After a long hiatus, links are back. Decided to add a bit more commentary to them.
Here are your random items of interest:
- Ehrhardt, South Carolina. The first drone casualty in the US. An activist group (from Shark -- SHowing Animals Respect and Kindness) brought a drone to the Broxton Bridge Plantation to document a live pigeon shoot. Given the potential of adverse publicity (both to the plantation and the participants), the pigeon shoot was cancelled. The activists decided to launch the drone anyway. When it gained altitude, it was shot down by some people hidden in the tree line (likely hunters disgruntled by the cancellation). $200-300 damage was done to the drone. Police were called.
- Disruption + Peak oil = extreme leverage. The Economist has an interesting bit of analysis on how oil/gas prices have impacted the US economy over the last 5 years. They found that summer spikes in gasoline prices have tanked the US economy in every year since 2008-2011. See inset.
Three things worth noting here.
a) This looks like a peak oil dynamic. Oil production is now steady state. The prices increases until if forces a decrease in economic activity, which drive prices down again (but not as far as it was).
b) Systems Disruption works. In a constrained market, even a little bit of oil disruption can have a big impact. MENDs attacks on Shell's facilities in 2008 led to a loss of 1 m barrels of production and drove prices to new highs, which forced an economic retreat that ignited the credit crisis.
c) The Economist's analyst concluded that prices over $3 will be less likely to tank the economy in the future. That's not a question. Here's an improvement on that analysis: Consider $3 as the new normal and that prices over $4 at the pump will drive the economy into reteat. - A simple first step towards resilience: Think Lasagna. (BTW, make sure you sign up for the e-mail delivery option, I don't want you to miss the report I'm cooking up).
- Alternet. 10 Rules for Radicals. Look at it as a sign that open source insurgency are going mainstream. I'm currently working on refining my Robb's Rules for Open Movements. Still cooking it, but it's pretty close. Gave a presentation on it in DC last week and the audience really loved it. Will put it out as an inexpensive e-book (to keep me writing/researching rather than building companies).
- BBC takes a tour of Genspace. One of the first community bio-hacking spaces. They have amazing digs in Brooklyn.