“
Fascinating riff by +Paul Saffo at Singularity University about the future of nation states. “City states are the political units of the 21st century.” He seems to be channeling the same insights that +Jennifer Pahlkawas talking about at TEDx Philly, that mayors are the political figures who will matter.
Tim O’Reilly on Google+

The Big Short

 I just finished reading Michael Lewis’s “The Big Short”, about the 2008 financial crisis (and the fact that nothing’s changed, really). It’s an incredibly exciting book that describes with frightening clarity the combination of greed, corruption, and mediocrity behind the subprime loans instruments, and the multiplying effects of a highly globalized and connected world. 

Greed and corruption —that’s not news. But I enjoyed in particular the description of the level of mediocrity of everyone involved —and how they were paid to not think :

“What are the odds that people will make smart decisions about money if they don’t need to make smart decisions?”

The incentives have not changed, and so it’d be foolish to expect a different result in the coming years.

“

Maybe the best definition of “investing” is “gambling with the odds in your favor.” The people on the short side of the subprime mortgage market had gambled with the odds in their favor. The people on the other side—the entire financial system, essentially—had gambled with the odds against them. Up to this point, the story of the big short could not be simpler. What’s strange and complicated about it, however, is that pretty much all the important people on both sides of the gamble left the table rich. […]

The CEOs of every major Wall Street firm were also on the wrong end of the gamble. All of them, without exception, either ran their public corporations into bankruptcy or were saved from bankruptcy by the United States government. They all got rich, too.

Michael Lewis, “The Big Short”
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For example, while the Greek to kalon marks an appreciation of the perfect human form, of illumination both literal and figurative, and of abstract concepts such as those of mathematics, the Japanese wabi-sabi celebrates the earthy, the particular, and the imperfect. So both the exalted architecture of the Parthenon and the humble pottery of the Kizaemon tea bowl claim a place in our inventory of the beautiful.
Six Names of Beauty by https://findings.comSARTWELL. CRISPIN (via Findings.com)
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I truly believe that capitalism was created to help people live better lives, but sadly over the years it has lost its way a bit. The short-term focus on profit has driven most businesses to forget about the important long-term role they have in taking care of people and the planet.

(Only a bit?)

Richard Branson, quoted by The Guardian

Coming back

My experiment with Tumblr last year lasted barely two months. I started writing in February of 2010, and suddenly stopped in the middle of April when I was diagnosed with cancer —on April 28th, the day before I had surgery to remove my right kidney, the postings suddenly stopped. I remember the experience of writing and posting as very pleasurable, but my attention was completely diverted the the health issues, and I stopped having the time or the energies to write.

Today I happened to “stumble upon” my old Tumblr, and found so many interesting notes, and some many beautiful pictures of Teo, and of our lives last year. It made me quite nostalgic, for sure (Teo is now double the size, for one thing!), and it also made feel like writing again. Now that life has come back to normal, it’d be great to start taking notes of interesting things again and sharing my thoughts and our recent pictures.  I’ll do just that —there’s a lot of interesting things to share.

Great conversations this morning with @arpit, about the future of Twitter, about @jonhkestner ‘s work, and about “the slow web”

Visiting @ifttt in SFO next month. It’s currently focused on end-users, but this may be the next great piece of #internet #infrastructure

The great @anitalicis ‘s b-day tomorrow. Taking her to the @habib_koite show tonight at #umass (http://ow.ly/46gMe)