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Via.

If you are interested in seeing more, much of her work is archived online.

Corby Kummer has related a rather confusing realization to us this month in the Atlantic Magazine. Namely, that retail supergiant Walmart may be playing an important part in sustaining small organic farms.

Detail from Kang Can, Fast Food III (2007) [via]

If Walmart’s move into organics strikes you as cynical — “a way to grab market share while driving small stores and farmers out of business,” you’re not alone. But, Kummer suggests, it’s not entirely clear that the right reaction is disapprobation. For example, he notes that:

[L]ast year, the market for organic milk started to go down along with the economy, and dairy farmers in Vermont and other states, who had made big investments in organic certification, began losing contracts and selling their farms. A guaranteed large buyer of organic milk began to look more attractive.

Kummer, suspicious of greenwashing, called Charles Fishman, the author of The Wal-Mart Effect. Fishman was quick to note that, in Kummer’s paraphrase, “whatever Walmart decides to do has large repercussions.”

A virtually unknown Walmart program is responsible for their responsible buying — one that Kummer claims “could do more to encourage small and medium-size American farms than any number of well-meaning nonprofits, or the U.S. Department of Agriculture.” At the time of their interview, not even Fishman had heard of it. “They do a lot of good things they don’t talk about,” he said.

Kummer’s conclusion? If it’s not decidedly the case that “the world’s largest retailer is set on rebuilding local economies it had a hand in destroying,” at least that “if it wants to, a ruthlessly well-run mechanism can bring fruits and vegetables back to land where they once flourished, and deliver them to the people who need them most.”

Decide for yourself here.

1. Watch this Presentation: Square

Something that caught our eye a while back. This video is one of the most clever and legible explanations we’ve seen. It takes a complex, multi-step product and makes it seem accessible to anyone. Bravo!

2. The Six Things Clients Want

A nice reminder of what the designer’s job really entails, e.g. you aren’t just building your client a website, you’re inspiring them, bringing in ideas, and improving process. See past the product in the contract. What does your client really want?

3. Adobe’s Magic Paintbrush: Context Aware Fill

Very impressive technology demo. The “uncropping” part at the end is astounding. I was skeptical, but it’s not a hoax. This will be in CS5.

It’s not 100% perfect, but from the look of things, it’s about 90% what you’d get if you spent hours with the Clone Stamp. I’d call that progress.

((as somebody commented on the Adobe blog, with this tech, sites like iStockphoto are going to need some new watermarks…))

4. A Manifesto of Manifestos

I like this post and tend to agree with its observations. Sort of a meta-manifesto.

Needs to be 10 points, though. A nice round number. ;)

Via.

Colour Shambles v3 by Simon C Page.

(Though, I wonder if displaying some of the pieces at an angle is really a good idea…)

Hat tip to Trendspotting for the link and pic.

Beware of corporate consulting firms offering awards for corporate ethics - Slate

Sometime in the next week or so, something called the Ethisphere Institute is scheduled to announce this year’s list of the “World’s Most Ethical Companies.” If past years are any indication, the winners will have their press releases ready to go, and news outlets across the country will eat it up. There’s just one hitch: These ethics awards—let’s call them the Ethies—may have ethics issues of their own.

Read all about it here.

Vermeer, A Girl Asleep

The Ethical Dog - Scientific American

Chimpanzees and other nonhuman primates regularly make the news when researchers, logically looking to our closest relatives for traits similar to our own, uncover evidence of their instinct for fairness. But our work has suggested that wild canine societies may be even better analogues for early hominid groups—and when we study dogs, wolves and coyotes, we discover behaviors that hint at the roots of human morality.

Read all about it here.

Ethics of Monitoring PC Activity - PCWorld

A Pennsylvania school district is under fire, and facing a potential class-action lawsuit related to allegations that it spied on students in their homes using school-issued laptops. Organizations have a right, and sometimes even an obligation, to monitor activity on their computers or network, but the ethics involved are often hazy.

Read all about it here.

Integrating Ethics Into The Core Of Your Startups: Why And How - TechCrunch

It is best to be aware of the temptations and to prevent the lapses from occurring. As Enron, Bernie Madoff, and Lehman Brothers have shown, it’s a slippery slope. Once you start compromising your values for short-term gains, there is no turning back. Business ethics are not something you need to start worrying about when your company reaches a certain size; they need to be sewn into the fabric of your startup from the get-go. The lessons are the same for tech businesses as they are for investment banks and for third-world economies.

Read all about it here.