You might be interested in Tim Wu's book "The Master Switch." It deals in the technology cycle from Wild West to Corporate Control using historical examples starting with Bell

I just started reading it so I have no review but it does look promising.

I use the Evernote web site, Mac application and iPhone app to capture information from the web, from images, from PDFs and assorted notes. The apps sync to the Evernote site and any image or PDF is OCRed so I can search on any text in them. I use multiple tags on each record so, combined with the ability to search any text contained in the item, I can easily locate anything in my data store. A day-to-day example is, I take a picture of any prescription label I get with my phone and send it to Evernote. Then, I can easily find it wherever I am when I need a refill. I also scan in receipts and then destroy the originals to cut down on the pile of paper that used to obscure my desk.

I keep track of to-do lists with Remember the Milk. I've never liked the name but it's the best task manager I've used. I can set up multiple folders for GTD-type use and it also has an iPhone app. I can create, maintain and complete apps on the phone and it pushes a notification each morning with the tasks that are due that day.

Not affiliated with either company, just a satisfied user.

I think separating "designers" and "technical people" is a false dichotomy.

The people I admire most are technically capable but also able to bring good design into their work instead of just layering a GUI on top of the machine functional view. People who consider how things should work instead of the mechanics that are under the covers. People that can even bring a bit of art, if I'm allowed to use that word, to their design. Not the flashy inovation-for-the-hell-of-it style of art but an interface that pleases us somewhere lower down the brainstem when we use it for its visceral feeling of rightness. People who have probably read at least the first section of "Design of Everyday Things" and might have a copy on the shelf beside their Knuth.

After a career of using Unix and Windows machines in corporate-land, I have my own company and I'm typing this on a Macbook Pro because I want a few good tools to simplify my life and allow me to be more productive.

Small reverse osmosis systems have been available for personal cruising boats for years. From units powered from the 12 volt battery system down to hand-pumped emergency units.

I keep seeing arguments that the moon is the stepping stone to the rest of the solar system and I just don't buy it. Why spend all the energy to get out of one gravity well just to fall down another one? If you're looking for raw materials, you can get them from asteroids for less delta-v than landing and taking off from the moon. I don't think we know if they have any significant amount of water but we'll find that out as we develop our deep space capabilities instead of a new generation of moon landers. Once you have deep space transport and mining capability, you really are most of the way to anywhere.

As to your specific uses for the moon, a deep space craft heading out beyond the moon would rotate for artificial gravity. No need for 1G so you'll get plenty of data on fractional gravity environments. Long term radiation exposure? Sure. Same deal with a true deep space craft and there are unlikely to be sudden-onset effects that would necessitate quick return. And I'd like to test my robots in a truly low gravity environment where the resources I mine and structures I build will not have to be lifted back up the well.

I knew the day the return to the moon was announced it would never be sufficiently funded to succeed. For all the reasons mentioned by others, I'm glad it was canceled. I'd prefer NASA be working on truly innovative propulsion and materials technologies including seriously funded work on a space elevator. Materials science is bringing us close to the strength we need but there are some, er, other details to be worked out.

Don't get me wrong. I'm on the side of the angels but, skimming the article (sorry, no time for more right now), I don't see anything about time for training and conversion and how people are fed during that time.

My planned future would move everyone to organic and renewable technologies along the lines of Joel Salatin's farm in "The Omnivore's Dilemma." But I'd like to get from there to there without starving millions.

I'll give you that I shouldn't speak in absolutes.

However, you should read Stewart Brand's latest for some additional information.

Your point about the profit is exactly my concern.

Exactly.

I'm not worried about the process of genetically modifying food anymore than I am using nuclear energy for power. In both cases, I'm worried about how these tools are used by the corporations that are centered on short-term profit.

GM is an accelerated version of what happens in nature. We need it to feed our billions. Unfortunately, lack of corporate imagination and long-term thinking might produce a backlash that makes it untenable for years.

The Loudness War http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war has done far more to erode appreciation of music than MP3 compression.

DIY dying? Seriously? I am incredibly encouraged by the Maker movement _enabled_ by new electronic components and Internet information sharing that is happening today. Check out Make magazine if you want to see some of what's going on. Look at sparkfun.com or adafruit or any number of blogs. Then go out and make something.

"We seriously, urgently need an economy that is not based on growth."

Yes, I agree completely. But can anyone cite studies of how such an economy might work? What form it would take? Do we even have a clue how to think about it, much less transition to it?

As an early TiVo adopter, I stopped making appointments to watch TV and watching ads long ago. With a two tuner TiVo, I don't care what network programs what content against some other network. I couldn't tell you when or where the few shows I still watch come on. I just check "Now Playing" when I feel like watching TV.

But...what is killing this last vestige of broadcast programming for me is the ever more obnoxious crap they're putting in the lower third of the screen. It's taking more and more space, covering up more of the actual program and swooshing in and out or dribbling across the bottom of the screen.

Let's see, I'm losing market share so let's see if I can make my already crappy programming even harder to tolerate. Great business model.