Claude Forthomme's Blog, page 15

Earthquake in Italy: Why the High Death Toll

Impakter Magazine just published an article I wrote about the earthquake in Italy, as I was moved by what I was hearing all around me and by what I read in the Italian newspapers:

Main street in Amatrice, before and after the 24 August earthquake
WHY THE DEATH TOLL IS SO HIGH
The tragedy is in the news every day as the death toll climbs relentlessly, the latest figure, as I write on the day of the State Funeral held for the victims, is 291.
No one talks about why this death toll is so high. But an uncomfortable truth is beginning to emerge in Italy, and an emotionally-charged debate around it has already started, with accusations of mistakes and wrong-doing flung around. This is a complex question, and while it’s still early days to assess the extent and nature of the devastation, it’s worth taking a closer look at it. 

 Part of the reason the death toll was so high is, alas, quite mundane: Because it happened at 3:30 am in the dead of night, everyone was in bed. And why so many of the victims were children is also easily explained. It happened in an area close to Rome, a little more than an hour drive, and many Romans have secondary homes in all those charming hilltop villages, the mountain air is good, the views magnificent; grandparents spend the summer here, looking after their grand-children. As a result, the earthquake primarily hit the elderly and children who never had a chance to escape a collapsing house in the middle of the night. 

 Then there is another, more structural reason that human ingenuity can do little against:  the devastation in Italy was due to the fact that the epicenter of the earthquake was fairly close to the surface, about 10 km deep, as compared to the one in Myanmar that happened on the same day. The two are not linked events, a mere coincidence, they are too far apart and not sitting on the same faults. But they serve to show the difference in impact: The 6.8 magnitude quake in Myanmar (as against 6.2 in Italy), while much stronger, also started much deeper, over 100 km down. Result: there was considerable damage to buildings, as may be expected from such a violent earthquake, but only 3 people were killed… 

 But there is yet one more reason and here humans are definitely at fault. It hasn’t yet fully come out in the international press but it’s fast emerging in Italian news (here, here and here):...

Read the rest on Impakter, click here.   

How One of the Internet's Founders Sees the Future

I just reviewed Steve Case's bestseller, “THE THIRD WAVE – AN ENTREPRENEUR’S VISION OF THE FUTURE”  for Impakter Magazine:


When Steve Case’s book came out on 5 April 2016 (publisher: Simon & Schuster), it was an immediate New York Times and Wall Street Journal sensation, hailed as the number one business book of the year.Part memoir, part business manual, it’s a must read for at least two reasons:one, because it is a unique memoir from someone who was on the leading edge of the Internet revolution: Steve Case was a co-founder of AOL in 1985, the first Internet company to go public (in 1991), the first to bring millions of Americans online; AOL was a corporate giant that arose a full decade before Google, Amazon and Facebook; Case oversaw the Time Warner-AOL merger in 2000 and became chairman of the combined business, the largest media and communications empire in the world at that time.It is clear that any aspiring entrepreneur could learn from Case’s unique insights into the startup experience, ranging from near death to unexpected comebacks; and, cherry on the cake, the book comes with a mesmerizing series of photographs marking the main events in Case’s life and AOL’s rise.two, it provides an eye-opening vision of the Internet’s future: if anyone has an idea where the Web is headed, surely Steve Case does. In the words of Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook’s COO, he has drawn a “compelling roadmap for the future”. No entrepreneur or corporate manager who wishes to succeed in this first part of the 21st century can afford to ignore Case’s advice.What is remarkable about Steve Case is that he is both an inspired investor and a dedicated philanthropist. IN THE PHOTO: STEVE CASE PHOTO CREDIT: TWITTER Six years before leaving AOL-Time Warner in 2003, Steve Case had launched the Case Foundationwith his wife Jean and had made it his business to bet on upcoming innovative entrepreneurs, keeping himself abreast of all new developments in the IT world.In 2005, he co-founded, along with Donn Davis and Tige Savage, an investment firm aptly calledRevolution to finance digital startups, aiming, according to its website, to “support ideas that change the world.” Based in Washington D.C., the firm, of which he is chairman and CEO, also runs a $525 million fund to invest “outside of Silicon Valley” – in fact, as explained on its website, Revolution’s “mission is to establish itself as “the premier firm outside Silicon Valley.”Revolution has helped build up many businesses including the car-sharing app Zipcar, the GPS fitness tracking app Runkeeper, the online learning platform BenchPrep, the daily deal websiteLivingSocial,  Sweetgreen, an American “simple, healthy food” restaurant chain and Revolution Money, an online financial services company (sold to American Express in 2009) .
In 2010, Steve and Jean Case took the further public step of signing The Giving Pledge, joining other major billionaires like Bill and Melinda Gates, Warren Buffet and Carl Icahn, in reaffirming their commitment to give away most of their wealth to philanthropy.At the same time, Case is a rare believer in a bi-partisan approach to economic policies.Though a Republican, he has worked to support President Obama’s job policies to create employment and spur entrepreneurship. He was a member of Obama’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness  and founding chair of the Startup America Partnership – he is now chairman of UP Global, a non-profit to support entrepreneurial communities, created in 2013 from Startup America Partnership and Startup Weekend. Unlike many in the business community, he strongly believes that the government has a key role to play in jump starting innovation.The foreword is written by Walter Isaacson, President and CEO of the Aspen Institute and author of several acclaimed biographies, most recently of Steve Jobs and of a remarkable history of innovation on the Web called “The Innovators: How a Group of Inventors, Hackers, Geniuses, and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution.“IN THE PHOTO: WALTER ISAACSONWalter Isaacson, in introducing Steve Case for us, evokes the moment when the idea of a Time Warner-AOL merger was first aired out, back in 1999. It happened improbably in Beijing, in the course of a twelve-course banquet for a thousand people at the Great Hall of the People to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Communist revolution in China. Time magazine, of which Isaacson was editor at the time, had brought to China the whole of the Time Warner Board and a few other American business leaders, notably Steve Case.

To read the rest, click here.

Why Referendums are Dangerous

Nobel laureate economist and best-selling author Joseph E. Stiglitz, who has just published a new terrific book, "The Euro: How a Common Currency Threatens the Future of Europe" (it's at the top of my TBR list!), told the New York Times, in response to a question about the aftermath of Brexit in Europe:

"The likelihood is there that in one country or another there will be enough support for another referendum, and an exit will occur that will begin the process of a real unraveling of the Eurozone." 

He was probably thinking of France or the Netherlands and there are others too. But just imagine the EU without France or the Netherlands, that's surely the beginning of the end...

So what he is telling us is that in Europe, we now run a very real risk of another devastating referendum, similar to Brexit.

I believe that comment certainly makes my just-published article on Impakter magazine particularly timely. In it, I argue that referendums are not a democratic panacea, on the contrary, they are highly dangerous and can be deeply destructive. I also propose a simple fix. Here is the beginning:

impakter essay: WHY A REFERENDUM IS A BAD IDEA ...And a Modest Proposal to Fix it
The first lesson from Brexit, the UK vote to leave the European Union, should have been this: that a referendum is a bad idea, it weakens democracy and leads to potentially hugely damaging political decisions.In the economic area, bad news for Britain has already happened, the pound has plunged to its lowest historical level in thirty years and British commercial real estate is reeling, some 20 percent lower, a harbinger of a broader crisis in real estate.Good news are few: Australia has announced it wants a free trade deal with the UK after Brexit (to replace what is now available with the EU) and you can expect other Commonwealth countries to follow suit; and there is Japanese SoftBank’s recent acquisition of ARM, the technologically advanced British chip designer, a $32 billion investment in the British economy, that, oddly enough, did not provoke cries of anguish from nationalists who (normally) do not like to see “British jewels” sold to foreigners (though it seems that investors in Japan have serious doubts about the deal). But then, the Brexiteers needed to exhibit some good business news in the face of the coming unavoidable recession as the UK slowly exits the EU (it will take at least two years).Threats to Great Britain in the political arena are far greater: Britain risks losing Scotland and North Ireland. The Scots are already talking about a referendum for independence (that would allow them to join the EU) and Ireland is evoking the possibility of re-uniting with North Ireland, just as East and West Germany joined together. If all this comes to pass, Great Britain will be no more, in its place we’ll have “little England.” Hardly the result that even the most ardent Brexiteer could have wished for…Yet, in spite of the obvious economic and political risks, the populist far-right parties on the European continent have all latched onto the Brexit example, eager to emulate UKIP’s success with its Leave campaign. They are all clamoring for referendums from Marine Le Pen (Front National) in France to Geert Wilders (Party for Freedom) in the Netherlands, not to mention Germany, Italy, Spain etc.And matters are not helped by the continuing avalanche of ISIL-inspired attacks in Europe, from the massacre in Nice on Bastille Day to the Afghan teenager wielding a murdering axe in a German train. Such news is fodder to the populist/chauvinist mill.Add to the mix the extraordinary passivity of our political leaders, with German Chancellor Merkel in the forefront who clearly likes to sit on her hands while her Finance Minister Schäuble shoots down any attempt to strengthen the Eurozone; his chief concern is to defend German banks and German interests and he does not see it as Germany’s duty to sustain the weaker partners in the EU in a collaborative union, even though Germany is Europe’s strongest economy: in fact, collaboration is not in his vocabulary. There is no question that he is the least “European” of all German politicians, and in fact, he would be in good company with Marine Le Pen and Geert Wilders, all bent on shooting down the European Project. Meanwhile, the EU Commission in Brussels keeps mum, trying to stay out of the political melee, and in so doing, increasingly looking like the culprit.This is why an exasperated population sees referendums as the solution, the only way to push politicians into action. Referendums are seen as “direct democracy” at work, giving voice to the people in a way that normal elections do not.If only it were so. IN THE PHOTO: ANGELA MERKEL SPEAKS AT THE EUROPEAN PEOPLE’S PARTY SUMMIT. PHOTO CREDIT:FLICKR/EPP 1.    THE MANY WAYS REFERENDUMS CAN MISLEAD VOTERSA close examination of how a referendum actually works shows something radically different: Far from being a democratic tool, a referendum is an extremely dangerous political exercise that is open to ugly demagogic manipulations, and thus leads to unexpected and unwanted results.In our Internet-connected society, with Facebook, Twitter and tabloids sharing the voters’ attention like never before, the level of “information noise” is, as a result, higher than ever before, and the “noise,” unfortunately, tends to hide the “information.” In our current technological climate, with news valued by the number of “clicks” and “shares”, information is debased and a referendum is an increasingly dangerous tool, open to distortions.HARD FACTS GIVE WAY TO NON-FACTSVoters are not better informed when disinformation is as important as facts – as we saw in the case of Brexit. Consider what happened during the campaign. At first, it looked like it would turn into an interesting public debate, with the facts about staying in or out, brought out in the open.Every major think tank in Britain and in the world, including the IMF and the OECD, pitched in with their complex economic analyses. But a month before the vote, something happened. The facts turned out to be annoying, even boring, there were too many of them, too much to read, too much to digest.A large number of voters were turned off and preferred to follow their instinct. It was more emotionally satisfying to show dislike for your Polish or Italian neighbor (finally you could do it without incurring disapproval from your other neighbors). It was easier to believe in non-facts that promised satisfactory results.Of all the false promises the most famous one was the idea that with Brexit the UK would get back the £350 million it pays to the EU every week and invest it in its National Health system – a patently impossible promise to maintain on two counts: the amount paid to the EU was half that claimed by the Leave Campaign, and once Brexit kicks in, all funds available to the government would need to be used to defend the economy – clearly nothing would be left for the Health system.In the last three weeks running up to the referendum, far from having a sedate, informed and civil debate, we were treated to a Brexit vs. Remain brawl in the best (loud) American tradition. The Brexiteers were pumped up by a wave of phobia for foreigners and immigrants, and expressed heights of racism and nativism not seen before in public. All this, alas, culminated in the murder by a deranged nationalist of MP Jo Cox, a young mother of two whose only fault was her openly-expressed belief that the UK should remain in the EU.

To read the rest, click here.

Rome has Become a Mess!

In the 40 years I have lived in Rome, I have never seen the city is such bad shape, graffiti vandalizing graceful, ancient buildings everywhere, piles of dirt and s--t on the sidewalks, potholes in the streets, large enough to trap a scooter's wheel and kill the driver.

A friend of mine, Giuseppe Bonanno, in desperation, put up this blog post that I reproduce here - if you read Italian, you'll find it a good, rousing read...though depressing: When will the newly elected Mayor of Rome, Ms. Raggi do something?

And she's so new to the political game (she comes from the 5 Star protest party) and young (just 37), can she defeat "Mafia Capitale" as it is known here, i.e. the incredible corruption that has been linking local politicians to the Mafia for decades and that has led Rome to this final, dramatic juncture?

So far, what she's done is meet with the Pope, here's the video:


Here's Giuseppe Bonanno's blog post, if you want to read this on his blog, click here:

DEGRADO A ROMA DENTRO LE MURA DI SAN GIOVANNI Di fronte alla residenza dell'Ambasciata Inglese e nelle strade che la circondano sembra di stare a Beirut o al Cairo. Le Amministrazioni Capitoline passano ma il degrado rimane ed aumenta. 1^ Municipio-EXIT?

Adesso abbiamo i M5S. Faranno qualcosa? Sarà nel loro Raggi-o di azione?

Oggi 4 luglio 2016, su via Carlo Felice sul marciapiede di sinistra verso Piazza San Giovanni é comparso di nuovo il mercatino degli abusivi. La Polizia assente ingiustificato. idem per i Vigili Urbani.

Le strade intorno sono fatiscenti: i marciapiedi  su via Piatti, ormai in terra battuta confinano senza soluzione di continuità con l'asfalto e le buche della strada.

Il palazzo di proprietà della Banca d'Italia é sempre occupato e gli abitanti vivono a spese del Comune, locazione, servizi, di energia elettrica, gas, acqua, raccolta rifiuti?? etc. Non sappiamo se il Comune passa pure il telefonino? Ed il Cittadino paga.... 
 L'Ama non raccoglie le immondizie sui marciapiedi - troppo lavoro di gomito per gli spazzini che non esistono più. E se usassero i rifugiati dandogli uno stipendio? Lo fanno in Germania ed in Olanda?



Il Presidente   del "Comitato di quartiere Villa Wolkonsky - Roma Esquilino" denuncia l'assenza permanente delle autorità:

"invio la presente alla Questura di Roma, al Comune di Roma ed al 1 Municipio di Roma sollecitando il concreto riscontro alla richiesta - già da tempo formalizzata - di istituire una postazione fissa della Polizia di Roma Capitale  o dei Carabinieri  a via Carlo Felice vicino ai giardinetti, ove ogni mattina si radunano persone poco raccomandabili e zingari che vendono oggetti di dubbia provenienza.


Molte persone che si lamentano vengono aggredite e minacciate ed allorquando interviene una pattuglia della Polizia o dei Carabinieri; questi "signori" scappano e si vanno a nascondere nelle strade laterali, aspettando che i militi vanno via per poi continuare la loro attività illegittima.
La grave problematica si risolve predisponendo una postazione delle Forze di sicurezza in loco oppure una squadra di volontari in pensione dei Carabinieri e/o  delle Forze di Polizia ( N.B. in divisa) in modo tale che la zona venga sempre controllata al fine di inibire l'attività predetta. 
Molti abitanti della zona -da tempo- si adoperano per chiedere l'intervento delle competenti Autorità ma la situazione - ad oggi- non è cambiata ed il degrado incombe in modo palese ed obiettivo, nonostante qualcuno dica che siano stati effettuati dei lavori di rifacimento dei giardini per un importo di oltre 200 mila euro.
Ad oggi si è aggiunto il delicatissimo ed urgente problema della sicurezza stradale e della presenza di pericolosissime buche in via Ludovico di Savoia.
La strada risulta chiusa parzialmente proprio per la presenza di tali buche, che risultano essere un pericolo per l'incolumità di tutti coloro che si trovano a passare in zona.
Ciò precisato,                                                  chiedo espressamente 
alla Questura di Roma, al Comune di Roma ed al 1 Municipio di Roma di intervenire e di risolvere le problematiche indicate.Ringraziando in anticipo e restando in attesa del richiesto riscontro, porgo distinti saluti.
                                 Richiesta fatta dal Presidente del Comitato di quartiere Villa Wolkonsky- Roma Esquilino

MORE PICTURES OF ROMAN DECAY:




Pubblicato da Giuseppe Bonanno di Linguaglossa  

The Brexit Dream Likely to Turn into a Nightmare

I was involved in an experiment on Impakter: we launched a "Brexit Opinion Tracker" gathering the opinions and statements of major influencers and politicians as the Brexit referendum unfolded on 23 June, using the articles uploaded on our social media platform Thingser under the hashtag "Brexit" - this way we tracked what was happening in real time.  Then, today, with the stunning vote announced, I quickly dashed off a "wrap up note" to assess the situation. Here it is:
Wrap-Up Note: The Brexit Dream Likely to Turn into a NightmareWhile the vote on 23 June was carried out with quiet and dignity, as exit polls were (wisely) banned which contributed to the maintenance of order, the outcome is stunning: 52% for leaving the EU, over 17 million voters, against 15.9 million for the Remain camp.UKIP's secretary Nigel Farage exulted, "“Dare to dream that the dawn is breaking on an independent United Kingdom.” Unfortunately, that dream could quickly turn into a nightmare as the predictions of a deep economic downturn become real.
And the downturn has already started. Prime Minister Cameron immediately announced his resignation, opening up a government crisis in the UK.
Shock waves hit the EU as well. A quick reaction came from Martin Schulz, the president of the European Parliament, who said the assembly would hold an emergency session on Tuesday to address Brexit.  The European Council President Donald Tusk also announced the 27 EU bloc is "determined to keep our unity" and will assess a course of action "to avoid a chain reaction" (as Martin Schulz put it) in a EU summit meeting next week - or at least on the margins of it, as he plans to schedule meetings with EU leaders without Prime Minister Cameron.
When markets opened in Asia on the morning after (24 June), stock prices plummeted, along with the British pound. In a way, this is surprising, financial markets are rarely wrong and they had bet on the Remain camp, yet, this time, they turned out to be quite wrong. Markets had, it seemed, not given sufficient weight to the emotions the Leave campaign had stirred up in the British population, playing on fears of immigration.
So, Brexit was in the cards and to the end it was a very close call, with the 52-48 ratio seemingly reversed at first, in the early hours after the polls had closed, in favor of Remain.Yet, sadly, the murder last week of Jo Cox (41), mother of two, a Labour politician who strongly supported Remain, did not change the cards.Immigration was the biggest ISSUE in the campaignThe biggest issue aside from xenophobia, nativism and even racism as we have seen from UKIP members. Objectively, with net migration to Britain of 330,000 people in 2015, more than half of them coming from the European Union, there was little Mr. Cameron could do. And, as argued again and again, while  immigrants contributed more to the economy and to tax receipts than they cost, many Brits felt that their "national identity was under assault and that the influx was putting substantial pressure on schools, health care and housing."
The real problem is that the European project, instead of being seen as a solution to war and poverty intended to ensure prosperity and security, is seen as a threat to "national identity".
You'll find the rest of the analysis on Impakter, click here.

Google's Digital News Initiative Decrypted

Another one of my articles published on Impakter - this one about a fascinating new initiative that Google has launched (for the time being) only in Europe, to support the news industry (it will probably come to America later, once it has shown it works). Also included in the initiative, a fund to finance innovation, and the closing date for applications is 11 July. Anyone thinking of applying should read this - while others may be intrigued, wondering what Google is up to...


GOOGLE’S DIGITAL NEWS INITIATIVE: SUPPORTING INNOVATION OR WOOING EUROPEAN JOURNALISM?

Ever wondered about the myth of start-ups launched in a garage?
The story of Google’s founding proves that it’s not entirely a myth: the story starts in 1994 with the launch of the Digital Library Initiative (DLI) by three US government agencies, the National Science Foundation, NASA and DARPA. The aim was to promote innovation in “digital library research”, i.e. find ways to improve access and use of the information that by then was already piling up on the Web.
Among the first six winners of the new DLI awards, was a clever Web page indexing project, the brainchild of two gifted Stanford University students, Larry Paige and Sergey Brin.The two built a prototype called BackRub based on Paige’s foundational insight that what matters in page ranking are the links between those pages because they are made by humans and therefore reflect at least some form or judgment or assessment about their use. With BackRub they tested their PageRank system, initially on 24 million pages. It was so successful that they got $1 million additional funding and by 1998, Page and Brin had moved their growing hardware facility from the Stanford campus into a friend’s garage in Menlo Park and started Google, Inc.
Over a year ago, Google took a leaf from its founding history and launched the Digital News Initiative (DNI) in Europe.
The similarities with DLI cannot be missed, they’re both “digital initiatives” with the avowed aim to support innovation with funding; and in DNI’s case, as Google puts it, to promote “high quality journalism through technology and innovation”. Awards are called “projects” and among the three types of projects financed by the DNI Fund, you have “prototype projects” going to individuals – while the other two types of “projects” are reserved to news publishers (see box for details of how the DNI funding works).
Read the rest on Impakter, click here

WILL THE UK REALLY EXIT THE EUROPEAN UNION? WHAT BREXIT MEANS

On June 1,2016, Impakter published this essay that I wrote after many months of following Brexit, uploading onto Thingser all the articles that I found of interest, over 60 of them (see here - many were - and still are - uploaded by other Thingser members which I found very useful for my research). From my standpoint as a dispassionate observer of political and cultural events, I honestly attempted to really understand Brexit, i.e. Britain's exit from the UK, something that could really happen on 23 June, as the Brits go to vote on the Brexit referendum.

As the date gets nearer and the pro-Brexit camp surges ahead (according to the latest news), this article is ever more relevant and I hope you'll find it useful to understand better what is going and what the real risks are - very high, not just for Europe but also for America. Should the UK choose to leave the EU, the consequences are truly incalculable and devastating, for the UK first, but the rest of the world too.



IMPAKTER ESSAY: THE UGLY SIDE OF BREXITSTAY IN OR LEAVE THE EU? THE CONSEQUENCES FOR BRITAIN AND THE EU June 1, 2016

The European Union is facing a perfect storm and possibly its greatest test since its six original members, France, Germany, Italy and the Benelux countries, began the European Project in 1957 with the signature of the Treaty of Rome.What the EU did not need at this point was “Brexit”, the possibility of Britain voting to leave the EU on June 23, the date set by Prime Minister Cameron for the referendum on leaving the EU.Consider the situation: a long-simmering Greek debt crisis  that has battered the Euro since 2010 is coming up for yet another call for bailout funds in July with Germany unwilling to consider the only possible solution, i.e. debt relief (as proposed by the IMF);the double-dip recession – a fate the US escaped thanks to the quantitative easing measures taken by the Federal Reserve but that could not be replicated by the European Central Bank due to a relentless German opposition, led by the German Finance Minister Schauble who has a pre-Keynesian fear of inflation and a fixation on “balancing the budget” at all costs;continuing high levels of unemployment everywhere, especially among the young (up to 50 percent in Spain and Greece are jobless) and harrowing poverty in some places (in Greece, the national health system has broken down leaving the poor with no protection); unprecedented flows of refugees , well over one million entering the EU last year, as the war in Syria took a turn for the worse with the Russian bombings.Even the relatively good news of renewed (if weak) EU growth this year has not succeeded in slowing down the rise of a vicious form of nationalistic populism across the continent. New parties on the extreme right have been loudly calling for a denial of asylum and closure of frontiers. Unfortunately, they have been heard by feckless politicians too fearful to stand up for their convictions (possibly with the exception of the German Chancellor Angela Merkel, though she too has lately weakened her stance). And we are seeing this even in countries that not so long ago were very liberal, like the Netherlands and France.Remarkably, the only country that does not seem to have veered in this ugly direction is Italy – possibly because it was the first EU member to bear the brunt of refugee flows, as far back as 1998, and it has learned to cope with it, all by itself for a long time as other EU members looked on, unwilling to lend a hand.But this is a small bright spot in the whole picture.The overall result of all these unfortunate events is inescapable: what was originally a cautious distancing from Brussels and the European Project calling for an ever “closer union”, has now turned into an unbridgeable chasm, as the Schengen rules for visa-free travel are suspended again and again, even between close neighbors with historically friendly relations like Italy and France.

Read the rest on Impakter, click here.

AUTHOREA: A STARTUP FOR SCIENTISTS TO SHARE AND ADVANCE RESEARCH

Another one of my articles published on Impakter - I interviewed the founder of Authorea, a startup for scientists to share and advance research. Here is his picture, his name is Alberto Pepe, he's a young Italian astrophysicist who now lives in New York:


And here is the start of the article:

You’d think that writing scientific papers today, with all the digital tools at hand, would be a breeze. But you’d be wrong. Scientific work is not helped along by the Internet but challenged by it.

Why?

Because scientists, for the most part, still follow traditional methods for sharing their research findings. Or, as young Italian astrophysicist Alberto Pepe put it in an interview with Il Corriere della Sera, a major Italian daily, “Scientists today produce 21st century research; they use the writing tools of the 20th century and force their writing into formats similar to those of the 18th century.”

In short, the way scientific articles are written goes back 400 years, and the ability to share information is stuck in a 1980s level of technology. Most of the scientific information published on major journals like Nature, Science, or the Lancet is behind paywalls; universities and research institutions spend hundreds of thousands of dollars every year for subscriptions.

Hence, the birth of the “open science” movement to try and break down the walls. But to breakdown paywalls is not enough. What is required are practical tools to do it, tools that, taken as a package, go well beyond what is normally available on the Internet.

This is where Authorea comes in. Started as a publishing platform dedicated to scientists, it is the brainchild of Alberto Pepe and Nathan Jenkins, a physicist from California. The two had met ten years ago at CERNin Geneva, the prestigious European Center for Nuclear Research; harassed by the drudgery of having to exchange drafts back and forth on collaborative research papers and disappointed to see all the hard data-crunching work disappear once the papers were published, they had often discussed what could be done to advance scientific work.

The rest of the story is on Impakter, click here to read.

A Millennial Search: The Yoga of Max's Discontent - Book Review and Author Interview

Another one of my articles published on Impakter, the magazine for Millennials:


TIGHT AND SLACK – A MILLENNIAL SEARCHCLAUDE FORTHOMME on May 3, 2016 at 6:02 PM

Life Models: “Tight and Slack” and the Search for Transcendence. Karan Bajaj Talks about Life and his Latest Novel “ The Yoga of Max’s Discontent” ,  published by  Riverhead Books/Penguin House,  out on 3 May 2016   Book Review and Author InterviewA book about man’s quest for himself,  The Yoga of Max’s Discontent, is a book you should read, for many reasons.

IN THE PHOTO: MOUNT VERNON AND THE BRONX – END OF THE 2 LINE AT 241 ST AND MOUNT VERNONFirst, an arresting premise: the main character, Max, a tall, young man in his late twenties, is the personification of the American dream – from the dark despair of the Bronx projects where he was born to the glitter of Wall Street. A first-generation immigrant, there’s no father in the family, just a sister and a mother, a Greek woman who earns a meagre living from housecleaning and sacrifices herself to see her children educated. He manages to win fellowships to the best schools, gets a Harvard degree and lands a highly paid job on Wall Street. His mother dies, the American dream falls apart.

IN THE PHOTO: HARVARD UNIVERSITY WIDENER LIBRARYSecond, a remarkably  terse, direct way of presenting the yogis’ complex belief system, complete with Max’s own personal doubts as they crop up – and that approach certainly succeeds in drawing in any unbelieving reader. The book is written from Max’s point of view: with his mother passing away,”now that he no longer had his mother’s voice in his head prompting him to become someone, nothing stopped him from seeking the same insight.” The “same insight” referred to here, is the yogis’ belief as reported to Max in the simple words of a recently arrived Indian immigrant who is manning an open-air food cart on a Manhattan street corner. Max has come across him after his mother’s funeral. The night is wintry and bitter, the Indian cart vendor is naked to the waist, apparently heedless of the cold; he certainly looks something of a yogi. The man tells him that yogis believe “that the whole world exists in opposites: up and down, cold and hot, darkness and light, night and day, summer and winter, growth and decay. So if there is birth, age, suffering, sorrow and death, then there must be something that is un-born, un-aging, un-ailing, sorrowless and deathless – immortal as it were. They want to find it”.

The rest on Impakter, click here.

"Severed Head" on Wattpad

The #JustWriteIt 30 day writing challenge, #EarthLove edition organized by Wattpad has a new participant!




Yes, little old me, and this is the presentation on Wattpad of my new novella, made to celebrate Earth Day coming up on April 22nd. EarthDay. org wants you to plant billions of trees to green the Earth, actually 50,000 more trees by 22 April, do donate! For my part, I just want you to enjoy my new novella and maybe, just maybe, think a little a bit about our common future and our home, planet Earth - hey, remember, it's like your own body, it can't be replaced!

#EarthLove!

Here's the pitch for my novella:

The end of the world: 2116, the year when the last spaceship loaded with humans leaves for Kepler 457, Earth's twin, virgin and new, ready to be settled. 

In that ship: Julie, beautiful, young and alone, the man she loves has chosen to stay behind. She has submitted herself to a harrowing procedure to take the flight, a procedure Dan could not bear to face in spite of his love for her (no spoilers!). He takes refuge on Antarctica that has turned into a lush archipelago, similar to Japan, now that all the ice has melted. 

The unexpected happens, Julie and Dan meet again, but it's not a happy reunion. Julie has another life partner. Can Dan ever win back Julie? 

This is a sci-fi piece set 100 years from now, it's about saving the Earth, it's about love, and even Donald Trump makes a surprise "guest appearance"...Enjoy, let me know what you think! 

  NOTE: For this novella, the author is using her real name (Claude Forthomme) - her past work, ranging from poetry to novels, may be found under her pen name, Claude Nougat.

And here's the opening:

I knew she had done it, we had talked – and fought – about it so many times. But it wasn't until I saw her inch along towards me, one among thousands on the conveyor belt, that the full impact of her decision hit me. I felt faint and had to sit down.

A severed head floating in a glass case.

To read the rest, click here 

If you like it, please share, here's an example of a tweet but feel free to tweet whatever you want!

Severed Head #wattpad #EarthLove #JustWriteIt About saving the Earth, about love and (chuckle) #DonaldTrump! https://t.co/HmeGZdPvKm— Claude Forthomme (@claudeforthomme) April 19, 2016