17 MAY 2013 by ideonexus

 Kodak, Instagram, and Automation

Here’s a current example of the challenge we face... At the height of its power, the photography company Kodak employed more than 140,000 people and was worth $28 billion. They even invented the first digital camera. But today Kodak is bankrupt, and the new face of digital photography has become Instagram. When Instagram was sold to Facebook for a billion dollars in 2012, it employed only 13 people. Where did all those jobs disappear? And what happened to the wealth that all those middle-clas...
Folksonomies: automation unemployment
Folksonomies: automation unemployment
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A cautionary tale of how automation is running people out of employment.

18 JAN 2013 by ideonexus

 The Story of How the Universe's Size was Determined

It was into this fiery climate of the 1920s that the Protestant-raised Hubble, adorned with the cape, cane, and British accent he had adopted while at Oxford, returned after the war. He arrived at the Carnegie Institution of Washington-funded Mount Wilson Observatory outside Pasadena, California, insisting on being called "Major Hubble."^'' Looking through the great Hooker telescope—at one hundred and one inches in diameter and weighing more than one hundred tons it was by far the largest and...
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Includes a cautionary tale of Shapely, who helped prove the Sun was not the center of the Universe, but who thought the Milky Way was all the Universe there was without empirical data.

29 NOV 2011 by ideonexus

 "Romeo & Juliet" Was Not About True Love

TO BE FAIR WE MISTAKE INFATUATION FOR LOVE ALL THE TIME. EVEN AS ADULTS. WHY THE MOST MISUNDERSTOOD WORK OF LITERATURE OF ALL TIME IS WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE'S ROMEO & JULIET. TO THIS DAY, IT IS SPUN INTO SOME SORT OF CAUTIONARY TALE TO PARENTS AND SOCIETY NOT TO STAND IN THE WAY OF TRUE LOVE FOR THEIR RIDICULOUS PREJUDICES! AND WHILE IT IS CERTAINLY THAT, IT IS ALSO AND COMPLETE AND UTTER INDICTMENT OF THE STUPIDITY OF INFATUATION. THEY'RE LIKE TWO FOURTEEN YEAR OLDS WHO LOVE EACH OTHER AT F...
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It was about the dangers of infatuation.