Daniel Lubetzky

Two years ago, an unlikely winner was selected to receive the King Faisal International Prize in Medicine, often referred to as the “Arab Nobel Prize.” As the Haaretz article conveys, Stanford Professor, Ronald Levy, is an American Jew married to an Israeli woman, and did not expect to have much chance in the competition.  Upon winning the prize, Levy and his family (with their Israeli passports) were flown to Saudi Arabia to have dinner with Saudi King Abdullah where they were met with royal treatment.  This story is a beautiful depiction of humans appreciating each other despite their divergent backgrounds and shows how much progress can be made when differences is are overlooked.

Spotted by Daniel Lubetzky, by Adeena Schlussel

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“I am neither an optimist nor pessimist, but a possibilist.”

                – Max Lerner

Check out this amazing video that showcases 3D printing technology:

I believe in luck: how else can you explain the success of those you dislike?

-Jean Cocteau

Vitamin Water is running a creative ad campaign that is bursting with energy.  Situated at bus stops across the country, Vitamin Water ads contain USB ports in which people can charge their phones while waiting for the bus.  The ad sends a clear message: Vitamin Water is your source for all of your energy needs.

By Adeena Schlussel, spotted by Daniel Lubetzky.

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Although this product claims to be sugar free, it has corn syrup as its third ingredient, after water and palm oil (along with many other artificial sweeteners).  Because of the way regulations are, the small amount of corn syrup contained in this product can legally be disregarded, making the product “sugar free.”  Although this is technically legal, it is dishonest, unethical and and perversion of the law.  To advertise this corn-based sweetener which adds sugar to drinks as “sugar free,” is silly.

It is so perplexing that some people care only about power and zero about what positive things they could do with that power.

I am increasingly repulsed by the News Corp organization and think it represents everything that is wrong with our world.  It is less its FOX News channel ultra-conservatism than its sensationalist irresponsible news outlets; from the way they exploit people with all their tabloids and the whole ordeal of hacking phones of missing children (http://nyti.ms/ncfID8), to the way they libel people (like calling the woman who sued DSK a prostitute in the NY Post, who is now suing them, http://nyti.ms/rjJG9C) or, prior to turning tables, attacking all French people with embarrassing stereotypes when they were indicting Strauss-Kahn.

I am so perplexed and people that just seem to have no values or morals and accumulate wealth and power as if that is the end, rather than the means to a more productive end.

“The absence of alternatives clears the mind marvelously.”

- Henry Kissinger

These designs, shared with me by a friend, Ari Cartun, are innovative, and funny:

With modern technology as it is, the unprecedented depth and constant recording of personal histories is going to transform the social fabric of humanity and even the way our brains and memories work.

Generations raised prior to the internet, social networks, the iPhone and its ilk did not remember much or most of their early lives, and only selectively their daily and lifetime experiences. Now everything is being recorded. So new generations, and most of us plugged in to the new world, will ‘remember’ incidents so much more readily.

Will those new ‘memories’ displace other brain functions, or enhance them? Will facilitated memories make our general ability to recollect greater or lower? Will concepts like nostalgia and melancholia be redefined, reframed or even replaced?

Will modern history be taught and seen differently? Will the very concept of ‘history’ be redefined?