“The obsession with growth is sadly a very American thing. Across the US, there’s an assumption that all development is good, that if communities are growing they are successful. If they’re shrinking, they’re failing.” — Bulldoze the ‘burbs? | csmonitor.com
Op-Ed Columnist - Invent, Invent, Invent - NYTimes.com -
Aye, Invent, they say. I have two major problems with this article. First, there are a lot of smart people out there in the U.S. that are choosing not to live in the 30,000 foot, 3 hour teleconference, Microsoft Powerpoint world, because it yields no possible value other than a salary and 2 weeks of vacation. And, by the way, just because you graduate from an American High School doesn’t mean you can read and write. I believe America actually does have smarts but Craig Barret and Friedman would have no idea where to find those people, they operate in a different world than the rest of us. It’s much cheaper to look for basic competence in India, than smart people in the US.
Second, why would anyone “invent” anything in the US when they couldn’t possibly profit from the invention unless it was somehow valuable to Google or Microsoft? Inventing made sense when you could bring an idea straight to market with hard work and talent. That, I would argue is simply no longer possible. The best inventions today, Twitter for example, bleed money until and if, the are acquired. Just how does Twitter keep it’s servers running? No, if you’re a smart American, it’s best to keep your ideas to yourself so that they don’t generate any more wealth for the corporate oligarchy. Fix that one Friedman!
Last Virgin Megastore in New York Closes - NYTimes.com
Very, very, very, very, very good news. This industry brought their own demise upon themselves. It will be a good day when music corporations are de-centralized and can begin to think for themselves again rather than their shareholders. There are certain things that do not prosper in an “efficient” market: health care and music are amongst these.
Rethinking the Mall - Allison Arieff Blog - NYTimes.com -
Just the title of this article screams progress, this topic is long overdue. I especially enjoy the discussion of transforming abandoned big-box retail stores into giant billboards!
Public asked to help monitor life on earth | Technology | Reuters -
Conceptual pluralization is the future!
Op-Ed Contributor - End the University as We Know It - NYTimes.com -Mark C. Taylor -
I believe this is quite an important topic. Maybe one of the most important topics — our ability to generate vision for the future has been crippled by our education system.
An Effort to Save Flint, Mich., by Shrinking It - NYTimes.com -
This is one of the most exciting ideas I’ve heard in a long time:
The population would be condensed into a few viable areas. So would stores and services. A city built to manufacture cars would be returned in large measure to the forest primeval.
“Decline in Flint is like gravity, a fact of life,” said Dan Kildee, the Genesee County treasurer and chief spokesman for the movement to shrink Flint. “We need to control it instead of letting it control us.”
GM Proposes Standardized Plug for Electric Vehicles - Switched
Sometimes the greatest progress is just acknowledging a simple solution to an obvious problem.
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Tofu-Chili Taco With Kimchi - The New Los Angeles Fusion - NYTimes.com