Posting on my blog – obviously. Aside from that? Sending something off to the MOD, sending a draft presentation for an insurance event and writing a lecture for QDay 2010 – The Human Interface – that is happening this month at the University Aula in Lund, Sweden.

Also sending a few emails, one about the downsides of screen based reading, another on crowd sourcing and open intelligence and another about the NHS in 2040. And, of course, the usual flood of requests and information. Oh, and I’m supposed to be doing something to promote the new US edition of Future Files (the older of my two books) but I’m not.

How about something else to read?

I haven’t bought it yet but I read a review for Why the West Rules – For Now: The Patterns of History and What They Reveal about the Future by Ian Morris.

Here’s a statistic from the review. In 1750 Europe’s combined share of world manufacturing output was 23% to China’s 33%; by 1900 it was 62% to China’s 6%. That’s fantastic! What caused such a huge shift? It was the invention of steam power in the UK, which was itself created by a pressing need to get to deep seam coal, which in turn required powerful pumps to remove the water from the mine shafts.

Don’t you just love little historical nuggets like that?