Over Detroit Skies

My buddy Roey Rosenblith's first hand account of the attempted attack on Delta flight 253. Just glad he made it out alive.

"It's been less than two days since all of this has happened. We still have a lot to learn about who Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was and what made him into a human bomb. From what I know the story is particularly tragic, because on a continent where most people had so little he seemed to have so much. He made up an elite group of perhaps .1% of the population. Not only did he study abroad he studied to be an engineer. He could have come back to Nigeria and put his skills to use in a wide array of fields: agriculture, health, transportation, telecommunications, he could have created solutions that would help some of the poorest people on earth. Even if he didn't want to do that, with a wealthy family and well connected father, the world was his oyster. Why would he throw all that away to follow this horrific path? When he studied in England, what happened there to infuse this hatred into his heart?

I've spent the last five years of my life dedicated to engineering products that would help the world's poor. I wonder if I had ever had the opportunity to meet Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab and talk shop with, discuss the agro-processing devices and small solar lighting systems ... supply chains and accessing rural markets ... that he might have seen that at least this American was not his enemy. Or maybe it wouldn't have mattered at all; how can you reason with what is inherently unreasonable. I suppose that all we can do, all I can do, is not give up."

How do I know China wrecked the Copenhagen deal? I was in the room

Mark Lynas gives a fascinating account of the inner negotiations on the last day of Copenhagen. Many observers have criticized Obama for the failed talks, but Lynas puts the blame squarely on China.

"With the deal gutted, the heads of state session concluded with a final battle as the Chinese delegate insisted on removing the 1.5C target so beloved of the small island states and low-lying nations who have most to lose from rising seas. President Nasheed of the Maldives, supported by Brown, fought valiantly to save this crucial number. "How can you ask my country to go extinct?" demanded Nasheed. The Chinese delegate feigned great offence – and the number stayed, but surrounded by language which makes it all but meaningless. The deed was done."

"Copenhagen was much worse than just another bad deal, because it illustrated a profound shift in global geopolitics. This is fast becoming China's century, yet its leadership has displayed that multilateral environmental governance is not only not a priority, but is viewed as a hindrance to the new superpower's freedom of action. I left Copenhagen more despondent than I have felt in a long time. After all the hope and all the hype, the mobilisation of thousands, a wave of optimism crashed against the rock of global power politics, fell back, and drained away."

Read the Guardian article here (Thanks Kelvin!).

Facebook Memology: Top Status Trends of 2009

Facebook has tracked the top status trends in the year of 2009. Near the top, "Farmville" and"FML". And for some mysterious reason the word "yard" is being used twice as much in status updates this year than last year:

"This is a trend that nobody would have guessed. The word "yard" seems fairly uncommon, and indeed it barely breaches a rate of five mentions in every 10,000 status updates. When we compare 2009 to 2008, however, we see a huge increase. Have all the hipsters turned to yard work as the latest fad? Probably not. A more likely explanation is that hipsters' moms and dads are also on Facebook, and these folks have yards that require some tending."

Check out the Facebook article here.

Bus Tracking on the Cheap

Check out Matt's newest creation: a cheap bus tracking system. We're talking under $300/bus/yr. Let's hope the administration bites on this!

Fresh Funds for a Green Energy Start-up

Tioga Energy recently was profiled in NYT's Green Inc. blog -- they just recently received Series B funding of $20 M.

I'm just starting to realize the nuances of the solar energy value chain. Tioga Energy helps homeowners install solar systems at no up-front capital cost.

"Tioga designs, finances, installs and maintains solar photovoltaic systems for companies, institutions and municipalities. Its customers pay nothing for the systems. In exchange, Tioga gets to use their property to install solar PV systems and a contract to sell them the electricity produced for a set cost over a long period, typically 15 or 20 years."

"Tioga doesn’t actually install the cells itself. Rather, it works with small contractors for that purpose. Its expertise is creating pools of cash from banks like Wells Fargo and Morgan Stanley that can reap the tax credits and provide Tioga with stable, long-term financing for the projects."

There are several other players in the solar financing landscape. Similar financing approaches for residental solar systems are being taken by SunRun, SolarCity, SunEdison, and SunPower. All of these companies are taking advantage of a 30% federal investment tax credit on solar installations.

Search Engine as Answering Machine

IBM researches look at the "auto suggest" feature in Search Engines for interesting clues about their fellow web surfers:

"This labor-saving device — part fortuneteller, part shrink? — has opened a window into our collective soul. With millions of people pouring their hearts into this modern-day confessional, we get a direct, if mysterious, glimpse into the heads of our fellow Web surfers."

Here's the NYT article. Here are some of their findings:

Need to buy someone a christmas gift? Make this instead!

Check out this sweet instructable on how to make super simple and beautiful tile art.

Tracking Name Popularity Over Time

Check out this website with plots name popularity over time (Thanks Susan)!!

Tiger Woods, Person of the Year

America has been bamboozled by it's leaders this decade, argues Frank Rich, which has "left it mired in a sand trap with no obvious way out."

"If there’s been a consistent narrative to this year and every other in this decade, it’s that most of us, Bernanke included, have been so easily bamboozled. The men who played us for suckers, whether at Citigroup or Fannie Mae, at the White House or Ted Haggard’s megachurch, are the real movers and shakers of this century’s history so far. That’s why the obvious person of the year is Tiger Woods. His sham beatific image, questioned by almost no one until it collapsed, is nothing if not the farcical reductio ad absurdum of the decade’s flimflams, from the cancerous (the subprime mortgage) to the inane (balloon boy)."

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"The most lethal example, of course, were the two illusions marketed to us on the way to Iraq — that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and some link to Al Qaeda. That history has since been rewritten by Bush alumni, Democratic politicians who supported the Iraq invasion and some of the news media that purveyed the White House fictions (especially the television press, which rarely owned up to its failure as print journalists have). It was exclusively “bad intelligence,” we’re now told, that pushed us into the fiasco. But contradictions to that “bad intelligence” were in plain sight during the run-up to the war — even sometimes in the press. Yet we wanted to suspend disbelief. Much of the country, regardless of party, didn’t want to question its leaders, no matter how obviously they were hyping any misleading shred of intelligence that could fit their predetermined march to war. It’s the same impulse that kept many from questioning how Mark McGwire’s and Barry Bonds’s outlandishly cartoonish physiques could possibly be steroid-free."

The Myth of the Google Phone

Farhad Manjoo at Slate argues that the rumors of "the Google Phone" are just that, rumors. It wouldn't make strategic sense to develop a piece of hardware to compete with other Android phones:

"Google's platform independence isn't meant as altruism—it's good strategy. The company gets the vast bulk of its revenue from advertising. Thus Google has no business reason to care whether I got on the Web using an iPhone, a Droid, a BlackBerry, or a Windows 7 desktop—all it cares about is that I got on the Web at all and that I stay on the Web all day, every day."

Bull City Forward Advances 'Bold Vision'

Exciting stuff - I'm looking forward to seeing how this plays out. It's encouraging that the exec board draws from all the important players: Duke, NCCU, Durham gov't, Durham Tech, NC State, local business leaders, and local non-profits.

"Bull City Forward, an organization that will draw support from the city’s political, business and nonprofit sectors, will grow and support social entrepreneurs in a 30,000-square-foot “social innovation campus,” to be located downtown.

It will establish the Bull City as a national beacon for social innovation, Gergen and others said in recent interviews, in the way that Research Triangle Park put the region on the map for technology and research 50 years ago."

Check out the Herald-Sun article here.

Google Is in Talks to Buy Yelp

Google continues to get into local search:

In a sign that Google is interested in broadening its reach among local businesses, the search giant is in acquisition talks with Yelp, the review site for local businesses, according to three people with knowledge of the deal.

Read the New York Times article here.

"Annals Of Innovation - Who says big ideas are rare?"

Gladwell contrasts the innovation process of a lone genius vs. a well-working team of "smart people":

"A scientific genius is not a person who does what no one else can do; he or she is someone who does what it takes many others to do. The genius is not a unique source of insight; he is merely an efficient source of insight."

The article originally appeared in the New Yorker, but you can read it here.

K'Naan Wavin' Flag

My song of the month.

in ahmedabad

Hi All,

I’ve made it to Ahmedabad, India and have been settling in over the past few days. 

The flights were long and uneventful. I made sure to eat beef during each layover and drink the free beer on both international flights since I wouldn’t get a chance to do either for a while (Gujarat is a dry state). The funniest moment of the trip occured as we arrived at the terminal for our flight to Delhi in Amsterdam; everyone at the terminal was Indian. Jas remarked “well, we must be in the right place. Only Indians would go to India in the summer”.

Indeed the first thing I noticed about India was the heat. On our flight into Delhi, I kept a close eye on the “outside temperature” measure on the headrest TV in front of me. The temperature kept climbing and climbing, finally reaching 95. 95 isn’t bad normally, but we arrived at 1130 at night. My Dad told me yesterday over skype that the temperature on our first day here was nearly 110. Every moment outdoors (and most indoors as well) is accompanied by sweat and I have run through about half of my T-shirt supply. Local folks predict the monsoon season to arrive in about two weeks, earlier than normal, bringing some relief.

My initial feelings and reactions getting here were similar to when I arrived in Uganda last summer. In both cases I experienced a sensory overload from the new sights, pungent smells, hot temperature, and ever present city buzzing and beeping. In the taxi ride from the airport, both Jas and I stared out the window taking in the new environment. Maybe it was because we were tired, but I think when you get here after being in the States there is a short mental adjustment period where your mind is unconsciously shaking away the old comfort zone and attempting to adapt itself.  I think the conscious way I helped adjust myself to the new environment was by comparing everything to my experience last summer in Uganda. I’ve brought up Uganda about a billion times in conversation already.

So what is this new environment like? Ahmedabad is a congested, dusty, hot, dry city of about 5 million people. The city has a pungent odor of sweat and smoke (not as strong as Kampala’s odor, though) that is evident right when you get off the plane. The streets are crazy as there appear to be no traffic laws (very similar to Uganda last year). However, the roads (at least where I live and work) are really nice and relatively wide, although I am told that many of them crumble during the monsoon season due to flash flooding. Ahmedabad citizens have been very nice and friendly. I wish I spoke some Gujarti, the local language spoken in the State of Gujarat. I hope to pick a little up by the time I leave.

At night, Ahmedabad is totally dead. There is absolutely no nightlife here. Two days ago some of us went out to watch Barcelona upset Manchester United in the Champions League final, which we watched live from 12-2am. There was nary a soul on the road except for us and a couple of stray dogs, such stark contrast to the bustling daytime.

There’s tremendous economic disparity that is evident nearly everywhere I’ve been in Ahmedabad. It’s typical to walk by a small slum-like area and then quickly arrive at a very nice lunch spot. Below my apartment building, several young kids have been working each day digging trenches for new water line. I live and work in a nice area, where (I am told) a lot of middle-upper income people work and live, so I probably haven't gotten a well-rounded view.  I hope in the next week to venture out to some of the other parts of the city, including Old City

The food here has been so good. I’ve always loved India food in the States and the real deal hasn’t disappointed. I’ve enjoyed trying different things and learning about regional culinary differences. Gujarti food is known for its sweetness; sugar or sugar cane syrup is added to many of the spicy dishes to make a sweet and spicy combo. It’s also rich in vegetables; most Gujartis are vegetarian. The food here hasn’t been spicy, and I hope to travel to south India at some point where the food is prepared much hotter. My favorite dish so far has been the Punjabi Thali, a platter of food that is a combination of dishes indigenous to the state of Punjab, at a restaurant called HonesT (which we’ve been debating whether to pronounce as honest or honesty). The huge meal was only 75 rupees, about $1.50. 

so it begins

I think it really just hit me in the past couple of hours that I'm leaving, heading to the other side of the world.  It's that sort of anticipatory anxiety, the first-day-of school type of thing. I guess its just your body and mind recognizing that something big is about to happen that you are wholly not prepared for. It's a similar feeling that I had last summer before boarding my flight to Uganda. 

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So, it is the night before the big journey to Ahmadabad, India. I was lucky enough to get an opportunity this summer to work at Distributed World Power (www.dwpower.com) where I will be a summer engineering intern. I'm joined on the adventure by my buddy Jasdeep, who will also be working at DWP. DWP is developing off-grid energy generation products; my role (I believe) will be helping develop some of these technologies and testing them in the field. 

I'm new to travel blogging, so you will have to bear with me while I figure things out. I plan to post at least weekly and post pictures from my shiny new camera. I arrive in Ahmedabad Wednesday morning (Ahmedabad time) and should begin work this week.