This Gaming Life

This Gaming Life: Travels in Three Cities by Jim Rossignol is an inspiring book + Jim provides excellent insights into gaming history and culture + the impact.

Useful link:
http://rossignol.cream.org

BPP And Paying Bus Drivers in HK

Chaim Even Zohar writes about the guilty verdict against Tse Sui-luen, founder of the listed Tse Sui Luen Jewellery (TSL) empire, and four others, for paying illegal commissions to travel agencies, bus drivers and tour guides to ensure a flow of customers to the company's showrooms + DTC's Best Practice Principles (BPP)/pros and cons + other viewpoints @ http://www.idexonline.com/portal_FullEditorial.asp

I think Chaim Even Zohar was spot on.

Philips + Swarovski Designs

Philips + Swarovski = USB memory keys + Earphones = Multifunctional (designed by women, for women).

Useful links:
www.active-crystals.com
www.consumer.philips.com
www.swarovskisparkles.com

Beautiful designs. I liked it.

Color Specialist + Trend Predictor

Leatrice Eiseman is a color specialist + trend predictor who has been called America’s color guru. She is the author of Colors For Your Every Mood + Pantone Guide to Communicating With Color + More Alive With Color + Color Answer Book.

Useful link:
www.colorexpert.com

Carbon Footprints

(via Wired) The Brookings Institute has released a new 80-page report detailing the carbon footprints of the residents of the 100 largest metropolitan areas in the United States.

Useful link:
www.brookings.edu

I think the findings by the Brookings Institute was informative, educational and insightful. My view is as we gain better access to data and models, local and state governments worldwide should make decisions that will build the cleanest, most livable, most energy efficient cities.

Heard On The Street

The world I’m looking at is filled with inconveniences, and inconsistency about prices. People should be looking at diamond prices and questioning them. We are at the beginning of a real roller-coaster ride. If Rapaport’s increase of 25% is frightening, I’m sorry but that is the world we are living in. If gold can go to $1,000, then hit $880, the same thing can happen to diamond prices. That’s why I’m asking people: Please, don’t speculate. The prices on the Rapaport list are the opinon of Martin Rapaport.

- Martin Rapaport

The Winelands Of Britain

The Winelands of Britain: Past, Present and Prospective by Richard C. Selley is an interesting book on the potential of vineyards in Britain, today and in the future.

Useful links:
www.winelandsofbritain.co.uk
http://www3.imperial.ac.uk/climatechange

Gustav Klimt

(via Wiki) Gustav Klimt was an Austrian Symbolist painter and one of the most prominent members of the Vienna Art Nouveau (Vienna Secession) movement. His major works include paintings, murals, sketches, and other art objects, many of which are on display in the Vienna Secession gallery. Klimt's primary subject was the female body, and his works are marked by a frank eroticism--nowhere is this more apparent than in his numerous drawings in pencil.

Gustav Klimt's art works will be exhibited at Tate Liverpool, May 30-August 31, 2008.
www.tate.org.uk/liverpool

Useful links:
www.expo-klimt.com
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gustav_Klimt

Alternate-Reality Gaming

(via Wiki) Jane McGonigal is a noted game designer and games researcher, specializing in pervasive gaming and alternate reality games. She worked with alternate reality game design company 42 Entertainment from 2004 to 2006, on projects including I Love Bees (2004) as Community Lead/Puzzle Designer, and Last Call Poker (2005) as Live Events Lead. Additionally, she has collaborated on commissioned games for the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. In recent years, McGonigal has grown especially interested in the way that massively multiplayer online gaming generates collective intelligence, and interested in the way that the collective intelligences thus generated can be utilized as a means of improving the world, either by improving the quality of human life or by working towards the solution of social ills. She has expressed a desire that gaming should be moving 'towards Nobel Prizes.' These ideas informed her collaboration in World Without Oil (2007), a simulation designed to brainstorm (and potentially avert) the challenges of a post-peak oil future. Most recently, she has served as the director for The Lost Rin, an alternate reality game sponsored by McDonald's and designed as a tie-in to the 2008 Summer Olympics. She received her PhD in Performance Studies from the University of California, Berkeley in August 2006, and currently teaches at the San Francisco Art Institute and the University of California, Berkeley. She is also a Research Affiliate to the Institute for the Future.

Jane McGonigal's talk at the 2008 New Yorker Conference, 'Stories from the Near Future' was inspiring and educational. http://www.newyorker.com/online/video/conference/2008/mcgonigal

Useful links:
www.avantgame.com
www.iftf.org

The Power Of Imaginative Mind

Sir Ken Robinson's remarks on April 10, 2008, at the Apple Education Leadership Summit, was brilliant. Robinson is the author of Out of Our Minds: Learning to Be Creative.

Useful links:
www.edutopia.org
www.sirkenrobinson.com

Work/Life Integration Project

Stewart Friedman, founding director of Wharton's Leadership Program + the Work/Life Integration Project describes the four domains of people's lives -- work, home, community and self -- and what individuals can do to integrate these domains and improve their leadership skills at any stage in their careers @ http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/1970.cfm

Useful link:
www.totalleadership.org

Brilliant!

Interactive Marketing

Ad:tech is the #1 source for interactive marketing. Rajesh Jain has written an interesting note on the complex landscape of online advertising @ http://emergic.org

Useful link:
www.ad-tech.com

Random Thoughts

There is no such thing as the perfect business idea. There are good ideas that reward effort. There are ideas that attract interest and inspire support. There are beautiful ideas that change our perception of what is possible and what is desirable. People invest hope, time, and money in attempting to make beautiful ideas real.

- Max Mckeown

Earthmine

Founded in 2006 by John Ristevski and Anthony Fassero, the start-up is hoping to take mapping to a new level -- the street level + the business model is B2B: subscription service with customers like construction firms, architects, emergency services, and partners that will develop applications for consumers. http://www.fastcompany.com/articles/2008/05/interview-earthmine-3D-map.html

Useful links:
www.earthmine.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BscB1771nZs

Brilliant!

Coffee Society

Describing coffee flavors are subjective, yet interesting. I think a deeper understanding comes only with frequent practice of coffee tasting.

Useful links:
www.coffeeinstitute.org
www.ico.org
http://danielhumphries.typepad.com
http://meetthepresspot.blogspot.com

Beryl Cook

(via Wiki) Beryl Cook who was best known for comical paintings of people has died aged 81.

Useful links:
www.berylcook.org
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7424366.stm

Her paintings were unique for one reason: ordinariness.

Rapaport Diamond Report Update

According to Rapaport, the significantly higher prices in this week's Rapaport Price List do not reflect any sudden change in diamond prices but rather adjustments made to reflect the level of premiums in the trading markets. The trade is cautioned that current high price levels for top quality diamonds reflect volatile external economic forces and may not be sustainable. There is also significant risk that prices for commercial quality diamonds may decline due to unfavorable conditions in the U.S. and other consumer markets. At their current high levels diamond prices are subject to significantly greater volatility and downside risk exposure.

Useful links:
www.diamonds.net
www.rapaportdiamondreport.com

The problem is there are various interpretations on the new prices on the list + I think the markets are confused worldwide and no one knows what will happen next because traders may hold on to their goods in anticipation of another price increase.

Romanov Emeralds

According to Christies, a pair of Romanov emeralds was sold to an Asian private collector for $2,409,241 setting a price-per-carat record for emeralds sold at auction.

Useful links:
www.christies.com
www.royal-magazin.de

Chinese Jewelry Update

According to Research and Markets, world's largest and most respected market research resource, Chinese jewelry industry sales have increased by approximately CNY20 billion ($2.88 billion) since 2005 + they have reached CNY180 billion ($25.92 billion) in 2007 + the jewelry industry has so far become the third largest in the country, preceded only by real estate and automobiles.
Source: Gems & Jewelry Trade Association of China + China Gold Association + Shanghai Diamond Exchange + Ministry of Commerce + National Bureaus of Statistics and statistics bureaus at provincial or municipal level + financial statements of some key jewelry enterprises.

Useful link:
www.researchandmarkets.com

New Ways Of Tackling Climate Change

According to Kurt Volker, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for European and Eurasian Affairs, there is a huge second wave of investment in green technology. The first one was in the 1980s, which produced a certain level of technology development. That wave ebbed after some time. Now a second wave of massive investment into newer, cleaner technologies. And this wave is proving larger and more immediately profitable than the first one........
View Video (courtesy of ACUS)

Useful links:
www.grestech.com
http://cms.iucn.org
www.climos.com
www.atmocean.com
www.planktos.com

I think the new startup companies who are embarking on clean technology projects may have a huge impact on our world.