Robert Paterson's Weblog

The Euro Bailout - Now you know it all - SELLLLLL!!!!

Apple and Google will mean the death of Broadcast TV - What is the response?

“a source very close to Apple” suggest that Apple has been working on the next version of the Apple TV. The goods according to them: it will be a very small box (smaller than the current one) with perhaps only outputs for power and TV-out cables. It will run on Apple’s new A4 chip (the one found in the iPad and soon the new iPhone).. It will still do 1080p video, but may have as little as 16GB of flash memory. That’s because the thing will be based around streaming over the cloud (or from other computers in your home) rather than local storage. Most significantly, it will run the iPhone OS.

Basically, it’s an “iPhone without a screen,” is how Engadget hears it. Oh — and it will cost only $99, supposedly.

via techcrunch.com

Looks likely that next week Apple will announce a new Apple TV - basically iPhone to drive our TV. War between Google and Apple will drive huge innovation.

So what then if your business is Conventional Appointment TV?

My bet is that within 2 years, Appointment TV will be over.

So what to do? Maybe first of all to understand this. For Public TV it means a Moon Shot Planning Process to get ready. Single stations cannot cope alone with this. Maybe it does not need all at the table but enough to build a new approach.

Content alone will not be enough either. Solving what truly is Public Service Media now becomes a compelling issue. How to be vital to your local community has to be more than being an online content supplier.

The crunch is in sight.

Posted via web from Rob's posterous

Linkedin - It's value as a place for Discourse

New immigration laws in Arizona ... should Missouri adopt them too?

Following the new immigration law that has led to calls to boycott her state, Arizona's governor has signed a bill banning ethnic studies classes in public schools that "promote resentment" of other racial groups.

Gov. Brewer's signature for this new bill comes less than a month after she approved a state law that requires immigrants to carry their registration documents at all times and allows police to question immigration status in the process of enforcing any other law.

Locally in St. Charles, there is a push to follow in Arizona's footsteps. In your experience, how would these laws impact the state of Missouri? Channel 9 and the St. Louis Beacon through our Public Insight Network would like to hear you insights on this topic. Please share: New immigration laws in Arizona ... should Missouri adopt them too?

Posted 6 days ago |

Comments (41)

via linkedin.com

No topic today arouses more heat than Immigration. At KETC (St Louis' Public TV Station) we have a project underway to explore Immigration and how it affects the nation. Before we go online, we have been looking at a number of places where we could get a feel for the pulse.

Sydney Meyer, went to Linkedin where she asked a St Louis Group this question. We have been a bit stunned by the reaction. There is a strong debate, as we did expect, but also it has been very civil - a real discourse.

Why, when the norm on the web is to find insult and screaming matches, is this debate so civil?

I think that the civility is related to the fact that there is no hiding on Linkedin. Your identity is central. So what you say is connected to you. This group in addition is located in St Louis. So the chances are that you may come across the other person.

Anonymity is held by many to be an ideal. I am not so sure.

I never considered Linkedin as a place for debate but now I am thinking that it may be a great place to talk about controversial issues.

What has been your experience?

Posted via web from Rob's posterous

How the world has changed - Spanking?

How the world has changed 

What Bullshit are we taking now?

 

How we got fat

We know better now don't we????? 

Seniors to outnumber children by 2021 - Why we cannot afford to waste one child

For the first time ever, senior citizens will outnumber children by 2021, according to new population projections from Statistics Canada.

The estimates, released Wednesday, indicate the population of over-65s will more than double, from 4.7 million in 2009 to between 9.9 million and 10.9 million by 2036. Seniors will surpass children aged 14 and under between 2015 and 2021.

“The ageing of the population is projected to accelerate rapidly, as the entire baby boom generation turns 65 [by 2036],” Statscan said in a release.

Canada’s changing age structure will affect many aspects of society, from health care to pensions. Indeed, Statistics Canada said the ratio of working-age people to seniors would decrease from five to one in 2009 to about 2.5 to one by 2036.

The national statistics agency said seniors would account for between 23 per cent to 25 per cent of the overall population by 2036, nearly double the 13.9 per cent recorded in 2009. As well, the proportion of the population aged 15 to 64 – the traditional work force – would decline from about 70 per cent to 60 per cent.

via theglobeandmail.com

Most of our children leave school with few social or work skills. They enter a society where there is little or no work for them. They are on track to remain dependent. Those that do leave school with social and work skills find too that there is little or no work for them. So they leave.

The looming crisis for PEI and for the Atlantic provinces that have the most skewed demographics is partly rooted in our education system but has deeper roots in the structure and nature of our economy.

PEI is like Greece. We have given up any part of a productive economy and offer only a Disney like tourism and the state.

We import all our food, our energy and goods. We export our wages, our taxes and our savings.

Add this demographic picture and we are bound to fail.

So what to do?

We have to create a real local economy that is rooted in local food and local energy. This creates real jobs for all. Creates real hope and aspiration that will itself change our education system. That will in turn shift most of our systems to local and real.

Food I think is the starting place. Here is where the work is and the capacity building that we will need to do other things. I see lots of good will and support here from all over the place. We are ready to try some experiments. School is a great place to start - school food - cooking - horticulture - community kitchens - parents. This will be fun and spark other things. All can be part of this.

Heating is another. A Biomass strategy is under way. This is a high employment high return idea. There is $200 millin on the table that we spend on oil to heat our homes. If we shift to heat all institutions this way, we will have built the capacity to do this for all. Schools are a great way to begin and two already are doing this.

School can be changed and we can be changed.

Posted via web from Rob's posterous

G8/G20 security bill to approach $1-billion

The Harper government is preparing to spend close to $1-billion on security for world leaders gathering in Ontario this summer – meetings in which one of the top items on the agenda is reining in state profligacy.

That price tag is more than 20 times the total reported cost for the April, 2009, G20 summit in Britain, with the government estimating a cost of $30-million, and seems much higher than security costs at previous summits – the Gleneagles G8 summit in Scotland, 2005, was reported to have spent $110-million on security, while the estimate for the 2008 G8 gathering in Japan was $381-million.

via theglobeandmail.com

I find all this security thing a mystery - why does this not come out of the budget of the RCMP etc - after all they are getting their wages paid - where does the extra money go?

Even if I am stupid and this simple minded idea is wrong - how can it be possible to spend this kind of money?

Posted via web from Rob's posterous

BP and Government - How the system works - And how we are screwed

Three years ago, the national laboratory then headed by Steven Chu received the bulk of a $500 million grant from the British oil giant BP to develop alternative energy sources through a new Energy Biosciences Institute.

Dr. Chu received the grant from BP’s chief scientist at the time, Steven E. Koonin, a fellow theoretical physicist whom Dr. Chu jocularly described as “my twin brother.” Dr. Koonin had selected the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory at the University of California, Berkeley, over other universities in the United States and Britain in part because of Dr. Chu’s pioneering work in alternative fuels.

Today, Dr. Chu is President Obama’s energy secretary, and he spent Tuesday in Houston working with BP officials to try to find a way to stop the unabated flow of oil from a ruptured well a mile beneath the Gulf of Mexico.

Dr. Koonin, who followed Dr. Chu to the Energy Department and now serves as under secretary of energy for science, is recused from all matters relating to the disaster because of his past ties to BP, said Stephanie Mueller, an Energy Department spokeswoman.

via nytimes.com

If this was only an isolated incident. The DOD is full of Generals. Ag is full of Ag execs. Financial regulation is full of bankers. This is how the game works.

The gamekeeper is a poacher.

Worse, the rules are watered down by our politicians who are also funded by the same people.

No wonder then that Big Oil or Big Defense milk the system.

I am not sure how we change this though. Reform itself is now impossible because they control the system as it is.

Bueller?

Posted via web from Rob's posterous

Sir Ken Robinson - TED - Education - Only a Revolution will do

I defy you not to be moved by KR.

In short he says we have to make the shift from a factory model to an organic model - but he says this a lot better than that. 

So how to do this? My big lesson at NPR was that it is too hard to try and change an entire system.

Best to find one or two vectors for change. I have found that a few stations and people will get it and they will discover the new and then spread it.

Big Ed makes public radio and TV look like child's play.

So here is what my evil plan is.

At 2.30 "School" is out and on PEI thousands of kids go to After School Programs. This is the "edge".

Could we not work to make the After School the Petrie Dish where we can find out how to make education a process  that draws out of each child their own unique dream? Could those of us with a passion for something help our children find theirs?

If we can then we can infect the kids and then the system. 

PS isn't he the best speaker you have ever heard? Step back and think about what is he really doing as he speaks - the Cicero of our time.