Peut-on guérir du M..?

Pour l’avoir fréquenté assidûment, j’ai assimilé le mktg — un des mots les plus laids du monde, autant éviter de l’écrire quand on peut — à une forme de cancer mondial. Il s’attaque d’abord aux productions des hommes, avant de contaminer leur état d’esprit: “ce que je pense se vendra-t-il?”

Mais le M-word a besoin de chair fraîche. D’autant plus qu’avec son efficacité décuplée, il est comme nous: il consomme tous les jours plus de matières premières. Trop de matières premières. La pénurie est proche. La pénurie est là?

A force de se payer sur la bête, il est en train de manquer d’air. Allons-nous mourir avec lui ou assister à la naissance d’un Maketing? “Make Ting”, comme motto, c’est déjà plus joyeux.

Make Ting, not war.

http://www.emergencemarketing.com/2007/12/17/the-devolved-cmo/

The long-term stupidity of global Hollywood

A globalization paradox to kick off the week:

In a Sunday New York Times story on the internationalization of
Hollywood’s business model, Brook Barnes observes that the focus on
global markets is affecting the content of made-in-the-U.S.A. blockbusters.

how the world does (not) work

The gloomy gospel according to George Soros

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Education Goes Online: 25 Free Online Education Resources

We learned on Friday that you can now select a YouTube-related course
through Pitzer College. But while a course about YouTube is surprising
to some, the web is actually a treasure trove of education-related
resources, including lots of video lectures, educational wikis and
podcasts. The key sites for modern, web-based learning are outlined
below - feel free to add more in the comments.

Un plastique biodégradable?

The quest for impermanence

In the mid-1990s, a certain mail-order computer retailer
announced that it was abandoning Styrofoam (polystyrene) packing
peanuts in its shipments and switching to environmentally friendly
cornstarch peanuts instead. The new filler material, they explained,
was not merely biodegradable, it would dissolve almost instantly in
water.

The Tao of Screen

In search of the distraction-free desktop.

By Jeffrey MacIntyre

If your computer desktop is anything like mine—and, brother, it
is—you’ve paved over every spare pixel in an iconistan of clutter.
Desktop design originated in a wistful visual metaphor,
the clean, still work surface, encouraging users to productive ends.
Leaps forward in computing horsepower and the rise of constant Internet
use has transformed the tabletop terra firma into a cockpit, an antic terminal
for the networked self. Our desktops are now a thick impasto of tabbed
windows, pull-down menus, dashboard widgets, and application alerts. No
possible distraction gets left behind, no link, feed, IM, twitter, or
poke unheeded.

It’s Time To Drink Toilet Water

Recycling sewage is safe and efficient, so why aren’t we doing it?

By Eilene Zimmerman

Officials in Orange County, Calif., will attend opening ceremonies
today for the world’s largest water-purification project, among the
first “toilet-to-tap” systems in America. The Groundwater Replenishment System
is designed to take sewage water straight from bathrooms in places like
Costa Mesa, Fullerton, and Newport Beach and—after an initial cleansing
treatment—send it through $490 million worth of pipes, filters, and
tanks for purification. The water then flows into lakes in nearby
Anaheim, where it seeps through clay, sand, and rock into aquifers in
the groundwater basin. Months later, it will travel back into the homes
of half a million Orange County residents, through their kitchen taps
and showerheads.

Do Pilots Practice Crash Landings?

A British Airways jet carrying 142 passengers and crew was forced to crash-land short of the runway at Heathrow Airport on Thursday night. Despite the fact that the plane had lost power and, according to eyewitnesses, dropped like a stone in the air, the pilot was able to land the Boeing 777 mostly intact. Slate readers asked several questions about this incident.

Soft Landing - Richard Heinberg responds

SO FAR THE three of us seem to be in general agreement. So let me propose an idea that may be controversial.

I
would suggest that it is time to make a distinction in the equity
discussion. With regard to ecological space (water and land), we should
aim for rough per-capita equity between and within nations, and for a
reduction of human population to fit Earth’s long-term carrying
capacity. With regard to fossil fuels, we should aim for equal rates of
reduction in consumption rather than equal rates of consumption.

The
desire for equity in access to ecological space is ethically
incontrovertible – even if its fulfilment seems remote in today’s
world. But the notion of equal decline rates for fossil-fuel
consumption is more problematic. Among climate activists, there are
strong calls for industrialised nations – which have profited
economically from using fossil fuels – to reduce coal, oil and gas
consumption much faster than less industrialised countries, which have
yet to benefit from fuel-based mechanisation.

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Quel est votre indice de consommation?

Façon inédite d’envisager le facteur humain. J’ai quand même un problème avec ce “facteur 32″. S’agit-il d’un chiffre moyen ou médian? Si c’est une moyenne, est-ce que ce raisonnement ne peut pas être étendu à l’intérieur même des pays développé (et dans ce cas-là, on n’est pas sorti de l’auberge)?

What’s Your Consumption Factor?

by JARED DIAMOND

Published: January 2, 2008

Los Angeles

TO mathematicians, 32 is an interesting number: it’s 2 raised to the
fifth power, 2 times 2 times 2 times 2 times 2. To economists, 32 is
even more special, because it measures the difference in lifestyles
between the first world and the developing world. The average rates at
which people consume resources like oil and metals, and produce wastes
like plastics and greenhouse gases, are about 32 times higher in North
America, Western Europe, Japan and Australia than they are in the
developing world. That factor of 32 has big consequences.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/02/opinion/02diamond.html?ex=1357016400&en=8d884753e0aaba6f&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink