Alternative Institutions
Hydrochlorothiazide For Sale
Hydrochlorothiazide For Sale, Taking the cue from social software sites like Digg, the Obama transition team is leveraging the wisdom of your crowd to find out what the most important and relevant questions are that the public wants answered. Judging from the top page of questions as voted by several hundred thousand people, the relevance/importance quotient is very high. Below is the email that tipped me off to this latest development in "government 2.0".
Dear Rafe, Hydrochlorothiazide cost, Online buy Hydrochlorothiazide without a prescription,
We recently launched a new feature on Change.gov called Open for Questions. Thousands of you responded, Hydrochlorothiazide natural, Hydrochlorothiazide from canadian pharmacy, asking 10,000 questions and voting nearly a million times on questions from others.
Now that we've answered some of the most popular ones from the last round, Hydrochlorothiazide online cod, Buy cheap Hydrochlorothiazide no rx, we are open for questions again. Ask whatever you like, Hydrochlorothiazide recreational, Hydrochlorothiazide class, and …
Your Seat at the Table
The Obama Transition team wants your input on how to fix the country:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v9xYOlxLK5M]
No, seriously. Check out the various meetings they have upcoming and the comments sections that go with each. Some topics like Health Care have lots of comments. Others like the Humanitarian, Refugee, and Asylum Policy meeting currently have no comments, which means you could have quite a bit of influence by being the only one to spout your opinion...
So, what do you think? Will Obama policy be shaped by this promising open forum with unprecedented input from the average citizen, or will this end up as just good PR?
p.s. is that Stephen Colbert looking askance at the bald dude? :-)…
Rebooting America
Anyone interested in how technology and policy can work together to form us a more perfect union should read Rebooting America. If your budget is tight right now, you can download the PDF version for free.
While you are at it, check out the Personal Democracy Forum which is the larger effort that Rebooting America is part of.
"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed people can change the world. Indeed. It is the only thing that ever has." Margaret Mead…
Change.gov
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EOMc1coT9oY]
Okay, Kev, here's your chance on affecting climate policy, go crazy!…
How Grandma Saved Democracy
Visiting my 90 year old grandma a couple of weeks ago, I saw the opportunity for a product that I think would have a lot of success in the marketplace. Like the iPhone though, it's not so much the idea -- I'm sure someone is working on or already has the idea -- but rather in the implementation and interface.
My grandma has one of those electronic picture frames that sits in her living room, is connected to a proprietary service via a phone line, and can be updated with new pictures remotely by her family members. She gets incredible delight in discovering new photos and watching old ones go by as she drinks her tea in the morning or before bed at night. The key to this whole product for her (and for many others) is that it works completely without her having to lift a finger. Her family set it up and they take responsibility for updating the photos. If grandma had to…
Crowdsourcing Election Verification, part 2
Back in June, I suggested that public voting records would be healthy for our democracy if the populace were comfortable revealing their voting records. There is now a movement* and new web site for this called Who Voted? though they are not going as far as I am in advocating for revealing your actual choices.
True to my word, I voted absentee, which not only gave me an opportunity to photocopy my completed ballot, but also gave me some time fill out each choice so that I could double-check and not make a mistake. I am revealing to you each of my ballot choices. My home state is Nevada, I'll let you look up the details of the ballot choices if you care.
- U.S. President/VP: Obama/Biden
- U.S. Rep. in Congress: Shelly Berkeley
- State Senate: David Parks
- State Assembly: Joe Hogan
- Justice of Supreme Court Seat B: Deborah Schumacher
- Justice of Supreme Court Seat D: Mark Gibbons
- District Court Judge, Dept. 6: Elissa Cadish
- District Court
Want to Influence Financial Crisis Policy Debate?
One of the talks at Pop!Tech this year sparked intense emotions regardless of whether people agreed with the premise or not:
Juan Enriquez (2008) Pop!Tech Pop!Cast from PopTech on Vimeo.
To address these intense feelings and the demand for public discussion, a wiki was created, in which you are invited to join the discussion. This forum was designed as "a place for a rich, lively, respectful and facts-based dialog on what’s necessary to address the serious economic challenges confronting America today." Hope to see you there.Click here to go to the policy debate.
…Hive Mindstein
David Basanta's blog has an interesting thread (quite a few of them actually). Here's the setup but you should read the original post, including the Wired article:
Apparently, some people are seeing some potential in cloud computing not just as an aid to science but as a completely new approach to do it. An article in Wired magazine argues precisely that. With the provocative title of The end of theory, the article concludes that, with plenty of data and clever algorithms (like those developed by Google), it is possible to obtain patterns that could be used to predict outcomes…and all that without the need of scientific models.If I told you I had a massively parallel device which takes in huge amounts of raw data and finds patterns via computation to make predictions, would you be able to tell if I was speaking of a computer cloud or a human brain? Anderson's postulate about the end of theory is as specious as the…
Dynamic Architecture
Here's the architect's website, and here's a video:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bq-QUkE1DGM]
Hat tip: Michael Johnson…
National Popular Vote
Yesterday I blogged about personal vote verification. At the group level, I recommend supporting the National Popular Vote. While most people (70%) favor a popular vote for president, the U.S. Constitution calls for an electoral college system. The National Popular Vote movement is extremely clever in that it doesn't require a constitutional change:
Under the U.S. Constitution, the states have exclusive and plenary (complete) power to allocate their electoral votes, and may change their state laws concerning the awarding of their electoral votes at any time. Under the National Popular Vote bill, all of the state’s electoral votes would be awarded to the presidential candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. The bill would take effect only when enacted, in identical form, by states possessing a majority of the electoral votes—that is, enough electoral votes to elect a President (270 of 538).As of this writing, the bill has been enacted by Hawaii, Illinois,…
Crowdsourcing Election Verification
I take it as accepted fact at this point that the 2004 U.S. Presidential Election would have gone to John Kerry if everyone who attempted to vote that day were able to and all the votes were counted correctly. Here's the the Wikipedia entry on the subject and here's a documentary to get you started.
Regardless of your political leanings or party affiliations, there's hardly a more important issue if you believe in some form of democracy. As we run up to the 2008 elections, you should be very concerned that the problems have not been adequately addressed, despite all the various voting reform and voting rights initiatives.
While there may be nothing you can do do assure that your vote is counted properly in 2008, there are some ways you can keep a verified record of your vote, which is a necessary precondition for fixing the broken system:
- Vote absentee. Not only does this eliminate a whole set of irregularities having to do
Global Warming
A few months ago a friend of mine engaged me in a discussion about the controversy surrounding global warming. If you are surprised to hear that there is still controversy, read on; I was equally surprised.
The controversy is not so much whether the atmosphere is heating up, but rather the cause and projected magnitude. As anyone familiar with modeling complex systems understands, the time horizon for accurate predictions is inherently short due to chaotic and otherwise complex feedback dynamics. So it shouldn't really be a surprise to learn that climate predictions even with the most detailed and best crafted models have a hard time with accuracy in predicting more than a year out. As a consequence, it should also not be a surprise to learn that the role CO2 plays in changing global temperature -- and the extent to which it does -- is highly uncertain. There are good reasons why we should seek to reduce carbon emissions, but whether global warming is one…
Charity + Prediction Markets
A new prediction market site with a twist: your profits in the market get donated to the charity of your choice.
I was concerned that it may look noble but that they might be profiting from the bid/ask spread, so I wrote and asked them. Here is their response:
No fees, except the 5% on top of any funds put into your account. That fee does little more than cover the credit card processing charge. For example, if you want to put $5 into your account, you will be charged $5.25, and you will have $5 in your account to trade with. After a while, maybe you'll have grown your account to $50, all of which you can ask us to give away to the charity of your choice. No fees on donations. Another way of saying it is that 100% of the funds that are in trading accounts will eventually be given away to charities chosen by the winners.Very cool, I hope…
Open Letter to Gotham Prize
The Gotham Prize is a laudable new effort to provide incentive for new approaches to cancer. In response to their recent announcement of their first awards, I have sent them the following open letter. If you would like to express your own opinion on the matter, I encourage you to provide your feedback to them directly from their contact page.
Dear Gotham Prize Board,
Congratulations on your first set of awards, and congratulations to Drs. Varshavsky and Carol on their respective prizes. I am a big fan of the prize approach and applaud the Gotham Prize for its pioneering effort in this regard.
I'd like to express my concern, however, on the pre-qualification process.
As you know, whenever you pre-screen ideas, the backgrounds and biases of those doing the screening will inevitably bias the results and eliminate potentially some of the most innovative and groundbreaking approaches. If the decision process itself is good, there needn't be a pre-qualification process.
Additionally, I find it…
TED Talks: Iqbal Quadir
Mobile phones fight poverty
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ixjxvzb2-Fw] Click here for Discussion Forum…Complex Links: TED
I attended the TED Conference this year for the first time. It was a transformative experience, one that I hope everyone can have in some form or another before too long. One way to simulate being there is watch as many of these incredible talks from past TED conferences as you can in a short period of time. If you are inspired, check out the TED Prize and how you can be a part of a growing global meta-movement for positive change in the world.
I will be blogging about things that piqued my interest at TED, but below are some cool links that I came away with:
- Johnny Lee's Wii Remote Projects
- 1-800-GENOCIDE
- World Wide Telescope
- World Mapper
- Hyperscore
- Once Upon a School
- Your Morals
- A Vending Machine for Crows
- CurrentTV
- LiveScribe
- Robert Lang's Origami
- Zero Footprint
- Dr. Helen Fisher on Chemistry.com
- UN Alliance of Civilization
- 19 • 20 • 21
- Interfaith Youth Core
- Campaign for Real Beauty
- CalCars
- Enitiatives
- Emersion Presents
- DIY Drones
X Prize Annuity Funds
In the March 9, 2008 Sunday Magazine section of the NY Times, Freakonomics authors, Stephen Dubner and Steven Levitt wrote about an idea I shared with them (with my permission of course). Given all of the interest and critique that's resulted, I am posting the original conception below and encourage you to express your thoughts about the project either in the comments here or on the Freakonomics blog. If you are interested in becoming involved beyond just providing public input, just say so in your comment and I will contact you directly.
Big Problems
There are some very big problems in the world that can be solved but only if there is collective will to do so. Global warming, curing cancer, poverty traps, and so on. Free markets alone cannot get us there because of inherent externalities and insufficient market structure geared towards the problems at hand. One way this has been addressed is via internalizing externalities (e.g. pollution markets). But such an approach…
Management 2.0
There is a movement afoot in the business world that parallels the growing maturity of the internet and Web 2.0. Let's call it Management 2.0. Google is a famous example at the vanguard, notable not so much for its management innovation per se -- many companies are just as innovative when it comes to management -- but rather for its rapid growth, global mindshare and financial success. A Harvard Business Review issue in the winter of 2006 claimed that management innovation -- not technological innovation -- is now the key driver of economic value worldwide. To be sure, management innovation is enabled by new technologies, especially those involving the internet and communication. Following are some of the concepts of Management 2.0, you are encouraged to complete and refine this list.
1. Crowdsourcing
With "The Wisdom of Crowds" in one hand and Wired's "Crowdsourcing" issue in the other, businesses and even entire industries are being built on the backs of, well, you…
Dangerous Media
With the massacre at Virginia Tech weighing on everyone's mind, we must look at the causal role that society, especially mass media (including the internet) plays in such tragedies. Much is discussed about the personal influences of mass-murderers, what "lead" them to do horrific deeds. Was it their parents who abused them, the fellow students who harassed them, the lover who scorned them, or some chemical/psychological imbalance that caused them to go off the deep end? What about the easy access to weapons? Clearly all of these factors and more can, and do contribute. But the secret sauce in such recipes for disaster is mass media.
Media cannot be divorced from culture, indeed, it is an integral part. It is at once the Greek chorus reflecting society's values, and also is (increasingly) the creator and amplifier of evolving and new values. Editorial media (such as TV and newspapers) have agents in charge of who gets what information. These agents take umbrage at, and often simply…
The New Philanthropy
What I mean by "the New Philanthropy" is the cultural change afoot that is leading more and more of us to believe and act on the belief that we can make a big impact, in our lifetime, with or without large amounts of capital. The New Philanthropy has three classes of people.
Independently Wealthy John Wood is a model example of someone who had accumulated massive resources and lived a full and busy life, but had some experiences that shifted his perspective to the point where he could no longer continue on his previous path. In the old days, independently wealthy philanthropists like Rockefeller saw their role as to "make as much money as possible, and then use it wisely to improve the lot of mankind." John Wood and his ilk believe "what kind of man am I if I don't go face this challenge directly", and to their peers who say they are crazy or having a midlife crisis they respond "wouldn't it be…
The Eight Most Powerful People on the Planet
...but weak, indecisive and utterly incapable of true world leadership
read the article | digg the article
I'd like to make a case for Oprah being in the top 8. Though she's currently #62 on Forbes' World's Most Powerful Women list, she's one of only two people to make the Time 100 list four times (the other being Bill Gates). Four people have made it three times (GWB, Bill Clinton, Nelson Mandela, and Condaleeza Rice).
Despite the catchy opening, this isn't a post about lists of powerful people. It's about how to change the world, right now, and with long-ranging positive impact. The first step is to watch Oprah's show yesterday about people rich and poor who have found ways to make huge differences. (I'm sure somebody out there will find an online version of the show and post it in the comments here, but if not, order the show). The second step is to read this book, written by one of the founding…