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Ten years ago, offshoring manufacturing jobs to China looked like the perfect way to cut costs. But now companies that manufacture everything from computers to car parts are returning to the United States in growing numbers. The country needs to invest in more vocational and technical training programs so millions of jobless factory workers are equipped with the skills to benefit from this trend, say labor economists.
Nephew Mikaia showing Grandpa Norman what he knows
Futurist Thomas Frey: Over the past couple months I’ve become enamored with watching my two-year-old nephew Mikaia learn the letters of the alphabet, colors, and numbers. Even though he doesn’t have them all perfect, he’s scoring in the high 90% when we quiz him verbally.
Next up, the periodic table of elements?
Continue reading… “Teacherless Education and the Competition that will Change Everything”
Torrenfreak covers The Pirate Bay’s new “Promo Bay” service, which has been flooded by 5,000+ submissions from artists who want to have their work promoted on The Pirate Bay — mostly musicians, but also writers like Paolo Coelho…
Continue reading… “Pirate Bay’s “Promo Bay” flooded with submissions from hopeful artists”
From senior executives identifying the profit motive as an obstacle to sustainability to corporations questioning the very nature of capitalism as we know it, the plus side of the recent financial crisis and ongoing slow recovery has been that tough questions are finally being asked about how our economy functions and whose interests it serves.
On May 2nd Forum for the Future—whose work on system innovation aims to create change across entire sectors of our economy—are hosting an event in New York which will explore better ways of doing business in a post-Great Recession world…
Continue reading… “To envision sustainable business, We must reimagine our economy”
Population density map with more than 5 people per square mile.
Derek Watkins created a fun interactive map showing population density across the world. You can use a sliding bar to change the display. The above screenshot shows the parts of the world with more than five people per square mile. Slide the bar up to five hundred people per square mile and watch the world almost vanish…
Continue reading… “Interactive population density map”
Sergey Aleynikov, wearing a baseball cap, leaves Manhattan federal court Friday
after his conviction for stealing Goldman Sachs’ high-speed trading code was reversed
Before leaving Goldman Sachs to earn a millionaire’s salary with Chicago High Frequency Trading (HFT) startup Teza Technologies, Sergey Aleynikov made one last transaction. At 5:20pm on his last day, just before his going-away party, Aleynikov uploaded 500,000 lines of encrypted source code from the Wall Street firm’s proprietary HFT system to a server located in Germany. Following the clandestine upload, Aleynikov deleted the encryption program, wiped his command history, and headed to the party.
Although Aleynikov later managed to download the source code to his home computer in New Jersy before flying to Chicago, he was apprehended by the FBI while returning through Newark Liberty International Airport.
But after his conviction at trial and imprisonment during the appeals process (his dual US-Russian citizenship presented a flight risk), Aleynikov is now a free man.
The reasons why will touch the entire software industry…
Continue reading… “Goldman Sachs code-theft conviction Reversed”
Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV).
Expanding on previous research providing proof-of-principle that human stem cells can be genetically engineered into HIV-fighting cells, a team of UCLA researchers have now demonstrated that these cells can actually attack HIV-infected cells in a living organism.
Continue reading… “Engineered stem cells seek out and kill HIV in living mice”
What are the best ways to deal with a deceased love one online?
Your friends and family are going to die. Probably later, but maybe sooner. That much is certain. Another certainty is that, when it happens, we’ll all still be using some form of social media. Here’s how to grieve digitally, with dignity.
As much as Facebook is the sprawling, glowing, inexorable way we connect with each other these days—around the clock—death just doesn’t really belong there. Facebook is designed specifically to make you feel proud about yourself. Timeline is a monument to your joys and achievements, no matter how superficial and beer-soaked they may have been. It’s a place toshare your glee—share it all over everyone’s faces, whether they like it or not…
Continue reading… “How to Deal with Death Online the Right Way”
Four years ago 60,000 international students came to Canada for school now that number stands at 90,000.
Canadian universities used to find it hard to draw attention away from the U.S. when trying to lure foreign students to its business schools. Not anymore. Over the last two years, Canadian full-time MBAs have seen the biggest increase in applications of any region, according to the Graduate Management Admission Council (GMAC), a business school association.
Continue reading… “Canada plays the visa card to lure foreign students to its universities”
Now there’s something an iPad can’t do.
Miler Lagos’s installation at the MagnanMetz Gallery in New York City is entitled simply “Home”. After he finished it, the dome was completely enclosed and self-supporting. Just imagine if you had one of these, consisting entirely of the books that you have read over the course of your life…
Continue reading… “An Igloo for Book Lovers”
Cosmic changes are coming.
When it comes to terraforming, the Universe makes man’s puny efforts to be king of the hill look pretty pathetic. Not only are we completely at the mercy of a constantly changing planet, but we’re careening through space totally vulnerable to a sea of objects and cosmic influences beyond our wildest imagination.
Yet intuitively we have the peace that all is under control in some magnificent way.
The decades long assertion that our solar system would soon enter an electrically charged life altering photon belt around the Sirius star system has been regularly dismissed as pseudo science–NASA speak for “conspiracy theory”. Despite periodical scientific validation it has been continually pushed aside by mainstream science.
Until now…
Continue reading… “Is NASA tracking the Cosmic Shift?”
CISPA, the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act of 2011 (H.R. 3523), is a successor, of sorts, to the loathesome SOPA legislative proposal, which was shot down in flames earlier this year. EFF’s chilling analysis of the bill shows how it could be used to give copyright enforcers carte blanche to spy on Internet users and censoring the Internet (it would also give these powers to companies and governments who’d been embarrassed by sites like Wikileaks).
Continue reading… “CISPA is SOPA 2.0”