from desert to district

As these ideas spread, we’re seeing more aid organizations that blur the boundary with business, pursuing what’s called a double bottom line: profits but also a social return. For example, the New York-based Acumen Fund is a cross between a venture capital operation and an aid group: it invests “patient capital,” accepting below-market returns and offering management help in a Tanzanian company that makes antimalaria bed nets, for instance, and in a hospital company in India that offers a for-profit model to fight maternal mortality.

via Nicholas Kristof @ NYTimes.com

We see our work as experiments, and that means we can try new approaches that might be seen as too risky or ambitious for the standards of projects within the government.

Our work will be distributed as cloud applications, using new platforms like the Apps.gov app store for Federal employees. This advantage in making our work available removes a lot of the barriers to technology adoption.

via FastCompany.com

To square a number that ends in 5 (e.g., 25, 65, 1005) simply remove the 5 from the end of the number and multiply the remaining number times the next number then tack a ‘25’ on the end of it (squares of numbers that end in 5 will always end in 25).

For example,

25 squared is 2*3 = 6 and tack on ‘25’ to the end = 625. 
65 squared is 6*7 = 42 and tack on ‘25; to the end = 4225.

via Wired.com

As the industry of music went into its death throes, the actual making and performing of it prospered on the far side of the East River. Animal Collective, MGMT, Grizzly Bear: Not since CBGB’s heyday has New York produced so many exciting bands. And never have there been so many great Brooklyn venues to hear them at. It’s a scene marked by wild inventiveness, and at its center is one of the most risk-taking groups of all— Dirty Projectors.

via NYMAG.com

“China, which is not a member of the O.E.C.D., is operating under rules that the West has largely abandoned. It mixes aid and business in secret government-to-government agreements. It requires that foreign aid contracts be awarded to Chinese contractors it picks through a closed-door bidding process in Beijing. Its attempts to prevent corrupt practices by its companies overseas appear weak.”

- NYTimes.com