Foreign Policy magazine published their list of the the top 100 most influential global thinkers of 2009. The list is dominated by economists, writers, politicians, scientists and writers. You can view the full list here. Some of the people on the list are repeats from previous years’ – e.g. Mohammed Yunus.

It would be interesting to know what their selection methodology was – who they surveyed, who responded, how those were selected down to the list of the 100. If nothing else, this shows what has been on people’s minds in 2009 (or earlier in some cases).

The article includes some sidebars on what the top 100 global thinkers are reading nowadays and other trivia.

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This is a Wordle of my booksmarks. This is much prettier than what delicious.com shows as its tag cloud. I produced this in the process of migrating my bookmarks. But as soon as I saw this, I had to smile to myself. Is this how I project myself to the world-at-large? It has some nuggets of reality in it, I suppose. I had to to sit down and analyze myself using my bookmarks cloud – plus some insider information I may or may not have about myself.

The word that stands out the most strongly is theory – purportedly for my love of the logical and structural. But theory of what? Well the next most prominent group of words is quantum, science, energy, gas and work. Some of these are words related to my work – energy consulting, and some to one of my leisure activities – Physics.  Strangely, physics itself appears small. What do I make of this?

This is a picture of my friends network on facebooks. It was enlightening to see that it was broken into 3 segments – like different parts of the brain. The sliver on the left side are friends from high school and T’s family. The dense collection at the center bottom are friends from San Francisco. The slightly less dense collection on the bottom right are friends and co-workers from Atlanta and Houston. Just above this connections to my family. And all the folks on the periphery are spouses of friends/co-workers and friends from graduate school – since I am not connected to their friends, and they are not all friends with each other. It all makes sense! You can click on the image to get a larger view. Can you tell which one is T or my brothers?

Sometimes I am envious of onions, of their capacity to reinvent themselves and change. When they’re raw, they have a sharp, sulfurous bite, lending high notes and crunchiness to a juicy hamburger or a tossed salad. When they’re cooked, they become something else altogether. They sigh and wilt, and, finally, after a long and languid simmer that fills the kitchen with an appealing aroma like no other, they surround their edge and turn sweet. Caramelized to melting softness, they are the foundation for countless dishes.

Makes me want to spend my summer with onions.

If netbook penetration grows at this rate, they may (finally) be the force that moves software firmly into the cloud. With their low processing power and small hard drives, it is much easier to use online applications, such as Foto Flexer instead of Photoshop. It will likely also push web drive usage.

Hopefully Apple catches on. Steve Jobs said about notebooks: “We don’t know how to make a $500 laptop that is not garbage.” Processing and memory wise, the netbooks are comparable to the Macbook Air. Price-wise, they are 20% of Apple. Will the cool factor be enough to maintain their sales at THIS kind of price difference? I hope the Apple rumor about their tablet and their touchscreen netbook are both true!

I looked it up, and the software he shows in the video has been acquired by Google, and you can view it here.

Among the stuff were 21 boxes of Scientific American 1985 – 2009, Physics Today 1985 – 2009, Reviews of Modern Physics 1992 – 2002, American Journal of Physics 1994 – 2002, Discover 1998 – 2002, Saveur 1998 – 2009, Food and Wine 1997 – 2005, New Yorker 2003 – 2009, Notices of the American Mathematical Society 1994 – 2002, Mathematical Intelligencer and various odds and ends of magazine issues.

I compiled, sorted and packaged these into paper bags, and threw in some books I would never use such as the 600 page Character Animation text from 1999, and the 900 page Conference Proceedings of Novel Superconducting materials. I took these to sell to Half-Price Books, expecting maybe $150 to $200. They offerred $24. I took it – imaging my books and magazines will get a good home.

It seems that outdoor space is on the decline in newer homes. This seems to be losing the sustainability advantages of porches: use less electricity, get to know your neighbors, and make the neighborhood safer and friendlier by keeping your eye on it.