Changes since hunter-gatherers

Human daily life has changed quite a bit since we were hunter-gatherers.
It is interesting to see that we went from a life in harmony with Nature and a 14h a week work to an overpopulated, overstressed, unsustainable and overworked life.
Of course we have advantages and comfort hunter-gatherers could never even imagine but it is amazing to see how we still think like animals (fear, reproduction, war, etc...) and not like intelligent beings (respectful of Nature, helping each others, open, etc...)

The article is very interesting and to be read here.

Mao and management

Mao did not run his country so well in terms of improving the life of Chinese people, but there are a few lessons we can learn on the way he ran things and why he was popular:

• A powerful, mendacious slogan
• Ruthless media manipulation
• Sacrifice of friends and colleagues
• Activity substituting for achievement
  

The full article is here.

US sub-prime crisis explained

The US sub-prime mortgage crisis has lead to plunging property prices, a slowdown in the US economy, and billions in losses by banks. It stems from a fundamental change in the way mortgages are funded.
The BBC has a very easy to understand yet not too simplistic description of the phenomenon.

Read the article here.

Krugman gave a good presentation at Google on the same subject

The 2004 Election Was Stolen

It's Not the People Who Vote that Count; It's the People Who Count the Votes.


All five voting systems used in Ohio, a state whose electoral votes narrowly swung two elections toward President Bush, have critical flaws that could undermine the integrity of the 2008 general election, a report commissioned by the state’s top elections official has found.

The NYT article here.
The piece from Democracy Now with Harvey Wasserman, author of “What Happened in Ohio: A Documentary Record of Theft and Fraud in the 2004 Election.” here.

US says it has right to knidnap UK citizens

AMERICA has told Britain that it can “kidnap” British citizens if they are wanted for crimes in the United States.
A senior lawyer for the American government has told the Court of Appeal in London that kidnapping foreign citizens is permissible under American law because the US Supreme Court has sanctioned it.
Rendition, or kidnapping, dates back to 19th-century bounty hunting and Washington believes it is still legitimate.

The whole article is here.

Borrowing designs from Nature

It is really inspiring to see what can be done to save energy when one looks at Nature as a source of inspiration. One can often achieve the same effect with a quarter or less of the energy used in conventional designs.

The complete article is here.

Election à la Putin

The Economist has a nice little article about how the elections in Russia went. It is here.

Pretty amazing to see how everything is controlled!

Money is Debt

Start from the first YouTube video here and follow the thread to the next ones :)

The total amount of money is linked to the total amount of debt since money is created through debt. But of course not only.

So basically money is now an agreement, a contract between all the people using it. The value of money is fixed by the market or by what everyone thinks is fair at a given time.
And debt is basically a promise made by the borrower to work until he produces, in one way or another, the amount of money he borrowed (plus interest!).
The thing is that bankers lend you money they never had, that does not exist until you create it with you labor.
Money represents work. So the more work been done, the more money you need.

To finish I would say that I am not completely convinced that interests have to increase all the time. To take the example of the US government debt, nothing prevents it to be repaid if the government wanted to do so (of course it would be less money for the economy).

The CIA and the destroyed tapes

It seems like there is much more to it than just protecting the interrogation agents.
Many people have died in some very strange circumstances.

More info here.

The Putin System

Documentary about Putin, how he got to power and what he has done there since then.
Very interesting.

More about this, here.

Chavez and fair-play

Chavez loses contitutional vote and labels those who voted against him traitors!

I think he has a funny way to make friends ;)

George Carlin on Religion

Funny and still very wise!
Good stuff :)

The video is here.

Zeitgeist The Movie

So I watched Zeitgeist The Movie yesterday...
You can watch it online here (or get the file from P2P), and also have a look at the official page here.

You get a lot of info during these 2 hours, and some might be true and some not, but I think the real message is that everyone of us should stop being a sheep and research things for yourself. Get educated, be critical of what you are being told and do make sure you manifest your position when you disagree with what officials or companies do.

Salt water can burn

If you put salt water into a specific micro-wave field, it will produce H2 and O2 which can be burnt and produce water again.
Now of course what matters is the energy balance of the whole thing :)
Because indeed if the energy you need to spend on the micro-waves is equal or higher than what you get by burning the produced hydrogen you did not create anything.
But let's see where the coming research on this will take us and maybe we can get something useful out of this discovery.

The article at National Geographic is here.