Before & After, How To Design Cool Stuff, is 226 pages of design for every designer, young and old, who is looking for inspiration as well as instruction. In a friendly and straightforward style, this book breaks down simple, elegant designs and shows you both why and how they work, so you can use the same techniques yourself over and over again to improve your designs.
Before & After's Graphics for Business, is 194 pages of designs for business essentials such as logos and identities, stationery, newsletters, charts and graphs, maps and sales materials, all first published in Before & After magazine. Learn how to make your good ideas great in ways that respect your time, budget and resources.
Before & After Page Design, is 192 pages of instruction for designing newsletters, ads, brochures, fliers, stationery and more, clearly explained and beautifully illustrated, all first published in Before & After magazine. You're sure to find the perfect project!
Below the Line: Long list of inspiring elements addressed in the three books.
I held a bi-partisan vote today, with me representing the Democratic Party while I represented the Republican Party. Strict ballot access controls ensured a unanimous outcome — the new Virtual President of the United States of America is Robert David Steele, or for Latinos, Roberto David de Steele y Vivas.
Over the next 45 days, on Tuesdays and Thursdays I will announce one critical policy decision, always in the context of a balanced budget and always with the public interest in mind — this is not going to be pretty, but 45 days from today, every American will be able to compare my virtual track record with the actual track record of those seeking re-election, or in the case of a tiny handful that overcame enormous obstacles, those seeking election for the first time.
Phi Beta Iota: Steele's posts will be buried among 5,999 other bloggers posting twice weekly. The search bar at Huffington Post works well. You can also, if you wish, click on the fan logo at this first point, to automatically receive an email alert with the exact URL for each additional post as it appears.
Robert David STEELE Vivas Click Here to See Personal Page
ON INTEGRITY
1. Integrity is not just about honor–it is about wholeness of view, completeness of effort, and accuracy or reliability of all of the elements of the whole.
2. Industrial-Era Systems do not adapt because they lack integrity and continue to pay for doing the wrong things righter–the Pentagon is a classic example of such as system.
3. In the 21st Century, intelligence, design, and integrity are the triad that matters most. The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth is the non-negotiable starting position for getting it right, and this is crucially important with respect to the sustainability of the Earth as a home for humanity.
Click on Image to Enlarge
4. Integrity at the top requires clarity, diversity, and BALANCE–it makes no sense for a Secretary of Defense to continue to screw over the 4% that take 80% of the casualties, spending 80% of the Pentagon budget on the 20% that do not take casualties (occupants of really big expensive things that do not actually go into harm's way).
5. Integrity can be compounded or discounted. It is compounded when public understanding demands political accountability and flag officers ultimately understand that they have sworn an oath to uphold the Constitution, not support the chain of command. It is discounted when flag officers are careerists, ascribe to rankism, and generally betray the public interest in favor of personal advancement.
6. Integrity is ultimately a natural attribute of large groups, and emerges from self-organizing over time. The Declaration of Independence from the United Kingdom is one example; the break-up of the Balkans another; the pending secession of Hawaii and Vermont from the United STATES of America a third. Legitimate grievances give the aggrieved the moral high ground–this is a power no government can repress.
7. Universal access to connectivity and content is a means of accelerating both public access to the truth, and the power of the public to off-set “rule by secrecy,” which inherently lacks integrity across the board.
EXCUSES most commonly heard:
1) I work for the government, we serve the public, I consider myself part of the government, not part of the public, and indeed, choose not to vote or otherwise be active as a citizen.
2) The public elects the politicians, they appoint the leadership, serving the chain of command is how one serves the public.
RIPOSTE:
1) Citizenship trumps occupational role. Every employee is supposed to be a citizen first, a public servant second. They swear an oath to support and defend the Constitution, that includes a responsibility to protect the public from predatory government actions – the recent assassination of a US citizen without due process is a reprehensible example of what happens with uniformed officers and civil servants become morally disengaged.
2) Information asymmetries between the public and the government are such that a democracy demands whistle-blowers and open government. Rule by secrecy is a form of tyranny, a means of avoiding accountability, and ultimately a clear and present danger to the Constitution, the Republic, and the public interest. Because of their Oath, it can be said that government employees have a special responsibility to detect and confront fraud, waste, and abuse – and certainly to disobey and declare illegal orders and plans or programs inconsistent with the Constitution, such as wars not authorized by Congress, or assassinations not based on the rule of law.
In brief, all of our government employees have been “coping out” and failing to live up to their fullest potential as citizens and human beings. To be silent and complacent is to be a slave, not a citizen. Any employee of the government that fails to think about the Constitution and their role in defending the Constitution at every level on every day across every issue area, is failing to honor their Oath of office.
Todd Bishop on Thursday, September 23, 2010, 11:17am PD
Microsoft, Google and other tech companies won a key victory in Washington, D.C., today as the Federal Communications Commission moved to open up vacant spectrum between television channels for unlicensed use by wireless devices — a development expected to lead to a powerful new form of wireless Internet access.
Phi Beta Iota: This is the beginning of the end of any telecommunications business that does not realize that it is in the business of software, services, and sense-making. Burning Man this year demonstrated that OpenBTS and related open technologies are ready for prime time. Below is our newest graphic (click to see full size).
EXTRACT 1: But Oracle’s annual takeover of San Francisco pales against its larger ambitions — to supply just about all the technology, software and hardware, that businesses might need. This sweeping agenda has rattled the nerves of customers, who fear that Oracle has its own best interests, not theirs, at heart. The worry is that instead of saving money, customers will end up paying more over the long term, and that Oracle, already known for its aggressive tactics, will use its strong position in software to gain even more leverage over a larger array of products.
EXTRACT 2: Like it or not, many of the largest technology companies — H.P., I.B.M., Cisco Systems and Oracle — have made their data center conquest plans clear. Oracle now competes directly with its partners H.P. and Dell, as does Cisco, the networking specialist, through its move into computer servers. Meanwhile, H.P., once one of Cisco’s closest allies, has begun a major assault in the networking arena.
Phi Beta Iota: In our view, secure reliable continuous interoperability with constantly-changing customers and constantly-changing networks of temporary partners–and real-time decision-support from across unstructured constantly changing multi-media multi-lingual information, is going to define the communications, computing, and public intelligence challenge of the 21st Century.
Bee populations dropped 17 percent in the UK last year, according to the British Bee Association, and nearly 30 percent in the United States says the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Parasitic mites called varroa, agricultural pesticides and the effects of climate change have all been implicated in what has been dubbed “colony collapse disorder” (CCD).
But researchers in India believe cell phones could also be to blame for some of the losses.
