States & Stem Cells
NYT –
“In the long term, I don’t think it’s a good idea to have individual states trying to mount efforts which are going to be more piecemeal, less effective and take more time than a federal effort,” said Douglas A. Melton, co-director of the Stem Cell Institute at Harvard University. “I don’t think states should mount their own militias either.”
He’s right, but the proper way to go is to bypass the federal government all together – lose the patchwork – pool resources and ensure anything publicly funded is open source. Ride the platform of globalization at a more local level and create versatile organic networks. More on the idea of virtual fragmentation later.
Open Source Disaster Recovery
The two situations discussed in this First Monday piece are great preliminary efforts. More “lessons learned” work needs to be done in conjunction with actual open source development (so that we aren’t left relying on blogs – which are fundamentally unsuited towards true collaboration). Incorporate mobile technology, rapid deployment of large scale wifi networks, throw in some simple social networking software (allow tagging of volunteer skills, or physical traits of missing/found children). It is going to be very cool to watch the described trajectories unfold.
Decline of Paypal
Trying to use Paypal for the first time in a couple years (I mostly stick to retailers who take credit cards, even on ebay) but rather than taking my credit card and allowing use of their service they charged me 1.95 and want me to wait a month for my statement at which time I’ll be able to punch in a 4 digit number and gain the use of their service. I can get the number off my online statement – but after the bank processes it (3-4 days).
You can’t firewall this service, it thoroughly destabilizes the core features of the product. Focusing on resiliency rather than trying to guard the door with a shotgun would be the better approach. I for one am hoping Google kills Paypal.
Power Failures
Lack of resiliency in St. Louis and New York – where the problem has been compounded by key communication network failures on the part of local power company Con Edison leading to to inaccurate gauging of the problem.
Top 20 Fast Company Articles
John Moore has put together volume 1 and 2 of his list. Not what I would have chosen – though there are some solid pieces here – but that gives me an excuse to go back through the archives to compile my own list ;).