Worldchanging disappearing

Farewell to a Great Web Effort at Worldchanging
[Via Dot Earth]

When I dove into the blogosphere with Dot Earth in 2007 after a quarter century of conventional journalism, I was excited to find some “veterans” — if that word is remotely appropriate online — actively pursuing a vision of a humanized, but thriving, planet over at the Web site Worldchanging.com.

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Some bad news that I just heard. Alex Steffen and the group’s board is shutting down Worldchanging after 7 years. Sustainable Path has had several important interactions with Alex and he has provided some useful advice.

They never could secure major funding that they needed. Worldchanging survived on the 400 or so talks that Alex gave. He and the other contributors will be doing other things now but without a central place to find them. Sad to see such a great site disappear.

The American way to bow to authority – seize a business opportunity

A Subliminal — and Sub-Clothing — Message to the TSA
[Via Dispatches from the Culture Wars]

Here’s a great idea, t-shirts and underwear that have the 4th amendment printed on them in metallic ink so they show up on the TSA’s full body scanners. You can buy them here.

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While I do expect these to alter the course of American government, it is a nice idea. Nice ingenuity for a small business.

Damn. Just checked and they are sold out.

Starting businesses in Germany

Der Gründungszuschuß
[Via Daily Kos]

One of the fascinating things I learned about during my trip to Germany last September is that funny-looking word in the title (pronounced something like “grun dungs zoo shooss”). As Harold Meyerson pointed out in The Washington Post, Germany’s economy is kicking butt. Republicans, of course, hate this. To them, a big government, heavily unionized, social democracy like Germany is supposed to be the poster child for the wrong way to do things. Yet Germany prospers. But here’s something even they would have difficulty arguing with: Germany’s government helps the unemployed start businesses with start-up capital. Maybe we should consider giving something like this a try.

Der Gründungszuschuss roughly translates into “start-up grant.” It is a program for the unemployed that gives a monthly amount of seed capital for those on unemployment. The grant is means-tested and is paid on top of unemployment, health and other benefits. For example, a married couple with children can get a grant up to just under $32,000! A single person who is unemployed and has no children can get up to just over $25,000. The benefits are paid out over a period of nine months. After that, there is an extension of benefits called the “building phase” that pays an additional $400 per month for six months.

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I don’t usually write about DailyKos articles as their partisanship often provides little material to discuss. But this is something I had not heard of before.

I’ve written about how well Germany is doing. The only country with a better trade than anyone else besides China, with a population about 1/4 of ours. Their unemployment is at the lowest point since unification. Wages are increasing.

So they are a social democracy with a potent economy. They also have this nice program to encourage entrepreneurs with start-up grants. It is well vetted with a strong training aspect that is required, a business plan must be submitted.

The government would rather help people who want to the opportunity to create new companies than simply looking for jobs. It seems like a nice idea to try. I wonder if any states in the US could try something like this to see if it transfers to the US.

Great iPhone offer but can they handle the increased traffic?

by mightyohm

Radio Shack slashes iPhone prices by $50, offering iPhone 4 for $25 with 3GS trade-in
[Via AppleInsider]

In an unprecedented sale designed to boost awareness of its wireless business and create an edge up on the competition, Radio Shack is knocking $50 off all iPhone handsets and offering trade-in incentives that could net customers a brand new iPhone 4 for as little as $25.

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Radio Shack is a great store for parts and accessories but I have never seen them do well with things like phone activation. Maybe the stores I’ve been in are the exception but they do not seem to have had the training ATT, Verizon, etc. has for dealing with some of the intricacies of activation

But this deal is pretty nice and may make up for any slowness in the process.

“If I ignore the science, it’ll just go away”

by Anderson Mancini

Antiscience party
[Via Bad Astronomy]

Many times, when I post about political antiscience, I get some people who are very upset that I don’t point out when liberals or Democrats attack reality. While I do disagree with some or even many of the Democrats’ planks, they typically are not the ones rabidly attacking science. For the most part these days, those on the left are more supportive of science than those on the right. Stem cell research, evolution, climate change, cosmology… these are not generally targets of those on the left.

So it was with some grim amusement that two articles came up one after the other recently in my RSS feed reader: one from Chris Mooney at The Intersection, where he points out that attacks on global warming come almost exclusively from Republicans (and you can read more from Chris about this on DeSmogBlog), and the other by Josh Rosenau at Thoughts from Kansas where he frets — and rightfully (haha) so — about Eric Cantor’s gearing up to attack science en masse when Congress reconvenes.

I have a lot of worries about the new Republican majority in the House, and you can get a taste of them in an earlier blog post. Everything I’ve read and seen in the few days since I’ve posted that hasn’t exactly been reassuring, either: John Boehner just announced that when the Republicans take over, they’ll dismantle the House Select Committee on Global Warming.

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No better way to make inconvenient science go away. What is interesting is that the ranking Republican on the committee does not want it to disappear:

“And while I was initially skeptical of the select committee’s mission, it ultimately provided a forum for bipartisan debate, and an opportunity for House Republicans to share a different view on the pressing energy and environment issues that we currently face.”

Of course, he really only wanted to keep the Select Committee going so he could hold sham investigations of the EPA.

As Phil mentions, some Democrats used to be against a lot of science – William Proxmire was a Democrat who attacked and slashed government research programs, including space travel. Now some Republicans seem to be against science – the new majority leader wants people to help find unworthy research project funded by the NSF or those people just do not like. The GOP wants to have investigations of researchers working on climate science, because they don’t like the science.

From William Proxmire’s Golden Fleece award to Cantor’s Youcut. Hurting science for political gain.

Ignoring the science won’t make it go away. Slashing funding will not change the natural world. Playing politics with science will only hamper our ability to adapt to changing conditions or to understand what is going on – neither of which the incoming Republican House majority seems particularly interested in.

They may be monkeys but they are not wise.

[Listening to: Such Great Heights from the album "Give Up" by The Postal Service]

The iPad is a major disruption for the industry

by Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

Why iPad will continue to dominate the tablet market
[Via RoughlyDrafted Magazine]

Daniel Eran Dilger

Ecstatic about figures showing Android overtaking the iPhone, more than a few have jumped to the conclusion that tablets are next, and Apple’s entire iOS platform will soon be relegated into an also ran position. They’re wrong, here’s why.
.
Is Android the next Windows?

The assumption that Android will overtake iOS in tablets is based [...]

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Someone said that iPhones are really small tablets rather than the iPad being a larger iPhone. The disruptive effects of the iPad are just now being felt by PC makers.

As Daniel mentions, the smartphone already existed yet Apple was able to come in and changed the market. It was disruptive in ways still being felt.

For the tablets, there really is nothing else besides the iPad to disrupt. INstead, we are seeing an entirely new animal in the ecosystem that will have very large ramifications on much of the industry. Having both the software and hardware under the control of a single company means that the benefits of both can be directed towards the customer rather than split up between the OS maker, the hardware maker, the retailer and the advertisers.

And, by the time many have just one version out, Apple will already have their second and be moving forward.

The iPad will rapidly become very close to a full fledged computer as iOS matures. Can any other OS say that? Can any other OS provide a similar development path for companies, whose ability to provide software for small mobile devices, tablets and desktops will be almost seamless?

I find that I really only use my iPhone apps when I don’t have the ability to use my iPad. For reading content, browsing the web, playing games, I use my iPad, not my iPhone. I can carry my iPhone places easily so it does get some use for apps but I prefer them on the iPad.

[Listening to: Once and Future King from the album "Arthur the King" by Maddy Prior]

Only if the wealthy get extra money

by AMagill

Tax cut: Senate tax cut vote falls short for Democrats – latimes.com
[Via Los Angeles Times ]

Reporting from Washington — In a rare Saturday session, Senate Democrats and Republicans remained at loggerheads over whether to extend the George W. Bush-era tax cuts to all taxpayers, ratcheting up the pressure on lawmakers to try to reach agreement before the tax cuts expire at the end of the year.

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I guess the GOP would rather their rich friends get extra money. A sign of just how dismissive they are of this effort to extend the tax cuts for the 95% who make less than $250,000 is that ten Republicans did not even bother to show up.

For a vote that means so much to all of us and ten of them did not even want to be there to cast a vote. The Republicans want to add perhaps $200 billion to the debt over the next two years and well over a trillion dollars over the next 10. The rich get extra money and the rest of us will have to pay for it. More money that gets transferred from the middle class to the rich.

It helps the plutocrats, I guess.

One of the best Ignite presentations I’ve seen – description of a flash mob

Fictional story of a flash mob gone terribly wrong
[Via Boing Boing]

Tom Scott’s Ignite London talk “Flash Mob Gone Wrong” is a fictionalized account of just how badly a flash mob could go. It’s got an eerie ring of plausibility, largely because each of the steps leading up to the disastrous ending actually happened, just not all together. It’s a freaky way to spend five minutes.

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Larry Niven wrote about this phenomenon many years ago in his science fiction stories, calling them flash crowds.

Here Tom Scott weaves a similar story but one whose tragic consequences have not fully happened yet. But surely could given our current technology.

And the Spider Robinson quote he uses, which is stunningly over 30 years old provides wonderful bookends.

An example of what makes the Web so wondrous – profane phrases from other languages and what they mean

Glorious, elaborate, profane insults of the world

[Via Boing Boing]

An open Reddit thread entitled “What are your favorite culturally untranslateable phrases?” rapidly degenerated into a collection of rollicking, profane, grotesque insults, each more alarming and delightful than the last. Read the whole thing, of course, but here are some of the less profane examples:

* The Dutch phrase for giving too much attention to insignificant details is “ant fucking”.

* Afrikaans: “Jou mammie naai vir bakstene om jou sissie se hoerhuis te bou Vieslik!” your mother engages in prostitution in order to raise funds for the building materials necessary to construct a brothel from which your sister will operate.

* German: “backpfeifengesicht” – a face in need of slapping

* Finnish: “Kyrpä otsassa” – a vulgar way to say you’re incredibly annoyed. It means that you have a dick in your forehead (should be visualized as hanging forward, rather than actually in your forehead, for some reason).

* Finnish: “pilkunnussija” – a comma fucker; someone who corrects little or meaningless things.

* Spanish: “Está tratando de cagar mas alto de lo que le da el culo” – He’s trying to shit higher than his ass can reach.

What are your favorite culturally untranslateable phrases?

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People seem so proud of their favorite phrases, seemingly to enjoy how archane they become in another language. Sometimes what is non really too profane becomes profane and vice versa.

The reddit thread had a nice discussion of the colloquial use German phrase “Es ist mir Wurst” meaning “It’s all sausage to me” (I don’t really care). Seems it gets shortened or modiefied to : “Mir doch Wurst” ( “‘I don’t care about any of the aspects you just brought up.)

Google translate actually provides very good translations of these terms. BUt direct translations do not convey the same unspoken meaning of some of them. Although it does translate “pilkunnussija” as nit picker.

And instead of saying “ass backwards” the Finns say “Perse edellä puuhun” meaning to climb a tree ass first.

Does English have an equivalent phrase for the Norwegian “å krysse bekken etter vann” which means to cross a stream to get water? Not too profane but a nice phrase.

But I think I like the Spanish ones best, mostly from Argentina. And they are not too profane. Not only the one above, but also this one “Cuanto mas alto trepa el mono, más se le ve el culo”(The higher the monkey climbs, the easier it is to see its ass) used to describe the dirty details that come out as someone becomes famous.

Or “No te peines, que en la foto no salís” (Don/t comb your hair. You’re not in the picture.) or “No saltés que no hay charquito.”(Don’t jump, there’s no puddle.) meaning we weren’t talking about you. Or “En el hospital y en la cárcel se conocen los amigos” (In a hospital or a jail, you find out who your friends are).

The best image is from this one “Con paciencia y saliva, el elefante se follo la hormiga” (With patience and spit the elephant fucked the ant.)

My father learned Turkish a long time ago. I wonder if he would know what “Ananın götüne/amına çam ağacı diker, gölgesinde (kız) kardeşini sikerim” meant?

All the smart ones use an iPad

iPad shows up in the House of Representatives
[Via Edible Apple]

Politico reports:

If you were watching C-SPAN on Tuesday, your eyes weren’t deceiving you: That really was an iPad on the speaker’s podium in the House of Representatives.

The owner was Rep. Henry Cuellar, a Democratic congressman from Texas and an admitted tech-geek.

“I’ve always considered myself a techie,” Cuellar told POLITICO. “I’m always looking for the newest technology out there and I’ve done that for many, many years. The iPad is just one of those fabulous pieces of equipment that’s available out there. First thing I do in the morning is get my cup of coffee and start reading the papers. … And at night, before I go to bed, I check my last e-mails and check to see if there’s any new stories online.”

He says he’s not the only one toting the Apple gadget: “I’ve seen a couple of other members that have their iPads.”

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According to Wikipedia, he has 5 degrees – associate’s degree, bachelor’s in foreign service, master’s in International Trade, a law degree and a Ph.D. But I think using an iPad is what must make him a smart guy.