The economic hitman

I like to indulge in conspiracy theories political conspiracies and I find  John Perkin’s undercover explanation on certain aspects of America’s background fascinating.

Links: Homepage | Wikipedia

Random stuff I found this week (cos I’m too lazy to post everything in separate posts)

USEFUL STUFF

• [IT] Metacafe Bets Its Future On The Power Of Wikis (here’s to hoping YouTube follows)
• [Eco] [Economy] Green New Deal (atm quite the buzzword)
• [Nano] I Bet You’ve Never Seen Water Bounce Before (nuff said)
• [Health] Less-Invasive Brain Interfaces
• [Politics] Food Security in Japan (well-made & the last 30 secs are LOL funny)
• [Man-made] TED Talks Luca Turin: The science of scent (great stuff!)

ENTERTAINMENT

• Snoop Dogg on Martha Stewart (shizzle on the ridicculizl)
• Older people have more black and white dreams
• Amazing Story of a Man Who Survived Being Buried 40 Days
• Dubai and the UAE
• Police dash cam of Meteor over Edmonton, Canada (just like in the movies)
• Shrimp Vs Octopus

WEEKLY TRIBUTE
A small tribute to chilling the fuck out.

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(via: all the usual and unusual blogs and sites that I’ve got in Google Reader)

For more random stuff subscribe to Geekofriendly.

Random stuff I found this week (cos I’m too lazy to post everything in separate posts)

USEFUL STUFF

• [IT] CNN’s telepresence debut (see how it works here, see what’s been done before CNN here)
• [Health] First complete cancer genome sequenced
• [Politics] What Happens when Countries Go Bankrupt?
• [Economy] 100,000 Chinese Factories Closing: Orders Off; Regulations Up
  
• [Man-made] Brain-only Computer Interfaces Becoming Reality (can’t wait till it gets mainstream)
• [Psychology] Think graphic design doesn’t matter? (an important point)

ENTERTAINMENT

• 9 of the Most Bizarre Animal Defense Mechanisms
• The Top Ten Reasons iTunes Sucks (bless you, Scott Gilbertson!)
• Unruly Children To Be Punished With ‘Innovative’ Foot Massages (too WTF not to post here)
• Russian Basso Profondo: The Lowest Voices (unearthly)
• A Flood collapses road in a few minutes
• TIME’s Best Inventions of 2008 (worth checking out for the diversity of inventions alone)
  

WEEKLY TRIBUTE
A small tribute to true pressure. It comes with added bonus sometimes…

My congrats to the man, but I refuse to make a big deal out of it. Hearing and reading about people who say they couldn’t believe a non-caucasian person would ever become president of a western nation makes me feel friggin shocked above all. Then sad…because for a split second I realize how right all these people actually were. Then happy…because we were all proven wrong. Then sad again…because its almost 2009 and we’re all applauding something that’s way over due…

(via: all the usual and unusual blogs and sites that I’ve got in Google Reader)

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It seems I’ve come across my first obstacle…

It was merely a week ago that I vigorously promoted Cradle to Cradle, and with it its founding father William McDonough (a household name in this blog), whom I’ve admired and respected since the first time I saw his inspirational TED Talk…it was him who convinced me that the Next Industrial Revolution is just around the corner, it was him who showed me that a great idea has answers and solutions to more than just one question or problem (an incredible and rare feat in every respect), and it was him who truly made me realize that a mindset like his is far more potent and productive than most dare dream of.

On a side-note, it was him who singlehandedly made me strive for the same causes…

That is why it saddens me deeply to have read the following article yesterday.

Arrogance, deception, hubris, voracity …need I go on?!

As it turns out (if the article stands on firm ground, that is), Mr. McDonough is his own worst enemy, meaning that his own actions have – on more than one occasion-  cost him business deals, potentially impressive credentials/references/networking and worst of all, have set him back from his goal to ‘cradelise’ the world for the better.

I leave you with the lengthy article, which you can find here (Diigoed), I am still slightly shaken-up and have a hard time coping with the conception that the man I look up to (notice the present tense) just might have some very serious problems of his own. There’s a saying you should never meet your heroes (for these very reasons, I suppose) and I’ve always considered it healthy advice. So how should this man therefore be worth my attention and respect? Well, because I still want to pursue a life where sustainability is obtained, controlled and in the end sustained, to the point of hopefully eradicating bad design and replacing it with good intent. Bill McDonough gave birth to that pursuit of mine.

(via: TreeHugger)

Random stuff I found this week (cos I’m too lazy to post everything in separate posts)

USEFUL STUFF

• [Eco] A green New Deal can tackle depression
• [Health] Scientists uncover new gene link to male pattern baldness
• [Health] TED Talks – Dr. Dean Ornish: Healing and other natural wonders
  
• [Economy] The End of Suburbia (worth a view, especially the last 5 minutes or so!)
• [Economy] ‘We need slaves to build monuments’ (Dubai is under a lot of fire lately, more here, here and here)
• [Man-made] Long Overdue GPS Upgrade Could Save Airlines $10 Billion a Year

ENTERTAINMENT

• The Indonesian Mimic Octopus
• The Sun (mesmerizing photography)
• Flesh Eating Mutant Fish Invades Nepal
• What Is The Sport Of Kiiking? (dedicated to my beloved Estonians)
• The Aquaduct Bicycle (brilliant idea!)
• Chinese deaf girls mystical dance (how the **** do you train deaf people anyways?)

WEEKLY TRIBUTE
A small tribute to autumn.

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(via: all the usual and unusual blogs and sites that I’ve got in Google Reader)

For more random stuff subscribe to Geekofriendly.

Random stuff I found this week (cos I’m too lazy to post everything in separate posts)

USEFUL STUFF

• [Eco] It’s Not about Polar Bears Anymore
• [Nano] One small wall crawling step for a bottle of coke, one giant leap to Spiderman-like wall crawling
• [Future] Saving the World Through Game Design
• [Economy] Financial crisis simplified (a whiteboard presentation) (detailed info here)
• [Man-made] Robot suit for rent in Japan to help people walk
• [Astronomy] 50 Consumer Technologies Developed by NASA in the Last 50 Years

ENTERTAINMENT

• The Indonesian Mimic Octopus
• The Quietest Place on Earth – Orfield Labs
• MadTv – Kim Jong IL Crazy Parody
• Pictures Galore: 15 Epic Water and Ice Formations and Phenomena, 7 Spectacularly Skilled High-Speed Photographers, Fantastic Plastic: 20 Essential Works of LEGO Art
• The former President wants you to know exactly where he stands… (kind of old, but Clinton’s never looked more convincing:)
• Wacky human inventions from 1930’s (brilliant…ROFL’d through half of it)

WEEKLY TRIBUTE
A small tribute to priorities. On the top of my list is to graduate before my birthday next year and I’ve already noticed my interest in the last two weeks or so (when I started) has noticeably shifted from all the things that interest me to only (well…mostly, but it’s a start!) those that I’ll be needing to graduate.

My topic, in case you’re interested: a sustainable zero-energy – or if possible even plus-energy (and notice how informational the article is) – residential area in a city (probably and preferably Ljubljana). Why? Because I strongly believe that starting the next industrial revolution is the only (for the time being, at least:)) way to successfully maintain and continue our lifestyles without any serious consequences; both to the abundance of options we have at our disposal as humans, as to, of course, mother nature.

…and someday who knows, you’ll might even quote me on this;)

Till then, I’ll leave you with another quote, a brand new one as a matter of fact…not exactly the bedtime story I had in mind last week:

There are 10^11 stars in the galaxy. That used to be a huge number. But it’s only a hundred billion. It’s less than the national deficit! We used to call them astronomical numbers. Now we should call them economical numbers.
- Richard Feynman

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(via: all the usual and unusual blogs and sites that I’ve got in Google Reader)

Random stuff I found this week (cos I’m too lazy to post everything in separate posts)

USEFUL STUFF

• [IT] Revealed: The Internet’s Biggest Security Hole (old but effing relevant nonetheless!!!)
• [IT] Why is almost half of Google in beta? & Google Patent Could Kill Off Cellphone Contracts
• [Nano] Carbon Nanotube Manufacturing Breakthrough Could Mean Bye-Bye Steel
• [Health] TED Talks - James Nachtwey: Use my photographs to stop the worldwide XDR-TB epidemic (this year’s TED prize winner)
• [Astronomy] Where Do Satellites Go When They Die? (crazy stuff!)
• [Psychology] Musicians use both sides of their brains more frequently than average people

ENTERTAINMENT

• Show Me Your Genitals 2: E=MC Vagina (the sequel to that retarded yet somehow much needed song about female genitals:P)
• Man Uses Remote Desktop to Catch Laptop Thief, Watch Porn Remotely
• The Coolest Fruit On Earth (gollum wants the precious!)
• Stressed Plants Produce Aspirin-Like Substance
• Riding the Caspian Sea Monster (great stuff about ekranoplans…Exactly!)
• An Engineer’s Guide to Cats

WEEKLY TRIBUTE
A small tribute to recession.Thank FSM it’s only hitting the U.S. Oh wait…
Personally lovin’ it, cos:

• people thought they knew what was going wrong, but luckily nobody gave a fuck because they knew better. And boy were they right!
• everybody (except idiots) knows that 700,000,000,000 is a nice, strong, round number (…doh!) and the U.S. government knows why they had to pass the bill to get the cash. (from 6:40 on)
• 7 is also the number of years the U.S. has been out of the spotlight since their last great global contribution started, so it was about time they got back into the news. This time they really outdid themselves, put their heads together and brought something even more positive to the table. God bless America.
• recession is the easiest and cheapest dieting regime there is…by far!!!
• women are clueless when it comes to economics, so nobody ever cares what they have to say
• we finally get to have our very own modern up-to-date economic bedtime story of the 21st century. Nighty night, sleep tight, don’t let the recession bugs bite.

TO BE CONTINUED…? Naaah, this’ll be over before McCain becomes prez and Palin proves dinosaurs were put on Earth to test our faith to FSM. Santa’s gonna bring mighty nice gifts this Christmas, so I’d start spending bigtime if I were you!

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(via: all the usual and unusual blogs and sites that I’ve got in Google Reader)

Politics | Vladimir V. Putin: Neo Con

An excerpt from Vladimir V. Putin: Neo Con:

…His strategy was cold, it was clear, it was thoughtful and purposeful, and it was very definitely his own. Reagan knew intuitively that the Soviet Union was tottering. But he did not want to fight the Soviets, he wanted to bring them to the negotiating table. To that end, he used little, if any, overt force against the Soviet Union. Instead, he developed what in Pentagonese was known as “competitive strategies.” In plain English, this meant, “Spend ‘em to death.” Reagan’s aim was to force the Soviet Union to spend money, allocate resources, and occupy technical talent that they either had better use for elsewhere or didn’t have. (The best Soviet scientists and engineers were world-class, but they had no real depth, no bench strength.) Supporting the mujahedin in Afghanistan was one way to deplete them. The Strategic Defense Initiative, popularly known as Star Wars-perhaps the most successful weapons system never built or intended to be built-was another…

Apart from a khm, ’slightly’ overly pro-Russian attitude, the article is incredibly insightful and well written! It’s not the shortest thing you’ll ever read, but it’s truly worth your time and effort!:)

(via: seattlepi.com)

Random stuff I found this week (cos I’m too lazy to post everything in separate posts)

USEFUL STUFF

• [IT] Mash-up makers move into the mainstream (Mashup – the philosophy of mixing the best of (at least) two worlds!…Ubiquity anyone?)
• [IT] Google Launches Audio Indexing (like effing finally! It’s still got a long way to go, tho)
• [Future] Can PRT, or Podcars, Replace the Automobile? (perhaps a Minority Report-ish trend coming our way)
• [Economy] A Conversation with Yvon Chouinard (this guy sure knows how to treat his employees)
• [Man-made] Getting Electricity From Outer Space
• [Psychology] Software spots the spin in political speeches (or how we all better learn to be truthful)

ENTERTAINMENT

• The Grinch: Human Slingshot For Snow and Surfboarding (W…T…F…)
• Zoom into Concrete (also zoom into other materials)
• In a Tangle of Young Lips, a New Sex Rebellion is Brewing in Chile
• Mini Rooftop NYC + HWKN (looks like a blast on a Friday night)
• The short – but eventful – life of Ike (hey, if it’s nature fucking with us it’s entertainment!)
• Drum and bass (as one comment says: buy this guy some drums!)

WEEKLY TRIBUTE

A small tribute to Diigo. Actually, a BIG-ASS one!!! The only downside is that I haven’t been using this since my first contact with the world wide web. Brings together the best of del.icio.us, social networking, Clipmarks, The Awesome Highlighter, etc, and is simply the best social bookmarking research tool I’ve come across.

One day’s usage and it’s become simply irreplaceable in my book. Hiiiighly recommended:)

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(via: all the usual and unusual blogs and sites that I’ve got in Google Reader)

Random stuff I found this week (cos I’m too lazy to post everything in separate posts)

USEFUL STUFF

• [Eco] Chicken Manure to power 90,000 Homes in the Netherlands!
• [Future] Automated Construction System To Change Face of Home-Building (mental note: it’s fun to be right:P)
• [Nature] [Astronomy] Bill Stone: Journey to the center of the Earth … and beyond! (from caves to cosmos or how this man’s favorite color is definitely black!)
• [Economy] [Politics] When the wind doesn’t blow (ups and downs of wind power)
• [Man-made] [Nature] Top 10 Amazing Physics Videos (physics galore…really fun stuff:))
• [Psychology] Banned Self Hypnosis Video (had to repeat it to get it and just ‘let go’…surprising and impressive)

ENTERTAINMENT

• The Faces Behind The Simpsons
• Gait may be associated with orgasmic ability (forget make-up, ladies! Learn to, khm, walk properly:))
• Rare banned Bush speech
• Insane Stretchable Skin Man
• 70 Amazing Houses from Around the World (great stuff with a lot of effort put into it)
• Racism in the Elevator

WEEKLY TRIBUTE
A small tribute to relevant issues (2) and quality journalism (2).

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(via: all the usual and unusual blogs and sites that I’ve got in Google Reader)