FedEx has come up with an amazing morphing world data map dead link, pulling data from the Economist Intelligence Unit showing how specific figures change the shape of the world. Interesting comment on our changing world.
Has some nice factoids on the loading animation as well (though it is a bit tardy to load, at least here in Aus). Make sure to hit “Next Topic” when each “reel” is done since some of them are damn fascinating.
I’m a big fan of the MacArthur Foundation’s “Genius grants” . Besides the instant recognition they confer, sometimes on obscure individuals, I’ve always just loved the idea. Why? Because it’s not a reward so much as a vote of confidence in what they’re going to do. And it’s no strings attached. It’s creating freedom for creativity and brilliance unhindered by money worries. Time pressure is the enemy of creativity.
Julia Kirby of the HBR asks a good question: Why not just award your own genius grants ?
This idea was floated by Third Way in the US, but totally love this idea for Canada as well (hell, even Aussies). Canadians rarely have a clue about where their tax dollars go to provide some of the excellent services they enjoy.
Corn syrup, milk chocolate, sugar, cocoa butter, coconut, almond, soy lecithin… any consumer can read these ingredients and their nutritional value on every package of a 75-cent Almond Joy. What is provided to a taxpayer with a $5,400 tax bill? Nothing. For many Americans, the amount they pay in taxes is larger than any purchase they make during the year, but studies show they know almost nothing about where that money goes to. This contributes to ridiculous beliefs, like the view that 20% of government spending goes to foreign aid, for example. An electorate unschooled in basic budget facts is a major obstacle to controlling the nation’s deficit, not to mention addressing a host of economic and social problems. We suggest that everyone who files a tax return receive a “taxpayer receipt.”
Fantastic essay. The Singularity won’t be Heaven by Annalle Newitz on how the belief that technology will save us by transcending human limitation and misery on an imagining of today’s technologies isn’t going to happen. Brilliant and spot on with her insight that we often believe technology will go far enough to benefit us, and then stop before it disrupts us… “the future is not the present on steroids.”
Love her observation on how the Victorian belief in the power of industrialization would save all humanity (despite Malthus) in much the same way we look at technology, popularized in things like Star Trek, as being able to save us as we progress. Love the idea of insufficiently weird predictions of how technology will change us just being wrong.
Brilliant post dead link on how calendars are really for interruptions, not your real work.
most people don’t schedule their work. They schedule the interruptions that prevent their work from happening.
and a call to schedule work and work towards when you need interruptions (meetings, input etc.). And love his point as meetings as something that subtract from working time, and the calendar as something we treat as additive.
Great idea, but how to bake this into your culture, especially one as interruption driven as most modern offices (including my own)?
Tim Jackson has to be the only economist I know with an inspiring vision for economic activity and replacing our roles as novelty consumers with something lasting, world changing and ultimately better.
It’s a story about us - People. Being persuaded to: Spend money we don’t have, on things we don’t need, to create impressions > that won’t last, on people we don’t care about.
Tim’s the author of Prosperity Without Growth: Economics for a Finite Planet . (which, ironically, does not have a Kindle edition :-( ).
Absolutely awesome DIY Guardian article by noted pioneer and leader in the field of data journalism Paul Bradshaw from how to source, munge, and report the facts in a coherent form from oceans of available data. Facts are sacred.
I love this article and the Guardian, who does wicked work in this area, for being awesome enough to publish it and to show people how to do it themselves. Very, very cool.
Can’t remember who I need to give props to for pointing me at this, but absolutely love the work on this video and the movement. Serene and amazing. And the music matches it perfectly.
The American Book Review has compiled its take on the 100 best opening lines from novels .
Anybody think they missed any? Or think some of them don’t deserve to be there?
I’m actually chuffed I’ve read more of these books than I haven’t.
via Neatorama .
Second absolutely phenomenal video from The Girl Effect project. Love the work these guys are doing and love their video and online style.
If you’ve never seen the first video they did explaining the idea behind the charity , do so. It’s simpler, but just as inspiring.