2day's gr8

Playing chicken

2013-04-30T20:39:00.000-04:00

"We bombed Hiroshima, we bombed Nagasaki, and we nuked far more than the thousands in New York and the Pentagon, and we never batted an eye... and now we are indignant, because the stuff we have done overseas is now brought back into our own front yards. America's chickens are coming home to roost." I never understood why this quote from Rev. Jeremiah Wright was so controversial. With somewhere around 120,000 civilian deaths in Iraq; 16,000 in Afghanistan; hundreds more in drone strikes over Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia; and a total of over 10 million foreign deaths as a direct result of U.S. military and economic interventions since those nuclear blasts in Japan, it’s totally understandable that there could be people out there who want to kill us.

Certainly, many of these interventions may have been justifiable, and could well have prevented further loss of life; but when it’s your son, your daughter, your father, your husband, your brother, your sister, your wife or your mother that you bury, it’s mighty hard not to sense some desire for revenge. And 10 million deaths add up to a lot of repressed vengeance; sooner or later, some of it is bound to be released—or, as the Rev. Wright put it—some of our chickens are going to come home to roost.

It doesn’t make it right. But neither does our rationale make the death of other innocents right.

So how do we make it right? We can play a childish game of tit-for-tat all we like, but this is never going to stop until someone is big enough to admit they’ve done some wrong. If we’re big enough to take on the role of global police, then it could be that we’re big enough to take on the role of global peacemaker. If we don’t do it, who will?

But how? And how can we expect others to follow our lead? And won’t this make us look weak?

While answers to questions like these may be hard to find, one thing is certain: it won’t be easy. Others won’t follow our lead: the seeds of vengeance have already been planted and will continue to spread—for a while. Some may well see us as weak, while others will respect us for our resilience.

But how?

Here are just a few suggestions that could send the message we’re making an effort:

1. Take the lead from 12-step programs. Acknowledge that we have an addiction to military muscle (we’re responsible for 39% of the world’s military spending—as much as the next 11 biggest spenders combined—which looks like an addiction from where I sit). Make a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves. Note the word ‘fearless’. Even if others don’t recognize the courage it takes to do this, we can. We don’t need to be apologists; we just need to be fearless. Make a list of all persons we have harmed, and become willing to make amends to them all. Ten million deaths, many more injuries, and everyone else affected by them, adds up to a lot of people, but we could at least identify groups of people. Make direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others (including ourselves, of course). This is where the hardest, richest and most rewarding work really begins. It worked with the Marshall Plan and the Japanese post-war economic miracle, so it can work again. Continue to take personal inventory, and when we are wrong, promptly admit it. Notice how counter these steps are to current diplomatic methods, or even to our instincts? Notice how much success A.A. and its sister programs have had? There could just be something to this.

2. Close Guantánamo. This would be a huge statement. If reading Samir Naji al Hasan Moqbel’s description of his experience in the hunger strike at Guantánamo doesn’t stir some sympathy in you, it’s probably time you asked yourself when you lost your humanity, and how that is serving you. In short, the torture hasn’t stopped. Even without the force-feeding and the beatings; 11 years of confinement without trial, with limited outside contact, and with no clear end in sight is torture enough. Try putting yourself in such a position. Even on death row, you know what’s coming and why you’re there. Two days after his inauguration—on January 22^nd, 2009—President Obama signed an executive order to close Gitmo. More than four years later, it still holds over 160 prisoners, many of whom have been cleared for transfer. Certainly, there have been many seemingly insurmountable obstacles to doing this, but we need to find ways to overcome them. This one action alone would show that we’re making an effort to change the way we’re seen in the world.

3. Stop profiling. The Muslim world could be forgiven for believing we are closet racists. While the abovementioned prisoners languish in suffocating conditions in Cuba as untried ‘enemy combatants’, we rarely, if ever, treat other terrorists the same way. Ted Kaczynski, Timothy McVeigh, Joe Stack, Eric Rudolph and Wade Michael Page all belong to an extensive list of domestic terrorists who were each responsible for at least as much destruction as the Tsarnaev brothers, and all were either tried in civilian courts or died before that option was possible. Yet the moment Dzhokhar Tsarnaev—a U.S. citizen—was identified as a foreign-born Muslim, many pundits and politicians were calling for him to be tried as—you guessed it—an enemy combatant. Meanwhile, former informant Craig Monteilh tells us the FBI’s anti-terrorism strategy “is all about entrapment”. While we maintain such double standards, we make ourselves look both fearful and xenophobic to the very types of people we target (read: Muslims). And while we target them, they will target us—and we happen to be a very big, stationary target—which makes us pretty easy to hit.

4. Get out of other countries’ business. At least where we can. Drone strikes and similar operations—both overt and covert—do us few favors overseas. We can never hope to kill every last remaining potential terrorist, and our attempts to do so will only encourage more. If we know where these people are, we know how to keep an eye on them. Let’s trust our ability to do that, while investing more in diplomacy and nation building, and less in weapons of mass destruction. Give the insurgency inciters as little to feed on as possible.

5. Wear it. While law enforcement does an excellent job at preventing the bulk of terrorist attacks on American soil, every now and then another Tsarnaev will slip through the net. It’s inevitable. When it does happen, we need to stand tall and respond without malice or fear, as has largely happened in the wake of the Boston bombing. The more we are able to do this, the easier it will be for the world to see that terrorism is one strategy that will never work on us.

6. Talk. These incidents—no matter how misguided—happen for a reason. What is that reason? Stopping for a moment to ask is always a good idea. We may not like what we hear, but we can still listen and take in what is relevant. As Jane Goodall has said, “Change happens by listening and then starting a dialogue with the people who are doing something you don't believe is right.” At no point can we agree that people attacking us is right. At every point we should ask why.

I recall a bumper sticker that said we are making enemies faster than we can kill them. We can reverse that trend. The ideas here are not new, nor are they comprehensive. But we need to start somewhere, anywhere—for the sake of our peace of mind, for our country, for our children, and for the families and friends of all the people this country has touched for better or for worse—and in this increasingly global environment, that’s nearly everyone (and mostly for the better!).

Because, until we do take the lead on peacemaking, we’ll just be playing chicken.

Bangladesh & Mrs Jones

2013-04-26T18:53:00.000-04:00

With over 300 people dead in a collapsed sweatshop in Bangladesh, plus a string of earlier incidents—including 111 in a fire in November—is it time we started asking what part we play in these accidents?

How could we play a part? We’re on the other side of the world.

What are you wearing? Do you know where it came from? Did you pay what it was worth? Or are you like me, a little strapped for cash and therefore looking out for a good deal? Even if you’re not short of moolah, you still know a good price when you see one. It’s human nature: bargains are hard to pass up.

It’s also a foundation of capitalism: the best price often wins.

But what about the hundreds of people who just died giving us great prices? Even before they died, they worked in terrible conditions for pay just above the squalor line. If this was your neighbor, would you allow it to happen? If it was a relative, what would you do to stop it? They’re so far removed from us, yet as this world becomes more globalized, we are all becoming neighbors. And whether you believe in Adam and Eve or Lucy, we are all somehow related. So where is the line? Three doors down and second cousin? Different nationality and different color? Somewhere in between? We all have a line, and that is the point at which our humanity is replaced by our self-interest.

Can this line be blurred? Can we wipe it out completely? Is there a way to see our place in the world differently? Every time a disaster of this magnitude comes to our attention, it gives us pause. We go to a place—if only for a moment—where we feel sympathy for a distant fellow human being. And then we get in our car and drive to Walmart and shop ourselves back into unconsciousness. It is so hard to connect their suffering to our behavior. We didn’t build the sweatshop. We didn’t negotiate the contract. We didn’t know what their working conditions were like. We didn’t do it. But boy, did we get a deal on that sweater.

There are many sides to every transaction. We see some of them (great price, how do they make a profit?) and are blinded to most of them. How do we open our eyes? How do we see the true cost of our actions? All we have to compare with are the people around us—the Joneses—and keeping up with them becomes a central focus of our reality. Immediacy trumps dissociation every time, and the only time Bangladeshi sweatshops emerge into immediacy is when disaster strikes and a pang of empathy erupts. Then, very quickly, Made in Bangladesh once again means only that it’s cheap.

So what do we do? Do we accept personal responsibility for this tragedy? Do we blame the importers? The retailers? The factory owners? The factory’s builder? The officials that watched it go up without a permit? Do we put it down to globalization? To capitalism? Every one of these is a factor in all this suffering: hundreds dead, hundreds wounded, hundreds of families experiencing loss with little compensation. And every one of us is in a position to deflect responsibility to one of the other parties.

Is that who we are? Is that what being human is all about? Can we simply be reduced to seven billion egocentric organisms? Or is there a way to see us as one organism with seven billion parts? If we are the latter, then we just received a stab wound from the sudden loss of 300 significant elements. How many more self-inflicted wounds do we need to subject ourselves to before we recognize that we’re suffering from a self-harming disorder?

According to the Credit Suisse Research Institute, global wealth is sitting at over USD 50,000 per adult. Surely that’s enough? There is enough to go around. But while I have the mentality that I need much more than I really do, and while I value my success more than someone else’s existence, there will never be enough for many. We are seeing this play out here in the US, as income inequality approaches the extremes of the ‘20s; those who are best at getting more for themselves are doing so at the expense of those who don’t have the same skills. And while this kind of thinking pervades economic rationale this will continue to happen—at least until the system implodes under its own weight as it did in 1929.

Our whole economic system depends on factories like that one in Bangladesh. It needs cheap labor and cheap means of production. It’s been happening since the Dickensian age. The industrial revolution required a minor revolution in thinking: the serfs who served nobility were now required to serve industry. Globalization just helps keep the serfs out of sight, out of mind, in collapsing factories in countries like Bangladesh, while we—the nobility—preoccupy ourselves with the Joneses and all the things we don’t yet have.

Until we’re ready for a real revolution in thinking, we’ll have blood on our hands every time we seek a bargain. But don’t worry, there’s always someone else to blame.

On the move

2011-02-08T13:14:00.003-05:00

Thanks for visiting. I am now posting this blog at InventorSpot. Please come on over for a visit!

Sign of the times?

2011-02-07T08:29:00.000-05:00

It was never my intention to be the bearer of bad tidings, but I'm afraid somebody has to break the news that the neon sign is on the way out. Advances in LED technology and Electroluminescent (EL) wire are rendering these electronic icons of kitsch obsolete, while their toxic components - such as mercury and argon - and high electricity consumption are raising the collective eyebrows of the environmentally conscious.

Fortunately, New York native and architect Kirsten Hively, is doing something about their impending demise. She is documenting them. Hundreds of them. All around New York City.

With Project Neon, Hively is not only capturing the images of the signs, she is capturing the stories behind them. Attached to every sign is a business, and she goes inside each of one them, making a purchase, and meeting the people that give the signs meaning.

Still, as much as neon signs are an important part of 20th century culture, not everyone is going to miss them:

Bussed: the moves

2011-02-06T08:12:00.001-05:00

Catching a bus can be painful. You stroll down to the bus stop on time, only to watch your ride whiz by, empty and a couple of minutes early. Then you sit, and wait. And wait. And wait. Eventually, the next bus arrives, 15 minutes late, and it's so crowded that you get carried off by a wave of exiting passengers at each stop, and have to work your way back on. Three minutes after you board, the bus behind yours overtakes you, with nary a passenger on board, and you wonder why you didn't just drive, or write the whole day off as a big mistake.

Evidently, someone at the MTA in New York has actually caught a bus at some time in their life, and recognizes this issue. Enter BusTime, a pilot program that tells passengers where their bus is.

Powered by intelligent transit technology company, Clever Devices, BusTime gives you real-time information about your bus via a range of methods, including text, internet, and email. You even get to watch your bus on a map.

But this isn't just about making things more convenient for the consumer. It's a public safety issue as well:

Meat your maker

2011-02-05T12:48:00.001-05:00

There are many reasons your conscience may be telling you not to eat meat, while your body tells you otherwise: it's a massive tax on the environment; it's just not right to eat another sentient being; the factory farms where most of our meat comes from are just downright inhumane; the karma's a bitch, etc.

But what if you could eat meat that didn't actually come from an animal? That presents a few issues in itself, it's true - such as, there's just something fundamentally wrong with that. But it's still a great idea.

Medical University of South Carolina Assistant Professor, Vladimir Mironov (pictured), certainly thinks it's worth a try. He's been working on 'in vitro' - or cultured - meat, for the past decade, and is itching to find the funds to get it out to the public. Unfortunately, like a festering, green, slimy drumstick that's been sitting in the fridge for the past three months, nobody wants to touch it: not the FDA, not the National Institutes of Health, not even NASA (well, not anymore - they did donate a few dollars to the cause, until they realized they won't be sending anyone to Mars in the foreseeable future).

Surely someone would buy it? Heck, they buy this:

Skip to give food

2011-02-04T08:39:00.000-05:00

Do you like the idea of donating money to worthwhile causes, but never seem to have the budget to justify it? Do you like to treat yourself every now and then? You may be the perfect candidate for Skip1.org.

Founded by former Hollywood producer, Shelene Bryan, Skip1.org asks you to simply forgo one of those treats every now and then, and donate the money to something more beneficial - namely, food and water for people who actually need it to survive another day.

One hundred percent of all public donations go into projects that achieve these goals, so you know that the croissant or pedicure or t-shirt you decided not to purchase, is going a lot further than it would have in your tummy or on your feet or back.

Which derives more satisfaction: fulfilling a passing desire, or helping someone out?

Here is Bryan explaining her inspiration behind skipping one:

Founder's Story from Skip1 on Vimeo.

The data is out there

2011-02-03T10:53:00.001-05:00

There is truth in data, and the data is out there. The problem in this information age is not that we have data, but that there is so much of it, and it is very difficult to collate it and make any sense of it.

Dele Olowoyo wants to help us put it all together. His Global Intelligence app is designed to raise awareness of the issues that developing countries face, and to provide a way for people to help find solutions to these issues, through interacting with a huge array of data from The World Bank and the CIA World Factbook.

It's a lot of fun to use, giving you interactive, graphical data at the click of a button. You can learn a lot in a short space of time, and if Sir Francis Bacon was right, then knowledge is power.

Global Intelligence is one of over 100 entries in The World Bank's Apps for Development competition, which "challenges participants to develop software applications related to one or more of the Millennium Development Goals." It has been made possible since The World Bank made a plethora of information freely available back in April, 2010, as part of its Open Data Initiative.

Voting in the competition, which offers $45,000 in prizes, is open for the next 25 days. Here's its promo video:

Shouting (and other stuff) on the rooftops

2011-02-02T07:34:00.001-05:00

Today's great idea isn't a great invention, or a world-saving new technology. Today's great idea is just a great idea. Lewis Dryburgh (pictured) is full of them.

The talk he gave at December's Boring Conference, in London, was about spending time on parking lot roofs. How is that a great idea? Well, as he points out, these roofs are unoccupied around 90% of the time. That gives you over 21 hours a day to yourself, in some of the most crowded areas of your city. If you value your space, this really is a great idea!

Dryburgh is a font of quirky, uplifting ideas like this. Previously, he's left friendly messages around for people to pick up, and given his phone number out for random people to call. Stay tuned to his blog, to see what he comes up with next.

Here are 30 glorious seconds he spent on one parking lot roof:

Can't be e-gypped

2011-02-01T18:21:00.000-05:00

While you may be familiar with the chart on the left, that details the volume of internet traffic through Egypt during the current political crisis there, what you may not be familiar with is the novel workarounds people are finding to spread the word.

There have been two distinct methods of overriding the internet block. One is to use old technology, and the other is to use really new technology.

Let's start with the old. According to the BBC, there has been a big resurgence in faxing, ham radio, and the old dial up modems that got the internet started. The real advantage of these, is that you don't need an Egyptian service provider to get access - so long as the number at the other end of the phone line can connect you to the internet, you're online!

The new-fangled approach is intriguing, too. Last week, Google bought SayNow - a service that allows you to post voice messages on Twitter. And now they're getting a great chance to demonstrate its efficacy. So many messages are pouring in with the #egypt hashtag, that you could spend your whole day listening to them and nothing else.

And if these two approaches cease to work, there are plenty more. You can limit the provision of technology, but you can't limit determination or ingenuity:

Holo scene

2011-01-31T06:53:00.001-05:00

3D TV is so 2010. People may not be saying this just yet, but if researchers at MIT continue their progress with holographic TV, we'll be wondering what all the fuss was about pretty soon.

What's the difference between 3D TV and holographic TV? 3D only comes out at you in one direction, while your location in the room directly impacts what you see with holographic TV - or 'holovideo', as those in the know like to call it. In other words, watching holographic TV is like having the events happen right there in the same room with you - instead of just having things come out of the TV at you.

While there have been previous developments in holographic TV, they've typically required visual data from a lot of sources. What makes the MIT developments so exciting is that they've created holographic TV from a single Xbox Kinect camera.

Here is Michael Bove, Group Head of Object-Based Media at MIT, explaining this development:

And for those who enjoy reading technical jargon, here's the team's recent research paper on the subject.

Eyes wide shut

2011-01-30T23:08:00.000-05:00

How many times have you walked by a homeless person? How many times have you invented your own story about them? How many times have you stopped to ask them anything?
If you're like most of us, your answers are:
       1. Many;
       2. Often;
       3. Never.

Fifteen years ago, Mark Horvath would have given the same answers, as he drove his Mercedes mindlessly past the homeless on his way to and from his high-paying television job. Then he became homeless, and he came to the realization that it can happen to anyone. Now, Horvath has made it his mission to collect the stories that we have never taken the time to consider. And they are fascinating.

Horvath has documented hundreds of these stories from around the country on his site, InvisiblePeople.tv, and they are as compelling as they are disturbing. He is a master at capturing the circumstances that have led so many otherwise 'normal' members of society onto the streets, and how difficult it can be for them to extricate themselves from homelessness once it has become their reality.

Still, you may not be convinced. You may be thinking that these people are responsible for their fate. You may be right, but considering that the average age of the 3.5 million homeless people in the US is nine years-old, you might also be very, very wrong.

There are many stories on Horvath's site, why not start with his?

My Story from InvisiblePeople.tv on Vimeo.

Taking food for granting

2011-01-29T12:01:00.001-05:00

Fundraising dinners are nothing new, but a growing international network has uncovered a new way to do them. Sunday Soup offer what they call meal-based micro-grants to creative projects in their respective neighborhoods.

The concept is as cool as it is simple: a community of people gather on a regular basis to share affordable meals, and donate the proceeds to a creative project of their choice. At each Sunday Soup gathering, prospective grantees present their projects while attendees dine. Then the diners vote, and the winner gets the grant.

So far, the network has granted nearly $20,000 in 25 locales, at a rate of roughly $400 per grant. There are currently over 20 Sunday Soup groups in the US, and anyone is welcome to start their own. Why not? The worst thing that could happen is that you'd have a great meal; the best thing that could happen is wide open to possibility.

Here's a piece NPR's Marketplace did on St Louis' Sloup"

Jets dream

2011-01-28T09:02:00.002-05:00

The idea of jet packs is nothing new. They're regular stars in movies (including Logan's Run (left)), and there have been real-life variations on the theme ever since the Germans invented the pulse jet powered Himmelstürmer back in WWII.

As it turns out, there are a number of complications entailed in getting a jet pack to the market. First and foremost being, nearly every method of producing a jet is going to generate a lot of heat. That makes the prospect of flying one a - shall we say - hot topic.

1960s jet pack & protective suit

Another problem is finding enough fuel to fly for any length of time. There's only so much a person can carry, and mobility is kind of important when you're flying through the air.

So, while the concept is great, the possibility of you or me ever getting a chance to fly with a jet pack has been slim. Until now.

Canadian inventor, Raymond Li, has come up with the ingenious idea of using water to power you into the air. His JetLev jet pack goes on the market in March, and retails for around $100,000. It may look a little cumbersome, but imagine the possibilities: with a few tweaks, you could foreseeably jet across the ocean, or around the Great Lakes, even up the Amazon. Meanwhile, though, just expect to see these things in and around resorts:

Gym blob?

2011-01-27T09:50:00.003-05:00

Have you ever had a gym membership? If so, how long did you maintain your workout regimen for? If you're like 80% of Americans, it wouldn't have taken long for you to find a plethora of other priorities that prevented you from attending more than once a week. And then, when you realized you were spending around $800 a year for the privilege of little more than a membership card, you probably did the same thing as half the people who get gym memberships, and quit within the first six months.

This equation doesn't work for you, and it doesn't work for the gym.

Which is why Yifan Zhang and Geoff Oberhofer came up with Gym-Pact. Inspired by their Harvard Economics Professor, Sendhil Mullainathan, who asserted that people are more motivated by immediate consequences than by future possibilities, Zhang and Oberhofer have developed a social enterprise program in Boston that encourages people to keep working out through monetary incentives.

These incentives work both ways: if you stick to your attendance commitments at a selection of fitness venues around Boston, you get great discounts on fitness memberships. If you don't, you get fined!

It's for your own good. Huge Red Bear doesn't want you to end up like him (and you don't want to argue with Huge Red Bear):

Birth rights

2011-01-26T09:09:00.001-05:00

In Angola, nearly one in every five infants is dying. In the US, roughly three in every 500 infants die. In Singapore, the figure is closer to one in every 500. That the world's best infant mortality rate is 100 times better than the world's worst, is not only an indictment on a topsy-turvy set of global priorities; it's also a call to action.

But what can we do? It's hard to get the necessary technology to the people who need it the most.

Well, it turns out that it's not all about technology. A recent study conducted in Pakistan - where newborn deaths account for over half of all deaths under five years of age - demonstrated that newborn care counseling alone, accounted for a 15 percent decline in newborn mortality and a 21 percent reduction in the stillbirth rate.

In an article that highlights this study, Melinda Gates mentions her own experience in India (a country in which over a million kids under one month old die annually), where similar interventions cut newborn mortality rates in half. Here she is talking about it:

And to be fair, things are improving in Angola, as well:

STRaNDed in space

2011-01-25T11:04:00.000-05:00

As a rule, it appears that smartphones are a whole lot smarter than the people using them. No offense intended, but really, how much of a smartphone's capacity does the average Joe use? There's enough technology in one of those things to fly a spaceship. Well, a satellite, anyway.

STRaND-1 stack and equipment

That's the opinion of the team at Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd (SSTL), who are developing a satellite containing a smartphone payload, that they plan to launch later this year. Called STRaND-1 (Surrey Training, Research and Nanosatellite Demonstrator), the 'nano-satellite' weighs less than nine pounds, and could revolutionize satellite technology.

It really is a touch of genius: an extremely cheap, lightweight device that can be improved by anyone that knows how to develop apps. Suddenly, the sort of technology that only governments and large corporations could afford and program, is within reach of the average Joe who wanted to be able to do more with his smartphone! If the range of creative developments that have come through the internet are any indication, the possibilities for smartphone satellites are literally endless.

So it's unsurprising that SSTL should be the ones bringing us this technology. They're already into everything else:

Shazzam!

2011-01-24T18:17:00.000-05:00

It's one thing to say we're all one human family, but another thing altogether to experience it.

Back in 2008, Gal Kleinman came up with one way of bringing us a little closer together. Magical Moments Around the World is a project designed to connect you to others as you share "a special event that you experienced in your life."

Recent examples include the birth of a sibling, getting good grades, closeness with family, and a walk in the woods: in short, experiences that most everyone can relate to. The beautiful thing is that these moments are coming from everywhere: Pakistan, Niger, Kyrgyzstan, Lithuania, and right here in the USA.

Anyone is welcome to submit their own magical moment, and if you're really enthused by this project, Kleinman is seeking volunteer project managers globally to "work closely with staff members to provide leadership in implementing, managing and evaluating the project".

Not every magical moment is what you might expect:

Nothing doing

2011-01-23T08:57:00.000-05:00

How long can you sit still in front of the computer? An hour? Twenty minutes? Thirty seconds? The average time that people have been able to sit still in front of Alex Tew's Do Nothing for 2 Minutes is currently sitting at around 58 seconds.

Tew, who is best known for The Million Dollar Homepage, which (more than) paid for his college education, says he was inspired to do this because research indicates our brains are being rewired with regular dopamine bursts every time we check our emails, Twitter, Facebook, etc.

Two minutes of stillness? Surely that can't be too hard. And it's good for you:

Out of clear air

2011-01-22T09:30:00.000-05:00

If you've ever experienced turbulence on an airplane, you know how discomforting it can be. One type of turbulence - clear-air turbulence (CAT) - is particularly disturbing, because it is very difficult to see with eyes or radar. Detecting it is further complicated by the fact that there are several unrelated factors that can cause CAT, such as jet stream, vertical and horizontal temperature gradients, vertical and horizontal wind shear, even gravity wave wind shear.

Caused by converging bodies of air meeting at very different speeds, CAT has been known to injure - and even kill - people on board airplanes, with sudden drops of at least 100 feet having been recorded.

Prolific inventor, Brian Tillotson, has been working on this problem for a number of years, and has recently issued a patent - on behalf of Boeing - that utilizes a regular digital camera to take a succession of photos of the horizon. An image processing computer compares the images for refraction of the horizon line, which is about the only surefire indicator that CAT could be present.

A complicated problem solved with a simple solution. What a great idea!

Until they implement Tillotson's system - or something like it - you best buckle up:

Consumed in collaboration

2011-01-21T09:02:00.000-05:00

Consume, consume, consume: it's been our mantra for decades now. It's been fun, but after every party comes the hangover-laden cleanup. The developed world is slowly coming to the uncomfortable realization that an economy dependent on consumption will devour itself once the snack table has been emptied, just as the developing world is coming to the realization that it would be nice if they could play, too.

At some level, we all know that our current behavior is unsustainable. What we don't necessarily know, is how to change it. One idea that is gaining traction is collaborative consumption, which is essentially the idea that we can actually share some of our things. Highly radical concept, isn't it? Hardly surprising that nobody thought of it before. But I digress...

While collaborative consumption might be a good idea, it will remain largely an idea until enough people get behind it. And the reality is that we remain in a consumer-driven economy, so money is an important ingredient in getting those people behind it. That's where Collaborative Fund comes in.

Collaborative Fund is the baby of Craig Shapiro, a marketing guru who has a history of investing in fascinating technology-driven startups. Which is pretty much what Collaborative Fund intends to do.

The $6 million fund aims to invest in collaborative, values-driven startups. Examples include entrepreneurial community ProFounder, learning games developer MindSnacks, and home-cooked food promoter Gobble.

To see how collaborative consumption is impacting our world, watch this video, presented by Collaborative Fund Venture Adviser Rachel Botsman:

Follow the leader

2011-01-20T16:44:00.000-05:00

We've all done it when stuck in traffic: read a newspaper, checked our text messages, fiddled around with the center console. But what if that traffic was going 50 miles per hour? Sure, there are still some people out there foolish enough to try these things at high speed, but most of us have had enough close calls to know better.

The good folk from the EU-funded Safe Road Trains for the Environment (SARTRE) Project aren't content with letting passengers have all the fun. They want equal rights for drivers, and are making it happen with what they call vehicle platooning technology.

The idea is simple: when there are a series of vehicles traveling behind one another, only the lead one needs to do the driving. Given the right conditions, anyone behind that vehicle could theoretically let their car follow suit.

'Theoretically' being the key word until just a few days ago, when the first successful demonstration of this technology took place at the Volvo Proving Ground in Sweden. It was also the first time their systems were tested on the road, which should provide some comfort to prospective hands-free drivers.

The SARTRE team, which has representatives from seven companies and four countries, aims to complete this project within two years. However, it might take a little longer for regulators to warm to the idea, regardless of the projected 20% reduction in CO2 emissions that could result from less erratic driving, and less erratic driving, which could result in fewer accidents.

As you can see from this video, it's all calculated very precisely to minimize the possibility of accidents, but there's not much you can do about lane jumpers who drive like this:

Oil be Blest

2011-01-19T18:01:00.000-05:00

In the past month, this blog has covered both the recycling of plastic into its original polymers and monomers, and the development of sugar-based biodegradable plastic. These are both great innovations, but the reality is that each of them are still in the developmental stage, and both of them require relatively expensive, large-scale processes.

Meanwhile, more oil is being used to manufacture plastics each year than is consumed in the entire continent of Africa. And it's no news to anyone that the very same oil that goes into making plastic is running out.

Ideally, what we need is an inexpensive process that converts plastic back into the oil that created it.

Akinori Ito, CEO of Japanese company Blest, is not necessarily an idealist. But he has turned this ideal into a reality with his Waste Plastic Oiling System (pictured), which just so happens to be a relatively inexpensive machine that converts plastic back into oil.

For around $12,500, you can begin converting any old plastic at the rate of about one liter of oil per kilogram of plastic. If all the plastic that was manufactured each year was converted in this way, we would have an extra 60 million barrels, or so, of oil at our disposal. Each year.

But it's not just about oil. One hundred million tons of unbiodegradable plastic is a big annual tax on our environment, our wildlife, and our resources. Wouldn't it be nice to know that the plastic we use isn't going to end up clogging a landfill, or having its toxic components burnt into our atmosphere, or killing our oceans?

Ito thinks so. Here's a video featuring him and his invention:

The eyes have it

2011-01-18T08:08:00.000-05:00

Want to watch 3D TV without being encumbered by glasses? Want to have superpowered eyelids? Parisian director François Vogel may have invented just the thing for you.

Vogel (pictured), who is better known for his more artistic endeavors, such as HP's You on You Project, and an array of short films, is developing a device you plug onto your temples that makes your eyelids go haywire, and gives you the experience of watching TV in 3D.

As fun as this may sound, it is definitely not recommended for anyone with epilepsy, or for films longer than one of Vogel's shorts, as you can see from Vogel's demonstration below:

GRASPing a new reality

2011-01-17T07:25:00.000-05:00

Sixty years ago, Isaac Asimov published I, Robot, a series of short stories about robots who could, essentially, think for themselves.

Robotic teamwork

Good thing that couldn't actually happen, right? Wrong. The multidisciplinary team at the University of Pennsylvania's GRASP (General Robotics, Automation, Sensing and Perception) Laboratory have been developing helicoptor-like robots (Quadrotors) that can not only perform a lot of neat tricks, but can also work together to achieve goals.

This video shows them building several structures, and boldly announces that they are limited only by battery life and the amount of building materials they have at their disposal:

If this were the only project the GRASP team were working on, it would still be impressive, but it turns out the $10 million research center currently has over 20 projects on the go, including autonomous vehicles, imaging from touch, even robotic language comprehension.