The truth at any cost lowers all other costs — curated by former US spy Robert David Steele.
Jonathan Keats, conceptual artist and experimental philosopher, reminds us that the heart of progress resides within the curious amateur: those of us who are not encumbered or restrained by the rigidity and dogma of professionalization. This important fact is often forgotten and/or actively suppressed in technocratic plutocracies where the cult of the expert serves to disempower the public.
Radical Visualization of Photos Posted to Instagram During Hurricane Sandy
This data visualization (click to enlarge) displays more than 23,500 photos taken in Brooklyn and posted to Instagram during Hurricane Sandy. A picture’s distance from the center (radius) corresponds to its mean hue while a picture’s position along the perimeter (angle) corresponds to the time that picture was taken. ”Note the demarcation line that reveals the moment of a power outage in the area and indicates the intensity of the shared experience (dramatic decrease in the number of photos, and their darker colors to the right of the line)” (1).
Read full article with additional graphics.
Phi Beta Iota: Each dot is an actual photograph with time and space tag. It is the first step toward streaming video from aggregated individual hand-held camera shots.
Posted: 02 Aug 2013 04:47 PM PDT
After a record setting year and an exciting conference season, no one can argue that open source is on the rise with no immediate signs of stopping. JavaWorld is in agreement and covers the latest open source news in their article, “Open Source Races to the Top.”
Their story begins:
“Last week’s OSCON conference served to remind us that open source software is setting the pace. We’ve come a very long way from the old saw that ‘open source doesn’t innovate.’ Instead, you might ask: Is innovation in enterprise software happening anywhere else other than in open source land?”
Open source is leading in innovation, but OSCON helped to prove that open source leads in other areas as well. From security to implementation to cost-effectiveness, open source leaders like LucidWorks are proving that open source is the total package. LucidWorks products can be implemented on-site, in the Cloud, or in a hybrid format. LucidWorks marries the best of open source with what organizations see as the safety and security of proprietary, and customers are very satisfied.
Emily Rae Aldridge, August 7, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Beyond Search
Open Source Affordability Pressures Oracle and Others
The budget crunch is hitting everyone. IT departments are being asked to slim down and do more with less. Apparently the government is no exception. The affordability of open source has the government’s attention and is changing the content management and enterprise playing field. Read more about the changes in the Information Week article, “Feds Move To Open Source Databases Pressures Oracle.”
The piece begins:
“Under implacable pressure to slash spending, government agencies are increasingly embracing open source, object-relational database software at the expense of costly, proprietary database platforms. That’s putting new pressure on traditional enterprise software providers, including Oracle, to refine their product lineups as well as their licensing arrangements.”
So giants like Oracle are feeling the crunch, and it is trickling down throughout the proprietary world. But many organizations might not feel comfortable going completely open source, as in creating their own customized solution. So many are turning to a smart compromise, a value-added open source solution like LucidWorks. Customers get the affordability and agility of open source, but the support and expertise of an industry leader. Check out their support and services for assurance that going open source does not mean you will be left out on your own.
Emily Rae Aldridge, August 6, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Beyond Search
Continue reading “Stephen E. Arnold: Open Source Affordability Pressures Oracle and Others….”
Say Hello to the Rocket Stove Heating System. In a Nutshell:
The YouTube video below was created/posted by the forward thinking engineer ZeroFossilFuel. In it he explains and demonstrates his most recent build. Not only do the less fortunate not need to freeze to death during hard times, but their energy use can be clean and efficient as well. A timely innovation to say the least.
More Info: http://www.richsoil.com/
Korea's million dollar private teachers
You may think that a teacher could only achieve rock star status and be paid millions in some alternate universe. However, it's really happening in South Korea – in the private sector.
UPS stores now offer 3D printing services
The UPS Store is the first nationwide retailer to offer 3D printing services. Will small businesses be interested?
Now, a ‘stock exchange' for crowdfunding
A new exchange seeks to provide a single view of transactions across more than 500 crowdfunding sites.
The sharing economy: a whole new way of living
From accommodation to cars, the internet is turning us from consumers into providers and challenging established business models. We talk to Martin Varsavsky, founder of Fon – the largest Wi-Fi company in the world – and profile two more pioneers, from TaskRabbit.com and BlaBlaCar.com
In 2006, serial entrepreneur and investor Martín Varsavsky – inspired by a conviction that he could cloak the world in free Wi-Fi by encouraging people to share their home connections – founded Fon in Madrid. The company is now the largest Wi-Fi network in the world, with almost 12m hot spots in more than 100 countries.
“My general thinking at the time was that we live in a world in which benefits are only accrued through economic growth and the endless consumption of resources, and that there have to be other ways that are of more benefit to people,” he says. “Why should everyone have their own car when most of the time they are not using them? Think of a marina full of boats. How frequently do those boats go out?”
Today, it has been argued that the sharing economy – which is perhaps best defined as a way of sweating underutilised assets, by building communities around them and turning consumers into providers – has the potential to reboot businesses across most economic categories. Indeed, Forbes magazine recently estimated that total revenues for the sector could top $3.5bn this year, with growth exceeding 25%. However, when setting up Fon, Varsavsky became convinced that people needed a nudge or financial incentive before they'd happily share their assets.
