Archive for October, 2008

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Joe Gebbia is a talented young designer and one of the founders of AirBed & Breakfast, an online marketplace for peer-to-peer traveling. (In short, you offer up a spare bed or room for travelers; travelers then pay you to lodge there. Think eBay for crashing.)Now Gebbia is involved in an adjacent venture: Customized breakfast cereals […]

Yesterday’s item on Jeremy Grantham’s hemispheric explanation for the credit crisis got tons of hits. So to feed a hungry public, let me serve a few other chewy tidbits I’ve collected from the economic meltdown: Dallas Mavs owner Mark Cuban offers some keen thoughts about how to get rich — especially in times of economic […]

Back in 2006, money manager Jeremy Grantham was one of the first to sound the alarm that world credit markets were about to implode.  Of course, he was right. And of course, nobody listened.But this time around, people are paying attention to an interview Grantham gave to Barron’s last week.  He has several interesting insights, but the most intriguing […]

“In science, the most exciting expression isn’t ‘Eureka!’ It’s ‘Huh?’”— Michael Hawley, a computer scientist and director of SiOnyx, quoted in the NY Times, 10/12/08 

Because these seven Academy of Art University students, along with their professor Cameron Maddux, are some of the hundreds of folks around the world holding Bunko Breakfasts — small, informal gatherings to talk about the ideas in The Adventures of Johnny Bunko.  Find out more — and read about Bunko Breakfasts in San Francisco, Toronto, Columbus, and Sydney — on the Bunko […]

Several people have told me recently about Visual Thinking Strategies, a non-profit that “uses art to foster kids’ capacities to observe, think, listen and communicate.” In fact, VTS was behind the Harvard Medical School art museum program I wrote about awhile back.  It sounds like they’re doing great work. Find out more about their research and principles here.

“Compared to France, U.S. Internet access is twice as expensive and one-fourth as quick. Since 2000, the United States has gone from fifth in the world to twenty-second in broadband penetration. We have become a nation of buffering YouTube videos.”(Source: Nick Thompson’s new Washington Monthly piece on the tech policies of the two presidential candidates.)  

If you’re in New York City, join us Monday October 6 at 6:30pm for a cool event at the Japan Society. I’ll be talking about manga, Johnny Bunko, and dojinshi. Added bonus: There will be food!All the details are here.

“The worldwide economic value of the pollination service provided by insect pollinators, bees mainly, was €153 billion in 2005 for the main crops that feed the world. This figure amounted to 9.5% of the total value of the world agricultural food production.”(Source: Ecological Economics)