We need to learn quickly to keep up with the massive change around us so we don't get run over. We need to outrun change.
radical changes taking place around us now
Take hundreds of pictures of your favorite sculpture, drop them into specialty software, touch up the results, and you can print a replica to enjoying your home or office.
That’s where 3-D printing is at right now.
Cosmo Wenman took 1000 pictures of a favorite sculpture and now has a replica he can hold in his hand.
Here is the video:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=blKcIsEEoag]
The frontier is a major part of American history. It is a huge factor in our identity.
From about the end of the American Civil War in 1865 until around the turn of the century, the frontier was wide open.
What was the appeal?
New opportunities.
Is interest in Facebook fading?
I’ve seen some indicators that Facebook may be peaking. A few random indicators:
Rich Karlgaard, publisher of Forbes had several comments about the Facebook IPO in his article 7 Reasons Why Facebook IPO Was a Bust:
One of the main computers I use in my business failed Sunday night. For various reasons, I’ve held off on making several major upgrades, like jumping to Windows 7 and Office 2010.
So I shopped for new computer, have it in place, and as of yesterday have almost all the software running. Still have a couple of things to bring online, but they can wait for the moment.
Making the jump to a host of new technology tools all at once highlights the volume of change surrounding us.
Continue reading “Nothing like a computer failure to show how much change is going on”
I haven’t mentioned the efforts from the University of Texas system to create an option to get a college degree with a price point of $10,000. Looks like they are making progress.
From Carpe Diem: Markets in Everything: College Degree for < $10k. Continue reading “$10,000 for a college degree? What a silly idea! Oops. It’s here.”
There is going to be a lot of pain as we transition into whatever the new economy is going to look like.
Just like it hurt to shift from an agrarian economy to an industrial economy, there will be hurt in the shift from industrial to whatever-we-name-the-new-thing economy.
Ron Fourner and Sophe Quinton describe that pain in How Americans Lost Trust in Our Greatest Institutions.
Continue reading “Here’s what the pain of transition to the new economy looks like”
Employment in the manufacturing sector may be down, but the dollar output is high.
Consider two questions:
Would this be your response?
Guess again.
Correct answer: Continue reading “Is the manufacturing sector in the U.S. dead? Not exactly. Actually, not even close to it.”
Watch this video to see the impact of re-engaging a 10-year resident of a nursing home. He goes from barely able to answer yes/no questions to expressively describing music he enjoyed as a child and why music is so important to him. Look at the joy in his eyes.
All from listening to his favorite music on an iPod.
Ah, the blessings of technology. As Glenn Reynolds say, faster please.
If you’ve ever spent time visiting a nursing home, this will make you weep with joy for what is possible.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=NKDXuCE7LeQ#t=0s]
Hat tip: CyberBrethren-A Lutheran Blog by Paul T. McCain
Mark Schaefer has a great post at {grow} listing three careers that will be in high demand at companies living in the social media space. I think those ideas translates into skills we will all need to work on – Three careers that will dominate social media (and it’s not what you think)
Continue reading “Three skills for living in a social media world”
Here is a link to an interview on CNN demonstrating a 3-D printer for home use. Cost $1,300.
This printer created a wearable shoe and full-color mini-bust of the host.
Continue reading “Demonstration of $1,300 personal 3-D printer”
(cross-post from my other blog, Nonprofit Update.)
Check out these two pictures showing 1980 and 2010 electronics tools: Worth a thousand words.
One tool in 2010 does the work of 14 (by my count) in 1980. Can you begin to guess the cost reduction, even without discounting for inflation? How about the weight reduction or portability increase?
From Café Hayek, of course. This is the type of thing I talk about at my other blog, Outrun Change.
Yup.
That might be why there is a serious danger of a higher-education bubble.
Read this comment by Holly Finn in today’s Wall Street Journal article Watching the Ivory Tower Topple:
In this new educational model, the shy and the easily distracted get advantages. You can rewind a video and watch whenever and as many times as you like. Plus, teachers save time with computerized grading and students save money. (U.S. college debt, nearly $1 trillion, is bigger than housing or credit card debt.)
Continue reading “More college student loan debt than loans on houses?”
The Economist provides good background on what the labor market is looking like in China – The end of cheap China.
I’ve commented earlier on the changing cost structure in China. This article gives some specific numbers. Continue reading “What wage inflation looks like in China”
Hat tip to Mark Perry, as usual – Creative Destruction: $7 iPad App Replaces $15,000, 20 Pound Communication Device
Bloomberg has a superb article on how simple apps are opening tremendous opportunities for people who need assistive technologies – Brain-Injured Emma Finds Her Voice With IPad Grassroot App
Emma was severely injured in 2001. She can not talk or walk and has minimal motion in her arms.
Previously she used a 9 pound device that cost $15,000 to type a message. The device read the position of her eyes. That’s good, but it has to be recalibrated every time it is moved. She’s tied to her room.
That has changed….
Continue reading “Technology opening opportunities for people with special needs”
J., an anonymous blogger at AidSpeak, has a post talking through the tensions of military people taking on humanitarian work, which puts them into the place where civilian aid workers have been for a long time – Humanitarian Space (the final frontier).
Having uniformed, armed soldiers doing the same thing that aid workers do blurs the distinction between those whose primary job is building things up (aid workers) and those whose primary job is blowing things up (soldiers).
That creates confusion for everyone involved especially those on the receiving end of humanitarian aid who watched things get blown up.
J.’s post is dealing with the realization that various militaries probably won’t be dropping their humanitarian aid work anytime soon. That means it will be important for the aid community to figure out how to work with and deal with the military community.
Continue reading “Grappling with change – another sector talks about their environment”