Glenn Fleishman Interrogates the Past

The Soylents of the Lambs

Durable, long-lived, dehydrated full-meal replacement products have a significant place in the future of human life on this planet as war and global climate change produce huge migrations and displacements. The problem of potable water is hard enough, and will become more challenging as wet regions dry out or become arid for parts of a year. But it's possible to sanitize water for drinking and convert sea water to fresh. It's a technological challenge, but it's not physically impossible, and some parts of it have been solved.

Getting sufficient quantities of food to the right places on the globe at the right time that is pest-resistant, stable, nutritious, and not foul is vastly harder. While there are many variants in the world today, most relief projects and ongoing aid to refugee camps involves food components, like beans, often requiring some preparation, and which may be deficient for a minimal healthy

Conferences

It Takes a Hidden Village

I love Kevin Kelly's work and life, and had a great talk with him months ago for my podcast, The New Disruptors. But during his talk at the 2014 XOXO festival a week ago, I felt a distinct chill when, in describing his book Cool Tools, he said it was the work of two people over a few months, and then went on to note their use of Elance and other distributed work tools.

Tim Maly felt the same chill, and wrote a very interesting essay riffing on that and related issue: independent creators are dependent on the work of so many others, most of whom aren't afforded the same opportunities at advancement and independence. Tim followed the thread of labor down to the Chinese workers referenced in another talk by the creators of the NeoLucida; the two guys behind that project traveled to China and spent two weeks

Opinion

The Math of Dunn: One

Wading into a political, legal, and racial issue isn't usually my speed. But I wanted to write something briefly about the Michael Dunn trial because I feel like I'm seeing bad information and logic spread across the twittersphere.

Let's start with the obvious: African Americans have a hell of a time receiving proportionate justice when they are defendants, and non-blacks accused of crimes against black people have a vastly easier time avoiding proportionate punishment or any punishment at all. I am in full agreement, and the statistics back up the anecdotes. Black people are convicted and pled at higher rates under more severity than white defendants for the same crimes. Drug charges for urban drugs more likely to be used by blacks have much higher penalties than those more typically used by middle-class whites.

And the use of "loud music" in all the headlines about this case? Jordan Davis and