Sharing most interesting links I’ve found during the last week during research into a wide variety of topics including Geo-Politics, Technology, Finance/Economics, Information Age & Future of Things:
Jon Kudelka Cartoons of the Week
Negotiations between the Labor Party, Liberal Party and the Independents holding the balance of power are *still continuing* ARGH! and Liberal Party policy costings were revealed to be only kinda sorta accurate:
Geo-Politics
- Charlie Brooker: Lies aren’t big any more. They’re fun-sized. catchiest buzzword generally wins the debate by default
- If you think Australia has even the beginnings of refugee problem, take a look at South Africa
- Australian Senate Clerk’s ambitious charter for reform
- Dr Nicholas Gruen from Lateral Economics presented a great talk about Government 2.0 at the ABC (12MB powerpoint file)
- UK tabloid News of the World hacked 100s of peoples voicemail accounts. Police didnt investigate, were they afraid of Rupert Murdoch?
- 200 international bureaux. 6000 international journalists. The emerging media powerhouse – Chinas Xinhua news agency
- research paper: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations: How to Feed the World in 2050 (PDF)
- On not much at all and maybe everything – links between climate change & stop to whaling
How good people turn evil – well worth spending 5 minutes viewing this slideshow
Technology
- The Contest for Convergence for the 5 Trillion Dollar Trophy – mobile, internet, advertising, digital cameras and more
- Digital Devices Deprive Brain of Needed Downtime, Reflection, Contemplation
- Solar-powered, low-cost, open source cellular network that’s revolutionizing coverage in underprivileged and off-grid spots
- Online as much as in the real world, people bunch together in mutually suspicious groups
- The Curse of 3D TV – 3D TV and movies suck in almost everyway compared to a quality 2D image. Supremely bad idea
Finance/Economics
- After the Fall: a fascinating paper on pre and post WWII recessions presented to the Federal Reserve (PDF)
- Netflix lets salaried staff take as much holiday as they want, whenever they want – and it works
- USA “cash for clunkers” stimulus project was costly and inefficient, simply brought forward future spending
- Is private equity misleading investors? – Questions have been raised about whether private equity firms are actually making as much money for their investors as they claim.
- Getting a home mortgage without 20% deposit and a solid savings record is a recipe for disaster
- When in the history of marketing was something business thought to be a gold mine actually a GOOD thing for consumers?
Information Age
- With the help of Twitter and sites such as Long Form and The Awl, longer articles are finding a new lease of life as people take the time to find and read them
- Sound advice for journalism students to buildup their own audience and information source network
- People who work in the information industry often drink a lot of coffee – note that there is an increased risk of cardiovascular events for people who drink 6+ cups coffee/day (greater than 680mg caffeine total).
- The Predictably Irrational blog explains why procrastinators work better when given an arbitrary fixed deadline rather than “whenever” time to finish
- Kudos to the AP for finally giving credit to member news orgs and even blogs that break stories first
Neerav Bhatt Playing Joy Ride racing using Kinect. photo credit: Future of Things
- Researchers can control swarms of robots using Microsoft Surface. Getting to the field faster than the military
- At the pace open source experimentation is progressing, it might be possible to launch satellite killers in a few years
- Think intelligent automated cars are a good idea? “car worms” or viruses could takeover key car functions in the future
- I mused about the Future of TV and Watching Video: Audience Shatters Into Million Pieces
- Why is it so difficult for companies like @Apple, @Google, @Microsoft and @Amazon to break into TV?
- I got to try out Microsoft’s new XBOX Kinect Human Body Game and TV Controller
- Mobile robots being used in 100s of USA hospitals as eyes, ears & voices of doctors who cant be there in person
Kinect Skeleton Sensing. photo credit: Neerav BhattPlease share the most interesting links you’ve read last week in the comments area. Thanks 
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Very good informative post, Thank you
Leave the potatoes alone!
… just kidding. I say we lead them to the fryer