The Future (Some Good Ideas)

Soon the world will be like a physical manifestation of the internet: ordinary people will be able to set up simple-but-comfortable residences in all sort of remote locations and have instant wireless connection that will enable them to communicate with friends and family, make financial transactions, and do business from wherever they are.

I’ve been following some links from Vinay Gupta:

Here’s a good idea: Appropedia--a wiki devoted to sustainable living and international development.

Here’s another good idea: a sun-absorbing coating that can be applied like paint to all kinds of surfaces and transform them into energy sources.

Here’s another good idea: a build-it-yourself two-hundred dollar shelter that can be used for refugees, or for disaster relief, or just for the hell of it.

Here a post with some more promising ideas, like precision agriculture for the developing world that uses GPS technology to track farmers’ cellphones and then provides them with customized farming recommendations, and this:

. . . to develop an integrated set of medical practices (these 24 drugs which don’t require refrigeration, don’t produce overdose easily, and are less than $10 per course) with an expert system which can be accessed both by patients themselves to figure out if their symptoms are problematic or not, and by slightly trained health care workers who would use the systems to figure out what to prescribe from their standard pharmacopoeia.

It’s not much, but for the poorest two or three billion, this could be the only health care service they ever see. None of the problems are particularly intractable, but you better bet there’s a VAST - and I mean VAST - distributed call center application at the core of this. Link.

A Few Jokes

I found these jokes on Reddit:

Three statisticians went duck hunting. A duck flew out and the first statistician took a shot, the shot went a foot too high. The second statistician took his shot and the shot went a foot too low. The third statistician shouted, "We got it!"

A:Knock knock
B:Who's there?
A:Control Freak. And now you say "Control Freak Who?"!

What do you call a boomerang that doesn't come back?
A stick.

What does PFT stand for?
The American Dyslexics Association

What has two eyes, two belly buttons and two legs?
Two pirates.

"How long do I have to live, doctor?"
"I’d say ten...."
"Ten what? Weeks, months, years . . ?"
"Nine...."

Why were there no jokes about Jonestown?
Because the punch line was too long.

Donald Rumsfeld is giving the president his daily briefing. He concludes by saying: "Yesterday, 3 Brazilian soldiers were killed."
"Oh no!" the President exclaims, "That's terrible!"
His staff sits stunned at this display of emotion, nervously watching as the President sits, head in hands. Finally, the President looks up and asks, "How many is a brazillion?"

How did the old Swiss maid drown in her own muesli?
She was pulled under by a strong currant.

A salesman rings the doorbell of a house. The door is answered by a young kid with a cigar in his mouth. There is loud music in the background and water all over the carpet.
The salesman, hiding his amazement, asks, "Is your Mother home?" The kid replies, "What do you think?"

What do you get if you cross the atlantic with the titanic?
About halfway.

A guy goes to the Olympics and sees a man carrying a long pole.
The guy asks - Are you a pole vaulter?
The man replies - No I'm German - how did you know my name is Walter?

So this old man is walking down the street in Brooklyn. He sees a young boy sitting on the street in front of a candy shop, shoving sweets in his mouth as fast a possible. The man walks up to the boy and says "You know son, its really not healthy to eat all that candy." The kid looks up at him and says, "You know my grandfather lived to be 97 years old." The man replies "Oh and did he eat a lot of candy?" The kid looks at him and says "No, but he minded his own fucking business."

Classic Fortune Magazine Cover

The cover to this week’s Fortune magazine is a real classic:

G&CC's Top 20 Christmas CDs!!!

Need Christmas music? Here are my top 20 Christmas CD recommendations (they might take a few seconds to load):