The truth at any cost lowers all other costs — curated by former US spy Robert David Steele.
German Universities Ditch Fees
Even international students can now study anywhere in Germany for free, as Britain’s youth continues to be angered over the issue.
Lower Saxony has become the last of Germany’s states to abolish fees for university students.
Announcing the decision, science and culture minister Gabrielle Heinen-Kjajic was quoted by germanpulse.com as saying in a statement the decision was taken “because we do not want higher education which depends on the wealth of the parents”.
Good progress in materials science. Doing more with less. Now if we could just have a similarly efficient and at the same time cheap material to absorb and release hydrogen…
A Spoonful of This New Material Can Suck Up a Whole Roomful of Oxygen
A team of scientists in Denmark just invented a crystalline material that can absorb oxygen with astounding efficiency. How astounding? Well, a single spoonful of the stuff can suck all of the oxygen out of a room. The best part is that it can release it again with just a little bit of heat. Say goodbye to bulky oxygen tanks.
“The material can absorb and release oxygen many times without losing the ability. It is like dipping a sponge in water, squeezing the water out of it and repeating the process over and over again,” says Professor Christine McKenzie who led the research.
“When the substance is saturated with oxygen, it can be compared to an oxygen tank, containing pure oxygen under pressure. The difference is that this material can hold three times as much oxygen.”
See Also:
Integrating Geo-Data with Social Media Improves Situational Awareness During Disasters
A new data-driven study on the flooding of River Elbe in 2013 (one of the most severe floods ever recorded in Germany) shows that geo-data can enhance the process of extracting relevant information from social media during disasters. The authors use “specific geographical features like hydrological data and digital elevation models to prioritize crisis-relevant twitter messages.” The results demonstrate that an “approach based on geographical relations can enhance information extraction from volunteered geographic information,” which is “valuable for both crisis response and preventive flood monitoring.” These conclusions thus support a number of earlier studies that show the added value of data integration. This analysis also confirms several other key assumptions, which are important for crisis computing and disaster response.
Once again we see in this report, the latest on the Plastic Waste Trend SR has been following for some years, what wretched excess uncontrolled by any shred of common sense is doing to the Earth. What is becoming clearer year by year is that the micro-particles of plastic produced by the world ocean's constant agitation of this plastic waste is finding its way into the food chain, and our bodies.
Plastics, Plastics Everywhere — Even In Our Drinks
The world’s oceans and seas are quickly turning into vast garbage dumps, with plastics representing an increasingly large portion of the debris that’s finding its way into marine life and even human food supplies.
Carmen Russell-Sluchansky
Mint Press News, 3 October 2014
EXTRACT
David Howitt
5.0 out of 5 stars Skeptic's Guide to Pragmatic Monetizable Spiritualism and Balance, October 5, 2014
I read this book on the way back from The New Story Summit at the Findhorn Foundation in Scotland, and have to admit that the experience there with many people both spiritual and practical, elevated my ability to appreciate this book. It is a solid five and strongly recommended for anyone who wishes to be more effective, more balanced, and happier.
There are at least two bottom-lines in this book:
01. You can have it all — the trade-offs that CEOs have tended to make, sacrificing family and happiness (and often ethics as well) for the sake of the job are both unnecessary and counter-productive. AND, rather than EITHER/OR, is the central point of this book. Another word in this vein used by the author is HYBRID.
02. By integrating empathy, feelings, intuition, and a strong desire to SERVE, the authenticity, integral value, and sustainability of your entire offering will be radically enhanced, leading naturally to more and better (more ethical) money.
Micah Sifry
5.0 out of 5 stars Should Be Top Ten Book Across All Progressive Communities, October 5, 2014
This is one of the most useful important books I have read in the past couple of years, and I am stunned that the publisher has failed to properly present the book for purchase on Amazon. This book should be one of the top ten books across the progressive communities of the world.
I rate this book at SIX STARS, which puts it into the top ten percent of the 2000+ non-fiction books with some DVDs (139) I have reviewed at Amazon. This is an *amazing* book of passionate informed truth-telling and in my view, it should be the starting point for a totally new conversation among all progressive minds going into the future.
I read this book on the way back from The New Story Summit as hosted by the Findhorn Foundation in Scotland. While the book is deeply supportive of my own views on the desperate need of the distributed progressive community for tools and methods that bring together all minds and all information into a coherent whole, attending the summit and listening to the leaders of major progressive organizations including the Global Eco-Village Network and Transition positioned me to better appreciate this book by Micah Sifry.
QUOTE (34): “…has not made participation in decision-making or group coordination substantially easier.”
Continue reading “Review: The Big Disconnect – Why the Internet Hasn't Transformed Politics (Yet)”
Darrell M. West
5.0 out of 5 stars Superb overview, illuminates not just the negatives, but the positives as well, October 5, 2014
I bought this book in part because I have noticed a number of billionaires giving away $100 million to $500 million “chunks” to universities and non-profits that in my view are perpetuating what Rusell Ackoff would call “doing the wrong things righter;” in part because I myself am looking for someone to fund a School of Future-Oriented Hybrid Governance and a World Brain Institute; and in part because I have been utterly fascinated to see the 1% breaking ranks in the last three months, with a few of them, notably the Mars Family in the USA (Mutuality Economics), a few black sheep billionaires on the West Coast (Redemptive Economics) and Lady Rothschild in London (Inclusive Economics), all realizing that 100% corrupt governments are not working as they anticipated.
For me, this ia five star work. Certainly more can be done in this area, but in terms of researched detail and a coherent construct for the book over-all, I find nothing lacking.
The central focus of the book is not on the fact that the 1% have achieved their goal of assuring 100% corrupt governments (the USA and the UK being right at the top of that list) but rather on illuminating how the 1% have “pioneered new activist models of political involvement that combine electioneering, issue advocacy, and [directed] philanthropy.” What this means is that the super-rich are controlling not just the media, but state and local government, university departments and secondary school curricula, and most civil society discourse.
Continue reading “Review: Billionaires – Reflections on the Upper Crust”
