Updated: 9/10/06; 11:38:16 PM.
Gil Friend
Strategic Sustainability, and other worthy themes of our time
        

Sunday, May 11, 2003

Fathers and Sons. Now that the Mideast peace process is being revived, the question is: will the president show up as Bush 41 or Bush 43? By Thomas L. Friedman. [New York Times: Opinion]

I'm trying to reduce the political [and especially geopolitical] postings and focus more on sustainability and business strategy, but once again Friedman has provided a piece of invaluable clarity and insight. Worth reading.
3:39:59 PM    comment []  trackback []


Into the Sunset. The "sunset" clauses of the current tax cut, whereby cuts expire after a few years, represent the same bait-and-switch tactics we fell for in 2001. By Paul Krugman. [New York Times: Opinion]

"What do you mean 'We,' Kimosabe?"
10:18:38 AM    comment []  trackback []


A Prince of Cyberpunk Fiction Moves Into the Mainstream. William Ford Gibson's novels and short stories are worshiped by hackers, argued over by philosophers in arcane journals and rhapsodized about by teenage garage bands. By Brent Staples. [New York Times: Opinion]

The danger of this age, Cayce realizes, is that every city will eventually look like every other one and that all of human experience could one day be converted by the marketing machine into a few variations on a single theme.

See also Pohl & Kornbluth's classic Space Merchants-- from, I believe, the 50s.
10:10:46 AM    comment []  trackback []


The Gallon Report: What is amazing is that high-priced lawyers and well-trained electrical engineers have made such poor decisions leading to hundreds of millions of dollars in additional costs plus environmental degradation. The environmentalists within the Ministry of the Environment (MOE), Energy Probe, had they been listened to, and their advice acted upon, they would have saved Ontario taxpayers billions of dollars and cleaned up their air in the process. EnergyProbe

PS: Gary Gallon, President of the Canadian Institute for Business and the Environment, based in Montreal, and Editor of "The Gallon Environment Letter", was selected to receive Canada's Life-Time Achievement Award for his environmental work in Canada. Congrats, Gary!
7:45:57 AM    comment []  trackback []


[Apple]: James Gosling, Mastermind of Java

During a visit to Brazil, Gosling saw the potential of the Internet realized in medicine. With many lines of code -- Gosling says it's just "a big pile of Java beans" -- the Brazilian National healthcare system links 12 million people in 44 cities. "I would love to live in Brazil just to have that infrastructure," Gosling says with a tone of unabashed admiration.

"If you look at the way that the medical system works in the U.S., it's bits of paper. Islands that don't talk to each other. You go to the doctor, who scrawls out a prescription. And you go to some pharmacy and they fill it out. There are all kinds of opportunities for error and fraud. You go to some other doctor who doesn't know what another doctor might have done and who doesn't get to see your medical records because they're not instantly accessible.

"In the Brazilian system," Gosling continues, "there are national databases and a doctor sticks your ID card in a little reader to see your complete medical history, wherever the doctor is and wherever you came from. Brazil has a national medical system and we have chaos."

If you think that's bad, or at least terribly disappointing (or perhaps pointing to a huge opportunity), see what he has to say about the perspicacity of the auto industry, and what THEY think happens once your car is on the Internet.
7:24:23 AM    comment []  trackback []


© Copyright 2006 Gil Friend.
 

BlogRoll Me! | Skype me!

My work:
Natural Logic My speaking gigs


Read this blog in:

Deutsch / Español / Français / Italiano / Portuguese


May 2003
Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat
        1 2 3
4 5 6 7 8 9 10
11 12 13 14 15 16 17
18 19 20 21 22 23 24
25 26 27 28 29 30 31
Apr   Jun


So... where you from, Chum?
Locations of visitors to this page


How this works


Recent Posts


Blogs I slog through:


Click here to visit the Radio UserLand website.

Subscribe to "Gil Friend" in Radio UserLand.

Click to see the XML version of this web page.


Click here to send an email to the editor of this weblog.