FutureEverything awarded the 2010 prize to the EyeWriter
“The EyeWriter is a pair of low-cost eye-tracking glasses that allow artists and graffiti writers with paralysis to draw using only their eyes. Inspired by Tony Quan, a graffiti writer, social activist and publisher who was diagnosed with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (AML) in 2003, The EyeWriter is the result of a collaboration with five other artists and a production company. It is an ongoing project to empower people suffering from degenerative neuromuscular diseases with creative technologies.”
This is one of the coolest inventions I have seen all year, and I can’t wait till we can get one for my uncle. Check out the video below to see how it works, and watch the artist project graffiti art in real-time onto LA buildings from his bed.
Oh, and I guess there is some news about Healthcare today….I’ll let you check your facebook feeds for that though, I openly admit that I can offer no intelligent commentary on the matter.
Who would have guessed that vasectomies were a seasonal business. I used to work in retail where marketing campaigns tried to incorporate seasonal promotions, but I have to admit, it was surprising to hear that such a medical operation could be promoted in the same way. Offices are seeing an increase of 50% in appointments for the first week of March Madness!
It makes sense… its a perfect schedule the operation to maximizes recovery time (3 days on the couch) while giving an excuse to watch crucial daytime basketball and have a decent excuse to get time off work
Ten reasons for getting a Vasectomy during March Madness according to the advertisement. 1. Extended office hours during games 2. Continuous ESPN coverage in the lobby 3. FREE snacks while waiting 4. Office is less crowded than a sports bar 5. Complimentary recovery kid 6. Doctors orders – 3 days on the couch 7. Excuse to stay in bathrobe all day 8. Keep Austin Weird – not overpopulated 9. You’ll be ready to love in the post season 10. It’s HIP to get SNIPPED (wow)
This is probably the best execution of a marketing campaign in March Madness I have seen, next to the Pizza Hut/NCAA/Bookit I remember from 4th grade. I just hope March Madness is not the only reason some of these fans are going in to get snipped…
This will blow your mind. AIG, Bank of America, GE and other corporate giants sell bonds with a provision that allow investors to redeem a bond at face value if one of the investors dies. Guess what our financial genius’ started doing?
With prices as low as 50 cents to a dollar, investors are pairing up with terminally ill people to scoop up bonds at bargain prices, and holding on to them until the ill partner passes away. Returns of up to 200-300% are common. About $83 billion in outstanding bonds are being held with this “survivor” option, which was originally installed to encourage elderly people to invest in the market without fear of losing their money if they died.
Just another short-term manipulation of our markets that will probably have a worse effect on the overall economy than these people thought when they started abusing the system. When will we learn our lesson with all this nonsense? Not to mention, how informed are these terminally ill people about what is going on? Hopefully they got/are getting their cut.
I’ve held on to jasondmello.com for years, anticipating the day that the internet would allow apostrophe’s is URL addresses. Finally, in 2010, I have moved on, and now present to the world a my personal website that incorrectly spells my name, Jason D’Mello.
“I’m just an MBA living in LA” is the chorus for one of my new rap songs. This city has given me more than it has taken in the 2 years I have lived here, and I am really fascinated with the inner-city culture that I get a glimpse of when I leave my beach neighborhood and explore. Last week I taught my first high school class in a school in the Watts/Compton side of LA. I was given just a day’s notice, and really didn’t have time to worry about spending a day in an area with 49% of the people under the poverty line and recognized around the world (thanks to rap music) for their gang violence. By coincidence, I watched the movie “Dangerous Minds” the weekend before on TBS, and went into the experience with a willingness to teach a little karate or drop some Bob Dylan poetry like Ms. Pfeiffer.
As it turns out, Hollywood, the media, and Coolio had painted a picture of LA that I did not see that day. What I did see was a brand new school, well behaved 17-18 year olds who were creative, energetic, passionate, and motivated to succeed. They made the experience incredible for me, and really enlightened me on aspects of entrepreneurship that get missed in an MBA program. I am excited to work with them throughout the semester to help them win a national business plan writing competition.
Today NPR featured a story that shows entrepreneurship causing controversy in this very neighborhood. LA Gang Tours is a social enterprise that gives guided tours of the roughest parts of the city in a bus with former gang members. They charge $65 per ticket, and tourists are taken to places that they would normally not feel safe going to alone, but like me, have had a certain picture painted in their minds through the the entertainment industry. Their tours have been sold out the last 5 months, and they make several stops, including the LA County Jail, the birthplace of the Black Panthers, and the birthplace of the Crips gang. They stop at local businesses so that tourists can buy souvenirs, and supposedly donate a large portion of their profits back into the community to try to create new jobs, microfinancing loans, and other projects to help maintain a “cease-fire agreement” between the 3 major gangs in the area.
The founder, Alfred Lomas is a former gang member and has negotiated a deal with the gang leaders to keep gun free-zones for children to be safe in, and to keep the tourists safe on the trips. The goal is to inform outsiders about this culture, help the economic health of South Central Los Angeles, and strive for peace. Below is their explanation of how they keep tourists safe.
“5-10% of the gang population is responsible for 65-70% of all gang violence. LA GANG TOURS has access to the “5%,” those who have their fingers on the triggers. The participating gangs in the established gun fire free safety zones have agreed to allow LA GANG TOURS to operate in their areas, given our goals to hire their youth for employment opportunities and offer job and entrepreneurship training programs. LA GANG TOURS has predetermined routes and times that are honored by each of the participating and opposing gangs. Every effort has been made, from the time of day to departure locations, to ensure a safe, pleasant and enjoyable tour experience.”
This story fascinates me, but I am not surprised to hear that certain community members are in complete opposition to this venture. Some people view the tours as exploitation. They argue that they are reinforcing negative stereotypes of the area, and taking advantage of a group of people already going through hardships. I admit that I thought of it almost like a jungle safari tour from the marketing. However, after reading about the founder, I truly believe that this movement has positive intentions for the community, the tourists, and for peace in the area. Perhaps I will take a date on the tour in the upcoming months. Good idea?
In my last semester in the LMU MBA program, I was invited to be in an unique entrepreneurship class taught by the founder of Kinko’s, (Paul Orfalea) that is a mixture of MBA students and undergrads (including ridiculously smart freshman) – all committed to becoming entrepreneurs.
3 of the undergrads in the class are stirring up some buzz for a class project in another class, where they had to create a marketable product from an ordinary object (brown paper bag) What they’ve done is brilliant, combining social entrepreneurship, creativity, and an unusual guiness world record challenge. Basically, they are asking people to cut a brown paper bag into a paper doll (using a template from the website) that they can decorate, and mail it in with a dollar (or more) so that 20,000 paper dolls can be held together by a group of students in France. The dolls and the money will all be donated to Haiti for an orphanage.
“Donors are asked to create a paper doll, and then mail it along with a donation of $1 or more to the Lighthouse Charitable Foundation: 311 N. Robertson Blvd., Suite 151, Beverly Hills, CA 90211. www.linkedforhaiti.com”
Check out more info here – http://www.facebook.com/pages/Linked-For-Haiti/289098967272?ref=ts
A study of our European ancestors may propose that ancient cave women couldn’t resist the sex appeal of the innovators of their time.
Looking at genetic patterns in Europeans, scientists see evidence that women from hunter/gatherer societies left their men and started procreating with the innovative farmers of their day. Although it may be difficult to envision farmers as “innovators” amid our current society cluttered with self proclaimed social media guru’s, scientists who have technology to clone you, and engineers who can design gadgets that either can make our lives easier or miserable, ancient farmers spread a disruptive technology that changed the way people lived. They also probably really pissed off the hunters and gathers, who’s genes faded throughout the centuries following the loss of their lady friends.
Who are the “farmers” and “hunters and gatherer’s” of today’s society?
This week, I have taken up residence in a hotel in Venice because my apartment could not handle the powerful rains in Southern California, and leaked. I have heard several similar stories, which blows me away that in 2010 houses still can’t keep people dry from rain, especially in the entertainment capital of the world.
The leak has since been fixed, and I am moving back home today, however just received this alarming report of the weather that may be in store for us west coasters in the coming 3 weeks. This is a bit too intense for a midwestern boy who can handle snow and cold weather.
In one day this week, LA had a tornado warning, snow advisory (mountains) floods, mud slides, strong waves that closed beach piers down, and who knows what else. Wanted to share this weather report from a US Geological Survey, that says we are going to get a full season of rains in just a few days.
Currently, the strong El Nino is reaching its peak in the Eastern Pacific, and now finally appears to be exerting an influence on our weather. The strong jet has been apparent for quite some time out over the open water, but the persistent block had prevented it from reaching the coast. Now that the block has dissolved completely, a 200+ kt jet is barreling towards us. Multiple large and powerful storm systems are expected to slam into CA from the west and northwest over the coming two weeks, all riding this extremely powerful jet stream directly into the state. The jet will itself provide tremendous dynamic lift, in addition to directing numerous disturbances right at the state and supplying them with an ample oceanic moisture source. The jet will be at quite a low latitude over much of the Pacific, so these storms will be quite cold, at least initially. Very heavy rainfall and strong to potentially very strong winds will impact the lower elevations beginning late Sunday an d continuing through at least the following Sunday. This will be the case for the entire state, from (and south of) the Mexican border all the way up to Oregon. Above 3000-4000 feet, precipitation will be all snow, and since temperatures will be unusually cold for a precipitation event of this magnitude, a truly prodigious amount of snowfall is likely to occur in the mountains, possibly measured in the tens of feet in the Sierra after it’s all said and done.
But there’s a big and rather threatening caveat to that (discussed below). Individual storm events are going to be hard to time for at least few more days, since this jet is just about as powerful as they come (on this planet, anyway). Between this Sunday and the following Sunday, I expect categorical statewide rainfall totals in excess of 3-4 inches. That is likely to be a huge underestimate for most areas. Much of NorCal is likely to see 5-10 inches in the lowlands, with 10-20 inches in orographically-favored areas.[Such as these hills – rg]
This is where things get even more interesting, though. The models are virtually unanimous in “reloading” the powerful jet stream and forming an additional persistent kink 2000-3000 miles to our southwest after next Sunday. This is a truly ominous pattern, because it implies the potential for a strong Pineapple-type connection to develop. Indeed, the 12z GFS now shows copious warm rains falling between days 12 and 16 across the entire state. Normally, such as scenario out beyond day seven would be dubious at best. Since the models are in such truly remarkable agreement, however, and because of the extremely high potential impact of such an event, it’s worth mentioning now. Since there will be a massive volume of freshly-fallen snow (even at relatively low elevations between 3000-5000 feet), even a moderately warm storm event would cause very serious flooding. This situation will have to monitored closely. Even if the tropical connection does not develop, expected rains in the coming 7-10 days will likely be sufficient to cause flooding in and of themselves (even in spite of dry antecedent conditions).
In addition to very heavy precipitation, powerful winds may result from very steep pressure gradients associated with the large and deep low pressure centers expect ed to begin approaching the coast by early next week. Though it’s not clear at the moment just how powerful these winds may be, there is certainly the potential for a widespread damaging wind event at some point, and the high Sierra peaks are likely to see gusts in the 100-200 mph range (since the 200kt jet at 200-300 mb will essentially run directly into the mountains at some point). The details of this will have to be hashed out as the event(s) draw closer.
In short, the next 2-3 weeks (at least) are likely to be more active across California than any other 2-3 week period in recent memory. The potential exists for a dangerous flood scenario to arise at some point during this interval, especially with the possibility of a heavy rain-on-snow event during late week 2. In some parts of Southern California, a whole season’s worth of rain could fall over the course of 5-10 days. This is likely to be a rather memorable event. Stay tuned.
Samuel Y. Johnson Western Coastal and Marine Geology U.S. Geological Survey Pacific Science Center 400 Natural Bridges Drive Santa Cruz, CA 95060 (831) 427-4746 voice (831) 252-0812 cell
Times are certainly changing. Recent reports by the Pew Research Center indicate that more women are becoming sugar mama’s in our society. In the 60’s it was normal for a woman to be fired once they got married. In 2007, it was reported that 22% of women in the US made more money than their husbands. When looking at education of married couples, 53% of the couple had the same level of education, In 28% of the couples, the wives had higher education compared with 19% of the couples with men having more education.
I have never had a problem with the post office, but if I did, I would follow the example of these people in Florida, who had an interesting way of protesting their local post office being shut down.
Apparently, it is acceptable to mail coconuts without any packaging. It costs a little over $4 to do so, and is a nuisance for mailmen to handle. Thousands of coconuts were mailed to John Potter, the Postmaster General.
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