"The current manager-in-residence, George II, went through the motions of flying F-102s on training missions with the Texas Air National Guard during the Viet Nam unpleasantness, in a squadron noted for its population of the scions of the Texas elite. (He was admitted to pilot training ahead of a coupla hundred more qualified other rich kids, despite having flunked the entrance exam. As if that weren't little enough, the record seems clear that he was too busy on a political campaign to show up for service when assigned to Alabama for his last year of duty. Can you imagine what Colin Powell, a real soldier, thinks of this guy?

My personal resentment may stem from the fact that I enlisted in the Air Force at the same New Haven office as George, about 3 years earlier. About a week before he enlisted, I was on the C-130 that evacuated the last Marines from Kham Duc Viet Nam (the one before us was shot down on takeoff, killing all 150 souls on board). A month after George started his USAF Adventure Camp, I got shot down at Katum, Viet Nam. The real world has real work to be done. Leaders do that work and teach others. Managers arrange the doing of real work."

Although very little has been written about it, the events of May 12, 1968 are among the most heroic of the Vietnam War, in fact of any war. On that day, a handful of American US Air Force C-130 and US Army and Marine helicopter crewmembers literally laid their lives on the line to evacute the defenders of the Civilian Irregular Defense Corps camp at Kham Duc, an outpost just inside the South Vietnamese border with Laos.

"Inside, the sunlight was terrific, the entire space fairly cozy, but very hobbit-like. And with, let's be clear, fairly low resale value to anyone except a total granola-crunching lunatic like yourself, unless there's a nuclear war and living off the grid becomes handy, at which point you won't want to move anyway, but will want to insert steel bars over all the windows to avoid mutant tribes of 16-eyed irradiated flesh-eating Objectivists."

Noi siamo qui.
Noi stiamo camminando ora, fuori dal passato, per sognare un grande sogno.
Noi siamo amici e uguali, noi siamo diversi e unici, e noi siamo uniti per qualcosa di più grande delle nostre differenze.
Noi crediamo nella libertà e nella cooperazione, l'abbondanza e l'armonia.
Noi siamo una cultura emergente, un rinascimento dell'essenza dell'umanità.
Noi cerchiamo la nostra guida personale, e noi distinguiamo la nostra propria verità.
Noi andiamo in molte direzioni, e ancora rifiutiamo di perderci.
Noi abbiamo molti nomi, noi parliamo molte lingue.
Noi siamo locali, noi siamo globali.
Noi siamo in tutte le regioni del mondo, noi siamo da ogni parte nell'aria.
Noi siamo l'universo che si conosce, noi siamo l'onda dell'evoluzione.
Noi siamo in ogni occhio del bambino, noi affrontiamo il non conosciuto con ammirazione e eccitamento.
Noi siamo messaggeri dal futuro, vivendo nel presente.
Noi veniamo dal silenzio, e noi parliamo la nostra verità.
Noi non possiamo essere taciuti, perchè le nostre voci sono con tutti.
Noi non abbiamo nemici, nessuna frontiera può ostacolarci.
Noi rispettiamo i cicli e le espressioni della natura, perchè noi siamo la natura.
Noi non giochiamo per vincere, noi giochiamo per vivere e imparare.
Noi agiamo dall'ispirazione, amore e integrità.
Noi esploriamo, noi scopriamo, noi sentiamo, e noi ridiamo.
Noi stiamo costruendo un mondo che lavora per tutti.
Noi intendiamo vivere le nostre vite per tutto il loro più pieno potenziale.
Noi siamo indipendenti, autosufficienti e responsabili.
Noi reaggiamo reciprocamente nella pace, con compassione e rispetto, noi uniti nella comunità.
Noi celebriamo la salute con e attraverso noi tutti.
Noi danziamo al ritmo di creazione.
Noi parliamo le verità dei nuovi tempi.
Noi siamo la nuova civilizzazione.

"This practice is a variation of Vipassana Meditation.

This is a slow, ordinary walk based on awareness of your feet as they touch the ground. You can walk in a circle or in a line. Take ten to fifteen steps, going back and forth, inside or outside. Your eyes should be lowered to the ground, just a few steps ahead.

While walking in Vipassana, one gives attention to the contact of each foot as it touches the ground. When other things arise, simply notice what took your attention and gently return your focus to your walking. It is the same technique as sitting, but for some, the movement is helpful and can be a welcome change.

Try this for twenty minutes, it can result in a deep awareness... "

"We've all heard a lot about Internet Appliances (IA). But how many of you have actually experienced the thrill of commanding an appliance over the internet?

Well, this is your big chance to actually play with something of that kind..."

"In 1999, Jane’s Intelligence Review, the journal widely followed in national security circles, wondered whether it was on the right track with an article about computer security and cyberterrorism. The editors went straight to some experts — the denizens of Slashdot, a tech-oriented Web site — and published a draft. In hundreds of postings on the site’s message system, the technically adept members of that community promptly tore apart the draft and gave, often in colorful language, a variety of perspectives and suggestions. Jane’s went back to the drawing board, and rewrote the article from scratch. The community had helped create something, and Jane’s gratefully noted the contribution in the article it ultimately published."

"Lawyers (save those from Chicago) are not typically trained to think about the business consequence of their legal advice. To many, business is beneath the law. When a Sony lawyer threatened a fan of the company's Aibo robotic dog, who had posted a hack online to teach the dog to dance to jazz, he or she no doubt never thought to ask exactly how making the Aibo dog more valuable to customers could possibly harm Sony. Harm was not the issue, a violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act was: consumers should be banned from hacking Sony dogs, whether or not it was to Sony's benefit.

Management should begin to demand a business justification for copyright litigation. How does this legal action advance the bottom line? How will it grow markets or increase consumer demand for our products? Will calling our customers criminals increase consumer loyalty?"

"The future as told through the present has been awfully grim these days, especially with the almost surreal goverment oppression we're facing. But this article brought a smile to my face, and it was very synchronistic, as I was already on the same wavelengths the last month or so. The last few years, and especially since 9-11, I've had my belly full of futures filled with science and technology gone awry and video games whose sole purpose is to kill and destroy in what is almost always DARK, DANK, and DYSTOPIAN worlds.

Yet when I dream at night, those wonderfully lucid flying dreams that I have often, I recall all of those wild-eyed, trippy, fantastically fun and pleasure filled dreams of far-out futuristic possibilities, when I was a kid. And it got me to wondering about bringing those types of visions to reality somehow. A vision to share with others. With everything going on now, I feel an inexorable drive to CREATE more than ever before. It feels almost like a moral imperative. Perhaps if I can network with other sufficiently tuned-in minds on the planet I can least find some kindred spirits who share a vision of a much better future. A future where fun, pleasure, love and peace are pervasive - Space Colonies, Interstellar pleasure cruise ships, orgasmatrons, sexy computers voices and intimate zero-gravity environments. And for those of you who haven't heard of Ian Banks, I highly suggest you read his books about The Culture, a website I host on this server. Its my hope that I can, as time progresses, continue to tweak and improve the content and quality of this site to better reflect this emerging positive worldview. A future that we, our children, and our mind children can look forward to."

Our beloved Desmond Tutu has spoken out
against the USA's stance on Iraq. An extract: "I'm shocked to see a powerful country use its power frequently, unilaterally," said Tutu, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984 for opposing apartheid. "The United States says: 'You do this to the world. If you don't do it, we will do it.' That's sad," he said. "When does compassion, when does morality, when does caring come in?" he asked. "I just hope that one day that people will realise that peace is a far better path to follow."

"At this time especially, I am really proud to be South African. I am proud that our government is keeping a level head, and not going along with the "boys" Bush, Blair, Howard, and others, but rather making independent decisions, and maintaining a perspective of considering what is right for the global good."

"ZDNet is running a story on what a lot of us already know: Linux IS cheaper than Windows. This not because it is free. It is because Linux admins, although slightly more expensive, can handle a significantly larger number of systems than their Windows counterparts."

The Business Software Alliance and Computer Systems Policy Project -- two prominent high-tech trade groups representing Intel, Hewlett-Packard, Microsoft and other Silicon Valley heavyweights -- are forming a new coalition and working to enlist support from consumer and business groups.

They hope to convince Congress that strict copy-protection legislation setting technological mandates would stifle innovation, harm consumers and threaten an already-suffering tech industry.

"The settlers of Iceland divided the country into 4 regions. Each region had 9 godord and the godord were divided into three things. The godord were divided into groups of three and each thing had three godord.

The word 'godord' has two definitions. Godord represented a group of men. These men gave allegiance or alliance to a specific godi. A godi is the leader or chief who constructed a place of worship for his pagan followers. The godord was also a collection of rights, the right to represent the law making body of Iceland.

David Friedman states, "…seats in the law-making body were quite literally for sale." These men who were law-makers did not have power just because they held the title godord. They were powerless "unless he could convince some free-farmers to follow him." This kept tyranny and injustice in check.

Jesse Byock states in his book that, "leadership evolved in such a way that a chieftain's power and the resources available to him were not derived from an exploitable realm." This was because free farmers could change allegiance between godi without moving to a new geographical location. "The legal godi-thingman bond was created by a voluntary public contract." The ability to switch legal systems with out moving, is key to a decentralized system. It creates secession down the level of the individual, making all governance structures formed truly voluntary."

"right now, i'm thinking a lot about blogs. blogs, blogs, blogs. blogs all the time around here. currently, i'm co-producing, with technophile Beverly Tang, a panel on blogging that will take place on February 1st at Miltos Manetas' Electronic Orphanage under the Rhizome banner. cyberfille Xeni Jardin will be moderating. the current line-up thus far features the likes of Mark Frauenfelder, Doc Searls, and myself. two other panelists are still being virtually hunted down like e-dogs in the cyberstreet at this time.

i would like to find someone who is alternoblogging. vlogging. audioblogging. moblogging. blogging-as-art. photoblogging with no words whatsoever ever. blogging in a newish way that pushes at the boundaries of the medium. and, they have to be in LA on 2/1. do you know of anyone? it was nice to hear from Jeff Jarvis, Howard Rheingold, and Joi Ito. but, i would like to hear about an alternoblogger too."

"While Nike was conducting a huge and expensive PR blitz to tell people that it had cleaned up its subcontractors' sweatshop labor practices, an alert consumer advocate and activist in California named Marc Kasky caught them in what he alleges are a number of specific deceptions. Citing a California law that forbids corporations from intentionally deceiving people in their commercial statements, Kasky sued the multi-billion-dollar corporation.

Instead of refuting Kasky's charge by proving in court that they didn't lie, however, Nike instead chose to argue that corporations should enjoy the same 'free speech' right to deceive that individual human citizens have in their personal lives. If people have the constitutionally protected right to say, 'The check is in the mail,' or, 'That looks great on you,' then, Nike's reasoning goes, a corporation should have the same right to say whatever they want in their corporate PR campaigns."

"In the next few weeks the U.S. Supreme Court will decide whether or not to hear Nike's appeal of the California Supreme Court's decision that Nike was engaging in commercial speech which the state can regulate under truth in advertising and other laws. And lawyers for Nike are preparing to claim before the Supreme Court that, as a "person," this multinational corporation has a constitutional free-speech right to deceive.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Exxon/Mobil, Monsanto, Microsoft, Pfizer, and Bank of America have already filed amicus briefs supporting Nike. Additionally, virtually all of the nation's largest corporate-owned newspapers have recently editorialized in favor of Nike and given virtually no coverage or even printed letters to the editor asserting the humans' side of the case."

"Some of us believe that God exists, if at all, in all of us. That we are all godlike and have the potential to be at one with the wholeness of experience if we could just get out of our own way.

Others believe that God is elsewhere, a presence outside of our experience which controls all that we do, who will look after us if we do the right thing.

This split drives everything, organisations, society, the web.

We give up responsibility to that force outside ourselves or we take responsibility for ourselves. We conform to socially agreed stereotypes or work out what makes us happy and follow that; we trust the structures set up by others or we trust ourselves; we are drawn to client server or peer to peer, Microsoft or Apple, indoors our outdoors, death or life.

Herendeth the lesson"

"Leader presumes follower. Follower presumes choice. One who is coerced to the purposes, objectives, or preferences of another is not a follower in any true sense of the word, but an object of manipulation. Nor is the relationship materially altered if both parties accept dominance and coercion. True leading and following presume perpetual liberty of both leader and follower to sever the relationship and pursue another path. A true leader cannot be bound to lead. A true follower cannot be bound to follow. The moment they are bound, they are no longer leader or follower. The terms leader and follower imply the freedom and independent judgment of both. If the behavior of either is compelled, whether by force, economic necessity, or contractual arrangement, the relationship is altered to one of superior/subordinate, management/employee, master/servant, or owner/slave. All such relationships are materially different than leader-follower.

Induced behavior is the essence of leader-follower. Compelled behavior is the essence of all the others. Where behavior is compelled, there lies tyranny, however benign. Mere behavior is induced, there lies leadership, however powerful. Leadership does not imply constructive, ethical, open conduct. It is entirely possible to induce destructive, malign, devious behavior and to do so by corrupt means. Therefore, a clear, meaningful purpose and compelling ethical principles evoked from all participants should be the essence of every relationship, and every institution."

"Imagine this. It's the year 2010, and almost everyone has a real-time always-on connection to the Net via ubiquitous wearable 'augmented reality' devices. As part of this package, made possible with advance minuturized heads-up displays, video cameras, location aware devices, GPS, swarmbots, emotion-sensitive and adaptive algorithms (i.e. Affective Computing), and sophisticated reputation systems, you are able to surf an augmented version of reality itself in real time.

Lets break this down. You would be able to, in real-time see precisely whats going on anywhere in the globe by jacking in to the collection of real-time video blogs. As part of this collection, sophisticated 3-D rendering engines would be able to take the collective video footage and extropolate a real-time VR scene, allowing you to transcend the viewing angle of any single camera. Better still, you could jack in to that part of the world from a variety of, not only physical perspectives, but political, intellectual, and emotional as well based on whatever any individual user makes public as part their unique sliding-scale trust system such as the type that Joi Ito has proposed with moblogs. All of this meta-data would form its own collective smart-mob based on individually selected criteria.

What this means is that you could then view the "scene" from virtually any angle. Imagine the possibility here. Some spontaneous news event occurs, and almost instantly as hundreds of people appear on the scene with wearable video cameras broadcasting on the net, you would be able to view this real-time scene from any angle, while simultaneously gaining the collective emotional assesment of the situation from those people choosing to broadcast their emotional indices, as well as the blogging that will invariable start occuring at rapid pace from your customized reputation/trust criteria.

All of this combines to gives you a real-time augmented, yet customized view of real-time reality. One that is rich in social and emotional context, providing and extending intimacy by empowering you to feel and touch the whole world."

"Farmers in Ban Phon Kam and nearby villages are now able to grow surpluses of rice and other crops-thanks in part to organic farming techniques that Jhai helped introduce. To profit on their surplus, however, they need accurate and timely information about pricing in the market town of Phon Hong and the capital, Vientiane.

The expert women weavers in the villages have begun the use of natural dyes-again with assistance from Jhai-and would like to weave textiles for export. They hope to find partners among expatriate Lao who will help them market their weavings and receive reasonable returns."

• A. How to identify and maybe locate me, like a finger print or a GPS tracker. Making sure there is one and only one of me.
• B. How my various public facades and/or credentials are stored
  1. The, possibly several, masks I personally put on. Aliases, interests, contact address, website, preferences, etc
  2. The credentials I have from membership in various groups. My IDs, my job titles, degrees, credit cards, driving record, etc., which I can't directly change, but I can withdraw from a particular group.
  3. What various agencies collect about me without my explicit permission. Search engines, quotes, articles, credit reports, mailing lists, etc.
• C. How my actual reputation is represented. How well regarded I am, what I've actually accomplished, and how much people trust me.

"1) our reputation is often tightly coupled with our sense of self-worth, serving as an external reflection of who we are, or who we wish to be and
2) our reputation can precede our physical being, serving to 'open doors' or generally make our lives more convenient or to close doors, in which case we are blocked from doing something or going somewhere, and we might never know why.

At any moment in time, our reputation is nothing more than a snapshot of our historical interactions with others. If the snapshot supports what we say about ourselves, then our reputation is positively amplified (R+1). If the snapshot contradicts what we have said about ourselves, then our reputation is diminished (R-1).

As reputations bearing any weight and credibility are only built over time, it’s difficult to truly circumvent their creation. This is often why we learn early the value of 'borrowing' a reputation. Namedropping is nothing more than an attempt to place oneself in the positive glow of another’s positive reputation, hoping that it will make our life easier in the process or gain us access to something which we would not normally have access to on our own. How many times have you specifically gone someplace with someone who you knew was bearing the credentials and reputation of being 'well-connected'. (e.g. 'I'm good friends with the owner and he always let’s us in for free.')

Reputations are likely the most important quality enabled by identity and I believe that digital reputations will likely become the core and central reason why individuals will choose to have a digital identity in the future."