Designing better futures

Deviant characters, history and Simon Schama

Deviant behaviour is what makes history.  Most people think of deviance in the negative, but deviance is by definition anything outside of the norm. 

As the anthropologist Margaret Meade said,

"A small group of thoughtful people could change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has."

In that vein Simon Schama a brilliant Historian delivers the goods and the people that shaped great events. 

My wife and I don't own a TV (sorry we are heretics, have been for years), we do watch DVD's on a projection screen and have spent hours watching Schama explain British History and Art History.  This post is nothing more than a plug for a brilliant set of DVD's and education about the deviant people who shaped the history of art, England and the world.

If you like happy go lucky history watch some Ken Burns, if you like someone who will dish the dirt and make it personal, then Schama is your man.  The BBC is really at the top of its game in these productions.

a little thougt project

Happy Thanksgiving.  Here is a great video for a little food for thought for the holidays, if you really pay attention your head may hurt a little after watching this and you will forget about that belly full of Turkey you are carrying around.

unsung hero who kept you alive.

My wife and I just watched the classic film called FailSafe with henry Fonda.  It is all about the cold war, get it on netflix. 

Fail safe is a great movie about the reality of the situation of nuclear war.  Another Great movie about nuclear dynamics is the  documentary Fog of War about Robert McNamara, reviewed earlier here.  McNamara indicates that there were 3 times that we came to the brink of thermo nuclear destruction on his watch.  Most people  barely remember the one public event during the Cuban Missile crises.  The median age in the U.S. is now 34.  So half of us really have no idea what that very real fear was like.   

A little known fact is that in 1983 we almost had a nuclear war, but one man stopped it.  He currently lives on a $200 a month pension outside of Moscow.  Read about him here.  Shouldn't there be a statue or something for this guy.  Many of you reading this today may not even be here unless Stanislav Petrov hadn't acted.  Read more here.  James Bond types  in films make millions while the quiet hero's who  save the world fade away... 

Homer Simpson offends pagans in Dorset

Homer Simpson offends pagans in Dorset Tuesday, 17 July 2007 Pagans have pledged to perform "rain magic" to wash away cartoon character Homer Simpson who was painted next to their famous fertility symbol - the Cerne Abbas giant.

The 17th century chalk outline of the naked, sexually aroused, club-wielding giant is believed by many to be a symbol of ancient spirituality.

Pretty hilarious if you ask me.  The original one was marketing as well, it just lacked the irony :)

empiricism and copyright: a trillion $ question

An interesting paper calculates the optimal period of time for copyrights and sets it 14 years and declining.

Now before most of you fall asleep please think about what this means in our modern economies where brand, IP and other intangible assets define the "differential" values in our economies e.g. that which is above commodity level.

I am not capable of commentary on the efficacy, accuracy or correctness of the paper, but am fascinated by the implications:

• Copyright has an optimal protective value that is waning as reproduction and production technology makes IP cheaper to create and/or repurpose
• Copyright has a quantitative proximal value
• IP can be rationalized in terms of benefit

The outcomes of this approach and hopefully subsequent papers could be the following in years to come:

• Change in terms of all IP protection (trademark, patents) periods and mechanisms
• A better understanding for valuation of IP assets: How much is Mickey mouse worth?
• A framework for determining more effectively if only slightly the economics of new media technologies
• A framework for assessing the impacts of distributed information and access.

These are bold claims from a single paper, but huge new grounds and challenges for economics and eventually policy makers and society in the future years to come.

historical context

OK most of my posts are science, finance a little heavy.  Here is something fun.  I have a minor in art history and am fascinated by art and architecture a pursuit of endless discovery for my wife and I.

Here is a video of women in art over 500 years, lots of art history all combined.

the Fog of War (Robert McNamara)

Wow the Fog of War is a great film about a very interesting person.  Bob McNamara was one of Kennedy's whiz kids in the 60's.  His views and work shaped the cold war and US action in Vietnam.  His intellect and insite are impressive.  His views on Vietnam and the build up make for interesting viewing.  The film is truly eye opening for the up close view of potential nuclear war and how close the world was during the cold war during the Cuban Missile crisis.   This film is excellent history and an incredible view on what happened.  Whether you agree or disagree with McNamara, you have an upfront seat from the secretary of defense and 13 year head of the World Bank.  Check out the DVD and the extra features.  My wife and watched it twice just to get all the details.  I took a few classes in strategic nuclear policy and intl politics during college.  The reality of policy and people available via the film biography is amazing.

Grapes of Wrath. a Banned book.

Over the past few months, I have again taken up my personal studies of 3rd world economic development and sustainability.  It is easy to read a book about another culture.  Many of the books deal in aggregate numbers.  GDP per head at $300/person for example.

I am currently finishing a great book from the world bank called Voices of the Poor, which really shows the personal dimensions and tragedy of poverty and powerlessness.  A personal story can be more powerful and moving sometimes than an economic treatise.  To use paraphrase Stalin, "kill one person and it is murder, kills millions and it is a statistic."  This is sad but true.  The real implications of human events don't register with us in numbers, they have an impact with stories on a personal level.  Books and films are great ways of telling those stories.

This weekend I watched the Film, The Grapes of Wrath.  Most us remember the book as a tiresome project from high school English lit.  Revisiting it with a few more miles behind me is highly illuminating.  I watched the film on DVD, which came along with a bonus audio essay by two Steinbeck scholars.  It was great stuff.  It helps to understand poverty when you can see it in the near past through your own culture. 

The film is powerful and moving as it is shows a simple family trying with dignity to struggle against forces the can't control or understand.  They are herded into camps, vulnerable and victimized.  The California of 1930's America was a rough place for migrants, with police brutality and injustice all around.  The Joad family were Oakie's from the Midwest.  They were hated by the Californians, many of whom just wished they would go home.  Many weren't allowed to cross the border into California from nearby states. 

The family from Oklahoma was disliked, because they were large (12 members), spoke funny (used harsh farm language).   The film shows people killed with impunity and the dehumanizing aspects of poverty and being social outcasts.  The essay on the film indicates that the book and the film were actually softer than the reality of the times. 

At one point in time, the Grapes of Wrath was one of the most banned books in Americas libraries.  Salinas, California had a special hatred of Steinbeck.  Today in California and much of America there is a debate about poor immigrants coming into the US.  I would urge those who take issue with immigrants, to revisit the past of "migrants" from within the US.   The sad fact is that the same arguments used against immigrants were also used against poor internal migrants from Oklahoma, Kansas, Iowa, and other Midwestern states.  The arguments were as wrong then and as they are today.  Watch the film, then watch the essay to learn more about the history of poverty in America.  It is insightful.

Steinbeck was a great author and finished the book in 5 months.  He said he wanted the reader to feel the slow grind of poverty.  Unfortunately like many, I only felt the grind in High School not the relevancy of the story.  Being a little older makes me appreciate that these stories were meant to inform about real times, and real hardships inflicted on and suffered by peoples from my own culture.