

Pretty shocking concept indeed.

A dish from chef Daniel Angerer, who made cheese from mother’s milk (breast milk) that came from his wife Lori Mason. He did not serve the human cheese in his restaurant. Shown: mommy’s milk cheese with beets and romaine

When New York chef Daniel Angerer blogged last year about making cheese from a combination of cow’s milk and his wife’s lactation — Mommy’s Milk, as he called it — the press went berserk, and then lined up to try it.

[VIDEO] A lovely Rihanna “UMBRELLA” cover

Jane Jacobs and the Power of Women Planners

Roberta Brandes Gratz

November 16, 2011

Fifty years ago this month, Jane Jacobs published Death and Life of Great American Cities and changed the way the world understands cities. Yet even when she’s acknowledged as an important urban thinker, the ‘housewife’ qualifier is invariably included. When we talk about strategies for city growth and economic development, women aren’t often offered seats at the table. They hold jobs in the field but few posts as critics. Jane was the exception. But the rules didn’t change a great deal.

Jacobs broke into the national discussion about cities somewhat by accident. She was a reluctant stand-in for her Architectural Forum male editor at a cities conference in 1956. She had written some insightful articles about how cities work, particularly in Vogue, documenting how New York City’s fur and flower districts evolved organically.

Today, her early observations are considered pathbreaking. But happenstance thrust her into the public eye.

Jacobs’ early attention-getting articles in Architectural Forum and Fortune Magazine happened because she had as a champion a distinguished male editor William Holly Whyte. Whyte gained fame for writing The Organization Man and for espousing ideas similar to hers. But he had to overcome a sputtering, angry Fortune publisher who once asked, “Who is this crazy dame?”

A housewife without even a college degree was unacceptable. After all, Lewis Mumford’s scathing review of Death and Life was headlined “Mother Jacobs Home Remedies.”

Is Civilization A Universally Bad Idea?

Written by Adam Frank

November 15, 2011

The ice ages came and the ice ages went. For more than a half-million years Homo sapiens endured the changing climate by adapting. Then, deep in the frozen expanse of the last global big chill, something new happened. We woke up to ourselves in a new way.

We became self-conscious, creating art, culture and tools of far greater complexity than anything that had come before. When the ice pulled back yet again, we eventually took a step of even greater consequence. We domesticated ourselves and put the Earth to the plow.

With agriculture came surplus and with surplus came new social arrangements. Eventually, we built cities and far-ranging empires to support them. Human beings began buildingcivilization. In doing so we set ourselves and the entire planet onto a new trajectory.

But did anyone ever stop to ask if it was a good idea?

Now before you give in to the easy snort and chortle that accompanies a seemingly absurd question like this, I am going to ask you to take the long view. In this case long means billions of years, and billions of planets.

We don’t want to ask the question: Is civilization good for you (or me)? Instead we want to ask: Is civilization good — in the long term — for planets and their capacity to support life (or at least technologically adept civilizations)?

In other words, we want to frame the question of sustainability in an astrobiological setting.

[VIDEO] Jess McAvoy perfoming “Dusk” live. When I think of music, I think of this.

Independent Aussie musician Jess McAvoy performed live at the Wick, Brunswick, Australia, 2009. This is one of the many songs she performed over the night. The video was filmed and edited by Kapturemedia. For more information on Jess you can view her site: jessmcavoy.com

 

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[AUDIO] Amazing song–unfortunately everyone will now think i’m gay: “Every Man I Fall For – Cold War Kids”

“Cooked food provides more energy than when it’s consumed raw” // “raw-food diets generally lead to weight loss”

WENCY LEUNG

Sunday, Nov. 13, 2011

Do you like your steak rare or well done? A new study suggests we may be biologically adapted to skip rare, still-bloody beef in favour of thoroughly cooked meat.

Researchers have found meat provides more energy when it’s cooked, leading them to believe cooking played a key role in human evolution.

Lead author Rachel Carmody, a Ph.D. candidate in the department of human evolutionary biology at Harvard University, and a team of researchers compared how different preparations can affect the energy value of food. Using mice as test subjects, they found that the energy the rodents gained was greater when their food was cooked than when it was pounded and consumed raw.

The researchers fed separate groups of mice organic sweet potato or organic lean beef, prepared in various ways, over 40 days. They tracked the changes in the animals’ body mass to determine the energy they gained or lost on each diet.

Researchers hypothesize that changes to the structure of proteins caused by cooking may allow more to be absorbed and digested by the consumer, rather than by bacteria in the gut. Moreover, cooking makes muscle fibres easier to chew and increases the surface area of the meat that is exposed to gastric acids and enzymes. Cooking may also kill pathogens, like E. coli and salmonella, thus reducing the amount of energy the body expends for immune defence, the researchers suggested.

Their findings support the idea that traditional calorie-counting may be an inaccurate measure of the energy content of food. That also explains why raw-food diets generally lead to weight loss, Ms. Carmody said in an e-mail. However, such diets are not without risk; the researchers noted that previous studies found raw foodists experience high rates of chronic energy deficiency and reduced fertility. “This finding suggests that, in humans, the caloric gains conferred by cooking may be not merely advantageous but also necessary for normal biological function,” says the study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

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So, the lesson I’m taking away from this? Isn’t some wacko, cultish Oprah-fad diet rumour. But if I didn’t go to the gym, or had no time jog, i’mma eat rawer.  Whereas if I haven’t been eating enough on a single day, I’ll eat more well done veggies, meat etc.  One should never eat the same things all the time, prepared the same way.  That is insanity, and anality.  Not to mention BORING.  Our ancestors as they hunted and gathered, had a variety of things going through their systems, depending on what was hunted or how far the tiger was or what yummy bush berries they walked into.  Variety and moderation is what, in my opinion, is healthy.  

-rudhro

[AUDIO] I am my own grandpa

“I’m My Own Grandpa” (sometimes rendered as “I’m My Own Grandpaw“) is a novelty song written by Dwight Latham and Moe Jaffe, performed by Lonzo and Oscar in 1947, about a man who, through an unlikely (but legal) combination of marriages, becomes stepfather to his own stepmother — that is, tacitly dropping the “step-” modifiers, he becomes his own grandfather.

In the ’30s, Latham had a group, the Jesters, on network radio; their specialties were bits of spoken humor and novelty songs. While reading a book of Mark Twain anecdotes, he once found a paragraph in which Twain proved it would be possible for a man to become his own grandfather. In 1947, Latham and Jaffe expanded the idea into a song, which became a hit for Lonzo and Oscar.

[VIDEO] Strange sea creature discovered at the bottom of the ocean

The $15-billion ambition to reshape Manhattan’s skyline: ‎”The last time the city saw such a transformation was more than 100 years ago, when Park Avenue and Grand Central Station were covered with the platform that is now crossed by millions of people a year without a second thought. If all goes according to plan, the hidden tracks below Hudson Yards will also be forgotten by the time the first residents move in.”

STEVE LADURANTAYE

Saturday, Nov. 12, 2011

The High Line park comes to an abrupt end on the west side of Manhattan, as a chain link fence keeps anyone from stumbling into a massive train yard that handles much of the island’s commuter rail traffic.

Within a few years, that fence be will gone and an entire city block will have been built atop the 26-acre rail yard. Literally on top – the trains will continue to run on the same tracks they are on today, but a $1.5-billion platform will keep them out of sight.

Five thousand apartments will sprout from the newly-built artificial land mass, along with a million square feet of retail space and six million square feet of office space – the same amount that can be found in all of Saskatchewan. That’s three office towers, nine residential buildings and dozens of stores. There are also plans for a school, a cultural centre and 12 acres of open park space.

The $15-billion project is ambitious even by New York standards, and will result in an entirely new neighbourhood on what had been considered a fully built-out island. But in the meantime, much of the site is surrounded by wooden hoarding bearing the name of Canada’s largest real estate developer – Oxford Properties.

The project is the company’s bold step into the United States. And for the hundreds of thousands of pensioners and workers who rely on the company to generate solid returns to fund their retirement – Oxford is the real estate arm of the Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System and owns and manages $17-billion of buildings – the stakes couldn’t be any higher.

This sliver of Manhattan is about to become a proving ground for some of the biggest players in Canadian real estate. Just across the street, Brookfield Office Properties, which is controlled by Toronto’s Brookfield Asset Management Inc., has its own project that will add millions more feet of office space.

That all of this is going ahead, despite the threat of another recession, illustrates the health of the Canadian property sector. Developers and landlords here came through the recession in far better shape than their American counterparts, due to tighter banking regulations and a healthier leasing market in Canada. They have the money, and are counting on better economic times in America’s largest city to make their bets pay out.

[VIDEO] Brandstof Amsterdam and Filosofie Magazine present a series of one-minute quotes by Alain de Botton on his newest book ‘Religion for Atheists’, launched june 2011 in Holland, in Dutch by Atlas. Alain is a writer and the founder of The School of Life in London

de Botton is one of my most favorite living philosophers.  I feel honoured to be a contemporary living human.

[VIDEO] “Live simply so others people can simply live.”

I remember while working in an office in Edmonton I had a co-worker whose wife was a geriatric nurse and how she lamented that children would be so loath to sign DNRs (do not resuscitate orders) for parents who were like 95 years old, so ever time they suffered some sort of emergency, the nurses were forced to crush all kindsa ribs (and do so over and over, so re-break a chest cavity a few days after doing so the first time) and such to make their weak hearts beat anew…and it was so horrifying/traumatic for the nurses…and they were so frustrated that the children couldn’t just let go, couldn’t just understand that there comes a time when it is actually worse TO resist death/nature.  These feeble elderly patients finally died, but in so much pain from the physically trauma on their chests and broken bones which ultimately never healed.  

Love can be selfish.  Religion, insane.

-rudhro

New TTC streetcar sneak peek

Nov 11, 2011

The TTC will give riders a chance to step into their new streetcars starting this Saturday.

A replica of the front half of the light rail vehicles are on public display at their Hillcrest yard. The TTC will be offering frequent bus shuttle service to Hillcrest from Nov. 12 until Nov. 15.

The modern streetcars are low-floor to ensure full accessibility, air conditioned, and will carry almost two times the number of passengers current streetcars can hold.

There will also be passenger safety alarms —like those on subways, and cameras on the vehicles sending images to the drivers video screen.

It is also the first vehicle that has pay-at-the-door technology so riders can use smart cards, debit or cash to pay.

Six year plan

The TTC hopes to have this new fleet on the roads within the next six years.

TTC Chair Karen Stintz said the significant investment was very much needed to meet the growing needs of the city.

“We’ve made a significant investment in these streetcars and we need them to modernize our system,” Stintz says. She says the TTC will have to find a way to get money for the vehicles despite budget cuts.

The TTC awarded a contract to Bombardier in June 2009 for the streetcars.

The public was consulted about the design that is set to replace the 30-year-old ones in use.

[VIDEO] Using Vodka Soaked Tampons To Get Drunk

[VIDEO] ATHIESTS OF THE WORLD DISUNITE! great athiest/agnostic/skeptic quotes from history…

Question your Indoctrination.

[VIDEO] John Betjeman’s satirical reflection on the architecture at Bath, England (prose, not poetry)

John Betjeman in The West Country was filmed in 1962 and thought lost until re-discovered in the 90s and broadcast as The Lost Betjemans. Here, Betjeman takes on the persona of a property developer to satirically critique the architectural trends taking hold in the 60s.

Sir John Betjeman,(28 August 1906 – 19 May 1984) was an English poet, writer and broadcaster.

He was a founding member of the Victorian Society and a passionate defender of Victorian architecture. Starting his career as a journalist, he ended it as one of the most popular British Poets Laureate to date and a much-loved figure on British television.

Truth about potato chips revealed: Baked is not better than fried

PAUL IRISH

STAFF REPORTER

November 8, 2011

Are you one of those who browse the snack rack at your local convenience store looking for those “healthier” baked potato chips as opposed to the artery-clogging fried variety?

If so, you may be wasting your time.

Reports from the United States confirms that baked chips — although featuring a lower fat level — have high levels of acrylamide, a cancer-causing and potentially neurotoxic chemical.

It’s not an additive but is formed — as a general rule — when food is heated enough to produce a fairly dry and brown/yellow surface.

The research supports work in Canada and other countries that point to the chemical as being a concern.

[VIDEO] ‎”The topographical shape and the material constitution of the upper surface of the island of Manhattan, as it exists today, is much less a matter of geology than it is of economics and politics and human psychology. The effects of geological forces were trumped (you might say) by other forces — forces that proved themselves, in the fullness of time, physically stronger. Deutsch thinks the same thing must in the long run be true of the universe as a whole. Stuff like gravitation and dark energy are the sorts of things that determine the shape of the cosmos only in its earliest, and most parochial, and least interesting stages. The rest is going to be a matter of our own intentional doing..”

By @jason_silva and @notthisbody 

“The adjacent possible is a kind of shadow future, hovering on the edges of the present state of things, a map of all the ways in which the present can reinvent itself.” – Steven Johnson

INSPIRATION:

This video is inspired, in part, by the ideas explored in David Deutsch’s new book, THE BEGINNING OF INFINITY. We hope it moves you. 

[VIDEO] Beautiful. “Occupy Chicago: Gov. Scott Walker Gets Mic Checked”

[VIDEO] The mysterious book from the 1400s that can’t be read, has no author, has no point of origin, modern computers can’t decipher and appears to explore scientific knowledge from centuries in the future without a single error in penmanship: THE VOYNICH MANUSCRIPT

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CLICK TO WATCH THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC DOCUMENTARY IN FULL 

                                        

(click on ‘continue as free user, after the few secs)

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This is remarkable.  I personally would consider Autism, rather than the loons out there seeking Extraterrestrial origins.  They should teach about these kindsa things in elementary to fire the minds of youngsters into the potential of humanity.  Unfortunately, the European Jesus-heads who invaded Meso-America destroyed huge libraries of knowledge, assuming that it was Satan-worship—–and humanity lost a treasure trove of knowledge similar to this with the extinction of such awesome cultural relics.  If this weren’t from Europe itself, I’d be surprised if it weren’t as well, similarly, destroyed.  They should make perfect parchment replicas of this and sell em for $100–like that Tupac book that recreates his school books, back of napkin doodles and lyrical creation process…I would love to own one of these–talk about a conversation-starting coffee table book!

–rudhro

“The Voynich manuscript, described as “the world’s most mysterious manuscript,” is a work which dates to the early 15th century, possibly from northern Italy. It is named after the book dealer Wilfrid Voynich, who purchased it in 1912. Some pages are missing, but the current version comprises about 240 vellum pages,^{[notes 1]} most with illustrations. Much of the manuscript resembles an herbal of the time period, seeming to present illustrations and information about plants and their possible uses for medical purposes. However, most of the plants do not match known species, and the manuscript’s script and language remain unknown and unreadable. Possibly some form of encrypted ciphertext, the Voynich manuscript has been studied by many professional and amateur cryptographers, including American and British codebreakers from both World War I and World War II. Yet it has defied all decipherment attempts, becoming a historical cryptology cause célèbre. The mystery surrounding it has excited the popular imagination, making the manuscript a subject of both fanciful theories and novels.”–wikipedia

Read more of the Wikipedia article…

[AUDIO] PHILIP LARKIN – PERHAPS MY FAVOURITE POET

Philip Arthur Larkin, CH, CBE, FRSL (9 August 1922 – 2 December 1985) is widely regarded as one of the great English poets of the latter half of the twentieth century. His first book of poetry, The North Ship, was published in 1945, followed by two novels, Jill (1946) and A Girl in Winter (1947), but he came to prominence in 1955 with the publication of his second collection of poems, The Less Deceived, followed by The Whitsun Weddings (1964) and High Windows (1974). He contributed toThe Daily Telegraph as its jazz critic from 1961 to 1971, articles gathered together in All What Jazz: A Record Diary 1961–71 (1985), and he edited The Oxford Book of Twentieth Century English Verse (1973).^[1] He was the recipient of many honours, including the Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry.^[2] He was offered, but declined, the position of poet laureate in 1984, following the death of John Betjeman.

After graduating from Oxford in 1943 with a first in English language and literature, Larkin became a librarian. It was during the thirty years he served as university librarian at the Brynmor Jones Library at the University of Hull that he produced the greater part of his published work. His poems are marked by what Andrew Motioncalls a very English, glum accuracy about emotions, places, and relationships, and what Donald Davie described as lowered sights and diminished expectations. Eric Homberger called him “the saddest heart in the post-war supermarket”—Larkin himself said that deprivation for him was what daffodils were for Wordsworth.^[3]Influenced by W. H. Auden, W. B. Yeats, and Thomas Hardy, his poems are highly structured but flexible verse forms. They were described by Jean Hartley, the ex-wife of Larkin’s publisher George Hartley (The Marvell Press), as a “piquant mixture of lyricism and discontent”,^[4] though anthologist Keith Tuma writes that there is more to Larkin’s work than its reputation for dour pessimism suggests. MORE POETRY AUDIO BELOW

[BOOK] Jed Rubenfeld’s “The Interpretation of Murder”: A spellbinding thriller featuring Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung and Sandor Ferenczi searching for a diabolical killer in turn of the century New York.

After moving into my new tiny abode in a 1920s apartment buildingin Downtown Toronto last summer, I discovered a table in the basement laundry room where people were leaving one or two books to exchange.  The first book I picked up and flipped to the first paragraph left me awestruck.  I proceeded upstairs and did not put it down for the next several hours, perhaps days (i’m a slow reader).  It begins in reality—-the historical reality, of Carl Jung and Sigmund Freud arriving in New York City in 1909 for the first time, by ship.  This actually happened.  But after this trip, they had a incredible cleavage in their professional and personal relationship.  This novel weaves an intriguing, spellbinding tale of what occurred during their time in America and evokes fascinating aspects of psycho-analytical thought in the process.  Not to ruin the surprise (oops)…but after the whole tale is told, the author –who happens to be Mr. Amy Chua (another favorite thinker of mine, World on Fire etc), reveals that the dialogue between these psychoanalytic titans throughout this fictional tale was in fact faithful to their actual correspondence at the time, via mail etc., all documented in history.

I had until then never read such a wickedly captivating tale.  Although a fictional murder mystery, it leaves you not only entertained and thrilled, but educated as well.  I really enjoyed this read, although I’ve noticed online that it has not been received as enthusiastically as I myself would recommend it.

-rudhro

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“A puritan society should ban us,” Freud observes about America. “It will ban you,” Jung replies, “as soon as it figures out what we are saying.”

[VIDEO] STARLINGS! – A chance encounter and shared moment with one of natures greatest and most fleeting phenomena.

Like living Aurora. In Spanish, murmura means ‘whisper’.

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[VIDEO] An answer to “why are we here?”: A Murmuration of Starlings

[AUDIO] POEM: THE TRAGEDY OF POSTMODERNISM

Performed by Taylor Mali

[AUDIO] CBC RADIO’S QUIRKS AND QUARKS DISCUSSES THE HUMAN POPULATION REACHING 7 BILLION, HOW IT HAPPENED, WHAT IT MEANS, AND WHY WE SHOULD CARE

The United Nations estimates that on October 31st, the world’s population will reach 7 billion.  Although the actual number is not certain, it does underlie the fact that our population is growing at an alarming rate.  It took until the early 1800′s to reach the 1 billion mark, but the last 50 years alone have seen the births of 4 of the total 7 billion  This rapid increase raises the question, how many more people can the earth sustain?  Or have we already surpassed the earth’s capacity?  Among the many people asking questions like this are Dr. Madeline Weld, President of the Ottawa-based Population Institute of Canada, and Robert Engelman, President of The Worldwatch Institute in Washington.  They discuss how various factors – including access to contraception, the empowerment of women, poverty, consumerism, and the environment – apply to our population growth, now and in the future.

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 _________RUDHROISM

“Be afraid, be very afraid…”  I love this–I have thought about so much of what they discuss in this two person interview.  Oil, a non-renewable resource has allowed us to “over-shoot” where we as humanity really oughtta be today.  The ‘stlen’ or ‘free’ energy boost since the 1850s. The unsustainable industrialized production of foods such as corn. The inefficient production of meat.  The fact that cultures have not changed, yet babies no longer die.  Cultures dictated that a “real man” or a “real woman” reproduce at a rate much higher than necessary for population replacement.  But this was so when if you had 8 children, 5 perhaps were not expected to reach reproductive age.  Today all 8 will make it, and in turn produce 8 of their own children due to cultural memes such as religion which dictate that this is the ONLY WAY.  

So many have disagreed with me.  So many have called me simplistic to point to the growth of population as the REAL problem and climate change as merely a symptom.  But it is in no way ‘Malthusian’ to ask, what is the POINT of ‘conservation’, ‘kyoto protocols’, ‘environmental awareness campaigns’ etc etc etc, if EVEN IF we maintain 1990 levels of pollution, carbon consumption, garbage, the number of showers a human takes, and how many times a toilet is flushed per day–thus water use…the food one eats and from whence it originates, IF?

There are 10 Billion, 20 Billion, or 100 Billion humans?

This is not an irrational observation, though I have been told it is.  This is not a simple minded, non-intellectual, comment.

This is about the Tragedy of the Commons.  This is about witnessing the growth of certain cities, such as Calcutta, Shanghai, Lagos, Mexico City, Tokyo etc and seeing that for a given level of infrastructure, from trains, buses, roads, all the way to the farming lands that feed and the water basins that provide potable water to these megalopoli–only a certain number of people can enjoy them before it all becomes a hellish experience of the scarcity of resources writ large, on a daily basis.  No room for your child in school, no electricity, no water, no fresh fruits and vegetables, no room on the road for your car, no sufficient public services of any kind.

I have been told that life and economics is not like this, as eventually all people reduce their fertility rates when they reach a standard level of income. I actually have a minor in Economics and have studied a variety of theories on developmental economics.  So I am not speaking from ignorance or ‘a little learning is a dangerous thing’.  Listen to what is stated as ‘the scientifically sustainable human population’ in the audio link above.

I’d also recommend listening to Robert Wright’s Massey lectures on his book (or reading the book itself) called ‘The Short History of Progress’–where he shows that human history is filled with groups of humans not paying heed to the natural feedback loops of nature.  We are a part of nature.  And it frustrates me to no end, when humans in 2011 deny the unity that is humanity.  There are no more ‘groups’–we are all one group, and are aware of this, in some respects yet not others.

We are all one.  It doesn’t MATTER if you live in Edmonton, Mexico City or Calcutta.  It doesn’t MATTER what your last name is, what religion you’ve been handed down or converted into and what this meme teaches you.  There are basic facts about the sustainability of the human earthling population.

If you add to the population, it affects the whole world.  But I don’t think humanity is yet ready to understand that we are indeed one.

THE EARTH AS VIEWED FROM A SPACECRAFT ON ITS WAY TO JUPITER

“Earth (on the left) and the moon (on the right) as seen by NASA’s Juno spacecraft on Aug. 26, 2011, when the spacecraft was about 6 million miles (9.66 million km) away. The photo was taken by the spacecraft’s onboard camera, JunoCam.” – NASA  

 

Somewhere out there in the vast nothingness of space,
Somewhere far away in space and time,
Staring upward at the gleaming stars in the obsidian sky,
We’re marooned on a small island, in an endless sea
Confined to a tiny spit of sand, unable to escape,
But tonight, on this small planet, on earth
We’re going to rock civilization…
   – Lyrics from “Prelude/Slam,” Pendulum

A NASA spacecraft cruising toward Jupiter glanced back and snapped a rare picture of Earth and the moon. Taken last week when Juno was 6,000,000 miles away, the image shows two white dots, one brighter than the other.

 

The solar-powered Juno blasted off earlier this month on a five-year journey to Jupiter. Though previous craft have visited the giant gas planet, Juno will get closer than ever before, flying within 3,100 miles of the dense cloud tops to learn more about Jupiter’s origins.

 

The $1.1 billion mission is managed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California.

 

“This is a remarkable sight people get to see all too rarely,” said Juno principal investigator Scott Bolton of the Southwest Research Institute in a statement. “This view of our planet shows how Earth looks from the outside, illustrating a special perspective of our role and place in the universe. We see a humbling yet beautiful view of ourselves.”

–news.discovery.com

 

 

 

READ HIS PIECE OF PAPER! DO IT!

[PHOTO] “India at night during Diwali: NASA” –MYTH

THIS IS ACTUALLY NOT A “DIWALI” PHOTO, BUT ONE SHOWING INDIA’S POPULATION GROWTH OVER MANY YEARS:

“The photo is an overlay of shots highlighting India’s burgeoning population over several years. The white lights were the only illumination visible before 1992. The blue lights appeared in 1992. The green lights in 1998. And the red lights appeared in 2003.” –NASA

““If you’re a typical North American, at the end of a long, stressful day at work, you’re not saying, ‘I can’t wait to get in my car. I would just love to go for a drive.’ It’s much more likely you’ll say, ‘I wish I could go for a walk,’ ” That’s the point at which people run up against what’s called the Marchetti Wall – the psychological barrier against spending more than about an hour getting to work or coming home. The concept is named for a Venetian physicist named Cesare Marchetti, who posited not only that human beings instinctively adjust their lives to avoid travelling more than that amount every day, but that we’ve been doing so since the Neolithic era…”

Cars have ruined our cities, our societies and are relationships–not to mention the more obvious environmental issues.  I used to LOVE them…dream about them, yearn for them and have them define my concept of freedom, adulthood and status.  I grew up in Edmonton though.  Having since driven my last car from Vancouver to Toronto and sold it while it sat unused, cost me parking, insurance and other sundry charges–as I rode my bike or walked in the downtown splendour that is superurban downtown Toronto..I now just view them as moving chambers of internal combustion explosions–whether super new or an old beater: the technology is 150 years old.  They are a hassle downtown, and I love that.  ”Where do I park?”  ”Where’s the gas station?”  ”Shit! Another ticket??!!”  ”My car’s broken down, I have to repair it for $2500…” “I still can’t find parking!?”

No more for me.  And as an Urban Planning Grad Student in 2011, I relish the opportunities awakening  in the cities of the world, to go back in time and redesign neighbourhoods and streets for human beings…

To rediscover what Jane Jacobs had referred to as the Ballet of the Streets of her beloved Manhattan.  The death of the love affair with the car, is like how smoking is so frowned upon now…a paradigmatic shift is in the works, and as a soon to be professional Urban Planner, I can’t think of a better, practical, more necessary vocation.

Let the War on the Car begin.  Let’s rediscover the joys of having Main Streets, not malls, and Eyes on the Street, not eyes in the rearview, and the strengthened  Social Capital of familiar faces on the stroll home everyone.

-rudhro

Are we reaching ‘peak car’?

ANITA ELASH

Saturday, Oct. 22, 2011

Anyone who has been stuck in big-city gridlock lately may find this hard to believe, but millions of Westerners are giving up their cars.

Experts say our love affair with the automobile is ending, and that could change much more than how we get around – it presents both an opportunity and an imperative to rethink how we build cities, how governments budget and even the contours of the political landscape.

The most detailed picture of the trend comes from the United States, where the distance driven by Americans per capita each year flatlined at the turn of the century and has been dropping for six years. By last spring, Americans were driving the same distance as they had in 1998.

[VIDEO] BABY ESCAPE ARTIST

So damn smart? He’s gonna delete the footage. I want one. Shit. Haha.

[VIDEO] TWO BABIES HAVING AN INTENSE CONVERSATION

“If everybody who hyperlinked to a defamatory site also committed defamation, the courts would be jammed with libel suits. From a practical point of view, their ruling is a no-brainer.”

The hyperlink case: freedom vs. the floodgates

JOHN BARBER

Saturday, Oct. 22, 2011

Like the legendary King Canute, who wisely resisted his courtiers’ advice to command the tides, the Supreme Court of Canada bowed to the inevitable this week by exempting the Internet from legal restrictions that have often been used to repress speech in traditional media.

In ruling that online writers can post hyperlinks to defamatory content without themselves becoming liable for defamation, the court nodded its approval to a flood that already seems beyond legal control.

The decision comes in the midst of a number of online events suggesting just that. In the Seattle area last week, a waitress destroyed the reputation of the wrong person when she inspired an Internet “flame war” against someone she mistakenly thought had failed to tip her. More seriously, Palestinian diplomat Linda Sobeh Ali was forced to leave her post in Ottawa after retweeting a link to a video, which she hadn’t watched, but which reportedly called for war “to destroy the Jews.”

Libels float so freely on Twitter that they have become their own species of communication: “twibels.”

[VIDEO] “Long before the meltdown, one woman tried to warn about a threat to the financial system.” BROOKSLEY BORN AND HER ATTEMPT TO REGULATE ALAN GREENSPAN’S WALL STREET AND HOW WASHINGTON LAUGHED HER OFF

—->CLICK FRONTLINE PHOTO FOR FULL DOCUMENTARY

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Prophet and Loss

Brooksley Born warned that unchecked trading in the credit market could lead to disaster, but power brokers in Washington ignored her. Now we’re all paying the price.

BY RICK SCHMITT PHOTOGRAPHY BY ERIKA LARSEN

MAR/APR 2009

SHORTLY AFTER she was named to head the Commodity Futures Trading Commission in 1996, Brooksley E. Born was invited to lunch by Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan. The influential Greenspan was an ardent proponent of unfettered markets. Born was a powerful Washington lawyer with a track record for activist causes. Over lunch, in his private dining room at the stately headquarters of the Fed in Washington, Greenspan probed their differences. “Well, Brooksley, I guess you and I will never agree about fraud,” Born, in a recent interview, remembers Greenspan saying. “What is there not to agree on?” Born says she replied. “Well, you probably will always believe there should be laws against fraud, and I don’t think there is any need for a law against fraud,” she recalls. Greenspan, Born says, believed the market would take care of itself.

For the incoming regulator, the meeting was a wake-up call. “That underscored to me how absolutist Alan was in his opposition to any regulation,” she said in the interview. Over the next three years, Born, ’61, JD ’64, would learn first-hand the potency of those absolutist views, confronting Greenspan and other powerful figures in the capital over how to regulate Wall Street. More recently, as analysts sort out the origins of what has become the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, Born has emerged as a sort of modern-day Cassandra. Some people believe the debacle could have been averted or muted had Greenspan and others followed her advice.

[VIDEO] CHRIS HEDGES CALLS OBAMA A ‘BRAND’–THIS GUY CONCURS AND CHANTS: “HE’S A HOUSE NIGGER” — HE’S NOT ONLY GOT BALLS, BUT RHYTHM–THIS COULD BE A GREAT SAMPLE OR VOCAL BASSLINE FOR A SONG

[VIDEO] SO WE’VE HAD NAKED NEWS, FOX NEWS, THE COLBERT REPORT, AND THE DAILY SHOW–BUT HAVE YOU SEEN THE “RAP NEWS”? LIKE A TRUTH INJECTION TO THE BRAIN…

These videos may be the most incredible thing i’ve discovered online…(click under the first video to see the others–they get better each time–episode 9 is my favourite)

[AUDIO] “The Canadian Broadcast Standards Council says Buckcherry’s Crazy Bitch is okay for the airwaves. It’s not an issue of free speech or anything like that that led the panel to determine that the lyrics aren’t abusive or discriminatory toward women. It’s that there was only one “crazy bitch.”"

THE RATIONALITY OF CANADIAN REGULATORS AMUSES AND PLEASES ME.

-rudhro

Panel okays Buckcherry song as not ‘aimed at womanhood’

MICHAEL BABAD |

Wednesday, Oct. 19, 2011

“The panel reviewed some of the CBSC’s previous decisions involving the word ‘bitch’ and concluded that the use of the word in the song ‘Crazy Bitch’ did not reach the level of abusive or unduly discriminatory comment as the song only referred to one particular woman rather than generalizing all women as ‘crazy bitches,’” the CBSC said in a statement today.

The case stems from a complaint by a listener, who said it was offensive to women, after it was broadcast on CKQB-FM in Ottawa, so the panel looked at the issue under the human rights sections of the Canadian Association of Broadcaster code of ethics.

The panel said it’s troubled by the “lowering of the bar for coarse language,” but in this case it’s not a breach.

“The panel recognizes, however, that the complainant was also concerned about the context in which the term was employed in this particular song. She asserted that the message of the song was an objectification of women, in her words, that ‘a crazy bitch remains useful as long as she is good in bed.’ The panel does not agree with that interpretation; it does not consider that the expression ‘crazy bitch,’ as used in the song, is aimed at womanhood in general.”