A Catalog of the Future

Perhaps the title doesn't quite convey the essence of TBD Catalog, but I think it may.  Their main tag line is:

The catalog of the near future’s normal ordinary everyday

I'm hopeful that this blog does the same in some small way.  Certainly, I'm aspiring to a much smaller scope, but still believe that its worth thinking about the way products should work rather than tweaking current characteristics.

A fun, but very retro way of enjoying the information (must order a hard copy to get to see the full catalog - samples can be seen on their website).

The State of Client Science

From an OpEd in the WSJ:

The idea that "Climate science is settled" runs through today's popular and policy discussions. Unfortunately, that claim is misguided. It has not only distorted our public and policy debates on issues related to energy, greenhouse-gas emissions and the environment. But it also has inhibited the scientific and policy discussions that we need to have about our climate future.

Thus begins a well-written and thought-through piece about where we stand today with respect to the science.  To summarize: the models don't work very well and we don't understand all of the key drivers.

To me, this has been evident for some time.  And all of this would be not news except for one important aspect: many people are trying to derive (expensive) policy prescriptions based on the current state of the science and its "obvious" implications.

I'm not a fan of doing so; I think Mr. Koonin has made a solid contribution.