Sharing the Ascension Experience
Bob Kalk In the past year or so, there have been some important developments that have dramatically changed the startup landscape. First, entrepreneurs involved with startups have grown more sophisticated, experienced and creative about how they start, operate and finance a new business. These are people who have been earning their stripes and valuable experience working for … Read more
The National Science Foundation wants to take researchers’ big ideas from the laboratory to marketplace through a new program called Innovation Corps. The public-private partnership between NSF, the Kauffman Foundation, and the Deshpande Foundation will provide $50,000 grants to help scientists turn research into viable products, says NSF program manager Errol Arkilic. The grants are … Read more
Spanish debt has again been in the firing line on financial markets after a review for possible downgrade from credit rating agency Moody’s on Friday. It cited weak growth and hefty regional spending as key challenges for the euro zone’s fourth largest economy. Spain’s prime minister called early elections on Friday, gambling that a summer … Read more
The prime minister said his government had initiated three “revolutions”: First, by “changing the way we treat land that the government holds, [as] our aim is not to maximize profit on land, but rather the opposite, to cut the price of land”; second, by correcting a market failure and introducing housing for low-cost rent; and … Read more
In Somalia, the first shipment of food was delivered Wednesday to Mogadishu, the first shipment since the official declaration of a famine just over a week ago. But the U.N. said it cannot get aid to more than two million people who are unable to flee the country’s south – territories controlled by rebels linked … Read more
Masquerading in Conservative Garb by Robert H. Kalk for www.SchoolOfStatesmanship.org The professional politician has created an illusion for every situation. And for those constituents with an exaggerated sense of entitlement, privilege will always be made to seem like an open ended right. They have fully embraced a latter day “golden gimmick” to give themselves a … Read more
Ming Tang’s beautiful origami-inspired Folded Bamboo Houses are intended for use as temporary shelters in the aftermath of a disaster. These shelters are constructed from a variety of renewable materials and can be folded into structurally sound shapes. A system of bamboo poles are pre-assembled to form a rigid geometry thus allowing a range of … Read more
To rapidly create shelter from materials in the local supply chain consider the hexayurt. The simplest hexayurt will last for years in most climates and cost less than $100. Make a wall by putting six sheets of plywood on their sides in a hexagon. Cut six more sheets in half diagonally, and screw them together … Read more
As a practical matter, if you’re engaged in construction with wood, the adhesive you use only needs to be as strong as the lignin that holds the wood fibers together. Just about all of the commercially available glues exceed the strength of natural resins when properly used. Here is an overview of the most popular … Read more
An unfortunate mix of drought, failed harvests and rising food prices have brought severe food shortages to the east and the Horn of Africa. The severe food crisis is already affecting around 10 million people in parts of Kenya, Ethiopia, Djibouti and Somalia. Rains have failed over two seasons, with a strong La Niña event … Read more