think or thwim

I think it would be better to wind up [the settlement of a new constitution] as quickly as possible, to consider it as a mere experiment to be amended hereafter when time and trial shall show where it is imperfect.

–Thomas Jefferson to Comte de Moustier, 1790

Sanford Levinson says the United States Constitution needs “a provision whereby every 20 years, the electorate could vote for a new Constitutional convention that would assess the Constitution, and recommend changes.” He explained the mechanics of how he would implement that and shared a lot more insight into why our government is currently so dysfunctional to Bill Moyers last week.

I learned a lot.

Here’s his book: Sanford Levinson | Our Undemocratic Constitution

And his blog by the same name.

I would like the ads on this site to be for companies and products that I like and use. That’s why I applied to advertise for Patagonia a few months ago. Unfortunately, they told me to get lost. I’d like to say it’s their loss, but I actually think it’s mine. Today I’m advertising for them anyway.

The founder, Yvon Chouinard is a world class climber. He wasn’t satisfied with the climbing equipment available, and in the 1960’s he started making his own. He sold some to friends. Word spread, and before he knew it he had a huge company growing sales at 30% per year. In the 1980’s Chouinard considered selling the company, but while he was considering it, he thought “I could probably do a lot of good in the world if I kept it and made it an example of how to do things right. Let’s see what happens.” This Fortune magazine article is a good summary of what they’ve done with that philosophy.

They have started putting information about their supply chain for each garment on their website. So far they have five done: Footprint Chronicles. They’re asking for feedback on their blog: Cleanest Line

This graph is made from Globalsecurity.org’s table showing stats for every nation. The United States is the blue bar the runs all the way up the left side.

According to Nationmaster.com the US accounts for only about 37% of total world military spending. While still absurd (5 times the spending of the #2 nation), it messes up the sensational headline. It’s like we won, but didn’t cover the spread. The EU countries combined spend about half what the US does, and the US is ranked #27 if you look at it as a percentage of GDP.

Iceland completes the long tail on the right side with $0 of military expenditures. Nice job Iceland. You probably don’t have anything to worry about because you don’t use any oil, but still, I’d watch the prank calls to our president and the charging his dad with warcrimes. If he ever finds out that you have some oil and somebody shows him where you are on a globe he might send a guy over there to invade and occupy your country.

:: Reddit

“Now we in the developed world want something that people in the developing world have. I like that idea!”

— Yves Behar on One Laptop Per Child

They’ve extended the cut off date for the North American buy-one-give-one program to December 31, 2007. Link

:: Core 77

The goal is to turn all of the tiles gold by rearranging them to get three in a row. Click on any two adjacent tiles to switch their positions.

This is a planned 25 story ski mountain to be located near Fort Worth, Texas.

The proposed site, shown below, illustrates why the ski resorts in Colorado are always full of Texans. You couldn’t find a flatter piece of land, and it’s over 100 degrees in Texas for three months out of the year.

This video from the Wall Street Journal is a good overview.

I’ll be surprised if it gets built any time soon. The developer says they currently have 3/4 of the funding in place. That last 1/4 ($150 million) should be hard to find at this point in the business cycle.

This is one of the best overviews of a broad spectrum of current technology that I’ve seen.

Part 1: The Intelligence Revolution

Part 2: The Biotech Revolution

Part 3: The Quantum Revolution

(incomplete)

:: Smashing Telly

When President Bush visited Portland Oregon in 2003 there were protests. This video shows one incident as it was reported on the local news and then shows the same incident from different angles taken by protesters with camcorders. The difference is significant.

This is the best part of a 20 minute film called Fuck the Corporate Media. The original was uploaded to Portland Independant Media, an open publishing network.

Like all IMCs, Portland Indymedia hosts a website with an open publishing newswire to which anyone can post text, images, audio and video using the online publish form. Unlike a newspaper or other form of media, content uploaded to the website using this form is published directly to the newswire without being approved or edited. The articles that are featured in the center column are taken right from the newswire, thus highlighting original content and reporting. This system empowers anyone to become the media for the purpose of sharing information and views that are blocked out or misrepresented by the corporate media; that is, to stand with the oppressed against the oppressors.

There are Indymedia sites all over the world. See the list in the sidebar of Portland’s site.

Dr. Art Benjamin’s day job is mathematics professor at Harvey Mudd College. In his free time he likes to square 5 digit numbers in his head in front of a couple thousand people. At the end of this demonstration he thinks out loud so we can see how he does it.

If you’d like to learn to do this, he wrote a book about it: Arthur Benjamin | Secrets of Mental Math. There are a couple of chapters by Michael Shermer and introductions by Bill Nye The Science Guy and James Randi.

His website: www.math.hmc.edu/~benjamin