Uncle Glenn and The Choice of Buying Organic
Uncle Glenn and The Choice of Buying Organic:
To Glenn, a farmer’s job is to produce as much food as he possibly can, because people tend to need more food than they have. Developing and improving chemicals that increase yields is one way the farm industry keeps up with ever-increasing demand. We tend to look at the environmental damages caused by industrial farm runoff—not to be understated—and we associate the pollution with corporate greed. It’s easy to forget that without these chemicals, we’d perhaps have less food. The cost/benefit analysis here is tied inextricably to the ones that motivate our individual consumption, and it’s even harder to balance.
[Puff piece? You decide. But I think the answer is in distributed growing rather than in counting on "specialists" (farmers) for everything. There was a time when everyone was a "farmer" for themselves. What if stopped growing lawns (I don't) and started vegetable gardens? Don't you think that improve things for everyone? I do.]
Source: Simple Blog
Better than an “email vacation”
Better than an “email vacation”:
Much like inbox bankruptcy, simply running away from email overload doesn’t solve the problem. What does work is to engage email as described in Bit Literacy (free Kindle ebook, free iBookstore ebook). To summarize: move your action items to a todo list, and archive or delete everything else. The inbox should be empty at least once a day.
[Mark's been talking about this for as long as I've known him. Just do it already. You can thank me later. BTW, the email client I've been using for work has an setting that shows only unread mail. Very useful.]
Source: Creative Good
Free samples
The scarce resources in the connection revolution are connection, attention and trust, not molecules, atoms or strawberries.
[Amazing that this isn't "common knowledge" at this point.]
Source: Seth’s Blog
In war for talent, ‘brogrammers’ will be losers
In war for talent, ‘brogrammers’ will be losers:
The tech industry’s testosterone level can make the thickest-skinned women consider a different career. But the rise of the brogrammer joke and its ensuing backlash has some benefits: It helps talented women choose worthy employers, it gives a name and face to a problem that plagues the industry and it publicly shames some of the most sexist offenders.Gina Trapani
In 1999, Google’s Marissa Mayer almost didn’t take the job at the all-male start-up because there were more women at another firm that made her an offer. If Mayer had just graduated from college today with offers from two equally compelling start-ups — one all-male and one not — it’s clear which one she would choose.
If you write software for a living and you’re located in Silicon Valley, you have your pick of employment options at an array of tech start-ups — yes, even in this economy. When a recruiter’s pitch is: “Wanna bro down and crush some code?” — like San Francisco-based Klout’s was — you get a sense of what that company is looking for. If you’re a woman, it’s not you.
[If you even consider thinking about yourself in context of such a ridiculous term, you've already lost.]
You are standing on the thing you seek to criticize
You are standing on the thing you seek to criticize:
I personally criticize the social nature of science — where popular ideas get funded and unpopular ones get shunned, and sometimes it takes a generation dying to get closer to the truth. I hate the herd mentality and the activist scientist. I think they cause harm to science itself. But many take the human vulnerabilities of science to make a case that science is itself mostly worthless — that everything in the world is just a matter of belief. They say that believing in gravity is much the same as believing in divine providence.Everything is not the same. Bedrock principles are not there by blind luck. We’ve tried other ideas and they didn’t work at all. This is an extremely important thing to know. We have learned a lot about how to allow humans to live, love, and have a meaningful life over the past several centuries. Picking out principles for having a dynamic economy or a vibrant scientific community isn’t like choosing a flavor of ice-cream at a dinner buffet. Yet vast swaths of people — people with six-figure incomes and college debts — think it is. They haven’t been taught the critical thinking skills or given the testicular fortitude to make cultural value decisions. And so here we are.
What Would the End of Football Look Like?
What Would the End of Football Look Like?:
I think the only way the game survives, long-term, is if the rules change dramatically to something like flag football — to a sport that resembles basketball in terms of athleticism, pace of play, and violence. Me? I think I might enjoy watching such a football very much. But I don’t think most NFL fans would. Too many NFL fans are in it for the violent hits, not despite them.
[I don't think this is true. I think a lot of folks don't care about the hard hits. In fact these days, I see them making more people quest than anything else. BTW, the same applies to hockey. The big hits and fighting degrade, atmo, two beautiful sports. I've played them both in my own bush league way… but I've enjoyed standing on the ice with real players (NHL) I've played football with guys who were going to the combines, and not quite making it etc. I know how gifted these guys are. Change the rules, give them a chance to adjust, and we can all enjoy the power, speed and beauty of watching people play at that level without the stuff that is killing people.]
Source: Daring Fireball
Apple Is Doomed: The Phony Sony Parallel
Apple Is Doomed: The Phony Sony Parallel:
This isn’t to say that Apple can’t be contaminated by the toxicity of success, or that the spots of mediocrity we can discern here and there (and that were present when Steve was around) won’t metastasize into full blown “bozo cancer”. But for those interested in company cultures, the more interesting set of questions starts with how Apple will “Think Different” from now on. Jobs was adamant: His successors had to think for themselves, they were told to find their own true paths as opposed to aping his.From a distance, it appears that Tim Cook isn’t at all trying to be Jobs 2.0. But to call his approach “legal/bureaucratic” (in the Weber sense), as Colony does, is facile and misplaced.
[Interesting analysis. Loving "bozo cancer" though. That's a useful term of disdain.]
Disruptions: Start-Ups Keep Revenue at Zero to Cash In on Acquisition – NYTimes.com
Disruptions: Start-Ups Keep Revenue at Zero to Cash In on Acquisition – NYTimes.com:
Indeed, this madness was invented in the late ’90s and helped perpetuate the first dot-com meltdown. “Mark-to-mystery was developed as a large part of the last bubble, but it’s gotten a lot worse this time around,” Mr. Kedrosky said.When this next bubble pops — and it will pop — the idea to make no money can finally pop, too. Then investors can start working with companies to build businesses that have long-term financial goals, instead of just building a short-term mystery.
[Bad news all around. Money remains the root does it not?]
Source: Daring Fireball
What Eduardo Saverin Owes America (Hint: Nearly Everything)
leave a comment »
What Eduardo Saverin Owes America (Hint: Nearly Everything) | PandoDaily:
[Right on. The low level cheesiness surrounding Facebook and its founders is remarkably high. It may be time to toss my account.]
Written by Daniel
May 18, 2012 at 10:53 am
Posted in commentary, news, personal