Paul Graham, while rather far afield from his official expertise, makes a cogent observation as to why some conversations bear fruit while others disintegrate into chaos.
This music video by Sara McLaughlin is a few years old, but came up on Tim O'Reilly's Twitter Feed. A nice reminder along the lines of his theme of "Work on Stuff that Matters."
A positive look at the feasability of solving many of our large problems, national and international.
Tim and Shai talk about the economics and feasability of electric cars as compared to the status quo.
Terry Gross interviews Michael Pollan on the future of farming in America, spurred by his open letter to the next president of the united states. Among other things, they talk about the infeasability of continued use of so much oil in our food production, reintegration of plants and animals on farms, and the bizarre disincentives current federal farm policy causes among farmers which curb food diversity on farms.
Dr Ornish, with dramatic trial data in hand, talks about the body's incredible ability to heal itself when we treat it properly.
I didn't even know Athens had a smog issue. As mentioned, requiring emissions tests for older vehicles is a good first step (why not all vehicles?), but it would be better to find ways for citizens and visitors to drive less overall (compact communities, improved public transit).
Via the O'Reilly Radar. Clay discusses many of the concepts from his new book and explains why sitcoms are "cognitive heat sinks". transcript: http://www.shirky.com/herecomeseverybody/2008/04/looking-for-the-mouse.html
Saul tackles the challenge of climate change from an engineering point of view, and
shared how he calculated his own fair share of the planet's energy resources.
From the TED Summary: Accepting his 2008 TED Prize, author Dave Eggers asks the TED community to personally, creatively engage with local public schools. With spellbinding eagerness, he talks about how his 826 Valencia tutoring center inspired others around the world to open their own.
