Random recent readings on airplane

MIT Technology Review, August 2008

1) Personal genomics services: have your DNA analysed! Service providers available, from cheap to expensive: Genographic Project ($99.95), DeCode, 23andMe, Navigenics, DNA Direct, Knome ($350,000)

2) Transoceanic cables.

3) Article by Bryant Urstadt: “Social Networking Is Not a Business* But It Might Be Soon“.

10 web startups to watch
Pinger
Pownce
Qik
Dash Navigation
Ushahidi
QTech (couldn’t find the website quickly)
33Across
Peer39
Anagran
Mashery

Upcoming tech event: 23-25 September: www.technologyreview.com/emtech

-21st Century Business Herald on Nokia & Qualcomm patent agreement and Nokia’s Symbian response to Google Android.

-Scientific American MIND magazine:

1) Some stuff on synesthesia, e.g. someone can “hear colors” or “taste shapes” (I have been interested in this weird phenomenon for a long time)

2) 14-17 August there will be the American Psychological Association’s 116th Annual Convention. Malcom Gladwell will give the keynote address.

3) An article on easing depression through manual tasks like cooking, washing etc.

4) Installation by James Auger: “smell blind date” at NY MOMA.

5) 2007 chocolate sniffing experiment at UC Berkeley.

6) Androstenone, Androstadienone, substances.

7) Storytelling theories of “literary Darwinists”: they propose that stories from around the world have universal themes reflecting our common underlying biology.

8 ) Wolfgang Köhler chimp experiment at University of Muenster in Germany: the chimp devised strategies for solving mazes.

9) Feng Shui. It has been experimentally proven that “spatial priming” affects peoples’ response to subsequent situations. Experiment by Lawrence E. Williams and John A. Bargh at Yale.

10) www.psychologicalscience.org/onlyhuman

Harper’s Magazine, August 2008

-Findings:

1) A 380-million year old fossil of fish giving live birth has been found.

2) A Welsh geobiologist has discovered populations of prokaryotic cells which may individually be more than 100 million years old, living a mile beneath the ocean floor. The buried cells are possible equal in biomass to all plant life on the earth’s surface.

-It has been revealed that the earth once had 3 moons. The 2 lost ones may have crashed into the surviving moon, sucked into the sun, of flung out of the solar system.

-There is evidence of time before the Big Bang.

-Website www.harpers.org

Newsweek, August 4th 2008

Several articles on US and the world, but also of a couple in their fifties both starting their third marriage.. “It’s not about the flatware”.

Obama’s church & Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr.

NASA research: northern lights’ movement are magnetic explosions between the moon and earth.

Randy Pausch, “Last Lecture” about making the most of each day.

China & olympics article by Orville Schell: “China’s agony of defeat”.

Sharon Begley: ” Who’ll stop the rain” on rain control technologies.

Economy and indicators

Collecting a batch of informative or insightful speeches, documents etc. 

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Speech by Peter Mandelson, EU Trade Commissioner; “A World of Opportunity: China and the future of international trade”; June 2006 at Renmin University, Beijing. http://www.europa-eu-un.org/articles/en/article_6024_en.htm

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European innovation, problems and solutions (a collection of keywords from various sources)

• Lisbon agenda not enough?

• Market for innovative goods and services (needs action on internal market, services, regulations, culture, IPR/patent system, procurement, standards etc.)

• Focusing of resources (implies also withdrawing resources from some fields)

• Financial tools and environment, and mobilizing venture capital

• Mobility of resources, including people

• Political will and action (including real budgeting)

• Technology platforms, European Institute of Technology etc.

• Improving university-industry partnerships

• Improving national as well as EU level innovation systems and policy

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Collecting a batch of economic indicators that make SENSE in analyzing a country & the global economy without going into esoteric calculations… Welcome all contributions.

• Exchange rates, dollar vs. euro etc.

• Oil prices, supply and demand

• US Federal Reserve, rates

• Stock exchange indices, quarterly and annual reports from companies

• Labor statistics

• Geopolitics
• Gold etc prices

Greenhouse gas emissions trading in Europe and the world

• European emission unit trade volume around EUR 5 billion in 2005.
• Could grow several hundred percent by year 2010.
• Price has fluctuated heavily.

European Union Greenhouse Gas Emission Trading Scheme (EU ETS) http://ec.europa.eu/environment/climat/emission.htm

International Emissions Trading Association (IETA) www.ieta.org

Pointcarbon www.pointcarbon.com

History of Estonia etc

Estonia statistics and various picks.

1/5 of the area is swamps, 1/2 forests.

• Country inhabited at least 10,000 years (I wonder if by the same people?) Oldest discovered settlement in the Pulli village near Pärnu.
• 1154 Tallinn first placed on the world map by Arabian geographer al-Idrisi.
• 13th century fights against German crusaders. In 1219 the Danes led by King Valdemar II joined in. Tallinn conquered by the Danes and called Taani Linnus by the locals.
• Coastal Swedes lived on Estonian islands and on the western coast.
• In Stenby Peace Treaty in 1238 the country was divided among the invaders: northern Estonia to the Danes and the rest to the Teutonic Order and bishoprics.
• The land was mostly feudalised to vassals of German origin, and the local people had to start paying for land usage to the manors.
• 1230 Tartu received its town bylaws.
• 1240 Dome Church consecrated in Tallinn.
• 5th April 1242 Battle on the Ice, Lake Peipus. Prince of Novgorod Alexander Nevsky defeated the Teutonic Order.
• 14th-15th centuries Tallinn gained fame as a member of the Hanseatic League.
• Estonians rebelled on 23rd April 1343. This is called the St. George’s Night Uprising.
• The Danes had had enough and a few years later King Valdemar IV sold his possessions to the Teutonic Order.
• 1404 Tallinn Town Hall built.
• 1422 Town Hall Pharmacy started operation in Tallinn. The business is still running.
• 1558 Russian Czar Ival IV declares war againts Livonia. Denmark, Poland and Sweden get involved. War lasted 25 years and the lands of Estonia again divided: northern Estonia to Sweden, southern to Poland and the Island of Saaremaa to Denmark.
• 1570-1578 Põltsamaa was capital of the Livonian vassal kingdom.
• Incidentally, the Estonians have never established a kingdom of their own.
• First half of 17th Century King Gustav II Adolph of Sweden conquered south Estonia from Poland and in the Brömsebro Peace Treaty of 1645 the island of Saaremaa was also transferred to Sweden.
• The year 1700 saw the beginning of the Northern War between Russia and Sweden. In the Nystad Peace Treaty of 1721 Estonia was ceded to Russia.
• Old Believers who left Russia arrived in Estonia; some are still living in small communities on the banks of Lake Peipus, still preserving Old Slavic church language.
• 1816-1819 dissolution of serfdom.
• 1857 Kreenholm cotton mill established. World’s most powerful waterwheel built on Narva waterfall. Local textile production got Grand Prix in the world exhibition in Paris, 1900.
• 1869 first Song Festival.
• 1892 Pühtitsa Orthodox Convent commenced.
• 24th February 1918 Estonian Independence Manifesto read in Tallinn. German occupation and war with Russia. War of Independence.
• 2nd February 1920 Russia signed a peace treaty in Tartu and recognized the new nation de jure.
• 1939 Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. Soviet Union invades.
• 1941 over 10,000 people deported to Siberia.
• 1941-1944 German occupation.
• 6th March 1944 Narva town bombed nearly out of existence.
• Soviet regime restored after WW II.
• Night of 25th March over 20,000 people deported to Siberia.
• 20th August 1991 Estonian independence.

Literature:

• Kalevipoeg 

People:

• Wilhelm Ostwald, founder of physical chemistry and Nobel Prize winner
• Karl Ernst von Baer, founder of modern embryology
• Yuri Lotman, founder of the Tartu school of semiotics
• Lydia Koidula, poetess
• Raimond Valgre, musician
• Friedrich Reinhold Kreutzwald, author of Kalevipoeg
• August Weitzenberg, sculptor
• Ants Laikmaa, Kirstjan Raud, Jakob Hurt, pioneers of national art
• Johann Köler, painter
• Amandus Adamson,painter
• Eduard Wiiralt, graphic artist

Media:

• Pärnu Postimees, first newspaper in the Estonian language, published since 1857.

Economy:

• Oil shale provides most of Estonian electric energy.

Various:

• Seto tribe, still preserving ancient customs
• Kihnu culture
• Kaali meteorite
• Kõpu lighthouse, one of the oldest in Europe

Learning Estonian is on my To Do List…

Words of advice for entrepreneurs & startups

How not to become Dot-Bomb 2.0

Noam Chomsky quotes

These are quotes from the book “Imperial Ambitions”, first published in 2005.

…

You aren’t supposed to learn that dedicated, committed effort can bring about significant changes of consciousness and understanding. That’s a very dangerous idea, and therefore it’s been wiped out of history.

…

In a 1919 essay called “The Sociology of Imperialisms,” the Austrian economist Joseph Schumpeter wrote:

There was no corner of the world where some interest was not alleged to be in danger or under actual attack. If the interests were not Roman, they were of Rome’s allies; and if Rome had no allies, then allies would be invented. When it was utterly impossible to contrive such an interest-why, then it was the national honor that was insulted. The fight was always invested with an aura of legality. Rome was always being attacked by evil-minded neighbors, always fighting for breathing space. The whole world was pervaded by a host of enemies, and it was manifestly Rome’s duty to guard against their indubitably aggressive designs.

(Interesting that Schumpeter is quoted here… He is supposedly the father of entrepreneurship studies, and of the idea of creative destruction. -blog author-)

…

(question to Chomsky) The Italian socialist Antonio Gramsci wrote, “A main obstacle to change is the reproduction by the dominated forces of elements of the hegemonic ideology. It is an important and urgent task to develop alternative interpretations of reality.” How does someone develop “alternative interpretations of reality”?

I deeply respect Gramsci, but I think it’s possible to paraphrase that comment – namely, just tell the truth. Instead of repeating ideological fanaticism, dismantle it, try to find out the truth, and tell the truth. It’s something any one of us can do. Remember, intellectuals internalize the conception that they have to make things seem complicated. Otherwise what are they around for? It’s worth asking yourself what’s really so complicated? Gramsci is a very admirable person, but take that statement and try to translate it into simple English. How complicated is it to understand the truth or to know how to act?

…

Social Security is based on a principle that is considered subversive and that has to be driven out of people’s heads: the principle that you care about other people… There is huge pressure to turn people into pathological monsters who care only about themselves, who don’t have anything to do with anyone else, and who therefore can be very easily ruled and controlled. That’s what lies behind the attack on Social Security. And it reflects a deep imperative that runs through the whole doctrinal system.…

They have to make sure that the people they are ruling do not understand that they actually have the power. That is the fundamental principle of government.

…

At some point, people recognize what the structure of power and domination is and commit to doing something about it. That’s the way every change in history has taken place. How that happens, I can’t say. But we all have the power to do it.

…

Guilt can be a way of preventing action. You comfort yourself by saying, “Look how noble I am. I confessed that I did something wrong, and now I’m free.”

…

We’re being oppressed. And in fact that’s a strain that goes right through U.S. history. There’s a book by Bruce Franklin, a literary theorist, that traces this strain through American popular literature, going back to the colonists. We are always just on the verge of extinction. We’re being attacked by demonic enemies who are just about to overwhelm us, and then, at the last minute some superhero or amazing weapon appears and we’re able to save ourselves.

…

That is a constant refrain of imperialism. You have your jackboot on someone’s neck and they’re about to destroy you. The same is true with any form of oppression. And it’s psychologically understandable. If you’re crushing and destroying someone, you have to have a reason for it, and it can’t be, I’m a murderous monster. It has to be self-defense. I’m protecting myself against them. Look what they’re doing to me. Oppression gets psychologically inverted: the oppressor is the victim who is defending himself.

…

Many of the basic institutions of our society are totally illegitimate. Do corporations have to be controlled by management and owners and dedicated to the welfare of stockholders instead of being controlled by the people who work in them and dedicated to the community and the workers? It’s not a law of nature.

…

Some media mentioned in the book:

Alternative Radio www.alternativeradio.org

The Boston Globe www.boston.com

Financial Times www.ft.com

Harvard International Review http://hir.harvard.edu/

The New York Times www.nytimes.com

Tech news & sites

Created a long collection on links and then boom, web crash. Well, this was open source day so here a couple of links

http://sourceforge.net/docs/about

http://slashdot.org