Category: Commentary

With virtually unlimited sunshine, Africa may need drones more than roads:

“We feel that if drones are going to be used to transport goods, the most logical place is Africa,” Simon Johnson, director of the Flying Donkey Challenge, told Quartz. “Not for humanitarian reasons. We’re not doing this because we feel bad for Africa. It’s just the perfect place to start. The fact is, there’s incredible growth happening there, but not a lot of infrastructure. Roads just can’t be built fast enough. So why not use flying robots instead?” Once developed, he says, he hopes the drones can be exported elsewhere, creating a new industry for the first countries to adopt their use. If a remote farm in Kenya can send fresh goods out on a drone, he says, a remote farm in the US could do the same.

I’m reminded of this, from the film “Looper”. Of anything in that film, it stands out. Mostly because the Time Travel subplot is a bit daft but also because it represents exactly the opposite of the urban dystopia that is painted throughout the movie. Why would anyone live in the city when you can seemingly exist outside the urban sprawl in the clean air?

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And then it make me think of this:

Any way you look at it, drones are coming.

£40 ($60) to change the face of journalism.

This is a crowd funding project. It needs 200 subscribers or the project fails. I’ve backed it for $100.

We don’t have investigative journalism that is brave enough to ask tough questions to scary people. As I write this, the wolves are circling around the civil servants in the Department of Health due to issues caused by busy A&E wards. Civil servants don’t fight back. This project is unafraid to ask tough questions to the scary people.

It is incumbent on people in business today to build the talent-pool of tomorrow. http://t.co/KdlIdIsTyF

— Simon Devonshire (@tallmanbusiness) March 14, 2014

It’s also incumbent for society (and I mean government) to provide an educated workshop.

Tony Benn, who died last night, wrote this:

I saw this earlier on Twitter and felt I had to challenge it.

Fav quote used by Maria Doran. Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work. #inspiringchange

— Naomi Long MP (@naomi_long) March 7, 2014

It’s perfect for twitter. A short soundbite that seems easy to embrace but you have consider both the context of it. Thomas Edison (the businessman and inventor) was not one to shirk opportunity, often turning the most arduous challenges into new ideas and products.

But it is not the late nineteenth century. And Edison was the equivalent of a millionaire by the time he was 35. I am a fan of many quotes attributed to Edison, but not this one.

The problem I have with this quote is that it says that lack of opportunity is due to laziness. It implies that if you are suffering from poverty and deprivation, then it’s because you haven’t really tried.

This is part of the cornerstone of right wing economic thinking and a politician should know better than to peddle right wing economic soundbites.

In the United States, the political language of the Right includes: anti-statism involving a general mistrust of government, individualism, support of equality of opportunity while rejecting equality of outcome, and populism.

While it might be true that, all things being equal, one who is industrious may succeed while another may fail due to their sloth; all things are never equal. And it behoves us to be human in our outlook, rather than grasping to soundbites.

Far from inspiring change, this encourages the downtrodden to accept their fate. Even though they may labour longer hours, caring for family, working for a wage that barely enables survival, they are expected to accept that their lack of prosperity is because they were too lazy to grasp the nettle of opportunity?

Absolute bullshit.

We have to look at equality of opportunity and examine whether our systems actually provide what we claim. And whether the forces of our society (which we maintain) are enabling every citizen to fulfil her or his potential. Their potential may not have economic return but it may have social and cultural returns that are much harder to measure.

But if we must grasp a soundbite, why not a contemporary, Nicola Tesla:

Every living being is an engine geared to the wheelwork of the universe. Though seemingly affected only by its immediate surrounding, the sphere of external influence extends to infinite distance.

My interpretation of this is simple: We cannot succeed in life while others lie in poverty. We cannot progress in society while others suffer from deprivation. If we continue to labour this way, we have to understand it is because we are stealing opportunity from others. And if we have stolen their opportunity can we really identify laziness in not exploiting that which they never had?

17 panels about "women in tech" at #SXSW — more than ever! But still out of 500 total. http://t.co/BNClyhX6pM

— Janet Paskin (@JPaskin) March 7, 2014

Thanks to Janet Paskin for pointing this out. It permits me to get something off my chest.

I’m sick of panels about women in tech. That’s 17 panels out of 500 talking about the problems women have in gaining acceptance and respect in our industry. Why is this still a thing? Why is it that the shape of your genitals are even an issue in tech? Why is it that 17 panels are talking about this issue and not about new markets, new trends, new entertainment?

Because some of our colleagues are ruining it for the rest of us.

Many geeks talk about our industry as if it is a meritocracy. How the tech industry is immune from the sexism (and other bigotry) that assaults the rest of the industry. Examples such as Marissa Mayer and Sheryl Sandberg are trotted out as examples of how women don’t have the same challenges. However, the trend seems to be that geeks are as riddled with prejudice and stereotypes as their neanderthal counterparts. Are we really that insecure to make life difficult for another human just because they are not like us? Have we really become “those people”?

We can accept that there are differences between men and women, no? Can we not celebrate these differences? Can we not exploit these differences to mutual advantage? Why does it have to be a problem?

If geeks treated everyone with respect there’d be no need for 17 panels out of 500 talking about women in tech. We’d all just be people. Some of the panels would be led by women and some by men. Some would be populated by women and some by men.

The comment by Janet above “More than ever” tells me that this is more of a problem than it used to be. It doesn’t tell me anything about representation or equality. It tells me that half of the population is getting pissed off and they’re not going to be silent about it any more.

So, take stock and wise the fuck up.

Country	Population	Area	GDP per capita
Netherlands	16.8 million	16,039 sq mi	$47,651
Scotland	5.3 million	30,414 sq mi	$44,378
NI	1.8 million	5,345 sq mi	$32,676
Estonia	1.3 million	17,413 sq mi	$22,351
Cyprus	1.1 million	3,572 sq mi	$26,389
Luxembourg	537 thousand	998 sq mi	$107,206