The Like Button and Democracy

Unless you live under a rock, you are probably well aware of the Facebook “Like” button that allows you to go around the Internet and showing your approval of a people/place/thing by “Liking” them with a press of the aforementioned “Like” button.  There is a noticeable absence of a “Dislike” button.  After all when a…

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To Boldly Go…

“Fear is the path to dark side, feat leads anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering.” ~ Yoda The pint sized Jedi Master seems to have nailed the core of the issue that is facing the United States and the world at large in this period of global economic malaise.  Fear has crippled…

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Lather, Rinse, Repeat, Fail

“The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results” ~  Author Unknown Recently read an article from Joe Kraus of Google Ventures.  It’s premise was to reject the commonly held notion that people learn best from their mistakes.   His position is that we tell ourselves that to simply…

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Personal Manufacturing, Communityism, Open Source

“There’s something happening here, what it is ain’t exactly clear…” Mass production of goods is horribly inefficient, and hopefully soon it will be antiquated.  Instead of goods being sold, ideas and designs will be sold in a digital marketplace.  People will be able to purchase design files on the web, download them, and then print…

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Rainbow Risk Management

Every project manager knows the moans and groans for the evil not always objective “traffic light” chart used to denote risks to a project.  In sufficiently complex projects, risk is based on a risk matrix (typically a 5×5 matrix) with consequence of a risk occurring on one axis and likelihood of the risk being realized…

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The Space Shuttle Was Designed For Roman Horses

I heard this story by watching a recent lecture given by MIT’s Open Coursware initiative. It traces the history of how the rocket booster design of the Space Shuttle was influenced by Roman Empire horses. t goes a little like this. Thoikol is a Utah-based company that builds the rocket boosters. The boosters are transported…

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Engineering and Science for America’s Youth

President Obama today addressed the National Academy of Sciences and made a quote that harkened back to his book “The Audacity of Hope” where he wished the world had more engineers and less lawyers (which is a bit ironic coming from someone who was the president of the Harvard Law Review). He challenged the members…

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