Category: design

Knee-jerk meets policy

this is the very definition of a knee-jerk reaction. What does our Libyan policy havein common with a knee-jerk? it’s autonomic: without conscious thought or reasoning it’s an uncontrolled spasm it could trigger an uncontrolled, uncontrollable series of equally uncomcious responses it’s unconnected to a strategy, a plan, a vision of the future it’s a […]

Reflections on food and education in geopolitical ju-jitsu

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110222/ap_on_re_us/us_wisconsin_budget_unions continuing discussions over the role of funding & negotiating teacher salaries in Wisconsin   And  after the quote below, one must wonder why the parents of Wisconsin school children should be so eager to get these teachers back   In the National Assessment of Educational Progress tests administered by the U.S. Department of Education in 2009—the […]

The power of water, and reflections on critical thinking

Image via Wikipedia A testimony to the power of water, in recent Australian floods. www.youtube.com/swf/l.swf?video_id=kYUpkPTcqPY Water level in rivers follows the Log-Pearson 3 probability distribution(see attached picture) Tightly clustered around the mean, with little variation, and a limit on how far the left hand tail can go (ie “dry”) The right hand tail though is […]

Reflections on economy, China and education

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704062604576105952027426880.html another step in the realization of the Chinese Century. They are in the same economic position the US was at the end of WW2: had all the money, the manufacturing base and the need & capacity to export to war torn countries of Europe. Look at what happened in the 50s and 60s until […]

Reflections on Starobin’s Five Roads to the Future

Paul Starobin’ s biography (from the author), from  NationalJournal.com Related Link: http://www.afteramericabook.com Paul Starobin is a staff correspondent for National Journal and a contributing editor to The Atlantic Monthly. He is author of the new book “After America: Narratives for the Next Global Age,” available in soft cover as “Five Roads to the Future: Power […]

Reflections on “Sonic Boom” by Greg Easterbrook

Commentary on Sonic Boom by Gregg Easterbrook His reasons for believing that an explosion in globalization is coming: ease of communication freedom of speech and democracy markets tend to consumer demand rising education levels chip-based electronics equality of women reduced military spending and interlinked nations My concerns after reading his introduction:  will he be addressing […]

Innovation as a function of R&D investments? not so much; check your network first

Image via Wikipedia Some excellent insights into the power of quality connections and the network effect with respect to R&D, innovation and open borders Hard times call for new solutions and we are starting to take a good hard look at how innovation really works and what we can do to improve performance. Recent reports […]

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