NOTES FROM AN ABANDONED VILLAGE

I'm still asking: Where and why did they go? Here is the story: the Bories village is composed of seven groupings of huts, each having a very precise function: houses, stables, barns, goat shelters, tanning mills, bake houses - the whole social and economic system build laboriously from limestone, and it all was abandoned by its inhabitants about 150 years ago. Classified as a Historical Monument by the French Government, it includes an impressive collection of archived documents none of which tells WHY??? The Bories village in France isn't the only abandoned place on Earth: Brochs, Trullis, Cabanes, Cleits, Giren are scattered around the world. Wherever you spot them, you are hit by the patience and dexterity of those who created them and the enigma that surrounds their abandonment. Visiting abandoned places - ancient but also modern - is becoming more and more popular tourism nowadays. Ghost towns in the former USSR and in the US, orphaned mine sites in Canada, post-Chernobyl villages attract by their macabre beauty. As the DirJournal blog says, "There are mainly two reasons why people suddenly or little by little leave the place where they used to live for years or even generations: that's the danger and economic factors."
My blog is dedicated to
"These were thy charms - but all these charms are fled."
Oliver Goldsmith, "The Deserted Village"

Sunday, February 7, 2010

John Deere - green?











































Our guest speaker: Scott Lake who has been leading software companies for the past decade. He was a founder and the CEO of Shopify.com, one of the largest hosted e-commerce apps on the Web. He also founded one of the first social media marketing firms, ThinkSM. Scott was also VP of Technical Services at Tomoye Corporation, where he helped implement online communities at some of the largest organizations in the world, including Lockheed Martin, John Deere, the G8 and the US Army.

Our virtual guest speakers Karen Lekowski and Lynn Friesth from John Deere are on call and the topic is Virtual Collaboration.

On pictures: Scott waiting for the connection and myself presenting our virtual guests.

Question:

How does the "wide range of electronics-related products and information services using Global Positioning in agriculture and other markets (John Deere's vision of Intelligent Vehicle Systems) make John Deere green?

Their precision farming is based on Agronomic Management, Fleet Management, Business Management, Machine & Operator Productivity, Traceability and Environmental Compliance (from "John Deere GreenStar Products" at the Club of Rome)

Georg Kormann: John Deere GreenStar Products – Operator Assist Systems for Sustainable Farming

Dave Roberts

Georg Kormann, Manager Advanced Engineering at John Deere, gave an overview, how products can support the development of a sustainable agriculture. He presented among others automatic GPS connected machines which operate with a minimum of human efforts. He introduced also sensor networks and and gave an overview on efficiency gains by the new technologies.

INTERESTING ABOUT JOHN DEERE (NOT BY JOHN DEERE):



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