Portfolio Life .net

As I headed out for something to eat, I pickup a book I’ve meant to read for some time…. Titled The Shelter of Each Other by Mary Pipher. Its ten years old but the topic is current.

Her family story is similar to mine, folks having grown up in farm communities then raising kids in the new world of suburbs and not knowing the neighbors.

Actually, while I grew up, we knew the neighbors, but then…

more on where this goes later…. Safe to say her phrase “Thirsty in the Rain” is a key turning point in perspective. And her linking family to the Sioux word, tiospaye, is key. It is the bridge to the families all kids need to know to grow up well and alive to possibility.

tiospaye means the people with whom one lives… and means more than a nuclear family.

One of the curious things is how the science, the math, behind products gets buried in the brochure. Good idea? Apparently.

Company’s platform: Support for tired feet:

“Desert and beach dwellers love their flip-flops, but flip-flops don’t always love folks with sore feet.”…

In the late 1990s, an orthotics manufacturer Fox knew in California asked him to market its new product.

The company had taken a database of thousands of foot measurements and distilled it to 73 sizes and three levels of rigidity to match most people’s feet. What had been expensive, custom-made products became a “footbed” that sold for around $50….

(Via azcentral.com | business.)

Still cool to learn the concept.

Kevin Gunn posts: US National Debt: How Big? How Bad?:

“I mentioned the immense size of the US Publicly Held National Debt in my last post. In this one, I look at how big and bad the situation really is by looking at it in terms of family finances.

First, let’s get the numbers: the US Treasury Debt to the Penny page is a good choice.

The numbers there at the time I’m writing this are:

Debt held by the public: $5,148,614,528,726.80
Intragovernmental holdings: $4,093,512,047,766.70
Total public debt outstanding: $9,242,126,576,493.50….

Now, on to the family finance analogy. Let’s look at the financial status of our dear old uncle. Let’s call him ‘Sam’….

OK, pretend Uncle Sam is the head of a family with a household income of $75,000 per year. Scaling all those numbers down to family-sized numbers, Uncle Sam:”…

(Via HealthyWealthyHappyWise.)

Just the written out debt numbers are troubling but Kevin shows it in family bite sizes. Then you worry. Check his post out.
Then we find This Is Not Our Bubble

Weekly Wrapup, 4-8 Feb 2008: “This Is Not Our Bubble

Back in early October Bernard Lunn posted about coming economic storms and what entrepreneurs could do to prepare. Given recent news, it is now almost certain that we are in recession. The bad news from financial institutions and credit markets is like a steady drumbeat, so it would be easy to write about ‘battening down the hatches’ or even jumping for the lifeboats.

Far from it, wrote Bernard. These are great times for entrepreneurs. Really. This is not our bubble. We had our bubble and it burst in March 2000.

SEE MORE WEB TRENDS COVERAGE IN OUR TRENDS CATEGORY”

(Via Read/WriteWeb.)

Sounds overly optimistic but there is some truth in there. Entrepreneurs should look at the international opportunities this downturn offers them - in a word, exports are in.

Seemingly unrelated (but not): Weekly Wrapup, 4-8 Feb 2008: “Web 3.0: Is It About Personalization?

On the UK’s Guardian newspaper site today, writer Jemina Kiss suggested that Web 3.0 will be about recommendation. ‘If web 2.0 could be summarized as interaction, web 3.0 must be about recommendation and personalization,’ she wrote. Using Last.fm and Facebook’s Beacon as an example, Kiss painted a picture of a web where personalized recommendation services can feed us information on new music, new products, and where to eat. It’s a marketers dream and it’s really not far off from the definitions we’ve come up with in the past here on ReadWriteWeb.”…

ReadWriteWeb contributor Sramana Mitra… “In Web 3.0, I predict, we are going to start seeing roll-ups. We will see a trunk that emerges from the Context, be it film (Netflix), music (iTunes), cooking / food, working women, single parents, … and assembles the Web 3.0 formula that addresses the whole set of needs of a consumer in that Context.” Or in other words, web 3.0 will be about feeding you the information that you want, when you want it (in the proper context)….

(Via Read/WriteWeb.)

So, now, build your electronic world to help you survive in the real world.

Been noodling on Business Intelligence software and impact on business rules…how the team thinks, who gets to participate.

Ran across this presentation. 

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A friend sent me the link to Windbelt, Cheap Generator Alternative, Set to Power Third World

This connects to recent advances in LED manufacture. More on that later.

meanwhile, googling led me to a couple of others commenting on the WindBelt

Windbelt Micro-wind, 10 Times Cheaper Wind Energy!!

Wind Belt - Cheap Renewable Energy at Sustainable Design Update

and at scribemedia.org