Categories
Design Education Globalization Google Innovation Reading Technology

Latest read: Our Choice

Al Gore’s latest book Our Choice: A Plan to Solve the Climate Crisis should be considered by anyone interested in learning how the world can conserve resources with next generation technologies to reduce the globe’s carbon footprint.

 Our Choice: A Plan to Solve the Climate CrisisIts easy to think this book is a political sequel to An Inconvenient Truth. That would be a mistake. The book has set off all the political rhetoric one would expect.

I found Chapter 11: Population rather interesting and worth the read alone.  Clearly we live in a world that is experiencing a sustained population boom in China and India.

This brings ultra-large scale social responsibility as well.  The impact of population on energy and food is obviously critical but the underlying issue on this still taboo subject must be moved to the forefront.

How will China and India care, feed and shelter their children?  More importantly how can green fuels be utilized in favor of coal and other cheap, outdated solutions?  There are options.

Categories
Design Education Innovation Reading

Chapter review: Switch

Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard looks to be another great read from Chip and Dan Heath who wrote Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die. It was quickly listed as one of the top 100 business books of 2007….I couldn’t agree more.   They launched a website dedicated to the lessons of Made to Stick and continued their book’s conversations online.

In mid 2009 it was announced Chip and Dan were finishing a follow up book Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard scheduled to be released February 16 2010 and have also launched a new website supporting both Switch and Made to Stick plus their Fast Company column and speaking engagements.
–Hint:  grab their RSS feed to stay ontop of their latest work.

Here is my review of their opening chapter.  Exactly how do we change?  How do individuals, organizations and societies change in a world of rapid news, technology and fast food?  Better understood its not only old dogs that don’t change but individuals, small groups and large complex organizations.

The Heath Brothers introduce fundamental research to introduce a three-step framework for identifying the types of change necessary for humans to not only believe in but actually accept.  Easier said than done right?

Welcome human psychology to the new evaluation of both rational and emotional sides of our brains.  This is where Chip and Dan really shined in Made to Stick!

Categories
Design Education Globalization Innovation Internet2 Milwaukee Network Technology WiscNet

Large Hadron Collider’s big network

15 petabytes of data a year will be generated by the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) a particle physics project running at CERN and that requires a very robust network.  Data generated by LHC is being distributed to over 7,000 scientists worldwide and travels across the US Midwest via BoreasNet.

In this video CERN technologists discuss the network’s requirements which supplies the TeraScale switches that connect 6,000 processors and 2,000 storage devices. TeraScale supports 672 line-rate Gigabit and 56 line-rate 10 Gigabit Ethernet ports per system, allowing CERN to deploy fewer systems and simplify the architecture of its network.

Tags: Large Hadron Collider, CERN, Network, Research, Internet2, BoreasNet, WiscNet, reading

Categories
Design Education Innovation OpenSource Reading Rich media TED

Visualization changes everything

Tags: Visualization, information, Chart Wars, politics, trends

Categories
Design Education Globalization Innovation Reading Tablet Technology

Microsoft’s Tablet ?

According to the UK Telegraph:  Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer failed to wow the crowds when he opened the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas on Wednesday night.

I must admit there was not a lot of excitement from his presentation.

Tags: Steve Ballmer, Microsoft, Tablet, CES, media player, magazine, trends