... Industry experts told them it was a fool's errand. For good reason. Scientists had spent decades trying to capture carbon and use it to make plastic but couldn't do it cheaply enough. The two friends cracked the code by developing a ten-times more efficient bio-catalyst, which strips the carbon from a liquefied gas and rearranges it into a long chain plastic molecule.
The result? Today, the 31-year-old co-founders of California-based Newlight Technologies have two factories that take methane captured from dairy farms and use it to make AirCarbon — plastic that will soon appear in the form of chairs, food containers and automotive parts. Coming next year: cellphone cases for Virgin Mobile. ...
Video at 1:56:
"... The idea is these products are actually able to match on the performance of oil based plastics but in fact out compete on price, so what we have is a market driven carbon capture process, which is really exciting for us....
... We recently had a third party independent analysis done that verified that each on of our grades of plasctic actually sequester more carbon in the production process than they emit. So every single grade that we make is a carbon sink. So this product here, and this product here ... this is all actually pulling carbon on a net basis, including the energy, out of the air."
We're in the midst of another Industrial Revolution, and it's all thanks to 3D-printing. While there are several startups working to expedite adoption of the innovative technology, MakerBot is the household name looking to get 3D-printers in the hands of the masses.
This is a very important story that is easily overlooked. Why?
People genuinely concerned about global economic growth frequently default into a Malthusian thought process. It goes something like this. We have X amount of economic activity today and that economic activity requires Y amount of energy and resources. If the whole world grows to our level of economic activity, then there must also be proportional growth in the amount of energy and resources consumed. (Economic growth and resource use are perfectly coupled.) It will exhaust the earth's reserves of energy and resources. The global economy will collapse. We must stop growth and embrace natural limits. Now this is true only given one very huge assumption that most people make without thought. The assumption? GDP (economic output) and the rate of energy/resource consumption are inextricably linked. Is this true?
Economic records for the United States show that food production and acreage of land devoted to food production were strongly linked prior to 1910. There were 310 million acres in production in that year. The United States population would triple over the next century. If you took Dr. Who's Tardis back to 1910 and told them this tripling was coming, they could easily tell you how much land would be needed to feed the extra mouths: 300 million multiplied by 3 equals 900 million acres … equivalent to all the land area east of the Mississippi. How many acres were in production 2010? There were 310 acres, just as in 1910. Food production and acreage usage decoupled. Improvements in farming techniques and technology not only fed the extra mouths with the same amount of land but created surpluses that could be shipped abroad.
What this chart suggests is that the same thing is happening with energy usage. The things we use are becoming more energy efficient. For instance, appliances use half the electricity of their counterparts from thirty years ago. Energy used in manufacturing and distribution just keeps getting more energy efficient. As shown in the graph, GDP and energy use were coupled until about the 1980s. Since that time, it appears they are decoupling. It is conceivable that in the next century or so that we could have a growing economy while actually having stabilization, even decline, in energy usage. (I don’t totally dismiss the objections by environmental economist like those mentioned in the article but I am skeptical that the limitations are as severe as they claim.)
I suspect that before very long we will see a similar decoupling of GDP from natural resources. Technology like 3-D printing, still in its infancy, holds the promise of reducing waste in the manufacturing and construction processes. Nanotechnology, using robots about 15 times bigger than an atom, is capable of breaking down substances and recombining the pieces into new substances at the molecular level. It is possible to imagine a day when almost everything we use comes from renewable substances or from nonrenewable substances that are endlessly reconfigured. Furthermore, it is likely that more of the global economy will be about services and digital products instead of physical products.
Now here the growth opponents will raise concerns about the impact these changes will have on the nature of work and on our communities. There are questions about endless consumerism, attempting to fill our lives with stuff and evermore exhilarating experiences. These are important questions but they are questions apart from the question of unsustainability, the idea that accelerated growth will of necessity lead to exhaustion of energy and material resources, as well as destruction of the environment. The latter is true only if you assume no innovation and creativity, the very traits that have been the hallmark of the global economy in recent generations. Moralists may be right that we should reign in our desires and change our relationship to possessions but we need not do so because of inevitable collapse. Appreciating this is critical to useful reflection on what it means to be the church in the twenty-first century.
Our friend and colleague Max Fisher over at Worldviews has posted another 40 maps that explain the world, building on his original classic of the genre. But this is Wonkblog. We're about charts. And one of the great things about charts is that they show not just how things are -- but how they're changing.
So we searched for charts that would tell not just the story of how the world is -- but where it's going. Some of these charts are optimistic, like the ones showing huge gains in life expectancy in poorer nations. Some are more worryisome -- wait till you see the one on endangered species. But together they tell a story of a world that's changing faster than at arguably any other time in human history. ...
As the author notes, we have challenges but we hardly descending into some global dystopia. I think these charts give a pretty holistic view. Here are a three examples. It was commonly believed that primitive societies were more peaceful and that modern civilization gave rise to unprecedented violence. This chart compares death rates by war in primitive societies as calculated by anthropologists to the death rates for Europe/USA in the 20th century. And then there is this:
The graphs point to environmental protection and adaptation as the biggest problems in the days ahead. Those challenges are not insurmountable. Energy sources like natural gas and nuclear power can be used in the interim on the way to practical renewable technologies. Genetically modified crops can help to reduce water consumption, increase yield, and improve hardiness. Innovations in fields like biotechnology, nanotechnology, and 3-D printing hold the promise of revolutionizing the world economy into a less wasteful and more affordable human existence for everyone. There is work to do but there is also much reason for hope of a better world.
More than $1 trillion has been spent on biomedical research over the past 20 years. These investments should soon start yielding longevity dividends.
The number of scientists working on extending the life span worldwide has increased exponentially as computer and communications technologies have entered the mainstream and China and India have joined the race.
The life spans of some laboratory animals have already been extended more than tenfold.
Innovations have already started: vital organs have been grown from patients’ own cells and several stem-cell therapies are being proven.
Cancer survival rates have increased steadily over the past few years. A diagnosis is no longer a certain death sentence.
Advances in laboratory diagnostics and biometrics are already providing valuable insight into disease prevention.
Fast-food outlets have started offering healthier dishes and displaying caloric content and smoking rates in developed countries have declined.
Many people would not interpret these seven facts as a single trend leading to dramatic increases in life expectancy because the long-term effects are so unpredictable. But just two decades ago, nobody could imagine the possibility of the technology we use daily now. ...
University of Adelaide researchers have developed a process for turning waste plastic bags into a high-tech nanomaterial.
The innovative nanotechnology uses non-biodegradable plastic grocery
bags to make 'carbon nanotube membranes' – highly sophisticated and
expensive materials with a variety of potential advanced applications
including filtration, sensing, energy storage and a range of biomedical
innovations.
"Non-biodegradable plastic bags are a serious menace to natural ecosystems and present a problem in terms of disposal," says Professor Dusan Losic, ARC Future Fellow and Research Professor of Nanotechnology in the University's School of Chemical Engineering.
"Transforming these waste materials through 'nanotechnological
recycling' provides a potential solution for minimising environmental
pollution at the same time as producing high-added value products." ...
(Nanowerk News) Drexel University nanotechnology researchers
are continuing to expand the capabilities and functionalities of a
family of two-dimensional materials they discovered that are as thin as a
single atom, but have the potential to store massive amounts of energy.
Their latest achievement has pushed the materials storage capacities to
new levels while also allowing for their use in flexible devices. ...
BELLEVUE, Wash. — In a drab one-story building here, set between an
indoor tennis club and a home appliance showroom, dozens of engineers,
physicists and nuclear experts are chasing a radical dream of Bill
Gates.
The quest is for a new kind of nuclear reactor that would be fueled by
today’s nuclear waste, supply all the electricity in the United States
for the next 800 years and, possibly, cut the risk of nuclear weapons
proliferation around the world. ...
... But now Net Power, based in the US state of North Carolina, believes
it can redesign the power plant so it can still run on coal or natural
gas, but without releasing harmful fumes.
Rodney Allam, chief technologist at 8 Rivers Capital, which
owns Net Power, says: "The perception has been that to avoid emissions
of [carbon dioxide] CO2, we have to get rid of fossil fuels.
"But unfortunately, fossil fuels represent over 70% of the
fuel that's consumed in the world and the idea that you can get rid of
that in any meaningful sense is a pipe dream."
The Net Power system is different from currently operating power plants
because carbon dioxide, normally produced as waste when making
electricity, would become a key ingredient when burning the fuel. ...
MOFFETT FIELD, California (AP) — NASA is preparing to launch a 3-D
printer into space next year, a toaster-sized game changer that greatly
reduces the need for astronauts to load up with every tool, spare part
or supply they might ever need.
The printers would serve as a
flying factory of infinite designs, creating objects by extruding layer
upon layer of plastic from long strands coiled around large spools.
Doctors use them to make replacement joints and artists use them to
build exquisite jewelry.
In NASA labs, engineers are 3-D printing
small satellites that could shoot out of the Space Station and transmit
data to earth, as well as replacement parts and rocket pieces that can
survive extreme temperatures. ...
... In the '90s computers invaded our homes. In the 2000s computers invaded our pockets. This decade, all our clothing, accessories, vehicles, and everything (?!) appear on the verge of computerization.
Welcome to the Internet of Things (IoT).
Currently the idea of the IoT has many definitions. Most include a
world in the not-too-distant future where most objects are computerized
and seamlessly integrated into our information network, creating "smart"
grids, homes, and environments. ...
... This presents a big opportunity for someone who can devise a tasty and
affordable plant-based substitute for meat. That is exactly what Ethan
Brown, the founder and chief executive of a California-based startup
called Beyond Meat,
aims to do, and he has persuaded some smart people to put their money
behind him. Beyond Meat makes vegan "chicken-free" strips that it says
are better for people's health (low-fat, no cholesterol), better for the
environment (requiring less land and water), and better for animals
(obviously) than real chicken; most important, if all goes according to
plan, they will cost less to produce than chicken. Fortune has
learned that Bill Gates is an investor; he sampled the product and said
he couldn't tell the difference between Beyond Meat and real chicken.
"The meat market is ripe for invention," Gates wrote in a blog post
about the future of food. Kleiner Perkins, the Silicon Valley venture
capital firm, made Beyond Meat its first investment in a food startup.
"KP is looking for big ideas, and this qualifies as a big idea," says
Amol Deshpande, a former Cargill executive and a partner at the venture
firm. "The single biggest inefficiency in agriculture is how we get our
protein." Other investors include Evan Williams and Biz Stone, the
founders of Twitter; Morgan Creek Capital Management; and the Humane
Society of the United States, an animal-welfare group. ...
The Internet is disappearing. And with it goes an important part of our recorded history. That was the conclusion of a studyTechnology Review
looked at last year, which measured the rate at which links shared over
social media platforms, such as Twitter, were disappearing.
The conclusion was that this data is being lost at the rate of 11% within a year and 27% within two years.
Today, the researchers behind this work reveal that all is not lost.
Hany SalahEldeen and Michael Nelson at Old Dominion University in
Norfolk, Va., have found a way to reconstruct deleted material, and they
say it works reasonably well. ...
Earlier this week we presented the thesis from Credit Suisse that not only is 3-D printing not a flash in the pan, existing market research
reports have actually understated its potential market. 3-D printing is
exactly what it sounds like: making 3-D objects from a device that's
conceptually more like a printer than from a typical manufacturing
process.
But we wanted to get a little bit more specific about where exactly this is going to happen.
So with the help of an excellent report from consulting firm CSC,
we now present five industries that are already feeling the effects of
3-D printing's imminent dominance — for better or worse. ...
... The WAND Foundation has developed several dry composting toilet models, some of which were recognized at the 2011 Tech Awards at Santa Clara University. At the conference, Cora Zayas-Sayre, executive director of the WAND Foundation, explained
that by using local materials, the organization has been able to build
275 toilets at a cost of US$30 per toilet. She added that this
innovation has already impacted the lives of 3,000 people.
This innovation simultaneously addresses two challenges that prevail
in developing countries: the unsustainable and costly use of
water-sealed toilets, and the hygienic management of human waste.
Water-sealed toilets require pumping mechanisms to transport water and
sewage between 300 and 500 meters away from the home, a method that is
economically and environmentally unsustainable. Inadequate management of
human waste can lead to a host of health problems in developing areas, and dramatically impact quality of life. ...
... The green-roof movement has slowly been gaining momentum in recent
years, and some cities have made them central to their sustainability
plans. The city of Chicago, for instance, that 359 roofs are now
partially or fully covered with vegetation, which provides all kinds of
environmental benefits — from reducing the buildings' energy costs to
cleaning the air to mitigating the
Late this summer, Chicago
turned a green roof into its first major rooftop farm. At 20,000 square
feet, it's the largest soil-based rooftop farm in the Midwest, according
to the Chicago Botanic Garden, which maintains the farm through its program. ...
8. Interesting piece using driverless cars as an example and the inability of some people to see the potential innovations: The third industrial revolution
... In fact, these possibilities are only the tip of the iceberg.
Autonomous vehicles' most transformative contribution might be what they
get up to when people aren't in the vehicles. One suddenly has
access to cheap, fast, ultra-reliable, on-demand courier service.
Imagine never having to run out for milk or a missing ingredient again.
Imagine dropping a malfunctioning computer into a freight AV to be
ferried off to a repair shop and returned, all without you having to do
anything. Imagine inventories at offices, shops and so on refilling
constantly and as needed: assuming "shops" is still a meaningful concept
in a world where things all come to you.
The really remarkable thing about such possibilities is that the technology is basically available today. It isn't cheap
today, but that may change very quickly. If the public lets it, of
course. When it comes to AVs stagnation, if it occurs, will be the fault
of regulatory rather than technological obstacles.
After years of decline, one of the hardest hit industries in the United States might be making a comeback. But while textile manufacturing might return to the Carolinas, the jobs probably will not.
1. The United States had its financial bubble. Europe is having one too. Is China next? If it is, it could reshape the global economy and radically reshape Chinese government. Here is an interesting piece about China's real estate bubble.
... I like the idea of a breaking the Industrial Revolution into stages,
but I would define them in more fundamental terms. The first Industrial
Revolution was the harnessing of large-scale man-made power, which began
with the steam engine. The internal combustion engine, electric power,
and other sources of energy are just further refinements of this basic
idea. The second Industrial Revolution would be the development of
interchangeable parts and the assembly line, which made possible
inexpensive mass production with relatively unskilled labor. The Third
Industrial Revolution would not be computers, the Internet, or mobile
phones, because up to now these have not been industrial tools;
they have been used for moving information, not for making things.
Instead, the rise of computers and the Internet is just a warm-up for
the real Third Industrial Revolution, which is the full integration of information technology with industrial production.
The effect of the Third Industrial Revolution will be to collapse the
distance between the design of a product and its physical manufacture,
in much the same way that the Internet has eliminated the distance
between the origination of a new idea and its communication to an
audience. ...
... Eventually all of the creative ferment of the industrial revolution pays
off in a big “whoosh,” but it takes many decades, depending on where
you draw the starting line of course. A look at the early 19th century
is sobering, or should be, for anyone doing fiscal budgeting today. But
it is also optimistic in terms of the larger picture facing humanity
over the longer run.
5. What are the contours of income inequality in the United States? This 40 minute video by Emmanuel Saez offers some important insights.
6. Futurist Ray Kurzweil is a little too sensationalist for my taste but this vid offers interesting food for thought about nanotechnology and the future sports. We will even be able to have meaningful sports competition?
The recovered wealth - most of it from higher stock prices - has been
flowing mainly to richer Americans. By contrast, middle class wealth is
mostly in the form of home equity, which has risen much less.
1. Conventional wisdom says wearing the red shirt in Star Trek will get you killed. Not so fast. Statistical analysis in Significance Magazine disagrees. (Keep your redshirt on: a Bayesian exploration)
"... In spite of wearing a redshirt, there is
only an 8.6% chance of a member of the operations or engineering
departments becoming a casualty. These personnel should ensure that
their life insurance plans are based on their departments and not their
uniform color.
Although Enterprise crew members in
redshirts suffer many more casualties than crew members in other
uniforms, they suffer fewer casualties than crew members in gold
uniforms when the entire population size is considered. Only 10% of the
entire redshirt population was lost during the three year run of Star Trek.
This is less than the 13.4% of goldshirts, but more than the 5.1% of
blueshirts. What is truly hazardous is not wearing a redshirt, but being
a member of the security department. The red-shirted members of
security were only 20.9% of the entire crew, but there is a 61.9% chance
that the next casualty is in a redshirt and 64.5% chance this
red-shirted victim is a member of the security department. The remaining
redshirts, operations and engineering make up the largest single
population, but only have an 8.6% chance of being a casualty.
Red uniform shirts are safe, as long as the wearer is not in the security department."
2. Interesting piece on automation in the Economist: Robocolleague
Robots are getting more powerful. That need not be bad news for workers. ...
... Historically, technological advances have been relatively benign for
workers. Labour-market trends through the 19th and 20th centuries show
surprising continuity, according to Lawrence Katz of Harvard University
and Robert Margo of Boston University. In recent decades, for example,
computerisation and automation have displaced “middle-skilled” workers
at the same time as employment among high- and low-skilled workers has
increased. This “hollowing out” is not new, Messrs Katz and Margo note.
Early industrialisation had similar effects. Middle-skilled artisans,
like trained weavers, were put out of work by industrial textile
production, but the fortunes of less-skilled factory workers and
white-collar factory managers steadily improved. Mechanisation’s
insatiable appetite for routine work of all types has yet to create mass
unemployment. Quite the opposite.
The worry is that technology now has its sights set on non-routine
tasks as well as mundane ones. Yet Mr Autor notes that just because a
skilled job can be automated does not mean it will be. The number of
workers used to build Nissan vehicles varies a lot between Japan, where
labour is expensive, and India, where it is abundant and cheap. The
relative cost of different types of workers matters for firms as they
choose how to deploy new technologies. ...
Indie Capitalism has three foundational principles:
• Creativity generates economic value.
Creativity is the source of profit. Yes, efficiency can squeeze more
out of what exists, but creativity gives us originality, which
translates into a market advantage and big margins.
• Creativity drives capitalism.
These past few years we have been victimized by the disastrous results
of “creativity” applied to the financial sector (mortgage-backed
securities, for starters). What we lost sight of is that the scaling of
creativity to actually make things of value sold in the marketplace is
the true heart of our economic system. It is the true generator of net
new jobs, wealth, and tax revenue.
• Creative destruction is crucial to economic growth.
Crony capitalism, which relies on monopoly and political power, is
antithetical to entrepreneurial capitalism. A faster cycle of birth,
growth, and death of companies boosts creativity, economic value, and
growth.
The bottom line: For the first time in decades, several key economic drivers have created a competitive advantage for the U.S. that will encourage corporate strategic decisions on capital allocation and acquisitions for generations to come.
Here's why:
1. Cheap and abundant natural gas. ...
2. Innovation. Despite talk of a brain drain, the U.S. remains the global innovation leader, maintaining a position enjoyed for 50 years. ...
3. Rule of law. Without the means to protect intellectual property, it cannot be exploited for competitive advantage. ...
4. Human capital. The wage gap between the U.S. and China has been shrinking. ...
5. De-complexity. Western multinationals continue to struggle with management of operations in developing countries. ...
6. Public policy and abundance. The federal government appears to be seizing the opportunity to promote job growth at home.
7. Credit, currency and the coming wave of mergers and acquisitions.
"Picture an assembly line not that isn’t made up of robotic arms spewing sparks to weld heavy steel, but a warehouse of plastic-spraying printers producing light, cheap and highly efficient automobiles.
If Jim Kor’s dream is realized, that’s exactly how the next generation of urban runabouts will be produced. His creation is called the Urbee 2 and it could revolutionize parts manufacturing while creating a cottage industry of small-batch automakers intent on challenging the status quo. ..."
Throughout history, war and innovation have gone hand in hand,
whether it’s breakthroughs out of heavily funded R&D programs
or makeshift contraptions thrown together with spare parts. Soldiers are
trained to use the technology on hand to get the job done, one way or
the other.
But how would military operations change if soldiers on the
battlefield could have the best of both worlds: access to expert
engineers able to fabricate custom-designed fixes right on-the-spot and
in very little time? ...
"It may sound strange and far out, but it’s actually quite simple. 4D
printing is being billed as a process where synthetic objects can change
and adapt themselves to the environment. In a recent TED interview, Tibbits compared the process of 4D printing to the process of natural adaptation:
Natural systems obviously have this built in — the
ability to have a desire. Plants, for example, generally have the desire
to grow towards light and they generate energy from the translation of
photosynthesis, carbon dioxide to oxygen, and so on. This is extremely
difficult to build into synthetic systems — the ability to “want” or
need something and know how to change itself in order to acquire it, or
the ability to generate its own energy source. If we combine the
processes that natural systems offer intrinsically (genetic
instructions, energy production, error correction) with those artificial
or synthetic (programmability for design and scaffold, structure,
mechanisms) we can potentially have extremely large-scale
quasi-biological and quasi-synthetic architectural organisms."
The music industry, the first media business to be consumed by the
digital revolution, said on Tuesday that its global sales rose last year
for the first time since 1999, raising hopes that a long-sought
recovery might have begun.
The increase, of 0.3 percent, was tiny, and the total revenue, $16.5
billion, was a far cry from the $38 billion that the industry took in at
its peak more than a decade ago. Still, even if it is not time for the
record companies to party like it’s 1999, the figures, reported Tuesday
by the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, provide
significant encouragement.
8. Teleworking: The myth of working from home from the BBC. "Yahoo has banned its staff from "remote" working. After years of many predicting working from home as the future for everybody, why is it not the norm?"
"Reasons for high unemployment among the young include ineffective education systems (the share of early school dropouts is 20% in Italy and 30% in Spain) and dual labour markets with highly protected jobs for older employees. The good performance of Germany is not least a result of the German apprenticeship system, which facilitates labour market access for school leavers by lowering the company’s costs for employing them. The OECD’s latest “Going for Growth” report recommends reforms to strengthen the vocational training systems as one of the most effective ways to fight structural youth unemployment. This would also be a reasonable starting point for the EU’s youth employment programme."
"What’s most revealing about this study is that, like earlier research,
it suggests that students’ preference for printed textbooks is reflects
the real pedagogical advantages they experience in using the format:
fewer distractions, deeper engagement, better comprehension and
retention, and greater flexibility to accommodating idiosyncratic study
habits. Electronic textbooks will certainly get better, and will
certainly have advantages of their own, but they won’t replicate the
particular advantages inherent to the tangible form of the printed book."
The Catholic Church has struggled to bring in young members in the
United States. Less than half of U.S. Hispanics between 18 and 29
identify as Catholic, compared with the 60+ percent of Hispanics older
than 50.
The narrative of decline in the mainline church underestimates the continuing influence of its members, says a religion researcher.
16.Some interesting observations by NYU psychologist Jonathan Haidt. He says we tend to process our social world through three lenses: Social distance, hierarchy, and disgust. Conservatives tend to have a lower threshold of revulsion while liberals, and praticularly libertarians, have a higher threshold.
Issue 104 examines the impact of automation on Europe and America and the varying responses of the church to the problems that developed. Topics examined are mission work, the rise of the Social Gospel, the impact of papal pronouncements, the Methodist phenomenon, Christian capitalists, attempts at communal living and much more.
"Despite the tough economy, many of the nation’s largest churches are
thriving, with increased offerings and plans to hire more staff, a new
survey shows.
Just 3 percent of churches with 2,000 or more attendance
surveyed by Leadership Network, a Dallas-based church think tank, said
they were affected “very negatively” by the economy in recent years.
Close to half — 47 percent — said they were affected “somewhat
negatively,” but one-third said they were not affected at all. ..."
... It's not surprising that younger entrepreneurial firms are considered more innovative. After all, they are born from a new idea, and survive by finding creative ways to make that idea commercially viable. Larger, well-rooted companies however have just as much motivation to be innovative — and, as Scott Anthony has argued, they have even more resources to invest in new ventures. So why doesn't innovation thrive in mature organizations? ...
... First, he says, the focus of an established firm is to execute an existing business model — to make sure it operates efficiently and satisfies customers. In contrast, the main job of a start-up is to search for a workable business model, to find the right match between customer needs and what the company can profitably offer. In other words in a start-up, innovation is not just about implementing a creative idea, but rather the search for a way to turn some aspect of that idea into something that customers are willing to pay for. ...
... discovering a new business model is inherently risky, and is far more likely to fail than to succeed ...
... Finally, Blank notes that the people who are best suited to search for new business models and conduct iterative experiments usually are not the same managers who succeed at running existing business units. ...
5. A fascinating, if sobering, look at the conflict over islands off the coast of East Asia. Trouble at sea
"President Barack Obama's proposed tilt of U.S. priorities toward the Pacific – and away from the historical link to Europe – represents one of the most encouraging aspects of his foreign policy. Although welcome, we should recognize that this shift comes about three decades too late and that it may miss the rising geopolitical centrality of sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America. The emergence of these longtime historically impoverished backwaters has been largely missed as American policy-makers and businesses are now obsessed with the challenges and opportunities posed by the emergence of China and, to a lesser extent, India. Sub-Saharan Africa, for example, over the past decade has produced six of the world's 10 fastest-growing economies. Through 2011-15, according to the International Monetary Fund, seven of the fastest-growing countries will be African, and Africa as a whole will surpass the slowing growth rates in Asia, particularly China.
This growth has caused the region's poverty rates, still unacceptably high, to fall from 56.5 percent in 1990 to 47 percent today. Further growth will likely push poverty levels down further."
8. New Geography also asks, Is the Family Finished? Some interesting thoughts about the impact of declining birthrates in the U.S.
Pew Research Center has compiled key findings from a new analysis of the
nation’s foreign-born population, based on U.S. Census Bureau’s 2011
American Community Survey.
With more than half the population of many U.S. cities who are
multicultural and Hispanics comprising more and more of the
U.S. population, when does it become meaningless and redundant to
execute marketing strategy that is directed to a general market and a
Latino market perceived to be homogenous?
11. Committee on Economic Development has an interesting piece looking at both the ideological and economic aspects underlying the debate about the minimum wage. Raising the Minimum Wage: “Which Side Are You On?”
"It is an easy call if you are either (a) a strict libertarian or (b) an
enthusiastic advocate of the less fortunate with limited concern about
the scarcity of resources. (If you belong to both of those groups,
there is little advice that I can offer.) However, in between those
poles of opinion, things become rather murky, rather quickly."
... Comparing the Democrat and Republican participants turned up differences in two brain regions: the right amygdala and the left posterior insula. Republicans showed more activity than Democrats in the right amygdala when making a risky decision. This brain region is important for processing fear, risk and reward.
Meanwhile, Democrats showed more activity in the left posterior insula, a portion of the brain responsible for processing emotions, particularly visceral emotional cues from the body. The particular region of the insula that showed the heightened activity has also been linked with "theory of mind," or the ability to understand what others might be thinking. ...
... The functional differences did mesh well with political beliefs,
however. The researchers were able to predict a person's political
party by looking at their brain function 82.9 percent of the time. In
comparison, knowing the structure of these regions predicts party
correctly 71 percent of the time, and knowing someone's parents'
political affiliation can tell you theirs 69.5 percent of the time, the
researchers wrote. ...
STERLING, Va. - Perched by a computer monitor wedged between shelves of cough drops and the pharmacy in a bustling Walmart, Mohamed Khader taps out answers to questions such as how often he eats vegetables, whether anyone in his family has diabetes and his age.
He tests his eyesight, weighs himself and checks his blood pressure as a middle-aged couple watches at the blue-and-white SoloHealth station advertising "free health screenings." ...
... As Americans gain coverage under the federal health law, putting increased demand on primary care doctors and spurring interest in cheaper, more convenient care, unmanned kiosks like these may be part of what their manufacturer bills as a "self-service healthcare revolution." ...
Recent developments in the field of nanotechnology might give new
meaning to the phrase “nothing gold can stay.” Atoms and bonds developed
not by Mother Nature, but by scientists, are gaining momentum as the
building blocks for cutting-edge materials.
Using nanoparticles as “atoms” and DNA as “bonds,” Chad Mirkin, the
director of Northwestern University’s International Institute for
Nanotechnology, is constructing his very own periodic table. So far Mirkin has built more than 200 distinct crystal structures with 17 different particle arrangements. ...
"The Easterlin paradox suggest that in terms of human happiness -- a
squishy concept to be sure -- there is a limit to economic growth beyond
which there really is just no point in attaining more wealth. Further, a
decoupling between income and happiness at some threshold would imply
that GDP would not be a good measure of welfare, we would need some
other metric.
A recent paper (PDF) by Daniel Sacks, Betsey Stevenson and Justin Wolfers argues that the Easterlin paradox is also wrong. ..."
"Why isn't there more outrage about the president's unilateral targeted assassination program on the left?"
5. Arnold Kling with an interesting piece on the role of Jews in the rise of the modern urbanized economic order. The Unintended Consequences of God
"In those days, most people were farmers, for whom literacy’s costs
generally outweighed its benefits. However, in an urbanized society
with skilled occupations, literacy pays off. As urbanization gradually
increased in the late Middle Ages, Jews came to fill high-skilled
occupations. Botticini and Eckstein argue that literacy, rather than
persecution, is what led Jews into these occupations."
"But while progressives would clearly mock this policy [trickle-down economics], modern day
urbanism often resembles nothing so much as trickle-down economics,
though this time mostly advocated by those who would self-identify as
being from the left. The idea is that through investments catering to
the fickle and mobile educated elite and the high end businesses that
employ and entertain them, cities can be rejuvenated in a way that
somehow magically benefits everybody and is socially fair."
8. Mark Perry excerpts a quote from green libertarian John Mackey, CEO of Whole Foods Market.
“Capitalism is the greatest creation humanity has done for social cooperation. It has lifted humanity out of the dirt. In statistics we discovered when we were researching the book, about 200 years ago when capitalism was created, 85% of the people alive lived on $1 a day. Today, that number is 16%. Still too high, but capitalism is wiping out poverty across the world. 200 years ago illiteracy rates were 90%. Today, they are down to about 14%. 200 years ago the average lifespan was 30. Today it is 68 across the world, 78 in the States, and almost 82 in Japan. This is due to business. This is due to capitalism. And it doesn’t get credit for it. Most of the time, business is portrayed by its enemies as selfish and greedy and exploitative, yet it’s the greatest value creator in the world.”
9. Economist Gavin Kennedy with some interesting thoughts on the relationship between the state and the economy in developing nations:
The problem is to achieve the right balance between a competitive market economy and an effective state: markets where possible; the state where necessary.
11. Great piece about yet another way family life is changing. Yes, I’m a Homemaker
I’m a guy. My wife works. We’ve got no kids. I’m a stay-at-home dude.
"... What a sweet picture this conjures: the stay-at-home dad nurturing his
children, looking after the house and helping support his wife in her
budding career and shelving his own big ambitions for later. Now it gets
a little awkward. There is no adorable kid, nor plans to have one. No
starter home that needs knocking into shape. I'm not just doing this
temporarily until I find something meaningful to do. I’m
actually a full-time homemaker ... not stay-at-home dad but stay-at-home
dude. A conversational pause. Where do you mentally file this guy?
Usually I just change the subject. ..."
A new study shows that high-earning women are more likely to let their houses be messy than to hire a housekeeper or get their husbands and kids to pitch in. ...
... "You can purchase substitutes for your own time, you can get your husband to do more, or you can all just do less," Killewald says. "Whether women outsource housework in particular has less to do with resources, but whether or not paid labor is viewed as an appropriate strategy for undertaking domestic work.
Doing less housework seems to be a popular option. ...
Psychiatrists have
concluded that males take longer to assess facial expressions as their
brains have to work twice as hard to work out whether another person
looks friendly or intelligent.
In particular, researchers found that 40% of people say they would avoid someone who unfriended them on Facebook, while 50% say they would not avoid a person who unfriended them. Women were more likely than men to avoid someone who unfriended them, the researchers found.
... Libraries are responding to the decline of print in a variety of creative ways, trying to remain relevant – especially to younger people – by embracing the new technology. Many, such as New York’s Queens Public Library, are reinventing themselves as centers for classes, job training, and simply hanging out. In one radical example, a new $1.5 million library scheduled to open in San Antonio, Texas, this fall will be completely book-free, with its collection housed exclusively on tablets, laptops, and e-readers. “Think of an Apple store,” the Bexar County judge who is leading the effort told NPR. It’s a flashy and seductive package.
But libraries are about more than just e-readers or any other media, as important as those things are. They are about more than just buildings such as the grand edifices erected by Carnegie money, or the sleek and controversial new design for the New York Public Library’s central branch. They are also about human beings and their relationships, specifically, the relationship between librarians and patrons. And that is the relationship that the foundation created by Microsoft co-founder’s Paul G. Allen is seeking to build in a recent round of grants to libraries in the Pacific Northwest. ...
3-D printers can produce gun parts, aircraft wings, food and a lot more,
but this new 3-D printed product may be the craziest thing yet: human
embryonic stem cells. Using stem cells as the "ink" in a 3-D printer,
researchers in Scotland hope to eventually build 3-D printed organs and
tissues. A team at Heriot-Watt University used a specially designed
valve-based technique to deposit whole, live cells onto a surface in a
specific pattern.
Andrew McAfee explains that the resurgence in American manufacturing doesn't mean the creation of new jobs. There is global decline in manufacturing jobs, even as manufacturing grows, due to automation. He ends with this:
... Even if total manufacturing employment goes down because of automation,
he [Ron Atkinson] writes, other industries will pick up the slack by employing more
people. This is because:
"...most of the savings [from automation] would flow back to
consumers in the form of lower prices. Consumers would then use the
savings to buy things (e.g., go out to dinner, buy books, go on travel).
This economic activity stimulates demand that other companies (e.g.,
restaurants, book stores, and hotels) respond to by hiring more
workers."
Fair enough, but what if those other companies are also automating?
One of the most striking phenomena of recent years is the encroachment
of automation into tasks, skills and abilities that used to belong to
people alone. As we document in Race Against the Machine,
this includes driving cars, responding accurately to natural language
questions, understanding and producing human speech, writing prose,
reviewing documents and many others. Some combination of these will be
valuable in every industry.
Previous waves of automation, like the mechanization of agriculture
and the advent of electric power to factories, have not resulted in
large-scale unemployment or impoverishment of the average worker. But
the historical pattern isn't giving me a lot of comfort these days,
simply because we've never before seen automation encroach so broadly
and deeply, while also improving so quickly at the same time.
I don't know what all the consequences of the current wave of digital
automation will be — no one does. But I'm not blithe about its
consequences for the labor force, because that would be ignoring the
data and missing the big picture.
Seriously, technological innovation always creates dislocations. Fear of machines replacing humans goes back to the beginning of the industrial revolution. The economy has always adapted and expect it will again.
Alas, that won't help, as this graph
compiled by statistician Simon Hedlin shows. The total dependency ratio
(children and retirees, compared with those of working age) fell in all
G20/OECD nations bar Germany and Sweden between 1960 and 2010. In the
next fifty years, it will rise in all those nations, bar India and South
Africa. In most nations, the ratio will rise by 40% or more; there are
huge increases in dependency in parts of Asia (China and South Korea)
and in eastern Europe. Britain and America are towards the bottom of the
table, but their problems are big enough.
There are many implications. With more dependents to care for, it is
very hard to imagine how we will pay down our debts. And it is also very
hard to imagine how one can possibly expect government spending to
shrink significantly.
"... BiblioTech, a $1.5 million Bexar County paperless
library will have scores of computer terminals, laptops, tablets, and
e-readers – but not a dog-eared classic or dusty reference book in
sight.
“Think of an Apple store,” Bexar County Judge Nelson Wolff, who led his county’s bookless library project, told NPR when describing the planned library.
The 4,989-squre-foot, digital-only library, one of the first of its
kind, will feature 100 e-readers available for circulation, 50 e-readers
for children, 50 computer stations, 25 laptops, and 25 tablets for
on-site use. Patrons can check out e-readers for two weeks or load books
onto their own devices.
“A technological evolution is taking place,” Wolff says. “And I think we’re stepping in at the right time.” ..."
"UCLA's survey of incoming
college freshmen shows fewer identify as liberals and an increasing
number saying the economy significantly affected their college choice."
"In some ways, this shift isn’t as dramatic as it might first appear.
Even though younger evangelicals are increasingly walking away from the
religious right, they are still self-identifying as Republicans (54 percent) more than Democrats (26 percent). Younger
Christians still agree with the religious right on the issues but
reject the movement’s tactics, tone, and narrow focus on social issues."
8. Scientific American: The Liberals' War on Science. How politics distorts science on both ends of the spectrum.
"Surveys show that moderate liberals and conservatives embrace science
roughly equally (varying across domains), which is why scientists like
E. O. Wilson and organizations like the National Center for Science
Education are reaching out to moderates in both parties to rein in the
extremists on evolution and climate change. Pace Barry Goldwater,
extremism in the defense of liberty may not be a vice, but it is in
defense of science, where facts matter more than faith—whether it comes
in a religious or secular form—and where moderation in the pursuit of
truth is a virtue."
... To better understand
the impact of technology on jobs, The Associated Press analyzed
employment data from 20 countries; and interviewed economists,
technology experts, robot manufacturers, software developers, CEOs and
workers who are competing with smarter machines.
The
AP found that almost all the jobs disappearing are in industries that
pay middle-class wages, ranging from $38,000 to $68,000. Jobs that form
the backbone of the middle class in developed countries in Europe, North
America and Asia.
In the United States, half
of the 7.5 million jobs lost during the Great Recession paid
middle-class wages, and the numbers are even more grim in the 17
European countries that use the euro as their currency. A total of 7.6
million midpay jobs disappeared in those countries from January 2008
through last June.
Those jobs are being replaced in many cases by machines and software that can do the same work better and cheaper.
"Everything
that humans can do a machine can do," says Moshe Vardi, a computer
scientist at Rice University in Houston. "Things are happening that look
like science fiction." ...
... So machines are
getting smarter and people are more comfortable using them. Those
factors, combined with the financial pressures of the Great Recession,
have led companies and government agencies to cut jobs the past five
years, yet continue to operate just as well.
How is that happening?
-Reduced
aid from Indiana's state government and other budget problems forced
the Gary, Ind., public school system last year to cut its annual
transportation budget in half, to $5 million. The school district
responded by using sophisticated software to draw up new, more efficient
bus routes. And it cut 80 of 160 drivers. ...
... -In South Korea, Standard Chartered is
expanding "smart banking" branches that employ a staff of three,
compared with an average of about eight in traditional branches. ...
... -The
British-Australian mining giant Rio Tinto announced plans last year to
invest $518 million in the world's first long-haul, heavy-duty
driverless train system at its Pilbara iron ore mines in Western
Australia. The automated trains are expected to start running next year.
The trains are part of what Rio Tinto calls its "Mine of the Future"
program, which includes 150 driverless trucks and automated drills.
Like
many technologically savvy startups, Dirk Vander Kooij's
furniture-making company in the Netherlands needs only a skeleton crew -
four people ...
... -Google's driverless car and the Pentagon's
drone aircraft are raising the specter of highways and skies filled with
cars and planes that can get around by themselves. ...
... "Trying to keep it from happening would have
been like the Teamsters in the early 1900s trying to stop the
combustion engine," Lavin says. "You can't stand in the way of
technology."
The upside of emerging technology is that most will make goods and services
less expensive. That improves our living standard. The downside is that much of
the work we used to do in order to earn the wages to buy goods and services is
rapidly changing. As the last sentence of the article notes, this is not the
first time we have been in these circumstances. Years ago I read that in 1885,
approximately 80% of everything we consumed in the U.S. was produced at home.
By 1915, 80% was produced outside the home. It created massive economic
dislocations. Each time these disruptions occur it has been hard for the people
living at that time to foresee what the new economic order would look like.
It is critical that Christian thinkers wrestle with the challenges of technological
innovation. Creative destruction (the market dynamic where jobs and industries
are destroyed in the wake of creating new ones) has always been a difficult one
for ethics. It is painful but the social cost of other alternatives is also
quite high. Anti-technological calls to abandon consumerism or, conversely,
just saying that “the market will sort it all out,” are not legitimate
responses. I think topics like this should be at the center of our theological
reflection about human labor and the economy.
"... Although the number of evangelical churches in the United States
declined for many years, the trend reversed in 2006, with more new
churches opening each year since, according to the Leadership Network’s
most recent surveys. This wave of “church planting” has been highest
among nondenominational pastors, free to experiment outside traditional
hierarchies.
“I hear a lot of pastors say, ‘I’m not just trying to be creative and
avant-garde, I think this is maybe the last chance for me,’ ” said Doug Pagitt, the founder of Solomon’s Porch in Minneapolis.
Mr. Pagitt has written several books on church innovations, many of which were first developed in the “emergent” church movement of the last decade or among “missional” churches whose practices focus on life outside the church.
Many of their innovations are being adopted by an increasing number of pastors in the mainstream.
... But in March, unbeknown to Ms. Pu, a critical meeting had occurred between Foxconn’s top executives and a high-ranking Apple official. The companies had committed themselves to a series of wide-ranging reforms. Foxconn, China’s largest private employer, pledged to sharply curtail workers’ hours and significantly increase wages — reforms that, if fully carried out next year as planned, could create a ripple effect that benefits tens of millions of workers across the electronics industry, employment experts say.
Other reforms were more personal. Protective foam sprouted on low stairwell ceilings inside factories. Automatic shut-off devices appeared on whirring machines. Ms. Pu got her chair. This autumn, she even heard that some workers had received cushioned seats.
The changes also extend to California, where Apple is based. Apple, the electronics industry’s behemoth, in the last year has tripled its corporate social responsibility staff, has re-evaluated how it works with manufacturers, has asked competitors to help curb excessive overtime in China and has reached out to advocacy groups it once rebuffed.
Executives at companies like Hewlett-Packard and Intel say those shifts have convinced many electronics companies that they must also overhaul how they interact with foreign plants and workers — often at a cost to their bottom lines, though, analysts say, probably not so much as to affect consumer prices. As Apple and Foxconn became fodder for “Saturday Night Live” and questions during presidential debates, device designers and manufacturers concluded the industry’s reputation was at risk. ...
"...Launched in July, the Seattle-based Egraphs' business model is simple, but pretty clever. Fans can peruse the company website to see if their favorite athlete has partnered up with Egraphs. Each player's section has a number of professionally shot action photographs included, typically priced between $25 and $50. The fan pays and sends the athlete a message through the website, including some personal details or memories.
The athlete then receives that message on his custom iPad app, using the the information provided to write a personalized note and electronic autograph on the selected photo. The photo is then sent electronically to the fan, who can save it digitally, share it on social media or order a physical print. Revenue is split between company and athlete. ..."
8. This month is the 40th anniversary of the Roe v. Wade ruling, legalizing abortion across the country. Time magazine has a feature article about the Pro-Choice movement this week that suggests 1973 may have been the high-water mark for the movement. Unfortunately, the article is behind a pay wall. Here is a short clip summarizing their take.
"...Academic Publishers will tell you that creating modern textbooks is an expensive, labor-intensive process that demands charging high prices. But as Kevin Carey noted in a recent Slate piece, the industry also shares some of the dysfunctions that help drive up the cost of healthcare spending. Just as doctors prescribe prescription drugs they'll never have to pay for, college professors often assign titles with little consideration of cost. Students, like patients worried about their health, don't have much choice to pay up, lest they risk their grades. Meanwhile, Carey illustrates how publishers have done just about everything within their power to prop up their profits, from bundling textbooks with software that forces students to buy new editions instead of cheaper used copies, to suing a low-cost textbook start-ups over flimsy copyright claims. ..."
12. Baseball Pitchers like Phil Niekro, Tim Wakefield, and now, R. A. Dickey did their magic throwing a knuckleball. Pitchers who master usually do very well and it puts less stress on the arm. So why don't more pitchers throw it? Why the Knuckleball Isn’t Thrown by More Pitchers in Major League Baseball
In a new report from the McKinsey Global Institute, we learn that the manufacturing sector's share of employment rises and then falls as GDP per capita rises. The decline is associated with the rise in service sector hiring as people demand more services.
"This pattern holds across advanced economies and will hold for today’s developing economies as they become wealthier," write the authors.
This month's Atlantic magazine predicts that we are on the verge ofa U.S.-based manufacturing renaissance,
as companies see the advantages to making more goods at home, such as
more control over the final product, lower energy costs from moving
goods across an ocean, and a falling "wage gap."
Simply put, U.S. factory workers are a much better deal than they were just ten years ago. ...
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1. Pray for Egypt Today!
More than 50 million Egyptians are voting today on a constitution that would be a giant step backward for Egypt and much of the Middle East, marginalizing women and religious minorities. A nation that has historically been a voice of moderation, the largest Muslim nation in the region, will likely move toward becoming an Islamist state. Remember to pray for Egypt. (See the Economist'sThe Founding Brothers)
2. Our prayers are with families of the victims at the Sandy Hook elementary school. Grace and peace to the entire community.
Traffic deaths in the USA continued their historic decline last year,
falling to the lowest level since 1949, the government announced
Monday.
A total of 32,367 motorists, bicyclists and pedestrians died in 2011,
a 1.9% decrease from 2010. Last year’s toll represents a 26% decline
from 2005, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA)
said. ...
... The trend has emerged in big cities like New York and Los Angeles, as
well as smaller places like Anchorage, Alaska, and Kearney, Neb. The
state of Mississippi has also registered a drop, but only among white
students.
“It’s been nothing but bad news for 30 years, so the fact that we have
any good news is a big story,” said Dr. Thomas Farley, the health
commissioner in New York City, which reported a 5.5 percent decline in
the number of obese schoolchildren from 2007 to 2011....
....The experiment, in April, used a disabled form of the virus that causes AIDS to reprogram Emma’s immune system genetically to kill cancer cells. ...
... The research is still in its early stages, and many questions remain.
The researchers are not entirely sure why the treatment works, or why it
sometimes fails. One patient had a remission after being treated only
twice, and even then the reaction was so delayed that it took the
researchers by surprise. For the patients who had no response
whatsoever, the team suspects a flawed batch of T-cells. The child who
had a temporary remission apparently relapsed because not all of her
leukemic cells had the marker that was targeted by the altered T-cells. ...
....In 2011, 1.4 million chlamydia infections were reported to the CDC.
The rate of cases per 100,000 people increased 8%, to 457.6 in 2011 from
423.6 in 2010.
The CDC reported 321,849 gonorrhea infections. The
rate increased 4% to 104.2 cases per 100,000 in 2011 from 100.2 in
2010. Like chlamydia, gonorrhea can lead to pelvic inflammatory disease,
a major cause of infertility in women.
Last year, 13,970 primary and secondary syphilis cases were reported. The rate of 4.5 cases per 100,000 was unchanged from 2010. ...
7. You may be bilingual but can you write in two languages, one with each hand, at the same time?!
10. Kevin Drum of Mother Jones speculates on why liberals have more exaggerated perceptions of political differences. We Are More Alike Than We Think
11. A surprising "right to work" bill was signed into law in Michigan, of all places. That has spurred a lot of debate about unions and the right to work. Michael Kinsley wrote a thoughtful piece opposing RTW, The Liberal Case Against Right-to-Work Laws. David Henderson has piece in support of RTW, The Economics of "Right to Work".
12. Slate has a piece about The Great Schism in the Environmental Movement.
Keith Kloor opines on the division between mondernist environmentalists
(or eco-pragmatists) and conservation traditionalists.
...
Modernist greens don't dispute the ecological tumult associated with the
Anthropocene. But this is the world as it is, they say, so we might as
well reconcile the needs of people with the needs of nature. To this
end, Kareiva advises conservationists to craft "a new vision of a planet
in which nature—forests, wetlands, diverse species, and other ancient
ecosystems—exists amid a wide variety of modern, human landscapes."
This
shift in thinking is already under way. For example, ecologists
increasingly appreciate (and study) the diversity of species and
importance of ecosystem services in cities, giving rise to the
discipline of urban ecology. That was unthinkable at the dawn of the
modern environmental movement 50 years ago, when greens loathed cities
as the antithesis of wilderness. ...
13. One of the creepiest Twilight Zone episodes I remember from my
childhood was when this woman ends up trapped in a department store at
night. The mannequins begin calling to her. She discovers she is actually a mannequin who
has over stayed her time out in the world and it is time for the next
mannequin to spend some time outside the store. This story confirms my worst nightmares: In Some Stores, the Mannequins Are Watching You
15. One of the biggest concerns about fracking technology is the enormous amount of water it uses. A company has figured out how to recycle water so that far less water is used in the fracking process. Solving fracking's biggest problem
... 3D printing represents the latest version of what industry experts call
"additive manufacturing" — a way to turn practically any computer
designs into real objects by building them up layer-by-layer using
plastics, metals or other materials. The technology could end up
affecting every major industry — aerospace, defense, medicine, transportation, food, fashion — and have an even bigger impact on U.S. manufacturing than the robot revolution. ...
20. Michael Cheshire has a great piece in Leadership Journal on "What I learned about grace and redemption through my friendship with a Christian pariah." Going To Hell with Ted Haggard
".... A while back I was having a business lunch at a sports bar in the
Denver area with a close atheist friend. He's a great guy and a very
deep thinker. During lunch, he pointed at the large TV screen on the
wall. It was set to a channel recapping Ted's fall. He pointed his
finger at the HD and said, "That is the reason I will not become a
Christian. Many of the things you say make sense, Mike, but that's what
keeps me away."
It was well after the story had died down, so I had to study the screen
to see what my friend was talking about. I assumed he was referring to
Ted's hypocrisy. "Hey man, not all of us do things like that," I
responded. He laughed and said, "Michael, you just proved my point. See,
that guy said sorry a long time ago. Even his wife and kids stayed and
forgave him, but all you Christians still seem to hate him. You guys
can't forgive him and let him back into your good graces. Every time you
talk to me about God, you explain that he will take me as I am. You say
he forgives all my failures and will restore my hope, and as long as I
stay outside the church, you say God wants to forgive me. But that guy
failed while he was one of you, and most of you are still vicious to
him." Then he uttered words that left me reeling: "You Christians eat
your own. Always have. Always will."
He was running late for a meeting and had to take off. I, however, could
barely move. I studied the TV and read the caption as a well-known
religious leader kept shoveling dirt on a man who had admitted he was
unclean. And at that moment, my heart started to change. I began to
distance myself from my previously harsh statements and tried to
understand what Ted and his family must have been through. When I
brought up the topic to other men and women I love and respect, the very
mention of Haggard's name made our conversations toxic. Their reactions
were visceral."
21. Leonardo Bonucci got a yellow card for faking collision during a
soccer game. It should have been a red card. No one deserves to be a professional soccer player with acting skills
this bad!
"... Drawing on data from the [Harvard] university's library collections, the animation
below maps the number and location of printed works by year. Watch it
full screen in HD to see cities light up as the years scroll by in the
lower left corner. ..."
4. There is a U-shaped happiness curve, consistent across cultures, that shows happiness declines from childhood until about our mid-forties and then begins to improve as me grow old. It appears it may hold true in primates as well. Our ability to discount bad news, even when we shouldn't, follows the same U-shaped curve. Our brains and experience are optimal for discerning bad news in middle-age. Turns out that ignorance (or maybe denial) truly is bliss. Viewpoint: How happiness changes with age. On a related note, it appears that Elderly Brains Have Trouble Recognizing Untrustworthy Faces.
5. The holiday season is in full swing and many people falsely believe this a time of elevated suicide rates. Actually, spring and summer have the highest rates and Nov - Jan have the lowest. In 2010, July was highest and December was lowest. Holiday suicide myth persists, research says
"Michael" was in the top 3 names for boys from 1953-2010. It dropped to sixth last year. Want to know how your name ranks for each year since 1880? Go to the Social Security Online's Popular Baby Names. The Baby Name Wizard is also pretty cool.
"For the first time in Barbie’s more than 50-year history, Mattel
is introducing a Barbie construction set that underscores a huge shift
in the marketplace. Fathers are doing more of the family shopping just
as girls are being encouraged more than ever by hypervigilant parents to
play with toys (as boys already do) that develop math and science
skills early on.
It’s a combination that not only has Barbie building luxury mansions —
they are pink, of course — but Lego promoting a line of pastel
construction toys called Friends that is an early Christmas season hit.
The Mega Bloks Barbie Build ’n Style line, available next week, has both
girls — and their fathers — in mind.
“Once it’s in the home, dads would very much be able to join in this
play that otherwise they might feel is not their territory,” said Dr.
Maureen O’Brien, a psychologist who consulted on the new Barbie set...."
And this reminds me of last year, or the year before, when cooking sets were becoming big with boys. They've been watching Emeril Lagasse on the Food Network. "Bam!" New merchandising angle.
11. Love them or hate them, the Koch brothers are intriguing. Many political junkies know of them but few others seem to know about them. Forbes has an interesting feature article in the most recent issue on the Koch empire and its influence: Inside The Koch Empire: How The Brothers Plan To Reshape America
14. "Data-driven healthcare won't replace physicians entirely, but it will help those receptive to technology perform their jobs better." Technology will replace 80% of what doctors do
"Scientists have designed an energy-efficient light of plastic packed with nanomaterials that glow. The shatterproof FIPEL technology can be molded into almost any shape, but still needs to prove it's commercially viable."
"... Last month, at the first ever conference of the Sustainable
Nanotechnology Organization in Washington DC, Michail Roco of the
National Science Foundation, and architect of the U.S. National
Nanotechnology Initiative provided a response. He said, “every
industrial sector is unsustainable…and nanotechnology holds the promise
of making every one of them sustainable.”
It’s my belief that that is true: nanotechnology, or the ability to
manipulate matter at a scale of one billionth of a meter, has
far-reaching implications for the improvement of sustainable technology,
industry and society.
Already, it is being used widely to enable more sustainable
practices. Safer manufacturing, less waste generation, reusable
materials, more efficient energy technologies, better water
purification, lower toxicity and environmental impacts from chemotherapy
agents to marine paints are all current applications of nanotechnology.
There is no reason for this technology to develop in an unsustainable
manner.
In the past, a lack of foresight has resulted in costs to society – people, businesses, and governments, and—
that could have been avoided by proactive efforts to manage risks.
Today, the tools to develop safer technologies and less harmful products
exist. Let us not miss this opportunity. ..."
"It used be that news of death spread through phone calls, and before
that, letters and house calls. The departed were publicly remembered via
memorials on street corners, newspaper obituaries and flowers at grave
sites. To some degree, this is still the case. But increasingly, the
announcements and subsequent mourning occur on social media. Facebook,
with 1 billion detailed, self-submitted user profiles, was created to
connect the living. But it has become the world's largest site of
memorials for the dead."
20. From the "That's just not right!" file. Harvard Economics Department does their version of "Call me maybe."
Here are the links. BTW, if you haven't already, you can "like" the Kruse Kronicle Facebook page and see daily links in your Facebook feed.
1. When I was a kid, I used to watch Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom on Saturdays. That was the beginning of my life-long appreciation for big cats. One of the organizations we support is the Turperntine Creek Wildlife Refuge for big cats in Arkansas. Check out this Nat Geo super slo-mo video of a running cheetah. Be sure to go to minute 5:00, and see him from the front. His head barely moves. Just amazing!
7. If you are a man, getting along with the in-laws means you have 20% higher chance of not getting divorced. If you are a woman, getting along well the in-laws makes you 20% more likely to get divorced. Getting Along With The In-Laws Makes Women More Likely To Divorce
"The Supreme Court announced Friday it would review a case testing whether human genes may be patented, in a dispute weighing patents associated with human genes known to detect early signs of breast and ovarian cancer. A 2009 lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union claimed among other things the First Amendment is at stake because the patents are so broad they bar scientists from examining and comparing the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes at the center of the dispute. In short, the patents issued more than a decade ago cover any new scientific methods of looking at these human genes that might be developed by others."
I am guessing there are some bioethics questions to consider here as well. ;-)
15. 4.5 billion years of the earth's evolution in as if it happened in 24 hours.
"The Pew Research Center announced Nov. 29 that the U.S.
birth rate fell to its lowest level since at least 1920, when reliable
record-keeping began. That was true—but not news. The National Center
for Health Statistics reported that way back on Oct. 3.
What was
news was Pew’s analysis of the government data, which showed that the
birth rate decline was greatest among immigrant women. “We were the
first to point that out,” Gretchen Livingston, the lead author of Pew’s
report, said in an interview. ..."
... New research shows that Catholics now report the lowest proportion of
"strongly affiliated" followers among major American religious
traditions, while the data indicates that evangelicals are increasingly
devout and committed to their faith.
According to Philip Schwadel, a sociologist at the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln, in the 1970s there was only a five-point difference
between how strongly Catholics and evangelicals felt about their
religion.
By 2010, he said, that "intensity gap" had grown to around 20 points,
with some 56 percent of evangelicals describing themselves as "strongly
affiliated" with their religion compared with 35 percent of Catholics.
Even mainline Protestants reported a higher level of religious intensity
than Catholics, at 39 percent. ..."
"Indeed, for America’s Amish, much is changing. The Amish are, by one measure, the fastest-growing faith community in the US. Yet as their numbers grow, the land available to support the agrarian lifestyle that underpins their faith is shrinking, gobbled up by the encroachment of exurban mansions and their multidoor garages.
The result is, in some ways, a gradual redefinition of what it means to be Amish. Some in the younger generation are looking for new ways to make a living on smaller and smaller slices of land. Others are looking beyond the Amish heartland of Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Indiana, seeking more space in states such as Texas, Maine, and Montana."
21. Finally, one of the things I found interesting about the presidential election was Team Romney's seeming confidence they were winning. I think every candidate who is losing often tries to spin things positively until the very end but I had the sense that Team Romney wasn't faking it. They believed they were winning. I think post-election analysis is revealing that was true. From The New RepbulicThe Internal Polls That Made Mitt Romney Think He'd Win
After years of offshore production, General Electric is moving much of its far-flung appliance-manufacturing operations back home. It is not alone. An exploration of the startling, sustainable, just-getting-started return of industry to the United States.
... What has happened? Just five years ago, not to mention 10 or 20 years ago, the unchallenged logic of the global economy was that you couldn’t manufacture much besides a fast-food hamburger in the United States. Now the CEO of America’s leading industrial manufacturing company says it’s not Appliance Park that’s obsolete—it’s offshoring that is.
Why does it suddenly make irresistible business sense to build not just dishwashers in Appliance Park, but dishwasher racks as well?
In the 1960s, as the consumer-product world we now live in was booming, the Harvard economist Raymond Vernon laid out his theory of the life cycle of these products, a theory that predicted with remarkable foresight the global production of goods 20 years later. The U.S. would have an advantage making new, high-value products, Vernon wrote, because of its wealth and technological prowess; it made sense, at first, for engineers, assembly workers, and marketers to work in close proximity—to each other and to consumers—the better to get quick feedback, and to tweak product design and manufacture appropriately. As the market grew, and the product became standardized, production would spread to other rich nations, and competitors would arise. And then, eventually, as the product fully matured, its manufacture would shift from rich countries to low-wage countries. Amidst intensifying competition, cost would become the predominant concern, and because the making and marketing of the product were well understood, there would be little reason to produce it in the U.S. anymore.
Vernon’s theory has been borne out again and again over the years. Amana, for instance, introduced the first countertop microwave—the Radarange, made in Amana, Iowa—in 1967, priced at $495. Today you can buy a microwave at Walmart for $49 (the equivalent of a $7 price tag on a 1967 microwave)—and almost all the ones you’ll see there, a variety of brands and models, will have been shipped in from someplace where hourly wages have historically been measured in cents rather than dollars.
But beginning in the late 1990s, something happened that seemed to short-circuit that cycle. Low-wage Chinese workers had by then flooded the global marketplace. (Even as recently as 2000, a typical Chinese factory worker made 52 cents an hour. You could hire 20 or 30 workers overseas for what one cost in Appliance Park.) And advances in communications and information technology, along with continuing trade liberalization, convinced many companies that they could skip to the last part of Vernon’s cycle immediately: globalized production, it appeared, had become “seamless.” There was no reason design and marketing could not take place in one country while production, from the start, happened half a world away.
You can see this shift in America’s jobs data. Manufacturing jobs peaked in 1979 at 19.6 million. They drifted down slowly for the next 20 years—over that span, the impact of offshoring and the steady adoption of labor-saving technologies was nearly offset by rising demand and the continual introduction of new goods made in America. But since 2000, these jobs have fallen precipitously. The country lost factory jobs seven times faster between 2000 and 2010 than it did between 1980 and 2000.
Until very recently, this trend looked inexorable—and the significance of the much-vaunted increase in manufacturing jobs since the depths of the recession seemed easy to dismiss. Only 500,000 factory jobs were created between their low, in January 2010, and September 2012—a tiny fraction of the almost 6 million that were lost in the aughts. And much of that increase, at first blush, might appear to be nothing more than the natural (but ultimately limited) return of some of the jobs lost in the recession itself.
Yet what’s happening at GE, and elsewhere in American manufacturing, tells a different and more optimistic story—one that suggests the curvature of Vernon’s product cycle may be changing once again, this time in a way that might benefit U.S. industry, and the U.S. economy, quite substantially in the years to come. ...
... Even then, changes in the global economy were coming into focus that made this more than just an exercise—changes that have continued to this day.
Oil prices are three times what they were in 2000, making cargo-ship fuel much more expensive now than it was then.
The natural-gas boom in the U.S. has dramatically lowered the cost for running something as energy-intensive as a factory here at home. (Natural gas now costs four times as much in Asia as it does in the U.S.)
In dollars, wages in China are some five times what they were in 2000—and they are expected to keep rising 18 percent a year.
American unions are changing their priorities. Appliance Park’s union was so fractious in the ’70s and ’80s that the place was known as “Strike City.” That same union agreed to a two-tier wage scale in 2005—and today, 70 percent of the jobs there are on the lower tier, which starts at just over $13.50 an hour, almost $8 less than what the starting wage used to be.
U.S. labor productivity has continued its long march upward, meaning that labor costs have become a smaller and smaller proportion of the total cost of finished goods. You simply can’t save much money chasing wages anymore.
So much has changed that GE executives came to believe the GeoSpring could be made profitably at Appliance Park without increasing the price of the water heater. “First we said, ‘Let’s just bring it back here and build the exact same thing,’ ” says Kevin Nolan, the vice president of technology for GE Appliances. ...
... For years, too many American companies have treated the actual manufacturing of their products as incidental—a generic, interchangeable, relatively low-value part of their business. If you spec’d the item closely enough—if you created a good design, and your drawings had precision; if you hired a cheap factory and inspected for quality—who cared what language the factory workers spoke?
This sounded good in theory. In practice, it was like writing a cookbook without ever cooking. ...
... “What we had wrong was the idea that anybody can screw together a dishwasher,” says Lenzi. “We thought, ‘We’ll do the engineering, we’ll do the marketing, and the manufacturing becomes a black box.’ But there is an inherent understanding that moves out when you move the manufacturing out. And you never get it back.” ...
While this article is talking about the return of manufacturing to the United States and think caution should be exercised in be optimism about new low-skilled jobs returning. The United States manufacturing sector has been growing at a steady rate even as manufacturing employment has tapered off and declined. I think automation, not globalization, is the longer-term threat manufacturing jobs.
"The popularity of 3D printing
has exploded, but even as prices for the devices have fallen, not
everyone is prepared or able to shell out the cash necessary start
experimenting. But what if there was a 3D vending machine that made
experimenting quick and easy, without the printer investment? Well, now
there is.
Created at Virginia Tech's DREAMS Lab, the DreamVendor
allows students to quickly print out prototype designs by simply
inserting an SD card containing a physible data file into a large bank
of four Makerbot Thing-O-Matic 3D printers. Once completed, the printed
object is deposited into a vending-style
retrieval shelf, similar to the one from which you might snag a candy
bar or a bag of potato chips. Designed to encourage 3D prototyping at
the lab, students are allowed to use the machine free of charge.
And while the school hasn't announced any plans to take the idea
commercial, it's not difficult to imagine a day, in the very near
future, when you'll see a similar, pay-per-3D-print version of the
DreamVendor stationed at your local OfficeMax or Staples. You can see
the DreamVendor in action in the video below."
3. "British people - and many others across the world - have been brought up on the idea of three square meals a day as a normal eating pattern, but it wasn't always that way." Breakfast, lunch and dinner: Have we always eaten them?
7. "It's a common grumble that politicians' lifestyles are far removed from those of their electorate. Not so in Uruguay. Meet the president - who lives on a ramshackle farm and gives away most of his pay." Jose Mujica: The world's 'poorest' president
8. You may have heard that there was a presidential election last week. Here is a map showing how the counties voted, with red being the most intensely Republican and blue being the most Democrat. (Source: The Real Reason Cities Lean Democratic)
9. Speaking of the election, there has been a lot written about how the GOP will need to change if they want to win national elections. As a right-leaning guy, I thought this article in Slate, The New Grand Old Party, and this one by Bobby Jindal, How Republicans can win future elections, were among the best.
13. Nanotechnology just keeps getting more amazing. "The latest invention from Stanford University’s Department of Electrical
Engineering sounds like something a superhero would have. A
self-repairing plastic-metal material has been developed by a team of
professors, researchers and graduate students." New Self-Repairing Material Invented at Stanford
15. Speaking of 3D-Printing, how big a deal is it? "Chris Anderson has exited one of the top jobs in publishing -
Editor-in-Chief of Wired magazine - to pursue the life of an
entrepreneur, making a big bet that 3D printers represent a massive new
phase of the industrial revolution." Chris Anderson: Why I left Wired - 3D Printing Will Be Bigger Than The Web
"A
flash mob (or flashmob) is a group of people who assemble suddenly in a
place, perform an unusual and seemingly pointless act for a brief time,
then disperse, often for the purposes of entertainment, satire, and
artistic expression. Flash mobs are organized via telecommunications,
social media, or viral emails." [Wikipedia accessed 11.12.12]
How do you define a church?"
At the Techonomy conference, industry leaders discuss the future of three-dimensional printing -- and how the technology will change markets forever.
MARANA, Ariz. - Three-dimensional printing: hype, or hope?
That's the question industry leaders sought to answer at the Techonomy conference here in the sunny greater Tucson area. A panel of experts -- Geomagic's Ping Fu, Shapeways' Peter Weijmarshausen and PARC's
Stephen Hoover, with CNET's own Paul Sloan moderating -- discussed the
promises, pitfalls and potential of a technology that allows almost
anyone to turn a digital file into a perfect copy of a physical object,
from puzzle pieces to airplane wings, in materials such as plastic,
metal and ru bberlike polymers.
Can 3D printing change the world? Let's dive in. ...
Next steps
For now, 3D printing will remain a prosumer
pursuit. Four companies control most of the market for serious 3D
printers, though companies like MakerBot are making inroads with
enthusiasts.
The quality of those machines may not be as good,
but "it gets people excited," Fu said. "The PC was not that good [when
it first came out] either. But it got better."
Hoover said new
economies could be built on the back of the technology. "There aren't a
lot of Fortune 500 companies today in the United States who make
manufacturing equipment," he warned. "A lot of the money may not be in
manufacturing equipment, but in the service bureaus and the materials."
"We should be thinking: how do we keep at the state of the art?" he
asked, citing United States' lost leadership in machine tools. "Making
these systems will not be the million-dollar market."
Fu was optimistic about the global ripple effects of 3D printing technology.
"All markets in the future will be niche markets," she said. "Twenty-first century manufacturing is going to be on-demand."
Weijmarshausen
concurred. "It's going to be hard to see mass-market [manufacturing] as
traditional," he said. "The whole [notion of] hypes and trends is going
to be diminished with [this] freedom."
Plus, the life cycle of
products will change because designers can iterate faster. It's just
like when software moved from the retail store to the web,
Weijmarshausen said -- you have continuous user feedback on your
product, and you can geographically localize products, too.
And
that's all without mentioning the massive implications for the medical
devices market, where personalization is everything. "That kind of stuff
is so obvious to me to have an enormous impact," he said. Still, he
admitted: "The consumer side of things is just as exciting, though it's
less easy to predict."
Fu interjected: "Shoes! Why should we all
search for a pair that fits?" The panel's audience laughed, breaking
into spontaneous, knowing applause.
The same goes for that ever-elusive pair of jeans that fit, Fu said. What if you could get scanned for the perfect pair?
"In
10 years, all of the jean shops will go to the museum," she said. "And
people will think, 'Oh my God, I can't believe you used to buy jeans
that way.' "
The possibilities for 3D printing are almost endless. "You go from life-saving to lifestyle," she said. "That's the evolution."
Doesn't that sound a lot like hype?
"I believe that advanced manufacturing is coming, on-demand
manufacturing is coming, and it's going to be a very significant 21st
century advancement," Fu said. "I don't think what's happening is hype.
It's basically 15 years' worth of overnight success."
Tiny nanoparticles are a huge part of our lives, for better or for worse.
“Everything, when miniaturized to the sub-100-nanometer scale, has new
properties, regardless of what it is,” says Chad Mirkin, professor of
chemistry (and materials science, engineering, medicine, biomedical
engineering and chemical and biological engineering) at Northwestern
University. This is what makes nanoparticles the materials of the
future. They have strange chemical and physical properties compared to
their larger-particle kin. The thing that matters about nanoparticles is
their scale.
Nanoscale materials are used in everything from sunscreen to
chemical catalysts to antibacterial agents--from the mundane to the
lifesaving. “I spilled wine at a Christmas party once, and I was
terrified. Red wine on a white carpet. And it wipes right up,” Mirkin
recalled. “The reason is the nano-particulate used to coat the carpet
keeps that material from absorbing into the carpet and staining the
carpet.”
On a more sophisticated side, researchers are developing nanoscale
assays used to screen for cancer, infection and even genes. Gold
nanoparticles that have been doped with DNA can be used to detect
bacteria in a person’s bloodstream, determining whether a patient has
infection and what kind. Or they can be used to detect changes in a
person’s immune system that reflect the presence of cancer. Nano-flares
can measure the genetic content of cells, and light up--or flare--when
they detect a specific cell of a doctor’s choosing, maybe cancer, stem
cells or even the reaction to a small molecule used in a new drug. ...
View the slideshow. Here are the seven examples:
Nanoparticle-Filled Ink Conducts Electricity Cancer Detectors Nano-Absorption Fighting Cancer At The Source Gene Therapy and Drug Delivery Protective Coating For Your Skin Nanomaterials In The Food Supply
A primary interest of mine is a theology of work. What would it mean to have radical abundance where no one needed to work? Kaku raises some important theological and sociological questions.
A team of University of Washington students has developed a machine that can "print" large plastic objects out of garbage.
When he was working for the Peace Corps in Ghana and Panama, Matthew
Rogge started to dream of turning waste plastic, abundant and freely
available, into useful objects that would solve vexing Third World
engineering problems.
Sound far-fetched?
He and a team of University of Washington students have done it.
Last week, Rogge — who went back to school to become a mechanical
engineer precisely to learn how to do this — and two fellow student
engineers won an international competition for their proposal to turn
plastic garbage into composting toilets.
They've developed an inexpensive 3-D printer that can turn shredded, melted plastic waste into just about anything.
3-D printers have been around for at least 25 years, although they
have become more widely available, better-known and cheaper in recent
years. They use computer-aided design to create three-dimensional
objects by laying down super-thin layers of a material, such as plastic,
much like a regular printer lays down ink.
But until now, nobody had figured out how to cheaply build a
large-scale printer that used recycled plastic as its raw material, said
UW mechanical-engineering professor Mark Ganter. ...
Each week I spend considerable time scanning headlines as I look for stories to blog about at the Kruse Kronicle. I clip them into an Evernote Notebook and usually twice a day I select one or two to link and discuss. A number of interesting stories never make it on to the blog.
So this week I'm beginning what I hope will be a regular Saturday feature. Each Saturday I will post links I did not use the previous week. For now I will call it "Saturday Links." Happy clicking!
3. Icon of the American Libertarian movement, Murray Rothbard, once asked, "Why won't the left acknowledge the difference between deserving poor and
undeserving poor. Why support the feckless, lazy & irresponsible?" Chris Dillow gives a libertarian response affirming the need to Support the undeserving poor.
"I can easily imagine my graph in a Julian Simon or Steven Pinker chapter
on human progress and the decline in violence. Even though I have no
philosophical objection to the death penalty, it's hard not to interpret
this 400-year pattern as a strong sign of human betterment."
Open source shouldn't just stop at the world of software. In fact, more and more manufacturers are warming up to the cause.
FORTUNE -- The term "open source" was first coined in response to
Netscape's January 1998 announcement that the company would make freely
available the source code for its web browser, Navigator. Since then,
the philosophies of universal access and free redistribution of source
code have revolutionized the software industry.
While we have seen how open source communities can foster creativity
and collaboration in software (think of the Android app store), open
source has not ventured too far beyond this space. This is partly
because software is inherently modular, instantly accessible from
anywhere, and easily altered.
Yet open source ideas have tremendous potential beyond
software. All you need to create a successful open source community are
participants who both contribute to, as well as benefit from, shared
content. Such networks of transparency, collaboration, and trust can be
tremendously beneficial in other industries as well, from
pharmaceuticals to manufactured goods. ...
... Although the open source model has not yet been broadly applied to
manufactured goods, there are promising emerging examples --
particularly in the not for profit sector. One nonprofit group, Open
Source Ecology, is experimenting with ways to cheaply construct from
scratch over 50 crucial machines, from bakery ovens to back hoes, with
basic materials. Founder Marcin Jakubowski publishes all the blueprints
and schematics for each piece of his Global Village Construction Set
(GVCS) on a Wiki for contributors from all over the world to access and
tweak. Groups throughout the country have developed blueprints for Open
Source Ecology, while machines are prototyped and improved on the Factor e Farm
in rural Missouri. According to the group's website, 12 of the 50
machines are in their prototyping and documentation phase, including a
microtractor, backhoe, and CNC circuit mill. Through this construction
kit, Open Source Ecology aims to lower barriers to entry for farming,
building, and manufacturing in rural communities, urban neighborhoods in
need of renovation, and developing nations. ...
Despite early signs of success, there are, admittedly, real challenges
to implementing open source principles to for-profit manufacturing. ...
If machines are capable of doing almost any work humans can do, what will humans do?
... Bill Joy's question deserves therefore not to be ignored: Does the
future need us? By this I mean to ask, if machines are capable of doing
almost any work humans can do, what will humans do? I have been getting
various answers to this question, but I find none satisfying.
A typical answer to my raising this question is to tell me that I am a
Luddite. (Luddism is defined as distrust or fear of the inevitable
changes brought about by new technology.) This is an ad hominem attack
that does not deserve a serious answer.
A more thoughtful answer is that technology has been destroying jobs
since the start of the Industrial Revolution, yet new jobs are
continually created. The AI Revolution, however, is different than the
Industrial Revolution. In the 19th century machines competed with human
brawn. Now machines are competing with human brain. Robots combine brain
and brawn. We are facing the prospect of being completely out-competed
by our own creations. Another typical answer is that if machines will do
all of our work, then we will be free to pursue leisure activities. The
economist John Maynard Keynes addressed this issue already in 1930,
when he wrote, "The increase of technical efficiency has been taking
place faster than we can deal with the problem of labour absorption."
Keynes imagined 2030 as a time in which most people worked only 15 hours
a week, and would occupy themselves mostly with leisure activities.
I do not find this to be a promising future. First, if machines can
do almost all of our work, then it is not clear that even 15 weekly
hours of work will be required. Second, I do not find the prospect of
leisure-filled life appealing. I believe that work is essential to human
well-being. Third, our economic system would have to undergo a radical
restructuring to enable billions of people to live lives of leisure.
Unemployment rate in the US is currently under 9 percent and is
considered to be a huge problem.
Finally, people tell me that my
concerns apply only to a future that is so far away that we need not
worry about it. I find this answer to be unacceptable. 2045 is merely a
generation away from us. We cannot shirk responsibility from concerns
for the welfare of the next generation. ...
Vardi's point?
We cannot blindly pursue the goal of machine intelligence without pondering its consequences.
One of the challenges of creative destruction is that we can
see what is being destroyed but it is exceedingly difficult to see what is
being created. As we have moved through the industrial era into the modern age,
this fear that change was about impoverish the masses has been a recurring
them. Futurists like Gene Rodenberry saw a day where most goods would be so
plentiful or easily created that there would be little need for money or
possessions. You wouldn’t need a job as a means to survival.
What do you think? Do Yardi’s concerns worry you? Or is the
arrival of AI a godsend?
Many have been inspired by Star Trek to become scientists, and some are starting to make its gadgetry a reality.
Destination Star Trek London has kicked off at the ExCeL exhibition centre,
and I'm willing to bet that among those heading down for a weekend of
pointy-eared fun, there'll be a high proportion of scientists and
engineers.
Many have been inspired by Star Trek to take up a career in science, technology or engineering.
I think the franchise deserves more respect as a science popularisation
medium – how many other prime-time TV shows would allow their
characters to toss out phrases like "I performed a Fourier analysis on
the harmonics, Captain"?
Since its inception in 1966, Star Trek
has familiarised us with the lingo and applications of science. At
least, that was the case for me. I felt pretty disenfranchised from
science at school: it wasn't until I discovered science fiction that I
realised I could understand "difficult" technical concepts.
Since
the show began, many of us have become more tech-savvy than we could
possibly have imagined at school. More than that, we're now seeing
emergent technology here on Earth that was once little more than a Star
Trek scriptwriter's dream. To get you in the mood for this weekend's
festivities, here's a roundup of some of the best Star Trek-inspired
technology.
Replicators - ... Three-dimensional printers have been on the open market commercially for most of the 21st century. ...
Transporters - Earlier this year, Nature reported that photons had been teleported 89 miles, between La Palma and Tenerife. OK, it wasn't exactly transportation ...
Bioneural circuitry - ... And in February of this year, the Scripps Research Institute published details of a DNA-based biological computer based on an original design by Alan Turing. ...
Nanites - ... They've constructed a set of nanorobots, with inbuilt chemical sensors, that can silence genes within cancerous cells. ...
Androids - Japanese scientists have created some remarkably human-looking androids,
though they wouldn't beat Data in a game of three-dimensional chess. ...
Of course, we all ready have personal communication devices. But as someone recently pointed out, while we all have communication devices, we don't see people in Star Trek constantly looking down at them and running into things. ;-) Warp drive would be pretty cool. Any other Trekkie devices that you want to see?
Supply Chains are governed by technology, which dictates the way we
manufacture and distribute goods. This new technology, however, may
completely remove the market for a globalised supply chain.
The modern supply chain is all about globalisation. Shipping lines,
freight forwarders and airlines depend on moving vast quantities of
consumer goods on a daily basis, providing Western markets with items
manufactured in the Far East.
According to industry experts, however, this could all be about to
change. A potential threat to the logistics industry, 3D Printing has
the ability to revolutionise production techniques, allowing the use of
more automation and thus saving on cost.
Originally developed as an automated method to produce prototypes, 3D
Printing builds up layers of material (plastics, ceramics or metal
powders) using a computer-aided design to create a three-dimensional
product. Able to manufacture items with minimal human assistance, a
large number of 3D printers could be a cost-effective way to produce any
small product or part without a large workforce -meaning the
manufacturer is able to move production closer to the end user at a low
cost.
In a White Paper recently released by the industry site Transport
Intelligence, John Manners-Bell, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Transport Intelligence and Ken Lyon, CEO of Virtual Partners
has created a projection of a potential future with 3D Printers at the
centre, looking at how the logistics industry may be sidelined and how
it could adapt to sit alongside this new technology. ...
Not long ago I saw what looked like a big computer printer squirting
not ink onto paper but plastic, to make actual harmonicas. It's called
"Additive Manufacturing." There's a snappier name for it: 3D Printing.
Til now we've tended to make objects by cutting, grinding, chiseling
away at metal or wood. Now we are entering the age of making things by
adding, not subtracting. The Obama administration thinks this sort of
thing creates jobs, and wants to get 3D printing to a place near you. Marketplace's tech reporter Queena Kim spent a day at University of California-Irvine. Why?
"It's sort of like a big brainstorming session," said Kim. "And
there's an official from the Obama Administration here--they want to
come up with a billion dollars to fund 15 centers at universities where
academics and business people can get together to figure out what the
future of manufacturing will look like."
Russia has just declassified news that will shake world gem markets to their core: the discovery of a vast new diamond field containing "trillions of carats," enough to supply global markets for another 3,000 years.
The Soviets discovered the bonanza back in the 1970s beneath a 35-million-year-old, 62-mile diameter asteroid crater in eastern Siberia known as Popigai Astroblem.
They decided to keep it secret, and not to exploit it, apparently because the USSR's huge diamond operations at Mirny, in Yakutia, were already producing immense profits in what was then a tightly controlled world market.
The Soviets were also producing a range of artificial diamonds for industry, into which they had invested heavily.
The veil of secrecy was finally lifted over the weekend, and Moscow permitted scientists from the nearby Novosibirsk Institute of Geology and Mineralogy to talk about it with Russian journalists.
According to the official news agency, ITAR-Tass, the diamonds at Popigai are "twice as hard" as the usual gemstones, making them ideal for industrial and scientific uses.
The institute's director, Nikolai Pokhilenko, told the agency that news of what's in the new field could be enough to "overturn" global diamond markets. ...
... The latest advance comes from University of California, San Diego
Nanoengineering Professor Shaochen Chen, whose group has demonstrated
the ability to print three-dimensional blood vessels in seconds.
If the technique proves scalable, it could revolutionize regenerative
medicine. Imagine being able to recover from a heart attack by
replacing your faulty aortic valve with a brand new one, made of your
own cells. No more pig valves, no more mechanical solutions, no more
waiting for a donor. The donor is you.
How does it work? All printers require feedstock. For 2D printers,
that’s ink. For 3D, it can be plastic, some metals – or in this case,
biocompatible hydrogels. What’s new here is the adaptation of techniques
ideal for printing large objects – such as car parts or tools for the
home – to a micro and nano scale, in order to print the tiny veins
responsible for shipping oxygen and nutrients around the body.
The new approach, reported in Advanced Materials, is called dynamic optical projection stereolithography (DOPsL). ...
Measured against the hopes and horrors of science fiction,
Baxter, a new manufacturing robot from a company called Rethink
Robotics, is a huge disappointment. Although it’s got two Olympic
swimmer-length arms and a set of expressive digitally rendered eyes and
eyebrows, Baxter is legless and speechless. It can’t hold a
conversation, pass for a human, or rise up against its masters in
apocalyptic rebellion. But Baxter’s creators are out to spark a
different kind of revolution. They hope the robot, adept at the
mindlessly repetitive tasks common on most assembly lines, can increase
the productivity of U.S. manufacturing firms and help them retain jobs
that would otherwise migrate overseas to low-wage countries like China.
Boston-based
Rethink is the brainchild of Rodney Brooks, a pioneering roboticist who
has, perhaps more than anyone, ushered robots from sci-fi stories into
people’s living rooms. Brooks, a former director of MIT’s Artificial
Intelligence Laboratory, is a co-founder of iRobot (IRBT),
the maker of the Roomba vacuum and the IED-disarming Packbot, a
workhorse of the U.S. military. Both machines have redefined the term
“robot” with a narrow scope of responsibilities and a simple user
interface. The deep-red and charcoal-gray Baxter, which goes on sale
next month, is the result of nearly four years of work by Rethink, which
is emerging from stealth mode this week. ...
... With five cameras, a sonar sensor that detects motion 360 degrees around
the robot, and enough intelligence to learn new tasks within an hour,
Baxter is designed to work safely alongside humans and do simple jobs
like picking items off a conveyor belt. At $22,000 a unit, it is also
cheap enough so that, performing menial labor for three years’ worth of
eight-hour shifts, it functions as the equivalent of a $4-an-hour
worker. “We are spending hundreds of billions of dollars doing this kind
of work in China,” says Brooks. “We want companies to spend that here,
in a way that lets American workers be way more productive.
To teach Baxter a new job, a human grabs its arms, simulates the
desired task, and presses a button to program in the pattern. When the
robot doesn’t understand what a person is trying to tell it during
training, it looks up with a confused expression. Part of the original
idea was that Baxter would be so easy for even unskilled workers to
train that Rethink wouldn’t have to produce a manual. It ultimately did
print one, but Brooks hopes no one uses it.
Another core idea
behind Baxter is that it will ultimately be upgradeable, just like a
smartphone. The company plans to update Baxter’s software for free every
few months, enabling more complex behaviors like two-handed
manipulation and the ability to push buttons on other machines. ...
WHAT could well be the next great technological disruption is fermenting
away, out of sight, in small workshops, college labs, garages and
basements. Tinkerers with machines that turn binary digits into
molecules are pioneering a whole new way of making things—one that could
well rewrite the rules of manufacturing in much the same way as the PC
trashed the traditional world of computing.
The machines, called
3D printers, have existed in industry for years. But at a cost of
$100,000 to $1m, few individuals could ever afford one. Fortunately,
like everything digital, their price has fallen. So much so, industrial
3D printers can now be had for $15,000, and home versions for little
more than $1,000 (or half that in kit form). “In many ways, today’s 3D
printing community resembles the personal computing community of the
early 1990s,” says Michael Weinberg, a staff lawyer at Public Knowledge,
an advocacy group in Washington, DC.
As an expert on
intellectual property, Mr Weinberg has produced a white paper that
documents the likely course of 3D-printing's development—and how the
technology could be affected by patent and copyright law. He is far from
sanguine about its prospects. His main fear is that the fledgling
technology could have its wings clipped by traditional manufacturers,
who will doubtless view it as a threat to their livelihoods, and do all
in their powers to nobble it. Because of a 3D printer's ability to make
perfect replicas, they will probably try to brand it a piracy machine. ...
... The first thing to know about 3D printing is that it is an “additive”,
rather than a “subtractive”, form of processing. The tools are
effectively modified ink-jet printers that deposit successive layers of
material until a three-dimensional object is built up. In doing so, they
typically use a tenth of the material needed when machining a part from
bulk. The goop used for printing can be a thermoplastic such as
acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS), polylactic acid or polycarbonate,
or metallic powders, clays and even living cells depending on the
application (see “Making it”, November 25th 2011).
As
far as intellectual property is concerned, the 3D printer itself is not
the problem. But before it can start making anything, it needs a CAD
(computer-aided design) file of the object to be produced, along with
specialised software to tell the printer how to lay down the successive
layers of material. The object can be designed on a computer using CAD
software, or files of standard objects can be downloaded from
open-source archives such as Thingiverse and Fab@Home. Most likely,
though, the object to be produced is copied from an existing one, using a
scanner that records the three-dimensional measurements from various
angles and turns the data into a CAD file.
This is where claims
of infringement start—especially if the item being scanned by the
machine’s laser beam is a proprietary design belonging to someone else.
And unless the object is in the public domain, copyright law could well
apply. This has caught out a number of unwitting users of 3D printers
who have blithely made reproductions of popular merchandise. ...
... As with any disruptive technology—from the printing press to the
photocopier and the personal computer—3D printing is going to upset
existing manufacturers, who are bound to see it as a threat to their
traditional way of doing business. And as 3D printing proliferates, the
incumbents will almost certainly demand protection from upstarts with
low cost of entry to their markets.
Manufacturers are likely to
behave much like the record industry did when its own business
model—based on selling pricey CD albums that few music fans wanted
instead of cheap single tracks they craved—came under attack from
file-swapping technology and MP3 software. The manufacturers' most
likely recourse will be to embrace copyright, rather than patent, law,
because many of their patents will have expired. Patents apply for only
20 years while copyright continues for 70 years after the creator's
death. ...
... With these issues in mind, here are three examples of renegade 3-D printing that will inevitably lead to moral and legal dilemmas.
Copyright and Patent Law in Three Dimensions
This year, The Pirate Bay, a file-sharing website notorious for flouting copyrights by allowing users to upload and download digital media, introduced a new category to organize uploaded blueprints of 3-D printing models. ...
A 3-D Printed Escape
Are 3-D printers the new “get-out-of-jail-free” card? One hacker says
yes. At a Hackers On Planet Earth conference, “Ray,” a security
consultant and hacker, demonstrated that by using only a laser-cutter and a 3-D printer, handcuff keys could be easily reproduced. ...
Ever wanted to make your very own bikini before you jet off abroad but lack the sewing skills needed to create your dream look?
Well look no further than N12 bikini, the world's first first ready-to-wear, completely 3D-printed article of clothing.
A
revolution combining fashion and technology, all of the pieces are made
directly by 3D printing, and snap together without a single spot of
sewing. ...
DRACHTEN, the Netherlands — At the Philips Electronicsfactory on the coast of China, hundreds of workers use their hands and specialized tools to assemble electric shavers. That is the old way.
At a sister factory here in the Dutch countryside, 128 robot arms do the same work with yoga-like flexibility. Video cameras guide them through feats well beyond the capability of the most dexterous human.
One robot arm endlessly forms three perfect bends in two connector wires and slips them into holes almost too small for the eye to see. The arms work so fast that they must be enclosed in glass cages to prevent the people supervising them from being injured. And they do it all without a coffee break — three shifts a day, 365 days a year.
All told, the factory here has several dozen workers per shift, about a tenth as many as the plant in the Chinese city of Zhuhai.
This is the future. A new wave of robots, far more adept than those now commonly used by automakers and other heavy manufacturers, are replacing workers around the world in both manufacturing and distribution. Factories like the one here in the Netherlands are a striking counterpoint to those used by Apple and other consumer electronics giants, which employ hundreds of thousands of low-skilled workers.
“With these machines, we can make any consumer device in the world,” said Binne Visser, an electrical engineer who manages the Philips assembly line in Drachten. ...
... “The pace and scale of this encroachment into human skills is relatively recent and has profound economic implications,” they wrote in their book, “Race Against the Machine.” In their minds, the advent of low-cost automation foretells changes on the scale of the revolution in agricultural technology over the last century, when farming employment in the United States fell from 40 percent of the work force to about 2 percent today. The analogy is not only to the industrialization of agriculture but also to the electrification of manufacturing in the past century, Mr. McAfee argues. ...
... Government officials and industry executives argue that even if factories are automated, they still are a valuable source of jobs. If the United States does not compete for advanced manufacturing in industries like consumer electronics, it could lose product engineering and design as well. Moreover, robotics executives argue that even though blue-collar jobs will be lost, more efficient manufacturing will create skilled jobs in designing, operating and servicing the assembly lines, as well as significant numbers of other kinds of jobs in the communities where factories are.
And robot makers point out that their industry itself creates jobs. A report commissioned by the International Federation of Robotics last year found that 150,000 people are already employed by robotics manufacturers worldwide in engineering and assembly jobs. ...
"Behrokh Khoshnevis is a professor of Industrial & Systems Engineering and is the Director of Manufacturing Engineering Graduate Program at the University of Southern California (USC). He is active in CAD/CAM, robotics and mechatronics related related research projects that include the development of novel Solid Free Form, or Rapid Prototyping, processes (Contour Crafting and SIS), automated construction of civil structures, development of CAD/CAM systems for biomedical applications (e.g., restorative dentistry, rehabilitation engineering, haptics devices for medical applications), autonomous mobile and modular robots for assembly applications in space, and invention of technologies in the field of oil and gas. His research in simulation has aimed at creating intelligent simulation tools that can automatically perform many simulation functions that are conventionally performed by human analysts. His textbook, "Discrete Systems Simulation", and his simulation software EZSIM benefit from some aspects of his research in simulation. He routinely conducts lectures and seminars on invention and technology development."
... The convergence of smartphone technology, social-media data and futuristic technology such as 3-D printers is changing the face of retail in a way that experts across the industry say will upend the bricks-and-mortar model in a matter of a few years.
"The next five years will bring more change to retail than the last 100 years," says Cyriac Roeding, CEO of Shopkick, a location-based shopping app available at Macy's, Target and other top retailers.
Within 10 years, retail as we know it will be unrecognizable, says Kevin Sterneckert, a Gartner analyst who follows retail technology. Big-box stores such as Office Depot, Old Navy and Best Buy will shrink to become test centers for online purchases. Retail stores will be there for a "touch and feel" experience only, with no actual sales. Stores won't stock any merchandise; it'll be shipped to you. This will help them stay competitive with online-only retailers, Sterneckert says.
Branding strategist Adam Hanft says this all might sound futuristic, but much of it is rooted in reality. He says satellite stores will open in apartment buildings and office centers. FedEx and UPS will delve deeper into refrigerated home delivery. Google trucks will deliver local services. Clothing — even pharmaceuticals — will be produced in the home via affordable 3-D printers.
"Every waking moment is a shopping moment," says Steve Yankovich, head of eBay's mobile business, which expects to handle $10 billion in transactions this year. "Anytime, anywhere."
Game-shifting tech — such as smartphones, location-based services, augmented reality and big data, which makes sense of all the data on mobile devices and social networks — will most assuredly upend several multibillion-dollar retail markets, forcing retailers to adapt or die, say venture capitalists and analysts.
Eventually, 3-D printers will let consumers produce their own towels, utensils and clothes. While in their infancy, the devices have been used to print hearing aids, iPad cases and model rockets, says Andy Filo, an expert on 3-D printers. The technology is several years away, however, from being widely available and affordable, he says.
And almost all of it will be paid with … your phone. ...
... Driving the future
All of this will be possible within several years because of:
•Smartphones. Location-based services and the growing adoption of Near Field Communication — a wireless technology standard for one-tap payment — will turn consumers' phones into stand-ins for credit, debit and loyalty cards, says Bill Gajda, head of mobile at Visa. Meanwhile, Nordstrom, among many, is phasing out cash registers this year in favor of smartphones with store-designed apps for purchases and inventory.
•The death of cash. If credit cards diminished use of cash in the 1950s, powerful smartphones and tablets will hasten its demise. Both are reshaping the relationship between merchant and customer as newfangled wallets, and each is edging toward becoming credit card readers and (cash) registers.
"Cash has dug in its heels for small-value transactions, but with the arrival of each new tech offering (providing) an alternative way to pay for little stuff — text your parking payment, Starbucks mobile app, Square, etc. — cash is being further and further marginalized," says David Wolman, author of the book The End of Money.
•Augmented reality. The increasingly popular technology adds a visual layer of information on top of surfaces such as a mirror. One breakthrough might come at the mall, with AR mirrors that let consumers shop based on data projected on glass, say social-media experts such as Brian Solis.
Another intriguing option is Google Glass, which puts computer-processing power, a camera, a microphone, wireless communications and a tiny screen into a pair of lightweight eyeglasses. Ultimately, Google hopes the "smart" glasses — which are a few years away — will be able to access information in real time, including the ability to identify locations and provide additional information about your whereabouts.
Harnessing social media
As smartphones and tablets grow in popularity, retailers are trying to get their hands around Facebook, Twitter and social media, and cater to consumers, says Niraj Shah, CEO of Wayfair, an e-commerce company that recently passed Crate & Barrel to become the No. 2 Internet retailer of home products. It racked up a record $500 million in revenue last year.
Only 8% to 13% of retail shopping in the USA is done online. Impressive as future retail technology might look, it will take good old-fashioned customer service to boost those figures, says Will Young, who heads Zappos Labs. ...
New parents have a strong urge to collect everything they can from their child's early life — from photos and videos to hair and fingernails. Catering to this demand to immortalize infancy is a new product from Japanese firm Fasotec and Hiroo Ladies Clinic — a 3D printed model of your little bundle of joy in utero.
One of the first essays I ever read about economics in college was Leonard Read's I, Pencil written in the year before I was born. While a little outdated in some ways it still does a wonderful job of illustrating the wonder and complexity of the market process. The Institute for Faith Work and Economics has just released a four minute clip that updates "I, Pencil" in a compelling and entertaining way.
Now let me add a caveat, especially for those of my readers who are skeptical of markets and free enterprise. Markets are not a quasi-deity. They do not solve every problem. They aren't perfect. They don't prevent evil people from doing evil things. But what they do, by historical measure, is astounding. Until very recently, human beings were trapped in low productivity labor. There was minimal ability to trade with others beyond the immediate community. There was no way for us to coordinate with, and mutually benefit from, the work of countless strangers from across the globe. Markets make that possible. Markets made this very conversation possbile that you an I are having right now because without it there would be no computers and no internet to enable this interaction. And for that reason markets can be celebrated, even as we wrestle with many implications that have arisen because of emergence of well-coordinated markets.
Developed by two product design students, GiraDora could be the next big social innovation.
... GiraDora is a blue bucket that conceals a spinning mechanism that washes clothes and then partially dries them. It’s operated by a foot pedal, while the user sits on the lid to stabilize the rapidly churning contents. Sitting alleviates lower-back pain associated with hand-washing clothes, and frees up the washer to pursue other tasks. It’s portable, so it can be placed nearby a water source, or even inside on a rainy day. It reduces health risks like joint problems, skin irritation, and mold inhalation. Most importantly, it uses far less water and cleans clothes faster than conventional hand-washing. This equates to more free time, explains Cabunoc, and the opportunity to “break the cycle of poverty." ...
Here is a 1 minute YouTube vid about the product:
Also keep in mind Hans Rosling's wonderful TED video about washing machines to appreciate why this could be such a big deal:
... In other words, the average American factory worker today produces more output in an hour than his or her counterpart produced working almost a ten hour day in 1947 - and that's why we're producing record levels of output with fewer workers. ...
... The costs of traditional infrastructure are especially pronounced in cities and regions with combined sewer systems that collect both sewage and stormwater. During heavy rainfall, these systems are often overwhelmed, pouring sewage-laden water into drinking water sources and greatly increasing water treatment costs.
Technologies like permeable pavements and rain gardens can capture, naturally treat and filter stormwater back into the ground, preventing overflows and reducing reliance on treatment centers. Chicago's existing green infrastructure, including its green alleys, diverted about 70 million gallons of stormwater from treatment facilities in 2009, according to the report.
These projects can create significant costs savings. New York City plans to build green infrastructure to cut down discharges into its combined sewer system – a project expected to save about $1.5 billion in treatment and infrastructure costs over 20 years. Replacing streets in Seattle with permeable pavement and other green infrastructure has cut paving costs nearly in half.
And by allowing natural processes to take over the work we've been building infrastructure to handle, operations and maintenance costs also fall. The report concedes that some maintenance on green infrastructure will still be required, but that it is significantly less than what's required by traditional infrastructure.
The report notes that water and waste water systems are responsible for a significant amount of energy use, representing about 3 percent of U.S. energy consumption annually. Green roofs can also reduce energy use by keeping buildings cooler in summer and cutting down the need for air conditioning, reducing indoor energy consumption by nearly 10 percent annually.
And though the upfront costs of projects like these can be high, this report shows that taking even a slightly long-term view of their benefits can greatly reduce government infrastructure costs overall.
