Ralph welcomes back Jack Dangermond, co-founder of Esri—Environmental Systems Research Institute, the leader in GIS mapping technology to open up his book, “The Power of Where: A Geographic Approach to the World’s Greatest Challenges.” Then John R.
Steve, please print this comment on a piece of paper and hand it to Ralph.
Listeners, please read Ralph's Sept. 13 blog "Let's Start the Revolution- Get this Election Time Book and Here's Why?" and then decide whether to buy the book and start the revolution later or start the revolution now.
Ralph again does a good job in describing the futility of voting for Democrats that are controlled by the big money interests and offers good advice about knowing where candidates stand on issues and matching that rhetoric to their actual record.
If you are in the 80% plus of citizens that want the big money out of politics then any candidate that takes big money has an actual record of not doing what you want them to do.
Ralph finishes saying a crucial lesson from the best chapters of American history is that it takes citizens to decisively say yes only to a government that works for them.
When you vote for a candidate that takes big money you are decisively saying yes to a government that only works for the big money interests.
You can buy Ralph's book, learn about how to try to influence the big money politicians, vote for big money politicians in 2024 and wait years for the big money politicians to start the revolution or you can start the revolution now by casting a write in vote in 2024 congressional elections to register a vote against the big money candidates on the ballot and to create and demonstrate demand for small donor candidates in 2026 and tell Ralph that you want him to help lead this revolution saying no to politicians that work for the big money interests.
And that is part of what makes the RNRH so much better than other media.
How about some maps showing citizens the 90% of congressional districts that are already decided for 2024 and states where the electoral votes are already decided for 2024 so citizens can see if they live in a district or state where casting a write in vote in 2024 will not have an effect on the 2024 election but can get the revolution started for 2026?
All we ever get is coverage of the competitive congressional districts and battleground states.
Then we can target those districts and states with the write in campaign in the same way that Field Team Six is targeting the competitive districts for registering Democrats.
Relevant and concise? Oh well, I reckon Klassik's comments are not making the cross-country trips through the United States Postal Service then. Well, anyway, if Klassik's comments do end up being printed for whatever reason, hopefully they aren't printed in the Comic Sans typeface. I certainly hope that they would be printed in the open-source Comic Neue typeface at the very least!
If it is any consolation, even if they don't get to Ralph I read almost all of almost all of your comments.
While it doesn't apply here, I found that relevant and concise are usually just excuses to not pay attention to what you are talking about.
If I sent a long email to a journalist, politician, activist, etc. the few replies would say it was too long and if I sent a short email it was too short with not enough detail.
Many Years ago in the 70,80,90s I worked for several high tech firms, Ibm ,Wang , Prime, Sun Microsystem, EMC , Unisys, Intergraph..to name a few
My job was basically to get their branch and regional offices off the ground.
In the old days you did this with bag in hand , you made the phone calls, you set up the appointments .you talked directly to the potential customer decision makers and the guy with the money .
Here are a few war stories I hope I don't put you to sleep.
At IBM I learned my trade ,, can you imagine a company today ,, that would heir you and spend a year or sof before they sent you out into the field ,, old IBM mers know what I am talking about ,
Wang was a high tech company within 3 or 4 years Wang dominated the word processing industry . I remember calling on a large steel manufacturering company and they just lost a big contract to a Chinese company , the the CEO tossed me out the door because he thought Wang equipment was made in China ( Wang labs hq Boston mass )
Not my lucky day ,however his wife ran out to my car and apologized for his rudness ,, several years later they became one of my best customers. Within 3 years I was able to take that little branch up a 40- 50 million dollars in sales
Sun Microsystem was another one of those fun companies , I got heir by a sun Microsystem vice president to open a branch office , he said welcome aboard ,,, call me in 6 months if you need some help .
Can you imagine a million dollar company today putting you in charge ,,, I'll call you in six months and see how you are doing
I few back to city of choice and opened the Sun Microsystem Branch ..in the city of 3 million know one had ever heard of Sun Microsystem..? typically the.unix computer operating is used by University and colleges but not in my town of choice ,, so I ordered boxes of Bill Joy's great sun unix operating system and when I came across the really smart to be programmers I give them 5 boxes of the sun Microsystem operating system ( Years later I heired them as my branch support team )
Are you still with me ?
opening the Prime computer office with hat in hand ,, they thought I was selling Prime beef .
Where is that one in the McKinsey sales training over coming objections ? Needless to say we replaced most of DECs gear in 3 years
Let's skip right to Intergraph corp.
In the old days when they fired guns over the horizon and lot of times they didn't know where the ammo would land. Intergraph had developed the hardware and software so in real time you could track graphically to the target over the horizon. I installed Intergraph a computer aboard once ,,it was first time doctors saw the graphic presentation of the corneia of an eye .
I'm also out power here so I got to go ,,got a million of the them
Thanks for taking your valuable time , have a great day friends
In my working life I used Google Maps to help companies decide where open new stories and allow them to focus their advertisements to specific neighborhoods. Jack Dnangermong is a great spokesmen for Esri. I was a little upset on the disparaging remarks Ralph Nader made on the handling of Covid by Donald Trump but I let it pass. Then I was shocked on the positive comments on Governor Newsome what he did, I guess using Esri without details. Governor Newsome did a horrible job preventing Forrest Fires in California. This is from National Public Radio. 'So early on, Newsom identified some key wildfire prevention projects, and that includes things like forest thinning and prescribed burns, and they were meant to protect some of the most vulnerable communities in California. And he claimed 90,000 acres were treated, but we found that's not true. The state's own data shows that, in reality, it was less than 12,000 acres, so just a fraction of what Newsom claimed. And looking at the bigger picture, not just those specific projects, we also found that the state's fire prevention work overall dropped by half last year, which was the worst wildfire season on record for California. And during that time, Newsom also slashed about $150 million from the state's wildfire prevention budget". Using GSI mapping technology to prevent forrest fires would be a great topic for a followup show.
I agree with the comments made by John R. MacArthur regarding the importance of transcripts. It would be nice if every radio/podcast program had an accurate transcript as the RNRH publishes with their programming. I often find it easier and more productive to read, and re-read, content rather than listen to it. It is certainly easier to share the content when it is in written form.
I don’t know about Google specifically, but I know Apple and Microsoft have largely viewed education as a giant marketing opportunity over the last several decades. Both companies, especially Microsoft since they are more on the software side of things, will practically give their products away to schools and colleges with the idea that if instructors force students to use their products, they will learn to use Microsoft/Apple products and will only use Microsoft/Apple products once they are out in the professional world. It is probably an area which needs regulatory scrutiny.
As for the debate about print vs. electronic classroom resources, I can see some face validity to the idea that students can understand (I’m not sure if I like the word ‘absorb’ as used on the show as it implies that learning is a rather passive information processing approach) material better when they learn from print resources versus electronic. That said, it would be interesting to get some feedback from public school teachers on the matter because I am sure there are complexities to things. For example, if a teacher is forced to either teach from terrible printed social studies textbooks mandated by state governments, school districts, and publishers or use, say, primary resources available online, it might be the case that the online approach is better. Since Dr. King was mentioned in this episode, imagine the difference between a student reading a textbook description of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom versus reading direct quotes from the event from Dr. King and from the other speakers. I dare to say the students might have completely different understandings of why the event is so important.
Now, sure, school libraries could keep printed copies of these necessary resources. There are many challenges on that front, however, and students will likely want to explore these topics in deeper, more specific ways once they are presented with detail and enthusiasm by teachers. That’s where librarians and a wealth of print and electronic resources are beneficial.
Here’s a related question for Mr. Nader. Has Mr. Nader evaluated the OpenStax open educational resource (OER) textbooks? I’m specifically referring to their US History and Government textbooks. OpenStax, which is run out of Rice University here in Houston, creates freely available textbooks written by the same type of content experts who typically write K-12 and college textbooks. They can be downloaded online and printed by anyone for free and they also offer an option to buy a printed textbook at a reasonable fee relative to what it costs to buy a commercial textbook. I know that many teachers, colleges, and librarians are advocating for these OER textbooks as a way to bypass the predatory pricing and licensing agreements used by the commercial educational publishers.
The idea sounds good. I’ve read the Macroeconomics and US History OpenStax books and they read just like the major commercial textbooks. Some may view that as being a good thing, but I view it as being a lost opportunity given how poor the commercial textbooks are in covering those subjects. Some might view the pro-establishment messages in these books to be reflective of the philanthropy helping to fund the OpenStax project such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. I’m not sure about that, but I think it would be worth Mr. Nader’s time to investigate these resources and maybe have his education experts look at them and see what they get right, what they get wrong, and if there is any way to use OER resources, whether in print or electronic, more effectively to teach people about social studies basics. After all, since these are freely available resources, anyone can read them. Thus, they aren't just resources for K-12 and college students.
When I heard that Lewis Lapham had died...........I searched through boxes of journals and papers that I have held onto despite moving and downsizing. I finally found one of his journals.....and I may have more hidden away in other boxes. I started to read parts of it and was absolutely amazed at the depth and quality of what he published.
The poet Gary Synder recommended "Man in Nature: A First Book in Geography" by Carl Sauer
many years ago, which presented regional, landscaped, geological provinces as the fundamental
mapping of a place/ territory. The interpretive units of region & lay of that land, with corresponding human cultural response, are expressed in a well written overlook, which may be prerequisite to Mr. Dangermond's work.
Steve, please print this comment on a piece of paper and hand it to Ralph.
Listeners, please read Ralph's Sept. 13 blog "Let's Start the Revolution- Get this Election Time Book and Here's Why?" and then decide whether to buy the book and start the revolution later or start the revolution now.
Ralph again does a good job in describing the futility of voting for Democrats that are controlled by the big money interests and offers good advice about knowing where candidates stand on issues and matching that rhetoric to their actual record.
If you are in the 80% plus of citizens that want the big money out of politics then any candidate that takes big money has an actual record of not doing what you want them to do.
Ralph finishes saying a crucial lesson from the best chapters of American history is that it takes citizens to decisively say yes only to a government that works for them.
When you vote for a candidate that takes big money you are decisively saying yes to a government that only works for the big money interests.
You can buy Ralph's book, learn about how to try to influence the big money politicians, vote for big money politicians in 2024 and wait years for the big money politicians to start the revolution or you can start the revolution now by casting a write in vote in 2024 congressional elections to register a vote against the big money candidates on the ballot and to create and demonstrate demand for small donor candidates in 2026 and tell Ralph that you want him to help lead this revolution saying no to politicians that work for the big money interests.
I do send these to Ralph on paper. Every week. Not every one, but the most relevant and concise. SS
And that is part of what makes the RNRH so much better than other media.
How about some maps showing citizens the 90% of congressional districts that are already decided for 2024 and states where the electoral votes are already decided for 2024 so citizens can see if they live in a district or state where casting a write in vote in 2024 will not have an effect on the 2024 election but can get the revolution started for 2026?
All we ever get is coverage of the competitive congressional districts and battleground states.
Then we can target those districts and states with the write in campaign in the same way that Field Team Six is targeting the competitive districts for registering Democrats.
Relevant and concise? Oh well, I reckon Klassik's comments are not making the cross-country trips through the United States Postal Service then. Well, anyway, if Klassik's comments do end up being printed for whatever reason, hopefully they aren't printed in the Comic Sans typeface. I certainly hope that they would be printed in the open-source Comic Neue typeface at the very least!
If it is any consolation, even if they don't get to Ralph I read almost all of almost all of your comments.
While it doesn't apply here, I found that relevant and concise are usually just excuses to not pay attention to what you are talking about.
If I sent a long email to a journalist, politician, activist, etc. the few replies would say it was too long and if I sent a short email it was too short with not enough detail.
Many Years ago in the 70,80,90s I worked for several high tech firms, Ibm ,Wang , Prime, Sun Microsystem, EMC , Unisys, Intergraph..to name a few
My job was basically to get their branch and regional offices off the ground.
In the old days you did this with bag in hand , you made the phone calls, you set up the appointments .you talked directly to the potential customer decision makers and the guy with the money .
Here are a few war stories I hope I don't put you to sleep.
At IBM I learned my trade ,, can you imagine a company today ,, that would heir you and spend a year or sof before they sent you out into the field ,, old IBM mers know what I am talking about ,
Wang was a high tech company within 3 or 4 years Wang dominated the word processing industry . I remember calling on a large steel manufacturering company and they just lost a big contract to a Chinese company , the the CEO tossed me out the door because he thought Wang equipment was made in China ( Wang labs hq Boston mass )
Not my lucky day ,however his wife ran out to my car and apologized for his rudness ,, several years later they became one of my best customers. Within 3 years I was able to take that little branch up a 40- 50 million dollars in sales
Sun Microsystem was another one of those fun companies , I got heir by a sun Microsystem vice president to open a branch office , he said welcome aboard ,,, call me in 6 months if you need some help .
Can you imagine a million dollar company today putting you in charge ,,, I'll call you in six months and see how you are doing
I few back to city of choice and opened the Sun Microsystem Branch ..in the city of 3 million know one had ever heard of Sun Microsystem..? typically the.unix computer operating is used by University and colleges but not in my town of choice ,, so I ordered boxes of Bill Joy's great sun unix operating system and when I came across the really smart to be programmers I give them 5 boxes of the sun Microsystem operating system ( Years later I heired them as my branch support team )
Are you still with me ?
opening the Prime computer office with hat in hand ,, they thought I was selling Prime beef .
Where is that one in the McKinsey sales training over coming objections ? Needless to say we replaced most of DECs gear in 3 years
Let's skip right to Intergraph corp.
In the old days when they fired guns over the horizon and lot of times they didn't know where the ammo would land. Intergraph had developed the hardware and software so in real time you could track graphically to the target over the horizon. I installed Intergraph a computer aboard once ,,it was first time doctors saw the graphic presentation of the corneia of an eye .
I'm also out power here so I got to go ,,got a million of the them
Thanks for taking your valuable time , have a great day friends
In my working life I used Google Maps to help companies decide where open new stories and allow them to focus their advertisements to specific neighborhoods. Jack Dnangermong is a great spokesmen for Esri. I was a little upset on the disparaging remarks Ralph Nader made on the handling of Covid by Donald Trump but I let it pass. Then I was shocked on the positive comments on Governor Newsome what he did, I guess using Esri without details. Governor Newsome did a horrible job preventing Forrest Fires in California. This is from National Public Radio. 'So early on, Newsom identified some key wildfire prevention projects, and that includes things like forest thinning and prescribed burns, and they were meant to protect some of the most vulnerable communities in California. And he claimed 90,000 acres were treated, but we found that's not true. The state's own data shows that, in reality, it was less than 12,000 acres, so just a fraction of what Newsom claimed. And looking at the bigger picture, not just those specific projects, we also found that the state's fire prevention work overall dropped by half last year, which was the worst wildfire season on record for California. And during that time, Newsom also slashed about $150 million from the state's wildfire prevention budget". Using GSI mapping technology to prevent forrest fires would be a great topic for a followup show.
In the Wrap Up, we talked about what GIS mapping might have done in Maui.
I agree with the comments made by John R. MacArthur regarding the importance of transcripts. It would be nice if every radio/podcast program had an accurate transcript as the RNRH publishes with their programming. I often find it easier and more productive to read, and re-read, content rather than listen to it. It is certainly easier to share the content when it is in written form.
I don’t know about Google specifically, but I know Apple and Microsoft have largely viewed education as a giant marketing opportunity over the last several decades. Both companies, especially Microsoft since they are more on the software side of things, will practically give their products away to schools and colleges with the idea that if instructors force students to use their products, they will learn to use Microsoft/Apple products and will only use Microsoft/Apple products once they are out in the professional world. It is probably an area which needs regulatory scrutiny.
As for the debate about print vs. electronic classroom resources, I can see some face validity to the idea that students can understand (I’m not sure if I like the word ‘absorb’ as used on the show as it implies that learning is a rather passive information processing approach) material better when they learn from print resources versus electronic. That said, it would be interesting to get some feedback from public school teachers on the matter because I am sure there are complexities to things. For example, if a teacher is forced to either teach from terrible printed social studies textbooks mandated by state governments, school districts, and publishers or use, say, primary resources available online, it might be the case that the online approach is better. Since Dr. King was mentioned in this episode, imagine the difference between a student reading a textbook description of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom versus reading direct quotes from the event from Dr. King and from the other speakers. I dare to say the students might have completely different understandings of why the event is so important.
Now, sure, school libraries could keep printed copies of these necessary resources. There are many challenges on that front, however, and students will likely want to explore these topics in deeper, more specific ways once they are presented with detail and enthusiasm by teachers. That’s where librarians and a wealth of print and electronic resources are beneficial.
Here’s a related question for Mr. Nader. Has Mr. Nader evaluated the OpenStax open educational resource (OER) textbooks? I’m specifically referring to their US History and Government textbooks. OpenStax, which is run out of Rice University here in Houston, creates freely available textbooks written by the same type of content experts who typically write K-12 and college textbooks. They can be downloaded online and printed by anyone for free and they also offer an option to buy a printed textbook at a reasonable fee relative to what it costs to buy a commercial textbook. I know that many teachers, colleges, and librarians are advocating for these OER textbooks as a way to bypass the predatory pricing and licensing agreements used by the commercial educational publishers.
The idea sounds good. I’ve read the Macroeconomics and US History OpenStax books and they read just like the major commercial textbooks. Some may view that as being a good thing, but I view it as being a lost opportunity given how poor the commercial textbooks are in covering those subjects. Some might view the pro-establishment messages in these books to be reflective of the philanthropy helping to fund the OpenStax project such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. I’m not sure about that, but I think it would be worth Mr. Nader’s time to investigate these resources and maybe have his education experts look at them and see what they get right, what they get wrong, and if there is any way to use OER resources, whether in print or electronic, more effectively to teach people about social studies basics. After all, since these are freely available resources, anyone can read them. Thus, they aren't just resources for K-12 and college students.
When I heard that Lewis Lapham had died...........I searched through boxes of journals and papers that I have held onto despite moving and downsizing. I finally found one of his journals.....and I may have more hidden away in other boxes. I started to read parts of it and was absolutely amazed at the depth and quality of what he published.
To Ralph & All Listeners,
The poet Gary Synder recommended "Man in Nature: A First Book in Geography" by Carl Sauer
many years ago, which presented regional, landscaped, geological provinces as the fundamental
mapping of a place/ territory. The interpretive units of region & lay of that land, with corresponding human cultural response, are expressed in a well written overlook, which may be prerequisite to Mr. Dangermond's work.