Ques: Earlier this week, @naval (CEO and co-founder of AngelList) asked a question on Twitter: "The challenge of the next decade is not Artificial Intelligence, but Human Intelligence. Can we retrain the workforce as knowledge workers?"" At the heart of his question is an interesting observation. As automation and artificial intelligence replaces manual jobs, how do we retrain people in the new knowledge economy where information handling and management is in high demand? I thought I would share some experiences, observations, and recommendations based upon when I did this previously in my career. Back in 2004 I was peddling my wares as a journalist, writing for the tech press. I was living in the West Midlands in England and heard about a new organization in nearby Birmingham called OpenAdvantage. The premise was neat: open source was becoming a powerful force in technology and OpenAdvantage was set up to provide free consultancy for companies wanting to harness open source, as well as individuals who wanted to upskill in these new technologies. At the time in the West Midlands lots of industry was being automated and moved out to Asia, so lots of Midlanders were out of jobs and looking to retrain. This required, by definition, retaining the workforce as knowledge workers. OpenAdvantage was funded by the UK government and the University of Central England, had a decent war chest, and was founded by Scott Thompon and Paul Cooper (the latter of which I met when he heckled me at a talk I gave at a Linux User Group once. 🙂 ) So, I went along to their launch event and wrote a piece about them. Shortly after, Paul and Scott invited me back over to the office and offered me a job there as an open source consultant. I took the role, and this is where I cut my teeth on a lot of open source, community, and working with businesses. We had crazy targets to hit each month, so we ended up working with and training hundreds of organizations and individuals across a wide range of areas, and covering a wide berth of open source... Who heckled the writer when he was making a speech?  A. Paul Cooper  B. his editor  C. Scott Thompson  D. not enough information
Ans: A

Ques: The sudden burst of spring produce in the market after a long, monotonous winter of cavolo nero and bright oranges is one of the things that constantly reminds me why I love living and eating in Italy. A wander through the market like any other becomes, in spring time, a new experience. I feel like a fresh arrival, like it’s my first time walking through my local market. There are long, twisty fava bean pods, waiting to be podded and munched on with bitey pecorino cheese to tame the bitterness of the raw beans. Thin, long-stemmed asparagus. A lovely array of greens, including radishes with leaves so happy that they become the main ingredient, fluffy-fronded fresh herbs and fresh garlic. Artichokes of many different kinds, but especially the pointed purple ones that are either local, from Tuscany’s Maremma, or sometimes from Puglia or Sicily. Rarely the rounded globe artichokes you find spilling out of crates in Rome, or the tiny, delicate Venetian ones, the so-called castraure (though they often aren’t the real deal, how you can tell is by the price) that you can find in the shadow of the Rialto. And then there are thick bunches of agretti (salsola soda), looking more like mermaid’s hair than a monk’s beard, their English namesake. A few years ago, this wasn’t such a common sight at the market in Florence. It still isn’t, in that you won’t get them by the crateful like you do fava beans and artichokes, though they’re not particularly difficult to find now. They’re just one of those special things that don’t last long. Blink and you’ll miss them, or come late to the market and they could easily be sold out. It’s worth getting up and out of the house a little earlier for these (a note to myself, of course). If you’ve never tasted agretti before, it’s worth seeking out if you’re in the right place at the right time and find a bunch or see it on a menu. Frances Mayes likens it to spinach, but notes that it is so much more, “While agretti has the mineral sharpness of spinach, it tastes livelier, full of the energy... What isn't a common sight at the market?  A. not enough information  B. Artichokes  C. Fava beans  D. Agretti
Ans: D

Ques: We had a light bulb that stopped working and when a new bulb was placed it wouldn’t light up. We eventually had a technician from John Moore come out to fix this problem. He was nice enough and took the time to explain to me why it had stopped working and how he would fix this. After about 30 minutes he had completed this and then offered as a free service to inspect the electrical parts of the house. He went out back to the fuse box to look and then after inspection offered to show me what he had found. It was mid to late afternoon in the back yard and that’s when the sun is aiming straight to my back yard. I should mention we live in Texas. He went over ever single fuse and wire that we had and explained about the piping and all the other things that go with it and that what we have isn’t what is recommended anymore. Our house was about 9 years old at the time. We were back there for more than 90 minutes. I started getting very restless because I wanted to work on dinner, the sun was blazing hot and I needed to do many other things. It was coming up on 5 o’clock. He then went to his truck to write up an estimate. After 20 minutes or so he comes back and tells me it will be about $10,000 to fix our fuse box system. So what started out for changing a light bulb was going to end up costing 10K. We did later get it looked at by someone else that is qualified in this field,m who was there working on some other project and he said there was nothing wrong with what we had. What sort of neighborhood was the author's house in?  A. A very poor neighborhood  B. A very wealthy neighborhood  C. not enough information  D. A middle class neighborhood
Ans:
C