May. 7, 2012 at 10:58am
So says Bo, “is that a Channel News Asia microphone there?”  (via Bo Xilai Was Long Known in China for Ruthlessness - NYTimes.com)

So says Bo, “is that a Channel News Asia microphone there?” 

(via Bo Xilai Was Long Known in China for Ruthlessness - NYTimes.com)

Apr. 26, 2012 at 10:15pm
“Hang on, I know I’m dumb but ….”  (via Romney wraps it up, but Obama has a different campaign in mind | Mail Online)

“Hang on, I know I’m dumb but ….” 

(via Romney wraps it up, but Obama has a different campaign in mind | Mail Online)

Apr. 22, 2012 at 3:29pm
“
By participating in the election, Aung San Suu Kyi chose to play by the regime’s rules,” said the analyst Min Zin, writing on the Transitions blog of Foreign Policy magazine. “Now she needs to pick her battles rather than wasting valuable energy in a fight over symbolism.
—

I also say. 

Already in Myanmar’s Reformation, an Impasse - NYTimes.com

1:13pm
“
It was with a surge of emotion, therefore, that I read newspaper reports about the determination of Anthony W. Marx, the president of the library, to spend $300 million to transform the main building, long devoted to reference, into what sounds like a palace of presentism. He wants to close the library system’s biggest circulating branch, the Mid-Manhattan (located just across the street) and the Science, Industry and Business Library (also in Midtown) and somehow wedge their contents into the already overstocked central research library. For that he will need all the spatial ingenuity of his trendy architect-designate, Norman Foster. But something’s going to have to give, and you can be sure that what is new and hard and digital will prevail over what is old and papery and transportable elsewhere.
— Sacking a Palace of Culture - NYTimes.com
1:10pm
“
The white card is a piece of the migratory absurdities that prevent Cubans from freely leaving and entering their own country. It is our own Berlin Wall without the concrete, the land-mining of our borders without explosives. A wall made of paperwork and stamps, overseen by the grim stares of soldiers. This capricious exit permit costs over $200, a year’s salary for the average Cuban. But money is not enough. Nor is a valid passport. We must also meet other, unwritten requirements, ideological and political conditions that make us eligible, or not, to board a plane.
— The Dream of Leaving Cuba - NYTimes.com
12:29pm
“
FROM the subject of halal meat to the matter of driver’s licenses, the French presidential campaign that culminates in voting on Sunday has been marked by peripheral squabbles and endless invective among the 10 candidates. But few things have been said about the gravity of the French economic crisis: the deficits in France’s public accounts and balance of payments; its drop in competitiveness; its decline in international commerce; its apathetic growth.
— Voting for Yesterday in France - NYTimes.com
Apr. 19, 2012 at 12:54pm
(via Oldest surviving unrestored Mini to be auctioned | Technology | guardian.co.uk)

(via Oldest surviving unrestored Mini to be auctioned | Technology | guardian.co.uk)

Apr. 13, 2012 at 11:15am with 812 notes
Reblogged from stayforeveryang
nevver: Architectural Criticism Translated

nevver:

Architectural Criticism Translated

Apr. 11, 2012 at 10:13pm
“
Prof Lim, replying to questions post-lecture, said that he has indeed given thought to these matters. But different priorities - he sees income inequality as a potential ‘Achilles’ heel’ for Singapore which must be swiftly addressed - lead him to different conclusions. For instance, he thinks foreign talent will still be drawn to a country with ‘peace, security, harmony and reward’. ‘Foreign talent know, and should know, that Singapore is not an El Dorado. It is a country and a nation. We will have to treat each other with respect,’ he told BT. He also acknowledges that SMEs dependent on low-cost labour will have a hard time, but thinks they ‘will have to design their manpower utilisation to make better use of their workers’.
— Rationale behind Lim Chong Yah’s wage shock therapy
9:56pm with 62 notes
Reblogged from dreaminginthedeepsouth
The Cognitive Limit of Organizations. The structure of a society is...

aminotes:

The Cognitive Limit of Organizations. The structure of a society is connected to its total amount of information
Click image to enlarge

“The vertical axis of this slide represents the total stock of information in the world. The horizontal axis represents time.

In the early days, life was simple. We did important things like make spears and arrowheads. The amount of knowledge needed to make these items, however, was small enough that a single person could master their production. There was no need for a large division of labor and new knowledge was extremely precious. If you got new knowledge, you did not want to share it. After all, in a world where most knowledge can fit in someone’s head, stealing ideas is easy, and appropriating the value of the ideas you generate is hard. 

At some point, however, the amount of knowledge required to make things began to exceed the cognitive limit of a single human being. Things could only be done in teams, and sharing information among team members was required to build these complex items. Organizations were born as our social skills began to compensate for our limited cognitive skills. Society, however, kept on accruing more and more knowledge, and the cognitive limit of organizations, just like that of the spearmaker, was ultimately reached. (…)

Today, however, most products are combinations of knowledge and intellectual property that resides in different organizations. Our world is less and less about the single pieces of intellectual property and more and more about the networks that help connect these pieces. The total stock of information used in these ecosystems exceeds the capacity of single organizations because doubling the size of huge organizations does not double the capacity of that organization to hold knowledge and put it into productive use. 

In a world in which implementing the next generation of ideas will increasingly require pulling resources from different organizations, barriers to collaboration will be a crucial constraint limiting the development of firms. Agility, context, and a strong network are becoming the survival traits where assets, control, and power used to rule. John Seely Brown refers to this as the “Power of Pull.”“

— The Cognitive Limit of Organizations, MIT Media Lab, Oct 7, 2011.