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 27 Jan 2002 @ 16:03, by ming. Developing World
One might say many less than pleasant things about Bill Gates. But he and his wife have also created the biggest humanitarian foundation in history, and have funded it with 24 billion dollars. Its focus is increasingly on health conditions in the developing world. See article on MSNBC. More >
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 26 Jan 2002 @ 14:55, by ming. Environment, Ecology
Global Warming is without a doubt one of the biggest environmental concerns. The Environmental News Network has collected some informational articles on the matter. More >
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26 Jan 2002 @ 14:42, by ming. Investigation, Intelligence
A group of eBay users were cheated out of money they supposedly paid for laptops after winning auctions, and then they spontaneously got together and started their own investigation. The police, the FBI and eBay itself seemed unwilling to help them at first, so they just did it themselves. Interesting story of spontaneous collaboration amongst people who otherwise didn't know each other. More >
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 25 Jan 2002 @ 23:35, by ming. Communication
There's a new communication technology on the horizon which sounds like hocus pocus. Ultra Wide Band (UWB) radio sends on ALL frequencies at the same time, but in such short bursts and upredictable intervals that everybody can share the airwaves in a secure way. And it allows for up to a gigabit of connectivity for anybody who wants it. Anyway, the technology seems to be ready, but agencies like the FCC have not yet decided if they're ok with it. See article from Robert X. Cringely. More >
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 25 Jan 2002 @ 02:31, by ming. Social System Design
In trying to figure out what democracy really is and how it might work, I notice in the dictionary that the ending -cracy signifies "rule" or "government" by the agent specified by the initial element. Thus democracy, theocracy, technocracy. But, really, I'm not at all interested in being ruled by any agency other than the whole and my own sense of what is right within it. So, maybe we need a system that isn't a -cracy. Or, if anything, it should be a "Holocracy", a system that is governed by the whole, by itself. Holocracy would be the government of whole systems. And, searching on the web for that term, it incidentally leads me to some interesting folks who are using that word. For example REM and my friend Neutopia; More >
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 21 Jan 2002 @ 14:05, by ming. Space Exploration
Microbes have been found thriving well deep underground in Antarctica at minus 30-35 degrees Celsius. Now, normally life as we know it (which doesn't say a whole lot) requires the presence of liquid water. And what goes on there is that there's a very high concentration of salt, which keeps the water liquid much below where it would normally freeze. Most life forms would not be able to live in that salt either, but these microbes have adjusted. So, the thought there is that they might just as well survive under similar conditions on Mars. More >
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 21 Jan 2002 @ 13:52, by ming. Communication
This is what you need if you want to upload broadcast TV to a satellite over the TCP/IP (Internet Protocol) from anywhere in the world. Fits in a suitcase, can be set up in 5 minutes, even by non-technies, finding the satellites itself, using GPS. Runs on batteries, uploads at 2Mbps. Hm, I can't find the price anywhere, though. More >
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 19 Jan 2002 @ 02:22, by ming. Internet
Below is an article which appeared in the Wall Street Journal on January 4, 2002. Kevin Kelly is a former editor of Wired. He talks about the state of the Internet today, and points out the no amount of money can obscure that the majority of the web is a gift economy, built of love and passion. More >
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 18 Jan 2002 @ 20:14, by ming. Business
As the article below, from today's Los Angeles Times talks about, the scandal surrounding Enron, the failed giant energy company is just so good that it hurts. Now there's really somebody who got caught with their pants down their heels. They have apparently bribed everybody in sight, including the current and past U.S. president, the press, their accounting firms, etc. They've gotten special treatment all the way, haven't paid any taxes for 4 out of the last 5 years, they have hundreds of foreign "subsidiaries", and still they couldn't hold it all together, and last minute calls to all their friends made no difference. More >
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 18 Jan 2002 @ 12:20, by ming. Environment, Ecology
A new center in Cornwall, containing the world's biggest enclosed greenhouse domes displaying several different complete ecosystems, has become one of the biggest public attractions in the U.K. It is called the http://www.edenproject.com/. The domes are not intended to be completely sealed from the outside world, which is what makes it different from the Biosphere 2 experiment. Rather, the public can actually go through these places. Anyway, it is apparently a spectacular thing. There's an excellent Wired article More >
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