Quotes

Sufjan Stevens has a brand new song so far heard only by his closest friends — and one lucky Brooklynite. Alec Duffy of the Hoi Polloi theater company was awarded exclusive rights to “The Lonely Man of Winter.” In an effort to combat the impersonal experience of internet-leaked tracks, Duffy is inviting fans to his home for a unique listening party, complete with tea and cookies. Three sessions (limited to four people) each Wednesday until Feburary 25. Email to reserve a spot, and bring your own headphones if you have good ones.

‘A puff a day might keep Alzheimer’s away, according to marijuana research by professor Gary Wenk and associate professor Yannic Marchalant of the Ohio State Department of Psychology. Wenk’s studies show that a low dosage in the morning of a certain canavanoid, a component in marijuana, reversed memory loss in older rats’ brains. In his study, an experimental group of old rats received a dosage, and a control group of rats did not. The old rats that received the drugs performed better on memory tests, and the drug slowed and prevented brain cell death.’ My fine university’s dollars at work!

LaidOffCamp is an ad-hoc gathering of unemployed & self-employed people (including entrepreneurs and startups) who want to share and interact with each other. LaidOffCamp SF is the first LaidOffCamp ever!

The Pioneers Sessions will be a mix of workshops, seminars, site visits and informal, off-the-record conversation. Following each conference, there will be a public celebration in both cities to engage a wider and diverse audience of all ages in thinking about the frontiers of active citizenship. Beyond the sessions in Amsterdam and New York City, Pioneers will continue their dialogue through a virtual network and participate in drafting a manifesto, a vision statement for their two cities, based upon insights drawn from their experiences during the sessions. This approach will guarantee a wider and sustained impact of the meetings beyond the individual participants. All expenses related to participation in the two Pioneers Sessions will be covered, including all expenses related to transatlantic travel to Amsterdam or New York City.

Although there are countless political Facebook groups in Egypt, many of which flare up and fall into disuse in a matter of days, the one with the most dynamic debates is that of the April 6 Youth Movement, a group of 70,000 mostly young and educated Egyptians, most of whom had never been involved with politics before joining the group. The movement is less than a year old; it formed more or less spontaneously on Facebook last spring around an effort to stage a general nationwide strike. Members coalesce around a few issues — free speech, economic stagnation and government nepotism — and they share their ideas for improving Egypt. But they do more than just chat: they have tried to organize street protests to free jailed journalists, and this month, hundreds of young people from the April 6 group participated in demonstrations about Gaza, some of which were coordinated on Facebook, and at least eight members of the group were detained by police.

The governor’s efforts to jump-start the budget process — by releasing his own spending plan early — seem to have generated little momentum, too. Some wonder if, months after the departure of his top aide Charles O’Byrne, who resigned after it was revealed he had failed to pay taxes, Mr. Paterson still does not have steady hands around him to help him lead.

The concept of open source is going to become an undercurrent to almost everything this administration does,” declared the OSI’s President Michael Tiemann. “The American concept of democracy is not just of the people and by the people but with the people.” He said we have already seen a commitment to this open philosophy throughout President Obama’s election campaign. “I think what we will see now is a maturation in America and around the world of an understanding of the open source model.” Errol Louis of the New York Daily News seemed to agree. He described Mr Obama as “our first open source President, a leader willing to let anybody and everybody figure out how, when and where they want to get involved.” He noted that the strategy popularised by computer software companies in giving away software to get others to improve on it has now been applied to politics. Indeed the new Change.gov website is said to be a portal for “interactive government” and “open source democracy.

Unlike other co-working spaces, you don’t rent space–you get a memebership. The idea behind the membership is that you get access to the space including conference rooms, the “library,” the cafe, events, networking, discounts at local merchants, and most of all the other members. The memberships are tiered depending on access to the space and range from common area access all the way to private four person offices.

When your middle name is ‘The’, it means you’re it. The only one. The one that defines the category. I think that focus is a choice, and that the result of appropriate focus is you earn the middle name.

The Institute for the Future (IFTF) is an independent, nonprofit research group with over 40 years of forecasting experience. The core of our work is identifying emerging trends and discontinuities that will transform global society and the global marketplace. We provide insights into business strategy, design process, innovation, and social dilemmas. Our research generates the foresight needed to create insights that lead to action. Our research spans a broad territory of deeply transformative trends, from health and health care to technology, the workplace, and human identity. The Institute for the Future is located in Palo Alto, CA.