Skip to main content

Musings 9 May 2014


Flying from London to New York? Imagine boarding a light-rail train directly to the closer London City Airport. There, you can quickly clear security and customs and walk a short distance to your gate, where you can board an all-business-class airline for your nonstop flight to New York. That’s the pitch from Odyssey Airlines, which hopes to start service in 2016.
Shouldn’t the murder of 59 Schoolboys matter to you? Why Did Kidnapping Girls, But Not Burning Boys Alive, Wake Media Up to Boko Haram? “God instructed me to sell them, they are his properties and I will carry out his instructions” says the leader.
This Entrepreneur Has One Simple Goal: Improve a Billion People’s Lives. David Gorodyansky, whose company AnchorFree developed an app that has helped revolutionaries in several countries evade government censorship, talks about the people who inspired him.
Jeff Haden on the power of forgiveness.
George Monbiot says the UK is the Land of Impunity: politicians and government contractors now seem to be able to get away with almost anything. But on a different note, the UK has the second best education in Europe.
This sounds interesting…solar panels embedded in roads.
A Ted talk from General Stanley McChrystal here.
Gary Hamel says eventually, every firm will discover that it’s quite possible to manage without managers. “If this seems like a fantasy to you, look at the social revolution that’s been gathering pace on the web. The Internet has proven to be an almost ideal medium for social experimentation. The list of web-spawned social technologies is already impressive (crowdsourcing, social graphs, microblogging, tagging, opinion markets, mash-ups, peer ratings, peer production, crowdfunding, social curation), and new, socially enabled technologies are emerging almost daily.”
What shows are you watching in 2014? Here are some recommendations.
Is your kitchen and what you have in it making you constantly tired, overweight and at risk of serious health problems like diabetes, heart disease and cancer? Read more
Are you like most people in the world who have no idea how to manage their money?
Snapchat has settled with the FTC over charges that it deceived customers about messages disappearing using its service. “Snapchat is a popular mobile messaging app that lets people send photos, videos and messages that disappear in a few seconds. But the FTC said Snapchat misled users about its data collection methods and failed to tell users that others could save their messages without their knowledge.”
Face cleansing products containing microbeads are bad for the environment.
The robot car of tomorrow may just be programmed to hit you. Programming a car to collide with any particular kind of object over another seems an awful lot like a targeting algorithm, similar to those for military weapons systems. And this takes the robot-car industry down legally and morally dangerous paths. And the future of driving could see cameras all over your cars.
Why America’s Essentials Are Getting More Expensive While Its Toys Are Getting Cheap. The past decade in prices—and the story it tells about poverty and America.
Wonder why brands have gotten so emotional? It’s called sadvertising.
The Heartbleed bug is still around.
Would you go for DIY brain stimulation?
“In 2008, my slogan was ‘Yes, we can.’ In 2013, my slogan was control alt delete.” President Obama’s best jokes from the White House Correspondents’ Dinner. "I admit it, last year was so bad, the 47 percent called Mitt Romney to apologize.” “Let’s face it, Fox, you’ll miss me when I’m gone. It’ll be harder to convince the American people that Hillary was born in Kenya.”
"There must be some sort of business model that enables this company to make money, but I'll be damned if I know what it is," Day said. "You wouldn't think that people still buy enough strobe lights and extension cords to support an entire nationwide chain, but I guess they must, or I wouldn't have this desk to sit behind all day." Even the CEO can't figure out how Radioshack is still in business.
Starbucks could become a software company? As Deeks often says on NCIS: LA, really???
Tyler Hicks tells the story behind his Pulitzer-Winning Nairobi Mall photos. Sheer guts!
The way we board airplanes makes absolutely no sense. The fastest ways to board a plane are Southwest's boarding method — where people choose their own seats — or a theoretical boarding method known as the "Steffen method" that's not currently in use. Also, the government has a new plan to ensure that your seat belts are fastened, seats are in the upright position -- and no one is hacking your plane.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

February 2023 - Things of Interest

  All Things Tech 1.           Daniel Susskind’s report on work and meaning in the age of AI 2.          Intel execs make small cut to their overall compensation after a disastrous quarter 3.          Netflix lists rules and exemptions to prevent account sharing outside household. Also, The era of Netflix password sharing is coming to an end. Netflix reveals first details of password sharing crackdown 4.          How to use ChatGPT : What you need to know, how you can get started on it, and what you can use it for. And seven goals when asking it to re-write something 5.          ChatGPT might be taking over the internet, but a computer scientist explains why some problems are still too h...

Musings 7 May 2014

"Call it magic or call it true." This morning, my son, Nael, and I were watching the video for Coldplay's new single, Magic. Chris Martin's handwritten lyric sheets for their new album, Ghost Stories, can be found here . It's a funny thing with Coldplay. I don't consider myself a major fan but that hasn't stopped me from buying all their CDs. Oh, well... some sort of 'conscious uncoupling' here? Do you remember the movie Wicker Park when The Scientist played near the end. They couldn't have chosen a better song to fit the scene. Interesting, the word Ghost. The Police's Ghost in the Machine (1981) was an excellent album and I like the Cure song, The Hungry Ghost (on 4:13 Dream, released in 2008. Looking forward to a new Cure album this year) Al Gore's book, Earth in the Balance , remains a favourite of mine. Which is why I would like to get a hold of Our Choice . Looked at in the context of our planet's history, what we're do...

Leaders and employees

In the last month, I came across a few interesting readings on leadership and employees worth sharing. Jacob Morgan has a book out called  The Future of Work: Attract New Talent, Build Better Leaders, and Create a Competitive Organization. He talks about the book in his Forbes post and his manifesto . I especially like the graphic on the evolution of the employee on the Forbes website. Jacob's also involved in a collaborative initiative, The Future Organization. You can join if this is of interest and if you can afford the membership. Good employees stem from and result in good leaders, leaders who inspire, according to Bain and Company, their article, Leaders who inspire: A 21st-century approach to developing your talent . " Leaders can no longer rely only on traditional leadership skills to be effective. They can no longer simply issue directives. Nor can leaders rely heavily on the traditional tools of motivation—the classic carrot-and-stick approach. Instea...