Andy Martin
We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too.
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I think it’s kind of silly that it would take the University a couple of years to get around to it. I can do it better than they can, and I can do it in a week.
This is what competition looks like now.
Hundreds Register for New Facebook Website | News | The Harvard Crimson
Because nothing says Christmas like synthetic neurons automatically reconstructed from microscopy image stacks.
(via Wellcome Image of the Month: Christmas Cells « Wellcome Trust Blog)
Some pretty interesting, and highly depressing, graphs.
There’s an X on the ground at Dealey Plaza right where Kennedy was when he got shot. You never really realize he was looking at a goddam overpass right before he got hit.
Perhaps one of his last thoughts was: “Dallas is a fucking dump.”
Introducing mice, function keys, and “we call this ‘the desktop’”.
Xerox Star User Interface (1982) 1 of 2 (by VintageCG)
Sometimes people say “we can put a man on the moon, but we can’t..[do big challenge X]” where x is end smallpox, or feed children, or some similar ambitious but solvable problem.
But I wonder if we could put someone on the moon today? It feels like if we can’t, it’s because of a general loss of confidence, ambition and leadership rather than having the raw skills.
That post-war Kennedy era glow of manifest destiny feels like a long time ago. The tone today is of problems to be managed, resources to be squeezed. The narrative of climate crisis, to take one example, is about make-do-and-mend and doing more with less, rather than beating the problem back with ingenuity and foresight. We’re mitigating, because that’s the best we can hope for.
Maybe this all part of a bigger “Death of the West” narrative, where our inability to feel agency is connected to living in what we’re told is an increasingly debt-riddled, semi-employed gerontocracy where things like social mobility and youth employment feel like they were given up as part of the START II talks. I bet it doesn’t feel like this in India or Brazil.
We can do well, I’m sure, but I’m not sure we believe we can or we’re being told we can. And vicious circles are vicious.
Newfound Google Maps images have revealed an array of mysterious structures and patterns etched into the surface of China’s Gobi Desert. The media — from mainstream to fringe — has wildly speculated that they might be Chinese weapons-testing sites, satellite calibration targets, street maps of Washington, D.C., and New York City, or even messages to (or from) aliens.
It turns out that they are almost definitely used to calibrate China’s spy satellites.
(via Mysterious Symbols in China Desert Are Spy Satellite Targets, Expert Says | LiveScience)
Interesting stats:
Yesterday we did a historic thing. We generated 87,834 phone calls to U.S. Representatives in a concerted effort to protect the Internet. Extraordinary. There’s no doubt that we’ve been heard.
So just to keep you updated: The well-intentioned, but immensely flawed “Stop Online Piracy Act” is still in the House Judiciary Committee. The hearing was yesterday and now members will debate and bring amendments to the bill. The Committee will reconvene in a few weeks — the date has yet to be scheduled. Nothing has been brought to a final vote. Everything is still very much in play. We’ll keep you posted on what’s going on and what you can do to help. But for now, we want to thank you.
One encouraging thing we heard yesterday:
I don’t believe this bill has any chance on the House floor. I think it’s way too extreme, it infringes on too many areas that our leadership will know is simply too dangerous to do in its current form.
— Representative Darrell Issa
We also want to express our tremendous gratitude to our friends at Mobile Commons who, on 30 minutes notice, hooked us up with their amazing platform (and provided their expertise) to automatically connect callers with their Representatives.
As soon as an organisation starts to compromise with itself and its own internal bureaucratic issues, it inevitably begins to lose sight of the change that is possible – for the consumer, citizen, patient or user. Very few organisations have the courage or culture to attack themselves wholeheartedly on behalf of their beneficiaries.
Thinking aloud about public service reform on Catherine’s blog
If meaningful scientific and technological progress occurs, then we reasonably would expect greater economic prosperity (though this may be offset by other factors).
Peter Thiel on The End of the Future - National Review Online
I think this might be wrong in the short term. Quoting here to think more about later.
DVDs of Atlas Shrugged are being recalled because the copy on the back reads: “AYN RAND’s timeless novel of courage and self-sacrifice comes to life…”
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From Flavorwire:
As the film’s producer Harmon Kaslow stated, “As we all well know, the ideas brought to life in Atlas Shrugged are entirely antithetical to the idea of ‘self-sacrifice’ as a virtue. Atlas is quite literally a story about the dangers of self-sacrifice. The error was an unfortunate one and fans of Ayn Rand and Atlas have every right to be upset… and we have every intention of making it right.”
Of the 2012 posters that have been released, this one by Rachel Whiteread is the one that I think we’ll see the most.
(via CBBC Newsround - London 2012 Olympics posters revealed)
Are we really going to accept an Interface Of The Future that is less expressive than a sandwich?
Brett Victor, A Brief Rant on the Future of Interaction Design (via maxistentialist)One nurse visited her progressive Congressman to ask him to support the tax, and got the response ‘you nurses, you should lower your ambition.’ She replied: ‘Would you like me to do that when you come in for heart surgery?’
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Tweets
- #ff and @Cadders68 as well, obviouslyJan 27, 12 from web Reply, Retweet, Favorite
- #ff More people should follow @HennyBraund @dianabarran and @SarahEKline. Infrequent tweeters, sector leaders.Jan 27, 12 from web Reply, Retweet, Favorite
- The stats about the US prison population in the New Yorker are almost unbelievable
- Another interesting role "@Jobs_Firetail: [Full-time] Communications Organiser at Wikimedia UK http://t.co/43SaLyEl"
- Betting on an Obama re-election is free money. Compare: http://t.co/X4eyXuuw http://t.co/lkFFdfk4Jan 20, 12 from web Reply, Retweet, Favorite
- Thanks John: RT"@JohnHitchin: @firetail top quality briefing this week Andy" >sign up here http://t.co/J4UUlR8N
- Big organisation? This is what competition looks like: "I can do it better than they can, and I can do it in a week" http://t.co/YkYxjwk6Jan 18, 12 from web Reply, Retweet, Favorite
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Info
- Director, Firetail. Strategy consulting for civil societyManagement Consulting | United Kingdom, GBExperience
- 2005 - PresentDirector / Firetail Limited
