Month: March 2015

An Art Gallery for Destroyed and Stolen Art

- Adam Clare

The Museum of Stolen Art is an online museum that showcases artwork that has been destroyed or stolen in conflict. The new museum couldn’t exist at a better time as ISIS destroys sites of great importance to humanity, and before them the Taliban in Afghanistan destroyed a lot of ancient sites. War always brings destruction and the invasion of Iraq over a decade ago also saw many works of art destroyed or go missing.

By showcasing the missing works we can still enjoy them digitally and hopefully it sends one more message about how evil war is.

The third exhibit to launch the museum “celebrates” some of art history’s most infamous stolen paintings, including Rembrandt’s The Storm on the Sea of Galilee, Vermeer’s The Concert, and many of the works lifted during a 1990 spree at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston. While taking a digital stroll through the museum, patrons can access an audio guide to learn more about the history of the pieces. As Schneider’s website states “The goals of the museum are to give visibility to art that is otherwise impossible to see on a museum wall, and also to familiarize the public with stolen items in order to assist in the their recovery.” Schneider hopes that this tool will eventually be used as a supplementary database for organizations like the FBI and Interpol in fighting art crime. The images on her site are often culled from their vast web archives, and, as the digital docent at the Museum says on the site, “If you see any of these works in real life, please report it to the International Police.”

Read more.

WorldFuture Conference 2015

- Adam Clare

If you’re in San Francisco this July you’re going to want to check out the conference of the future: the WorldFuture Conference. They’ll be looking at future-critical issues (many of this issues are what this very site looks at) and be discussing how to prepare for what the future holds.

If we’re not thinking about how our current actions will impact the world in the future we are not giving enough thought to our actions. Think and act about the future people you’ll never meet.

WorldFuture 2015: Making the Future is expected to gather hundreds of foresight-minded professionals of diverse backgrounds. It will provide participants a unique opportunity to network with industry and government peers from around the world, collect actionable insight on future-critical issues and emerging technologies, and build alliances across World Future 2015’s three conference tracks: the Business of Foresight, Global Issues, and Technology & Innovation.

In keeping with our action-oriented theme, we are pleased to announce that Steve Jurvetson, a partner at Draper Fisher Jurvetson will be the WorldFuture 2015 keynote speaker. Known as venture capitalist making the future, Steve was the founding VC investor in Hotmail, Interwoven and Kana, and he serves on the Boards of Tesla and SpaceX. Steve was chosen by the SF Chronicle and SF Examiner as one of “the ten people expected to have the greatest impact on the Bay Area in the early part of the 21st Century.”

In addition to two high energy days of interactive sessions, WorldFuture 2015 will also offer two days of pre-conference master courses, a Millennials’ morning of activities for student futurists, special networking events, and offsite trips to relevant area attractions.

Check out WorldFuture 2015.

Focus Less on Work to Improve Everything – Even Your Job

- Adam Clare

Stressed about not getting enough done at work? Don’t be. It turns out that you can improve how much you get things done at the office by not thinking about it. Turn your attention elsewhere and focus on things that do matter instead.

But, how can performance at work improve with less attention paid to it? There are several reasons:

  • Clearer focus on results that really matter to the people around you.
  • Less wasted effort on activities that aren’t that important.
  • Reduced psychological interference across domains as a result of being less distracted, because you’re taking care of critical needs in those other parts.
  • A virtuous cycle of benefits from one part of your life spilling over to other parts; for example, greater confidence, less crankiness, and a stronger sense of control.

Read more.

Cognitive Behavioural Therapy Can Help Patients Cope with Schizophrenia

- Adam Clare 1 Comment

Cognitive behavioural therapy can be used by people dealing with schizophrenia to improve their lives. Just six sessions of the therapy can help people deal with worry which can lead to schizophrenic episodes or even be used to help people who are at risk of developing schizophrenia.

Six sessions of cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) focused upon reducing worry reduced the severity of persecutory delusions, the researchers found.

The patients were much happier and less fearful of other people after therapy. These effects lasted at least six months.

A study participant commented, ‘The breakthrough was that I was able to, with the help of my psychologist, come up with a strategy – that is, when worry is gripping me I would say ‘Excuse me worry, I need to interrupt you because…’. I sometime worry about people trying to harm me but now I can interrupt my worry and do something else’.

Read more.

Greenlid: An Easy Solution for Your Green Bin

- Adam Clare

The “dragons” on CBC’s show Dragons’ Den the investors funded a new product called Greenlid. Greenlid is a contraption that makes it easier to deal with household composting and waste diversion projects. In parts of Canada it is known as a “green bin” program.

With most waste diversion programs it’s hard to get 100% success so hopefully the Greenlid will make it easier for people to be a part of the earth-saving green bin programs (or similar )

Constructed from end-of-life recycled cardboard and newsprint, The Greenlid is scientifically designed to make composting easier and cleaner by using a proprietary leak resistant formula that mimics natural water-repelling structures found in nature. As a result, The Greenlid can hold four litres of the wettest organics and remain leak resistant for up to 10 days while remaining an attractive addition to your kitchen. A re-useable, dishwasher safe lids keeps smells locked away while The Greenlid is in use. When placed in municipal compost facilities or home compost, The Greenlid quickly breaks down, adding to the overall eco-friendly nature of the product and quality of the compost, which eventually becomes useable soil.

Read more.
@the_greenlid

Scroll To Top