13 MAR 2015 by ideonexus
Phonetic Orthography in Spain and Italy
Fonetic spelling, in one form or another, has been,
and is now, used by progressiv teachers in England
and America as an introduction and an aid to the
study of the current orthografy. Their experience is
that children can spel correctly that is, fonetically
the words they ar able to pronounce, as soon as
they hav learnd the alfabet employd, and the principle
of combining letters into sillables.
In languages such as Italian and Spanish, that hav
approximately fonetic alfabets, appro...
1 There is a cost savings that comes with reducing the number of years spent teaching spelling.
03 JAN 2012 by ideonexus
All That Goes Into A Bottle of Root Beer
Ingredients:
molasses from the United States
anise from Spain
licorice from France
vanilla (bourbon) from Madagascar
cinnamon from Sri Lanka
cloves from Indonesia
wintergreen from China
pimento berry oil from Jamaica
balsam oil from Peru
And that’s just for a bottle of peacetime root beer. 1 
notes
notesIn a post-apocalyptic world, it becomes apparent how much we relied on world trade for the products we use every day.
01 JAN 2012 by ideonexus
Space Exploration Costs the Same as Exploring the World
The Solar System is much vaster than the Earth, but the speeds of our
spacecraft are, of course, much greater than the speeds of the sailing ships of the
fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The spacecraft trip from the Earth to the Moon
is faster than was the galleon trip from Spain to the Canary Islands. The voyage
from Earth to Mars will take as long as did the sailing time from England to North
America; the journey from Earth to the moons of Jupiter will require about the
same time as did t...Folksonomies: economics space exploration
Folksonomies: economics space exploration
1 Europe spent as much money proportionally to discover America as it would cost us to venture to Mars.
29 OCT 2011 by ideonexus
Government Maps the Terrain for Private Enterprise
There is fundamentally no business case for private enterprise to advance a space frontier. When you advance a frontier, you are making mistakes that the capital markets choose not to value. You have to create patents to enable things that you don't know will work. Anytime you are the first person to do something on that scale, the history of human civilization has demonstrated that the only funding available to do that via governance.
And so what then happens is the patents get issued. The ...Neil deGrasse Tyson explains how government explores and maps out the terrain before private enterprise comes along behind after the costs and risks have been determined.
12 MAR 2011 by ideonexus
How An Idea Makes Something Valuable
White people discovered the Galapagos Islands in 1535 when a Spanish ship came upon them after being blown off course by a storm. Nobody was living there, nor were remains of any human settlement ever found there.
This unlucky ship wished nothing more than to carry the Bishop of Panama to Peru, never losing sight of the South American coast. There was this storm which rudely hustled it westward, ever westward, where prevailing human opinion insisted there was only sea and more sea.
But when... 1 notes
notesVonnegut relates how the Galapagos Islands were worthless until Darwin's revolutionary idea made them a huge tourist attraction.
