Like Jelly Bean Recipes

Sometimes challenging podcasts are best consumed in unlikely little handfuls...

I got a little depressed the other day listening to Jeffrey Sachs LSE talk titled The Price of Civilization.  Bitter, but worth it.

Then I had a helping of About Time, which partly lifted the weight of Sachs' gloomy analysis.  Hmmn, better.

I added a Lean Start Up talk by Eric Ries for a taste of creative destruction and reflective leadership, which mixed with About Time to create a sense that there are many smart people with good ideas that can help us dig our way out of our current troubles.  Hopefully spicy.

Topping it all off with The Bodhisattva's Brain: Buddhism Naturalised, by Owen Flanagan left me feeling balanced and sufficiently suffonsified.  A smooth finish.

They don't look like they'd go good together, but they become something special once you start chewing.  Try it, you might like it.  Better yet, share your creative learning recipes with the Eclectic Breakfast. 

Seriously, someone make grass, dirt, and soap flavored jellybeans?  Yes, apparently they do...blech!

Image credit: Michelle Hume

Like a Mere Orange Peel on a Giant Orange of Metal

Mercury is a giant ball of iron...

The Messenger robot explorer has been orbiting the planet Mercury for a year now.  The innermost planet in our solar system looks a little like our moon on the outside, but looks are deceiving.  Under its thin crust Mercury is mostly iron.  Like most of my interest in astronomy, this doesn't affect day to day life here on planet Earth very much I suppose, but understanding the cosmos and our place in it is always a good thing.  That, and having a reserve of nerdy cocktail party trivia worthy of Cliff Claven can come in handy from time to time (or so I'm told).   

Image credit: Case Western University by way of Discover Magazine

From Your Lips To God's Ears

The business of security has shifted from protecting companies from risks, to being the new source of competitive advantage . . .

Phil Wood is the head of Security Studies at Buckinghamshire New University and a prolific blogger at bucks new uni security.  He reminded us of an excellent paper by Rachel Briggs and
Charlie Edwards published in 2006 by Demos titled The Business of Resilience: Corporate Security for the 21st Century.  If you want to participate in a paradigm shift that is badly needed in the security industry read this paper in detail.