The amount of fucks not given are off the charts.
(Source: memewhore)
Russians regenerate flowering plant from 30,000-year-old frozen burrow of Ice Age squirrel
The Silene stenophylla is the oldest plant ever to be regenerated, the researchers said, and it is fertile, producing white flowers and viable seeds.
Full Story: Washington Post
Re-generating a 30,000 year old extinct species. #science, #extinct, #regeneration
It’s official: Nevada the first state to allow self-driving cars
Nevada is officially the first state to make self-driving cars (as made famous by Google) a legal presence on roads. There are conditions, of course, but the director of the Nevada’s Department of Motor Vehicles ushered in the announcement with a hopeful, “Nevada is the first state to embrace what is surely the future of automobiles.”
New study shows that a moderate amount of alcohol actually makes people (at least men) more creative, or at least respond creatively more quickly, than those abstaining. “A moderate buzz loosens a man’s focus of attention, thus making it easier to find connections among remotely related ideas,” says Bryan Nelson at the Mother Nature Network.
tetw:
by Venkat Rao
It is a sort of grim privilege for the generations living today to watch the slow demise of such a spectacularly effective intellectual construct. The Age of Corporations is coming to an end. The traditional corporation won’t vanish, but it will cease to be the center of gravity of economic life in another generation or two. They will live on as religion does today, as weakened ghosts of more vital institutions from centuries ago.
Being the CEO of a multibillion-dollar global corporation is tough work. Or at least it had better be, considering the amount of money some of these folks were paid just to quit:
- John F. Welch Jr.; General Electric (1981-2001) $417,361,902
- Lee R. Raymond; Exxon Mobil Corp. (1993-2005) $320,599,861
- William D. McGuire; UnitedHealth Group (1991-2006) $285,996,009
- Edward E. Whitacre Jr.; AT&T (1990-2007) $230,048,463
- Robert L. Nardelli; Home Depot Inc. (2000-2007) $223,290,123
- John A. Kanas; North Fork Bank (1977-2006) $214,300,000
- Fred Hassan; Merck & Co., Inc./Schering-Plough (2003-2009) $189,352,324
- Louis V. Gerstner Jr.; IBM (1993-2002) $189,005,929
- Hank A. McKinnell Jr.; Pfizer Inc. (2001-2006) $188,329,553
- Thomas M. Ryan; CVS Caremark Corp. (1998-2011) $185,415,435
- James M. Kilts; Gillette Co. (2001-2005) $164,532,192
- Robert J. Ulrich; Target Corp. (1994-2008) $164,162,612
- E. Stanley O’Neal; Merrill Lynch & Co. (2002-2007) $161,500,000
- Jerry A. Grundhofer; U.S. Bancorp (2001-2006) $159,064,090
- Joel F. Gemunder; Omnicare, Inc. (2001-2010) $146,001,476
- Wallace D. Malone Jr.; Wachovia/South Trust (1981-2004) $125,292,818
- George A. L. David; United Technologies Corp. (1994-2008) $122,631,309
- Margaret C. Whitman; eBay Inc. (1998-2008) $120,427,360
- Leonard Schaeffer; WellPoint Health (1992-2004) $119,041,000
- Bob R. Simpson; XTO Energy Inc. (1986-2008) $103,485,972
- Thomas E. Freston; Viacom (2006) $100,839,772
Expensive parachutes..
Global Risks 2012 - Seventh Edition | World Economic Forum-Global Risks 2012 - Seventh Edition
Economic imbalances and social inequality risk reversing the gains of globalization, warns the World Economic Forum in its report Global Risks 2012. These are the findings of a survey of 469 experts and industry leaders, indicating a shift of concern from environmental risks to socioeconomic risks compared to a year ago. Respondents worry that further economic shocks and social upheaval could roll back the progress globalization has brought, and feel that the world’s institutions are ill-equipped to cope with today’s interconnected, rapidly evolving risks. The findings of the survey fed into an analysis of three major risk cases: Seeds of Dystopia; Unsafe Safeguards and the Dark Side of Connectivity. The report analyses the top 10 risks in five categories - economic, environmental, geopolitical, societal and technological - and also highlights “X Factor” risks, the wild card threats which warrant more research, including a volcanic winter, cyber neotribalism and epigenetics, the risk that the way we live could have harmful, inheritable effects on our genes. Key crisis management lessons from Japan’s earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disasters are highlighted in a special chapter.An interesting report that underlines the need to transform our society from an productivity optimizing hence brittle one to a resilient and adaptive society.
But for me this report also raise the need to again argue for a necessary analysis of what is going on and from which standpoint the discussions in Davos is held. One of the core issues underlying many of the problems and risks in this report is the structural transformation of the power and consequently governance, a lot due to the emergence of radically new communication capabilities. Because of that the platform from where this discussion is taking place is a completely different place in the power hierarchies than most of the participants think.
Underlying many of the risks in these lists we can trace the effects of a differently wired world i e an emerging bottom-up model of governance. From the Davos perspective i e the perspective from a traditional and hierarchical standpoint to much of what is going on is perceived as societal threats or risks to address, when in fact they are just threats to the traditional ways of governing! To be able to focus on the real risks and challenges in the world we must understand that a changing communication paradigm is NOT a risk to hedge for or a problem to solve. It is more like the paradigmatic shift when your life changes when you give birth your first child. It is not a problem to solve but rather a case when you mature and realize that the world doesn’t gravitate around you alone anymore, but around the new unit of the family, suddenly and magically appear. It is rather a new prerequisite that you have to come to turn with and understand how to relate to, and consequently adapt to in the best way you can, but not a problem to solve.
This doesn’t surprise me at all. What does surprise me is that no other consumer electronic company puts the care into packaging that Apple does.
By making each and every product a joy to open, Apple sets the tone for the product itself subconsciously in the user’s mind.
Compare this to the companies that put their products in the clear plastic anti-theft packaging. Not only do they take forever to open with a combination of scissors and ripping, I nearly slice at least one finger open every time. When I finally get the product out, part of me just wants to smash it against a wall — I’m that angry by the opening experience.
Because Apple just gets it..
It’s time to discard the popular belief that corporations must focus first and foremost on maximizing value for shareholders. That idea is inherently, and tragically, flawed.
Within the next few years,” he writes, “it will be technically possible and financially feasible for authoritarian governments to record nearly everything that is said or done within their borders - every phone conversation, electronic message, social media interaction, the movements of nearly every person and vehicle, and video from every street corner.” The machinery for such monitoring - from intercepting electronic communications to recording images of faces and licence plates in public spaces - already exists and is rapidly improving. Yet, it is the plummeting cost of data storage that makes total surveillance a real possibility.
Total surveillance society is almost here (via wreckandsalvage)
Not just within their borders, but every piece of data that passes through networks housed or operating within their borders. The internet doesn’t understand or follow agreed-upon lines drawn in the sand.
(via spytap)
