act:ualise | what we think

Michael Pollan, author of ‘Omnivores Dillemma‘ and ‘In Defense Of Food,’ on NPR discussing the reasons why the US must modify its food policies given the impact of food production has on climate change, national security, energy independence and healthcare.

Much has been made of Iceland’s economic demise and the stepping down of the then government leadership. Their dramatic and undignified end was widely reported, the male bankers and ministers all shown leaving in a flashbulb frenzy, scurrying back to their multi-million Krona homes. What a surprise then that little to no mention is made [...]

As a two week young initiate to Twitter and an erstwhile resister of the preceding social media wave - Facebook, MySpace, Bebo - I’m a long way off hyping (or hoping) that Twitter will change our lives or some such. Yet, this fast growing, highly emulsified blend of social hubbub and content is expanding – pulsing – at a stunning [...]

DailyBooth was launched this week, providing those with a love of looking into mirrors the means to catalog their daily look for time immemorial (or at least perhaps a couple of weeks). Users document their lives through a timeline of photos of their lives that they take and can share, originally as inspired by Youtube [...]

Last month, I referred to Michael Lewis and David Einhorn’s excellent New York Times article and mentioned my opinion that it’s utterly foolhardy to relax accounting regulations by dropping the mark-to-market standard. In this posting, Yves Smith gives a great explanation as to why dropping it is such a bad idea.

Piers Fawkes asked on the PSFK blog recently “is buying local considered protectionist?” It’s a current question given the softening of the protectionist language in  Obama’s stimulus package bill. And the answer is, yes, it is protectionist. Any action to restrict trade between nations (whether through buy-local requirements, tariffs, quotas or whatever else) is protectionist. But [...]