 by Flemming Funch
Designer Bruce Mau wrote An Incomplete Manifesto for Growth. Some wonderful points about creativity and process. "Harvest ideas. Edit applications. Ideas need a dynamic, fluid, generous environment to sustain life. Applications, on the other hand, benefit from critical rigor. Produce a high ratio of ideas to applications." Dead But Awake. There are many recorded cases of people remaining conscious even while clinically dead, and able to recount details they couldn't otherwise have known, once they're resuscitated. A pair of researchers are planning a study that should prove this more conclusively.
Science News has a good article about the math of different voting methods. The U.S. has probably the worst possible voting scheme - plurality - which is essentially that one only looks at the voter's first choice, and the winner takes all. That will easily give results that don't match the will of the people. George W. Bush is a good example, even though it took a bit of additional cheating to get him where he is.
Only technology revolution can save the Earth. Scientists are looking for technologies that might provide sufficiently massive amounts of carbon emission-free energy. Nuclear fusion, solar power satellites, wind, biomass, hydrogen, super-conducting electricity grids, etc. Regulation and incremental improvements aren't going to stop global warming, it seems.
"A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects." -- Robert A. Heinlein, Time Enough for Love, 1973
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