Found this great infographic over at ChangeThis.  Thanks to the folks at International Networks Archive.

Too much of the world lacks access to clean drinking water. Every minute, seven people die from bad water or no water.  It’s an unfortunate truth that as recent as 2003, over 1.3 billion people have no access to clean water.

Engineer Michael Pritchard decided to do something about this — inventing the portable Lifesaver filter, which can contaminated water drinkable in seconds.  Check out this amazing demo from TEDGlobal 2009.

This cutting-edge nanotechnology promises to revolutionize how we deliver aid to third world countries and those suffering from natural disasters.  Delivering the equipment for people to purify water already available in these stricken areas promises to be faster and cheaper than delivering bottled water.  What’s more, the bottle that Pritchard has designed will clean up to 1,000 gallons of water with a single filter.   An adult human drinks 64 oz. of water a day, which translates into 182.5 gallons a year.  A single bottle could provide a person with over five years of clean water!
 

But I think the most promise is in the 1.3 billion without access to clean drinking water on a regular basis.  Imagine the effects on general health of those who might now have a means to eliminate disease and sickness caused by this contaminated water.

Funny how meaningful messages cross your path in two’s.

Not more than a week after discovering Capt. Charles Moore TED video describing his discovery of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch (GPGP), I get a call from an engineer at Pepsi wanting to put together a program to recycle bottles in America’s schools.

Some background… the GPGP is an endless floating waste of plastic trash. Moore is drawing attention to the growing, choking problem of plastic debris in our seas.  You can watch his TED video here:

I think it is a brilliant idea to engage students in social issues, and using recycling as a teachable moment is a great pursuit.  Why not create a school-wide program that engages all subjects including:

• Science — study how plastic is made, where the raw materials come from, why it takes so long to break down, and what options exist out there to help reduce the plastic bottle’s impact on the environment.
• Math — you see it in the video… we are dealing with huge numbers here.  Have students put the number of plastic bottles thrown away each year into terms they understand — bottles per person, weight, time, etc. Use dimensional analysis to convert between units.
• English — challenge students to write an argument piece on why plastics are great.  Then make them turn around and write another piece on why plastics are awful.
• Social Studies — what is the social impact on garbage?  How does one balance the social impact of plastics (which everyone should recognize as a significant and valuable technological advancement… I don’t want it to seem like I’m harping on plastics too much) with the impact on the environment.

What other ideas are there for teaching students about smart use of our natural resources?  Chime in on our comments section.

I’ve got a beef with how feedback is done in the working world.

Our managers give feedback during reviews– if you’re lucky, quarterly. If you’re not, maybe yearly or less frequently.

And that’s about it.

Continuous feedback begets continuous improvement, but I’m not seeing any good ideas for how to get feedback into my hands. If creating a system for continuous feedback was easy, it would be out there by now. This system should allow for consistent feedback that is accurate and actionable.

From Y-Combinator:

Now that so much happens on computers connected to networks, it’s possible to measure things we may not have realized we could. And there are some big problems that may be soluble if we can measure more. The most important of all is the defining flaw of large organizations: you can’t tell who the most productive people are. A small company is measured directly by the market. But once an organization gets big enough that people on in the interior are protected from market forces, politics starts to rule, instead of performance. An improvement of even a few percent in the ability to measure what actually happens in large organizations would have a huge impact on the world economy, and a startup that enabled it would be entitled to a cut.

Here’s an idea: why not create a system like what Facebook has in place for ‘Like’ing a website that makes it as easy as clicking on a button. Instantly, this information is posted to my profile, and a counter adds total Likes on a site.

In a software company, one has the luxury of seeing what elegant code can do for you, and what problems crappy code can create. Let’s face it– there is plenty of both.

So why not create a system that rewards the former and identifies the latter. When I’m consulting with a customer and come across an elegant solution that helps a customer, let me give props to the developer and the hard work that went into it. Good documentation? Props to the writer. A process that removes roadblocks and cuts down on headaches? Props to the implementer.

And what about crappy code? Code that is narrow-sighted or that solves one problem only to create two others? That should get dinged.

Likewise, if I mismanage my time and miss a deadline, or develop code that breaks, ding me please. I like that kind of feedback, because it allows me to adjust.

This kind of thing is more than a social network. It is a social professional network. Call it a ‘sopro’ network for continuous feedback.

My wife and I just finished our taxes.  It was a hard pill to swallow knowing we weren’t going to get a refund this year.

What made it a bit easier, however, was the redesigned user interface for Taxcut.  I’ve used Taxcut every year since graduating from college and found each year to be an improvement over the last. This year’s Taxcut is particularly impressive.  They’ve simplified their helpers, refined their UI, and made it slightly more bearable to complete my tax forms.

Just for fun, I like to look at the actual 1040 alongside Taxcut’s worksheets. It helps me to appreciate the software for what it does — simplify a tangled mess of crap.  Look at the taxcode and try to understand which worksheets go with which forms, and what lines need to be filled out when.  It’s awful.

Take a look at what Alan Siegel had to say about poorly designed legal documents. I wonder what Alan would have to say about 1040’s.