One man and a pile of junk ends poverty
Orismar de Souza, a homeless man in Brazil, built a car using junk, spare parts and a hammer and chisel. Four years later, the “shrimpmobile” has him back on his feet.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/42329229/ns/technology_and_science-tech_and_gadgets/
This story mirrors the story of my great grandfather, James Dodd. He had worked as a coal miner since he was 8 years old to support his mother and siblings. During the great depression he and a friend built a motorcycle from spare parts and road to Detroit to find work in the factories. They left their wives and children behind and when they got to Detroit had to camp out waiting to find work. Remember, at the time there were barely any paved roads. They had to ride through the mountains of Pennsylvania, across Ohio and into Michigan on a single motorcycle they built from junk.
They had to camp for a month before they could get work. They then saved money and sent for there wives and children to join them. At one point my great grandfather had not eaten for a week. When the women who had been renting a room to him found out she offered him food. He insisted that he would not accept charity and instead did work on the house in exchange for meals.
At one point while working in the factory his job was to test alternators. he would put the bad alternators in a box. He arranged to buy the bad ones then at night in his kitchen he would repair them and sell the re-manufactured alternators to repair shops and people fixing their own cars. He eventually quit the job at the factory and was running his own business.
He invested the money from the alternator business into fixing up and renting houses. At one point he had an entire neighborhood with a grocery store which he would allow his tenets with children who had trouble paying the bills to owe him for food until they could find work. The one rule he had was that they had their children ready to go to church which he would drive them them to in the school bus he bought.
When he died the procession of people who attended his funeral was over a mile long. He touched thousands of people’s lives and it all started from a pile a junk.
Medical Trust Networks, Bruce Schneier, and I
Bruce Schneier being quoted in an article about security is expected. It would be strange if he were not quoted. He is the world’s leading expert on security and he’s published something daily for years.
I’ve posted a few things about medical care and about security but the article referenced was not about security or medical care, it was about flying cars, accidents, and predicting innovations. If you knew that Bruce Schneier and I were friends you might think the author who referenced both of us was also a friend, he is not. So, is this a weird coincidence or is our writing somehow related to us being friends and that commonality attracted the author who referenced us?
The article suggests using trust relationships to provide security for medical data. Whether the author knew it or not he proved his point when he referenced both Bruce and I.
New Form of Life, Discovery Published Creative Commons
The Economist reports a new form of life was discovered, very interesting. The actual scientific article is released with a Creative Commons license, awesome.
Economists summary
http://www.economist.com/node/18437900?story_id=18437900
Actual scientific article
http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0018011
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