Category: Educational

Book: “The Joy of Not Working”

“The Joy of Not Working: A Book for the Retired, Unemployed and Overworked- 21st Century Edition” is a book by Ernie Zelinski, who the back cover mentions as being “creatively unemployed” for the 14 years and believes that “we work so hard – can overvalue work so much – that we have forgotten how to just live!”

More from the back cover …
“

  • The Joy of Not Working will guide you to:
  • Discover and pursue your life’s passions
  • Work more productively by working less
  • Be financially independent with less money
  • Vanquish boredom in your life
  • Lose your fear of losing your job
  • Take pleasure in your own company
  • Get more joy and satisfaction out of everything you do.

”

North Pacific Gyre Garbage Patch

The North Pacific Gyre is a section of the Pacific Ocean between Hawaii and California that is accumulating trash due to the nature of its water currents. This garbage patch in the ocean consists of trash debris and non-biodegradable plastic that just breaks up into more tiny pieces.

WATCH VIDEO on YouTube »

It says that there is 7 million tons of floating waste spanning an area twice the size of Texas. Birds and wildlife die when they mistaken these plastic bits as food. A lot of these garbage get washed up on beaches.

The latimes.com also has some video pieces on the North Pacific Gyre here.

WATCH VIDEO on YouTube for more detailed explanation of trash in our oceans.

The reason why there is not a lot of good photos of the North Pacific Gyre is that most of the garbage is just underwater and is somewhat spread out as explained in theoystersgarter.com.

Frontline’s documentary on Global Warming

WATCH VIDEO on pbs.org »

Frontline documentary “Heat” investigates the great crises of global warming. You can watch the full program in the link provided.

CO2 emission have been rising and is at records level. China and India are in a growth spur adding to the energy demands. In order to stop global warming, we have to curb our addiction to fossil fuel which is economic engine of our lives. The documentary talks about technologies such as clean coal and carbon capture and sequestration.

The second largest contribution to CO2 emissions are vehicles. There is a need to increase fuel efficiency standards. But the car industry is against it. Big oil is also resisting change and the consequences are not good.

Corn-based ethanol as an alternative to middle-east oil is now hugh business. Some say there is a net benefit. And other says that it may even increase carbon emission depending on how the corn is processed. Corn simply may not be an efficient fuel crop and may not a solution to greenhouse gas.

In Europe and Japan, the government have gotten farther in its strides to increase renewable energies.

In its early days, nuclear power had to overcome obstacles of the fears of accidents such as Three-Mile Island and anti-nuclear activists.

Cap and trade is the concept where companies has a maximum quota on emissions. If it emits more than their quota, they will need to purchase from companies that emit less.

While politicians debate this concept. The earth has seen its explosion of wild fires, large hurricanes like Katrina, and unbelievable droughts throughout the world.

China has passed America as the largest emitter of CO2. India and some other countries are also emitting more.

Brain Teasers from Posit Science

Posit Science produces products that improves brain fitness. Most notably, the Brain Fitness program and the InSight product. Jewel Diver is a demo game from the Insight product that helps you keep track of multiple moving objects. You can find some of their brain teasers that focuses on memory attention and sound discrimination as linked.

Hear what Dr. Merzenich, co-founder of Posit Science, have to say about brain fitness.

Video provides Humorous Way to Learn About Copyright Laws

The below video is a parody of Disney created by Professor Eric Faden of Bucknell University. It explains the U.S. copyright laws and the types of work that it protects such as music, film, dance, etc. It says that ideas can not be copyrighted. Only the form in which that idea is express is copyrighted. It talks about the duration of copyright and when a work goes into public domain when copyright expires. And finally it explains the copyright fair use doctrine.

Economist Kotlikoff Tells of United States Economic Future

Economist Laurence Kotlokoff paints a gloomy picture of United States economic future in the below talk at MIT and in his book The Coming Generational Storm: What You Need to Know about America’s Economic Future.

The aging United States demographics means that there will be more older people collecting Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid than there are young people generating enough money for these programs. This financial gap will get larger and larger the more time we wait. Kotlokoff says we need to do something immediately otherwise the fiscal system is headed for a meltdown. He has his own ideas as to what we should do. But will the politicians listen is a different story.

The talk was given on April 28, 2004 as part of the authors at MIT series.

“Did You Know” YouTube Video

Karl Fisch “Did You Know / Shift Happens” YouTube Video version 2.0 was announced on his blog back in June 2007 and which you can see here…

It puts into perspective how big the world is and how fast it is changing. Some of the statistics is amazing.

Since then, many other have re-mixed the presentation.

Here is another version …

with closing credits that says “Research and original design by Karl Fisch, Scott Mclood, Jeff Brenman”

With content based on Karl Fisch presentation, Jeff Brenman has a slide version of the presentation at uploaded to SideShare around 2006 which you can view here called ShiftHappens.

Now there is a “Did You Know 4.0″…

The people credited for this one are Scott McLeod, Karl Fisch, and Laura Bestler.

This one is nice in that is has credit and sources at the end and has a creativecommon license.