Repairing the rungs on the ladder [Article]

This Economist article paints a rather glum picture of meritocracy – or rather, the paradox of meritocracy. The apparent benefit of globalisation and all those other fancy nomenclatures, was that money would flow to merit, rather than connections, as it had in the past. What is happening, at least in America as this article states, is that the clever rich are turning themselves into an entrenched elitist.  Education is at the centre of this transformation.  No point spending your live to reach the top of the ladder, only to find it leaning against the wrong wall?

Printing food in space? [Article, Video]

3D-printing is all around us. This futuristic technology, that has been around over two decades, is only now showing up in the mainstream. Additive printing, as it is scientifically called, is explained in this educative 10 minute video, if you’ve not seen it yet (I expect not, since it has had only 743 views at the time I’m typing this). The applications of this technology are incredibly diverse – as this team at Cornell University demonstrates, but using it to “print” meals for astronauts.  Agree or not with the concept, 3D printing shops will be as ubiquitous as the corner “photocopying” shop used to be in my not so long past.

Drawing is Thinking [Book Review]

Alberto Cairo refers to the masterpiece book by Rudolf Arnheim, Visual Thinking, in a book review: 
Our entire educational system continues to be based on the study of words and numbers. In kindergarten, to be sure, our youngsters learn by seeing and handling handsome shapes, and invent their own shapes on paper or in clay by thinking through perceiving. But with the first grade or elementary school the senses begin to lose educational status. More and more the arts are considered as a training in agreeable skills, as entertainment and mental release. As the ruling disciplines stress more rigorously the study of words and numbers, their kinship with the arts is increasingly obscured, and the arts are reduced to a desirable supplement. (…) The arts are neglected because they are based on perception, and perception is disdained because it is not assumed to involve thought.

A secondary market in digital goods [News]

Like your Kindle? and all those e-books you’re reading on it?  What about reselling the e-book once you’ve read it? The company that amazed the world with its transformation from a bookseller to a technology leader has some other plans for the e-books it sells so cheaply. It intends to create an exclusive second-hand market for used e-books, according to a patent that it has recently been awarded. Nicholas Carr weighs in with his thoughts on the idea that pushes the envelope on the idea of “goods”. 

Facts, Truth & Stories in the _____ Era [Opinion Blog]

Data is not information, 
Information is not knowledge, 
Knowledge is not understanding, 
Understanding is not wisdom.  ~ Clifford Stoll

Electric cars are taking on the might of the gas-guzzlers. John Broder, a NYTimes journalist, says his car broke down, in his review in the NYTimes on Feb 8, 2013. Elon Musk, the Chairman of Tesla, rebutted Broder’s claims in a blog post, with vehicle log data, claiming that Broder set out with the intention to discredit the Tesla S.

Data should speak louder than opinions, you say?  Rebecca Greenfield, writing for the Atlantic, read Musk’s data in a very different light. NYTimes’s Public Editor, Margaret Sullivan, weighs in with her opinion of the way in which the case is unfolding.

David Weinberger explains why facts don’t work the way we want.