MIT offers City Car for the masses

Originally published at Lemmingworks. You can comment here or there.

MIT offers City Car for the masses | CNET News.com

I want one of these too!

Is the City Car the solution to “the last mile” problem?
The City Car, a design project under way at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is envisioned as a two-seater electric vehicle powered by lithium-ion batteries. It would weigh between 1,000 and 1,200 pounds and could collapse, then stack like a shopping cart with six to eight fitting into a typical parking space. It isn’t just a car, but is designed as a system of shared cars with kiosks at locations around a city or small community.

CHECK OUT THE PICTS at CNET!

Operation begins on Indian girl with eight limbs

Originally published at Lemmingworks. You can comment here or there.

Operation begins on Indian girl with eight limbs

Not having the surgery would be life threatening, but I’m always struck by our drive for normalcy in other areas of life, particularly in terms of language, education, identity, body image, fashion, etc. that this situation stood out. Difference can still have mythologic importance in the world, and people who are difference can be treasured and rejoyced. There’s not enough of that.

On complicity theory

Originally published at Lemmingworks. You can comment here or there.

On complicity theory

Abstract  The received account of whistleblowing, developed over the last quarter century, is identified with the work of Norman Bowie and Richard DeGeorge. Michael Davis has detailed three anomalies for the received view: the paradoxes of burden, missing harm and failure. In addition, he has proposed an alternative account of whistleblowing, viz., the Complicity Theory. This paper examines the Complicity Theory. The supposed anomalies rest on misunderstandings of the received view or misreadings of model cases of whistleblowing, for example, the Challenger disaster and the Ford Pinto. Nevertheless, the Complicity Theory is important for as in science the contrast with alternative competing accounts often helps us better understand the received view. Several aspects of the received view are reviewed and strengthened through comparison with Complicity Theory, including why whistleblowing needs moral justification. Complicity Theory is also critiqued. The fundamental failure of Complicity Theory is its failure to explain why government and the public encourage and protect whistleblowers despite the possibility of considerable harm to the relevant company in reputation, lost jobs, and lost shareholder value.