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Truly Great Ideas Trump Oil As a Worldwide Commodity * Open Thread

By Bronwyn's Harbor on November 22, 2009 at 10:38 PM in Current Affairs

Does the U.S. still have what it takes? What about repressive regimes? I caught this short, fascinating segment today on Fareed Zakaria’s CNN show, and think the ideas are cool, especially that of a 14-year-old girl. (Below the fold, find out more about the ideas and about “TED.”) These ideas come from the raucously democratic India — don’t you wonder if its democratic government has something to do with its people’s creativity, especially compared to some of India’s neighbors? I think so:

NEXT, see if you can answer Zakaria’s question of the week:

Do you think the US is still the world’s most innovative country?

Email us what you think and why at GPS@cnn.com

Video description:

“Fareed Zakaria notices a country with thriving innovation, where real world meets digital in interesting ways.” – CNN

And here’s the more detailed description at Zakaria’s own site:

This week, Fareed notices a country where innovation is thriving. Here, things like clay refrigerators are imagined and come to reality and the inventor of a hi-tech gadget – maybe the highest tech – recently returned to show off his remarkable innovation. Through this invention, the digital and real worlds meet. Imagine dialing your cell phone on your hand, playing a video game on a piece of paper — the future belongs to those who dream, with common objects. What ideas will they come up with next? Click here to see Fareed’s reflections on this innovation nation. More here: “sixthsense”

TED: The Future Beckons

TeakWoodKite

OT:

Abu Dhabi: Work on the proposed Qatar-Bahrain causeway project, tipped to be the world’s longest sea crossing, is likely to begin in the first quarter of 2010, a source familiar with the developments told reporters Sunday.”The consortium of six contractors which includes Vinci from France is negotiating with the management of the Qatar-Bahrain causeway for the final design and cost. It has to be accepted by the board of directors of the Qatar-Bahrain Causeway Foundation before the project can start,” William Nevel, Public Affairs Manager for Qatar-Bahrain Causeway Management, Kellogg, Brown & Root International (KBR), said.
TeakWoodKite

Microsoft may help News Corp. delist sites.

Maybe Rupert Murdoch was serious about wanting to go without Google.

Murdoch’s News Corp. has initiated discussions with Microsoft over a plan to have the media company’s content essentially delisted from the world’s largest search engine, according to a report in the Financial Times that cited a person familiar with the situation. Microsoft, which owns rival search engine Bing, has also reportedly approached media giants about having their content removed from Google search results as well.
Murdoch and other News Corp. execs have said that they intend to charge readers and viewers for access to the company’s content, forsaking the ad revenue model.

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Owllwoman

If you pay for people to sit on their butts and have the Gov. take care of them, they get lazy. Being poor gives people the initiative to dream and create if for no other reason then to make money.
jwrjr

Since America is “down the tubes” as a large-scale manufacturing country, all we have left is innovation and Service industry. Without the new ideas we are just another Third World country (sad to say).
lark

He he. Americans are proving they still got it in innovation. Private schools mostly as well as public schools can not figure out any more ways to waste students time with days off, time off for entertainment venues, and rest and leisure time off for anything that comes up under the sun. This week only will be two days of school, I think, in which virtually nothing will be taught. After all Thanksgiving weekend is at hand. After that is practice for the Christmas cantata and children are not in the mood for learning anything.

Give it to Americans. They are the most creative in wasting their children time and teachers taking it easy with the teaching. No teaching, no homework; no homework, little testing; little testing, little grading; and teachers have it made. Parents love it when their children don’t get homework because they don’t have to take time off their busy schedules to help out. They also love that their children don’t need to learn because then they don’t have to deal with the frustrations the difficulties of learning bring about in the them. Life is beautiful when no learning is going on. And so, India moves ahead and American children move backwards. Hurray! Hurray! Lets have more time off.
bayareavoter

It’s worse than time off for vacation.

Here in CA we’re witnessing the dismantling of one of the finest education systems in the world. The UC system, the state universities and the community colleges are laying off teachers, reducing pay, raising tuition, cutting back classes, reducing enrollment…

Shortsighted? There was a reason so many ideas hatched here in CA–an educated class of thinkers. What will the future hold?
lark

At noon Obama spoke on one of his pet projects: Education for Innovation.

He said when meeting with the Korean President he told him his biggest challenge was the impetus that learning English in elementary school was requiring.

I am only glad that Sesame Street is getting multimillion dollar grants to teach math and science. Kids will launch rockets, says Obama and then he viewed a child launch balls off of a little contraption. He he.

Obama said the millions will be spent to help children learn math and science. Millions to pay teachers.

I can quote verbatim what he said to students: “I do not want to let students of the hook.” and then said, “And parents need to” and stopped.

Millions to spend on teachers.

But not a word about ‘homework.’ Not a word about memorizing the multiplication tables or long division. Not a word for ‘Spanish as a second language.’ Just about millions for teachers.

And I am sure teachers will devise a few days for teaching and the rest for special outings to Epcot for a science study trip. And a few more days off for just having to endure a midterm test. I think teachers call them ‘grading days days off.’
lark

Teaching for Innovation: The Sesame Street way.