Changing without changing

Many of us make great sacrifice to avoid it. Laws are written and put into place to stymy it. Large, expensive buildings are built to protect against it. Minds are made up against it and reject ideas that even hint at it. Blockades of all sorts are built against potential outcomes that may lead to…

All in the telling

The latest technologies, including cloud, social, anything mobile, Internet of Things (IoT), Big Data, analytics and Artificial Intelligence (AI) have and will continue to transform business, especially the customer experience, which still revolves around the story. Storytelling is still the centerpiece. Nothing new there. Storytelling has been the centerpiece since before anyone could even write….

Tabula Rasa

From Wikipedia: Tabula rasa is the epistemological thesis that individuals are born without built-in mental content and that their knowledge comes from experience and perception. Generally proponents of the tabula rasa thesis favour the “nurture” side of the nature versus nurture debate, when it comes to aspects of one’s personality, social and emotional behaviour, and…

Honey, it really works

When I first moved away from Alaska nearly 5 years ago, there was one thing I wasn’t anticipating having to deal with: allergies. For years I was allergy-free living in the Pacific Northwest and Alaska. That all changed quickly upon making my new home in the Middle West. I tried over-the-counter remedies, which left me…

Ken Burns on filmmaking

If you wanted to be a doctor or a lawyer or a feature film I could tell you the steps to take to do that, but every working documentary filmmaker I know has gotten there through their own unique path. There is no career path.

Dakar

View Larger Map As I write this, I am taking meds to fight off malaria. I am leaving for Dakar this morning for a week and the meds are a final, though ongoing, step in a series of vaccines administered to me en masse (The first of two rounds knocked me for a loop for…

The Irony of Beauty

This is an astounding metaphor for our culture and the gravity of our situation as lifeforms on a planet we know next-to-nothing about: enveloped by the inelegance of our current technology, with wires and all kinds of ugly schwack running up and down the walls surrounding and protecting him, Ed Lu is aboard the International…

Michael Pollan and The Botany of Desire

Author Michael Pollan says: The tulip, by gratifying our desire for a certain kind of beauty, has gotten us to take it from its origins in Central Asia and disperse it around the world. Marijuana, by gratifying our desire to change consciousness, has gotten people to risk their lives, their freedom, in order to grow…

Humans Swimming

Are you a human? Do you like to swim? How about free-diving? How about static free diving?

Salt

From Wikipedia: Chloride and sodium ions, the two major components of salt, are necessary for the survival of all known living creatures, including humans. Salt is involved in regulating the water content (fluid balance) of the body. = c

Frankie : 3 weeks

Puppy! This is Frankie, Meta’s little sister. She turned 3 weeks old today. Same mother and father, too. Frankie will be joining us soon. Reposted from metapup.com = c

Do YOU Drink Wilkins?

If only commercials were still as cool as these for Wilkins Coffee – thanks to Pierre for the tip – made my day : )

Here’s the [Beef] Genome

By David Brown Washington Post Staff Writer Friday, April 24, 2009 The genomes of man and dog have been joined in the scientific barnyard by the genome of the cow, an animal that walked beside them on the march to modern civilization. A team of hundreds of scientists working in more than a dozen countries…

In the Beginning was the Command Line

My pal Steve turned me on to this essay, written in 1999 by Neil Stephenson. Highly recommended. Here’s an excerpt : If I can risk a broad generalization, most of the people who go to Disney World have zero interest in absorbing new ideas from books. Which sounds snide, but listen: they have no qualms…

Langer wins Millennium Award

MIT Institute Professor Robert Langer has won the Millennium Technology Prize, the world’s largest award for technology innovation. Langer was chosen “for his inventions and development of innovative biomaterials for controlled drug release and tissue regeneration that have saved and improved the lives of millions of people,” according to Technology Academy Finland, which gives the…