8 September 2010
Joe Klein: How Can a Democracy Solve Tough Problems?
What if there were a machine, a magical contraption that could take the process of making tough decisions in a democracy, shake it up, dramatize it and make it both credible and conclusive? As it happens, the ancient Athenians had one. It was called the kleroterion, and it worked something like a bingo-ball selector. Each citizen — free males only, of course — had an identity token; several hundred were picked randomly every day and delegated to make major decisions for the polis. But that couldn’t happen now, could it? Most of our decisions are too complicated and technical for mere civilians to make, aren’t they? (See the top 10 Obama backlash moments.)
Actually, the Chinese coastal district of Zeguo (pop. 120,000) has its very own kleroterion, which makes all its budget decisions. The technology has been updated: the kleroterion is a team led by Stanford professor James Fishkin. Each year, 175 people are scientifically selected to reflect the general population. They are polled once on the major decisions they’ll be facing. Then they are given a briefing on those issues, prepared by experts with conflicting views. Then they meet in small groups and come up with questions for the experts — issues they want further clarified. Then they meet together in plenary session to listen to the experts’ response and have a more general discussion. The process of small meetings and plenary is repeated once more. A final poll is taken, and the budget priorities of the assembly are made known and adopted by the local government. It takes three days to do this. The process has grown over five years, from a deliberation over public works (new sewage-treatment plants were favored over road-building) to the whole budget shebang. By most accounts it has succeeded brilliantly, even though the participants are not very sophisticated: 60% are farmers. The Chinese government is moving toward expanding it into other districts.
7 September 2010
Did you know the Japanese sent paper ‘Balloon Bombs’ into US airspace during WWII?
In 1944, during World War II, Japan launched a top secret project, nearly two years in the making, to send thousands of “balloon bombs” (called Fu-Go Weapons) to the United States. The goal of the attack was to create panic, forest fires, and show the United States that it could be attacked from afar.
Each of the more than 9,000 balloon bombs launched towards the United States, over the course of several months, carried a 15 kilogram bomb that would detach from the balloon and explode on impact with the ground.
6 September 2010
On Wikipedia, Cultural Patrimony, and Historiography details the fantastic project of James Bridle to document of history of corrections on Wikipedia for the entry on the Iraq War.
This particular book—or rather, set of books—is every edit made to a single Wikipedia article, The Iraq War, during the five years between the article’s inception in December 2004 and November 2009, a total of 12,000 changes and almost 7,000 pages.
It amounts to twelve volumes: the size of a single old-style encyclopaedia. It contains arguments over numbers, differences of opinion on relevance and political standpoints, and frequent moments when someone erases the whole thing and just writes “Saddam Hussein was a dickhead”.
3 September 2010
This Calendar Scarf counts down the days of the year as you unravel it. / via swissmiss
31 August 2010
My Parents Were Awesome is a blog of old photos of your awesome parents.
The Name Engine tells you how to pronounce the names of various public figures.
25 August 2010
Poolga showcases art and wallpapers for iPhone, iPad and other mobile devices created by selected illustrators and designers.
21 August 2010
Kerry Trueman: The Myth of the Rabid Locavore
Stephen Budiansky, self-proclaimed “liberal curmudgeon,” has stuffed together another flimsy, flammable straw man out of boilerplate anti-locavore rhetoric on the New York Times op-ed page, with the patronizing title Math Lessons For Locavores.
It’s a familiar formula: start by establishing yourself as the voice of reason by professing your own deep appreciation of the merits of locally grown food as evidenced by the bounty of your own back yard. Then, launch into a diatribe against a mythical army of dour, sour food mile nazis, including ‘celebrity chefs and mainstream environmental organizations,’ whose support for local farmers is based on wildly misguided and naive notions about curbing one’s carbon ‘foodprint.’
20 August 2010
Khan Academy is a non-profit organization headed by Salman Khan who wants to provide the entire world with a free, high quality education. Care to rekindle your love of calculus?
17 August 2010
Ryan Freitas offers 35 Lessons from his 35 Years
— Your reputation is more important than your paycheck, and your integrity is worth more than your career.
15 August 2010
No more vacation: How technology is stealing our lives
E-mail and smart phones were supposed to liberate us. So why does it feel like we never have any free time?
