February 11, 2008
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Musical seats
Steve Lewis on musicians as presidents. For me, a musician in the White House would be no less unthinkable than an aging B-movie actor as president or a one-tine professional body-builder as governor of California. In contemporary Russia, even former chess grandmasters entertain political careers. Musicianship, like other endeavors, can generate requisite empathy and responsibility.… Continue reading
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What companies would you volunteer for?
That’s a thought raised by The Volunteer Economy. Continue reading
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The Shopping Cart Index
When I added John Robb’s Brave New War to my Amazon shopping cart, I was greeted by a new (for me) set of Important Messages at the top, telling me how much each item in my cart had gone up or down in price since I placed them there. Three have decreased in price. Five… Continue reading
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As with basketball
Mark Pesce notes, Jimbo has learned, through experience, that the “minor” language versions of Wikipedia (languages with less than 10 million native speakers), need at least five steady contributors to become self-sustaining. In the many wikis Jimbo oversees through his commercial arm, Wikia, he’s noted the same phenomenon time and again. Five people mark… Continue reading
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Sobering thought of the day
George Bush and John McCain say The Surge is working. But how? Here’s John Robb’s explanation. If you’re impatient, go straight to the last short paragraph. The Sunni Tribal Awakening (rather than “the surge”) has radically slowed violence in Iraq by bringing it back to the levels of activity seen in 2005. That’s a… Continue reading