HUFFPOST: History Tells Us What Will Happen Next With Brexit And Trump

In my own book “Fateful Eyes” I am describing the seeds of a dystopian future sown during an “affluent and innocent era of plenty” (circa 2000 – 2005), when most people did not anticipate what would follow.

More than ten years later, I still see the world broadly moving in the direction foreseen in my book. This article in The Huffington Post neatly summarizes the recent developments and offers an interesting holistic long-term perspective on the socioeconomic movements that will be possibly seen by future historians as a defining transitional period between the Post World-War II era of the past six decades, and the new and (as of today) broadly unpredictable emerging era.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tobias-stone/history-tells-us-what-will-brexit-trump_b_11179774.html

I need to emphasize that, although I have enjoyed the overall historical perspective offered in the above article, I do NOT endorse all the predictions and scenarios described therein (I am a bit more optimistic and I don’t agree with the author’s various doomsday scenarios, at least not yet), and I certainly do NOT endorse the author’s personal opinions about Donald Trump or about any other politician or personality described in that article. The author’s personal opinions do not coincide with my own.

Other than that, I think that this enlighting article is a must read.

Greek Skies amazing timelapse video

Published in TheTOC here

GREEK SKIES AMAZING TIME LAPSE VIDEO

Panagiotis Philippou created this amazing time-lapse video of the night skies in Greece that won the Best of the Fest prize of the Hollywood International Independent Documentary Awards (HIIDA). Is is truly spectacular.

Enjoy it here

Assembling the world in an image: 15 of history’s most revealing maps

Published on CNN here

(CNN)The world is always changing, moving, never really in equilibrium. This is a feeling, a concept, a fact that mostly we avoid. Stability is what we as humans are drawn to as if by instinct, as there is no safety in motion or in change. We want to be grounded in a place, in a space, with which we are familiar.

Perhaps that is why throughout the centuries we have loved and created maps. Pictured on these surfaces is an image of our world and its spatial complexities abstracted and made simple; reduced from three-dimensions to an easier to handle two. Maps give us the illusion that nothing is changing, and that all the paths we want to travel are clearly marked for us to follow. At least that is how is used to be.

A brilliant and insightful gallery. Enjoy it here

Webinar about Information Technology in the Shipping Industry

Για να ενισχύσουμε το δίκτυο αλληλοϋποστήριξης Allilon-net (μη κερδοσκοπικό δίκτυο αλληλεγγύης για επαγγελματική ένταξη, σταδιοδρομία, επιχειρηματικότητα και καινοτομία – www.allilonnet.gr) εγώ και ο συνάδελφος και φίλος Χρήστος Εμμανουηλίδης θα παρουσιάσουμε ένα webinar με τίτλο «Η σύγχρονη πληροφορική στην Ελληνική ναυτιλία» την Πέμπτη 12 Νοέμβρη στις 7μμ. Το webinar απευθύνεται σε φοιτητές και νέους επαγγελματίες οι οποίοι θα ήθελαν να πληροφορηθούν για τις εξελίξεις σε αυτό το χώρο. Φυσικά η συμμετοχή είναι δωρεάν. Η παρουσίαση θα γίνει στα Ελληνικά.
Η σελίδα του webinar, με οδηγίες συμμετοχής, είναι η εξής:
http://allilonnet.gr/index.php/en/tag-uncategorised/841-ebinar-by-our-mentors-panos-nomikos-xristos-emmanouilidis-computing-in-modern-greek-shipping

How an F student became America’s most prolific inventor

It is amazing that such people really exist. Read this story on Bloomberg here

At 74, Wood has been an inventor-in-residence at Intellectual Ventures, a technology research and patent firm, for about a decade. He’s paid to think and orchestrate international teams to develop products such as anticoncussion helmets, drug-delivery systems, super­efficient nuclear reactors—anything, really, that might address some pressing need. In the 1980s he led the development of the space lasers that were meant to shield the U.S. from Soviet missiles as part of the “Star Wars” program. He’s an astrophysicist, a self-trained paleontologist and computer scientist, and, as of a few months ago, the most prolific inventor in U.S. history.

Continue reading about this amazing man here

Separated at birth, reunited on Facebook

This amazing story appeared on CNN here

(CNN) — Anais Bordier and Samantha Futerman have the same laugh and the same freckled cheeks. They wear their hair the same way and have since they were babies. They share a hatred of cooked carrots, a love of the same color nail polish and the need to sleep 10 hours a day.

The pair tease, poke and prod each other like they’ve grown up together, but they didn’t. Neither woman knew she had an identical twin sister until less than two years ago.

That’s where the power of the Internet, a lot of luck and a series of “what ifs” enter the picture.

Continue on this amazing story here

Will people still be useful in the 21st century?

This awesome article appeared on CNN here

The conscious experiences of a flesh-and-blood taxi driver are infinitely richer than those of Google’s self-driving car, which feels nothing. But what the system needs from a taxi driver is to bring passengers from point A to point B as quickly, safely and cheaply as possible. And Google’s self-driving car will soon be able to do that far better than a human driver. The same goes for mechanics, lawyers, soldiers, doctors, teachers — and even computer engineers.

What will those superfluous people do? This is not a completely new question. Ever since the Industrial Revolution erupted, people feared that mechanization might cause mass unemployment. This did not happen, because as old professions became obsolete, new professions evolved, and there was always something humans could do better than machines.

Yet this is not a law of nature.

Continue reading this fascinating article here

Posidonia 2014 welcomes World to Greece

From All About Shipping, here

More than 1.800 Exhibitors from 93 countries and 19.000 visitors meet in Athens

Posidonia 2014, the world’s most prestigious shipping exhibition, which opens next week at the Athens Metropolitan Expo, will be the biggest in the event’s long history with organizers confirming new records in terms of participant countries and exhibition size, and the conferences and seminars program marking a significant growth compared to the 2012 event.

Continue reading here

33 Painfully True Facts About Everyday Life

Very funny, and revealing. Published in Bored Panda, here

Danish writer Mikael Wulff and cartoon artist Anders Morgenthaler – the creative duo known as Wumo – has created a brilliant series of graphs that illustrate some of the basic painful truths of everyday life in the Western world.

Their graphs and diagrams are snarky and sarcastic but, for the most part, true. This, coupled with their simple and official-looking design, makes them a delight to look at.

Have a look here, it is really worth it…

Greece faces long road to recovery, despite financial rebound

Today was a big day for Greece’s struggle to become normal again. There are some smiles around, but a lot of hard effort still ahead. The following article at Hellenic Shipping News here is a very good account on what is going on on the ground.

Nikos Mavrikos has fired half of his employees since 2010 as the Greek economy imploded, leaving his ship supply business on the verge of collapse. February marked a turning point, however: Mavrikos made a hire, his first in four years.

“People are slowly starting to trust Greece again,” says Mavrikos, who hopes to take on even more employees soon at his family-owned business.

Greece is experiencing a remarkable financial recovery. Just two years ago, the country was expected to default and exit the euro, possibly setting off a messy unraveling of the entire currency bloc.

Today, after a tough regime of layoffs, wage cuts and reductions in government spending, factories are beginning to hum again, Greeks are starting to buy cars and other products again and the country is being courted in financial markets. The government is looking to the end of a tough international emergency aid program at the end of the year.

Continue reading here