21 July 2010
india & politics — #
Rare footage of Mahatma Gandhi explaining the intention behind his movement
18 July 2010
culture & politics — #
This trailer for The Mirror (Lo Specchio) made me smile. [via Roger Ebert]
In the far northwest corner of Italy, in a quiet valley dominated by steep hills, is the tiny hamlet of Viganella. Its centuries old and mostly uninhabited. In the next fifteen years, the population of Viganella will dwindle from 100 to fewer than 30. For the inhabitants of this village, the empty stone houses point to a very real fear their town is dying and it may soon be a village of ruins.
The mayor of the town, Pierfranco Midali, knows this. So he’s going to try and realize an incredible, if crazy, dream – to revive Viganella by building a giant mirror on the mountain behind the village to reflect sunlight into the town square.
From November through to February, the town of Viganella is in permanent gloom. The mountains to the south block the low winter sun and for almost three months, there is no place in Viganella that gets any sunlight. Pierfranco is going to change this.
The Mirror is a documentary about bringing sunlight to a forgotten village and how this extraordinary idea affects the lives of the people in the village and the surrounding valley. Touching and whimsical, its about the light and the dark and the things in between a documentary film about some extraordinary people and their extraordinary dreams of light.
culture & politics — #
China pushing the envelope on science, and sometimes ethics
Centuries after it led the world in technological prowess — think gunpowder, irrigation and the printed word — China has barged back into the ranks of the great powers in science. With the brashness of a teenager, in some cases literally, China’s scientists and inventors are driving a resurgence in potentially world-changing research.
Unburdened by social and legal constraints common in the West, China’s trailblazing scientists are also pushing the limits of ethics and principle as they create a new — and to many, worrisome — Wild West in the Far East.
A decade ago, no one considered China a scientific competitor. Its best and brightest agreed and fled China in a massive brain drain to university research labs at Harvard, Stanford and MIT.
But over the past five years, Western-educated scientists and gutsy entrepreneurs have conducted a rearguard action, battling China’s hidebound bureaucracy to establish research institutes and companies. Those have lured home scores of Western-trained Chinese researchers dedicated to transforming the People’s Republic of China into a scientific superpower.
10 June 2010
culture & politics — #
Wouldn’t it be nice if Obama didn’t have to waste his time with the pleasantries of being a head of state… NYTimes’ Kristof: let’s anoint a king and queen for America / via BoingBoing
6 June 2010
politics — #
Next time you hear a pollster predicting an election outcome ahead of time, you may want to check Nate Silver’s ranking of just the accuracy that particular pollster
5 June 2010
business & politics — #
Before Oil Spill, It Was Unclear Who Was in Charge of Rig. Let me know when the state of offshore oil rig oversight starts to remind you of that we had—or rather, did not have and still don’t—over the financial sector.
24 May 2010
politics & technology — #
There was much speculation last election cycle but Nate Silver now has more evidence that Excluding Cellphones Introduces Statistically Significant Bias in Polls
23 May 2010
politics — #
Politicians are actors trapped in the same part, and some occasionally feel the need to punch up the script. They are salesmen engaged in the hard sell, and some occasionally get carried away.
politics & technology — #
Double Blind tells “the untold story of how British Intelligence infiltrated and undermined the IRA.”
china & politics — #
China Power is The Diplomat’s fascinating blog on all matters China. [via Nick Gilbert]