A growing number of individuals are using their companies to directly benefit society while also making a profit. Many are innovating low-cost solutions to social and economic problems in the third world. For example, Sam Goldman and Ned Tozun of D.Light Design manufacture inexpensive lamps and sell them in communities that don’t have reliable electricity. Or take Tom Skazy who dropped out of Princeton to create Terracycle, which sells fertilizer and over 250 products made from 60 waste streams.
A globalised communication and financial network has given rise to a new kind of entrepreneur. Some call them impact investors, others prefer social entrepreneurs, but what they have in common is trying to empower people using market-based solutions. Popularised by Muhammad Yunus’s Grameen Bank, which was awarded the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize, social entrepreneurs take the view that risk brings reward, even on the smallest scales.
Read it at Forbes
Arts & Letters Daily – ideas, criticism, debate
Jackie Kennedy, a name synonymous with style and class. What a surprise, then, that her first instinct was for the popular, the kitsch, the second-rate... more
The connections between “itch” and “ouch” via Boing Boing by Maggie Koerth-Baker
Image: llama itch, a Creative Commons Attribution (2.0) image from davedehetre's photostream
The biology of itching and the biology of pain are intertwined in interesting ways, writes graduate student and science blogger Aatish Bhatia. Understanding itching can help us better understand how to treat pain. I’d not seen Bhatia’s blog before, but I’m really liking his style. He does a great job of breaking down the science in a clear way.
Via Greg Laden
Read Maggie’s post in full here
The Rise of Atlantis via How-To Geek by Asian Angel
In this game you set off on a campaign across ancient Mediterranean regions to acquire multiple artifacts in a quest for success.
Special Note: This flash version of the game allows you to play through three areas (Phoenicia, Babylon, and Egypt) of the overall campaign that is available in the full version. Even in its limited form it still provides a good amount of game play.
Asian Angel’s walk-through is here or you can go straight to the game thus:
The Rise of Atlantis (Webpage Version for all Browsers)
Install The Rise of Atlantis (Web App for Chromium-Based Browsers) [Note: wouldn’t load for me but I’m using my husband’s computer and he has all sorts of blocks on which I must not remove on pain of death.]
Arts & Letters Daily – ideas, criticism, debate
Social science is wrong: Crowds are not violent forces that submerge individuality and destroy rationality. In fact, they bring out the best in people... more
Exit Searcher: a game via How-To Geek by Asian Angel
Test your skills as an escape artist while trying to escape the rooms you are trapped in.
Asian Angel’s walk through is here or if you want to go straight to the game then do it here
My OH says: "Beware, this is highly addictive."
Kitchens, 1950s via HOW TO BE A RETRONAUT by Chris
Thank you to House Beautiful where you can see another 15 kitchens of the 50s together with links to kitchens of the following four decades.
If this is the 1950s style then I don't think I lived through it! I searched for something a bit more authentic and found an article from the Daily Mail which shows something a bit more recognisable to me as being “of the period”.
Arts & Letters Daily – ideas, criticism, debate
Aphrodite, goddess of...looting. Consider the journey of one classical statue, hidden in loose carrots, from Italy to Los Angeles and back... more
Does Shacking-Up Before Marriage Hurt the Bottom Line? via Big Think by Marina Adshade
When my sister married a man she had only known for nine months, seventeen-year-old me thought that was a bad idea. “Why not live together first?” I asked. Because, she explained, people who live together before they get married are less likely to have successful marriages. Ridiculous, I thought. Read More
Technology’s Exponential Progress via Big Think by Big Think Editors
Radical futurist Ray Kurzweil says the pace of innovation will only continue to accelerate because exponential evolution is built into the very nature of technology. He says that technological progress, from the discovery of fire through today's headlines, follows a …
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