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This is my dynamic, frequently updated homepage. This is a NewsLog, also known as a WebLog or Blog.
Everything is evolving, so don't assume too much.
People to watch:
Adina Levin
Andrius Kulikauskas
Britt Blaser
Catherine Austin Fitts
Chris Corrigan
Clay Shirky
Dan Gillmor
Dave Pollard
David Allen
David Weinberger
Dewayne Mikkelson
Dina Mehta
Doc Searls
Elisabet Sahtouris
Elizabeth Lawley
Euan Semple
Florian Brody
Frank Patrick
Gen Kenai
George Dafermos
George Por
Graham Hancock
Greg Elin
Hazel Henderson
Heiner Benking
Inspector Lohman
Jean Houston
Jerry Michalski
Jim McGee
Jim Moore
John Abbe
John Perry Barlow
John Robb
Joi Ito
Jon Husband
Jon Lebkowsky
Jon Udell
Jonathan Peterson
Judith Meskill
Julian Elvé
Julie Solheim
Kevin Marks
Lawrence Lessig
Leif Smith
Letecia Layson
Lilia Efimova
Lisa Rein
Marc Canter
Mark Oeltjenbruns
Mark Pilgrim
Mark Woods
Martin Dugage
Martin Roell
Mary Forest
Matt Mower
Max Sandor
Michael Fagan
Mike Owens
Mikel Maron
Mitch Kapor
Mitch Ratcliffe
Nathalie dArbeloff
Netron
Noam Chomsky
Paul Hughes
Peter Kaminski
Phil Wolff
Philippe Beaudoin
Ray Ozzie
Raymond Powers
Rebecca Blood
Roger Eaton
Roland Tanglao
Ross Mayfield
Scott Lemon
Sebastian Fiedler
Sebastien Paquet
Skip Lancaster
Spike Hall
Steven Johnson
Stuart Henshall
Thomas Burg
Thomas Madsen-Mygdal
Thomas Nicholls
Timothy Wilken
Todd Suomela
Tom Atlee
Tom Munnecke
Tom Tomorrow
Ton Zijlstra
Lionel Bruel
Loic Le Meur
Nancy White
Mark Frazier
Merlin Silk
Robert Paterson
Colby Stuart
Nova Spivack
Dan Brickley
Ariane Kiss
Vanessa Miemis
Bernd Nurnberger
Sites to watch:
Action without borders
BoingBoing
Co-intelligence Institute
Disclosure Project
Disinfopedia
Disinformation
Edge
Electronic Frontier Foundation
Explorers Foundation
Forbidden Science
Free Expression Network
Friendly Favors
FutureHi
Global Ideas Bank
Greater Democracy
HeadMap
Imaginify
Independent Media
Manufacturing Dissent
MetaFilter
Nanodot
Smart Mobs
ThoughtsOnThinking
WorldChanging
YES Magazine
Absara
Collective Intelligence
Collective Web
Do No Harm
Emergent by Design
Escape Velocity
Junto
NotThisBody
Openworld
Rhizome
Space Collective
Webcamorama
French:
Emmanuelle
Manur
Elanceur
Loeil de Mouche
IokanaaN
Blog d'Or
Le Petit Calepin
GeeBlog
Absara
Guillaume Beuvelot
Ming Chau
Serge Levan
Jean Michel Billaut
C'est pas Mécanique
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| Sunday, November 24, 2002 |  |
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 I have introduced a little capitalist experiment to my family in the form of a game. You know, capitalism is when you have some capital and you look around for what you can invest it in, in order to get it to grow as much as possible, so you get more back. That is as opposed to the worker / poor person / paycheck-to-paycheck mentality, which is that you look at what stuff you have, and you go work to get money so you can buy. some nicer stuff. Most of my life, including at this moment, I've been in that second category, spending all my money every month, or sooner, and I've had quite some disdain for the capitalist way of thinking. But, hey, I'm open to re-evaluating things once in a while. And what I do like is the idea that wealth is when you do more with less, and create big results with small means. So, here's the simple game:
Each of us, me, my wife Birgit, my son Zachery (16) and my daughter Marie (19), start with 100 dollars. The object of the game is to make it grow. We will check each week how we're doing. Since we all, me included, have very little idea on how to do it, we might support each other as to where to look for means that might work. But the idea is to develop some kind of business, preferably multiple streams of income, that will expand with as little work as possible, even while you sleep. And you'd be free to use no money at all, or to borrow money, and to involve other people's talents, etc.
I'm tired of working myself into the ground, and having my family just sort of take that for granted. Both they and I need an education in how to work smarter rather than harder. As to my kids, they would otherwise be ready to just go out and join the job market, get a low-paying job, and spend it all every month on buying stuff on credit. That's not really a legacy I'd like to leave them with.
[ Diary | 2002-11-24 15:02 | | PermaLink ] More >
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Excellent article with many references, by Larry Chin, Online Journal. The U.S. imported 290 million barrels of crude oil from Iraq in 2001, at below market rates, because of U.N. sanctions. The US was "the main market for Iraqi crude" according to the Middle East Economic Survey. It seems a lot like the threatened war is simply an attempt to eliminate Russia, France and China from the competition from the oil there, and to put the U.S. oil companies in complete control of the resources.
[ Information | 2002-11-24 15:53 | | PermaLink ] More >
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 "Something animated and vital looks out from our childrenÂ’s eyes. Whatever it is, we recognize it and know it is precious. Yet except in rare cases today, that spirit is broken early and irreparably. The light goes out all too soon. We know, because at some inarticulate and dimly conscious level, we are those children. We feel the wind of spirit move us at odd moments, but put it down to nostalgia or temporary possession by some impractical flight of fancy. We shake it off and get back to work. Robbed of a voice to speak of these things, something animated and vital looks out from our own eyes, but only in rare, unguarded moments -- and even then, wary, circumspect, suspicious. We let no one see what we fear no one will understand." --Chris Locke
[ Inspiration | 2002-11-24 23:18 | | PermaLink ] More >
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Justin Hall has an excellent article about what might happen when weblogs go mobile. Potentially we might bring more of our lives into the story. Just about all cellphones can do text messages now, and the new generation have built-in cameras and can send and receive multi-media messages.A weblog is a record of travels on the Web, so a mobile phone log ('moblog'?) should be a record of travels in the world. Weblogs reflect our lives at our desks, on our computers, referencing mostly other flat pages, links between blocks of text. But mobile blogs should be far richer, fueled by multimedia, more intimate data and far-flung friends. As we chatter and text away, our phones could record and share the parts we choose: a walking, talking, texting, seeing record of our time around town, corrected and augmented by other mobloggers.
[ Information | 2002-11-24 23:18 | | PermaLink ] More >
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| Saturday, November 23, 2002 | |
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 Part of what keeps us all from living in an entirely peaceful world is that, if we're honest about it, most of us find guns and violence and war very entertaining. War makes for great programs on the History Channel. Violence makes for great action movies, and most of us cheer when the good guy kills the bad guy at the end. Guns are kind of cool and sexy. It is a powerful feeling to shoot a gun. Part of what motivates people to be police officers or soldiers is that you drive fast, or fly expensive toys, and you chase bad guys and you blow things up.
But what we like is exactly the game aspect of it. The thrill and risk, the power, the rush, the gadgetry, the stimulating special effects. But if we are really exposed to the effects of violence and war, very, very few of us would think that it is cool. Just one bullet, or the tiniest of bombs, do horrible things to human bodies. Just one life lost, or one life lived as an invalid, can be a huge tragedy for the people involved. The only way we accept it as a society is to be detached from it, by just watching it on TV and thinking about it abstractly. Yeah, let's go whip Saddam's ass real good. Looks good on TV. But we aren't able to fathom the scope of what several hundred thousand dead Iraqi children means. It is just numbers. And most Americans have never even heard about those numbers.
We'll have to embrace our desire for action and violence, and provide for it, without leaving all those innocent victims behind. I hear people giving visions of the future where there is no violence. "In the New Civilization there must be no violence!" Aha, ok, then what are you going to do with the people who want it? Outlaw boxing and wrestling? Action movies? Body piercing? Jackass stunts? That's all violent stuff, but it is violence that people volunteer for. And it is entertaining. Hoping that nobody will be interested in watching it just isn't going to work. Finding a harmonious relation between all sides of ourselves is more likely to take us somewhere.
[ Opinions | 2002-11-23 20:21 | | PermaLink ] More >
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Stimulating article by Fabio Sergio, covering many aspects of the connected world that's emerging, with many references. In the near past the concept of 'information anxiety' emerged. You know, there's so much information available that there always seems to be an ever-widening gap between what we know and what we think we should know. Now most well-connected people have probably given up on trying to know everything, and are probably getting used to the fact that you can figure out most things rather quickly, if your Internet connection is just close by. So, that opens up to the new concept of 'interaction anxiety'. I know that one. You know you could figure things out if you could just go to Google, or if you could just send a message to so-and-so, but if your DSL connection is down or you're on the road, you can't. Next step would be that everything would be more automatic, so you don't have to worry about what database you left that phone number in, or how you dial up to your ISP. The technology might become more invisible so you can concentrate on what you're doing.
[ Knowledge | 2002-11-23 20:21 | | PermaLink ] More >
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 My son and I watched the Imax Space Station 3D movie. Imax is this system with huge screens, and it is also in 3D now. So here with the International Space Station, it was very much like being there. It gives a feeling of virtual presence that can't be conveyed through regular film or video. And that whole space station thing presents an optimistic, collaborative, global view on things. Here are a group of astronauts and scientists from a number of different countries, looking down on an earth without borders, working on interesting projects for the benefit of humanity, and having fun doing it.
Now, one thing that always strikes me about our supposedly most advanced earth technology is all those messy wires. That space station is just stuffed with cables and wires and tubes and stuff, lots of it hanging loose, and I'm sure that bad things happen if you cut any one of them. It is so vulnerable. Same thing in an airplane, if you look out the window by the wings when they're moving the flaps. Just a lot of wires and tubes out in the open. Our most advanced electronics, like in computers and satellites, seems to be done the same kind of way. Lots of flimsy wires and copper conduits soldered together with little dots of metal. A tiny crack in any one of them will bring down the whole thing. Seems awfully primitive.
[ Diary | 2002-11-23 23:59 | | PermaLink ] More >
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| Friday, November 22, 2002 | |
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 Simon Buckingham talks about "What is Unorganization". The good kind of unorganization, that is.The world we all live in has fundamentally changed for the better from the old organized model to today's unorganized one. In the orderly organized world, there was certainty and convention. In the global unorganized world there is freedom, diversity and instability. I like it already. He has some nice charts. He presents a scale going from the most organized types of societies - communism - through socialism, capitalism, finally towards what he calls 'technological capitalism', which he sort of positions as the best of all worlds.Socialism was a response to inequality, whereas capitalism can cause it. Under capitalism, new economic opportunities tend to present themselves to members of institutions such as companies or to people who have already benefited from other opportunities. Individuals acting alone face either high entry barriers or are excluded altogether from taking advantage of those market opportunities. The rich get richer and poor people stay poor. Under technological capitalism, there are both the free market opportunities AND the opportunity for all individuals to benefit from those opportunities. Individuals can participate more easily in, and benefit more fully from free market economies. Talent determines future wealth, not current wealth: poor people can become rich.
[ Organization | 2002-11-22 04:48 | 0 comments | PermaLink ]
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Washington Post: Free Web Research Link Closed Under Pressure From Pay Sites. The Energy Department has shut down a popular Internet site that catalogued government and academic science research, in response to corporate complaints that it competed with similar commercial services.. Dan Gillmor says, and I agree, "The correct word for what has happened here is 'theft' -- because the government has allowed private interests to steal from the public domain. The claim that this was done to save money -- a paltry $200,000 a year -- doesn't even begin to pass the smell test. This was an arrangement on behalf of corporate interests, and an absolute thumb in the eye to the public. It's as if the book publishers persuaded communities to shutter public libraries..."
[ Information | 2002-11-22 04:48 | | PermaLink ] More >
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 Seb has many good thoughts about how to facilitate group-forming. Like here about what sorts of people might be the best candidates to form groups. For example, people with well-specified problems and a well-defined environment, like programmers or mathematicians or puzzle solvers. Very interestingly, he has this comment about Activists and World-changers:"These people are definitely motivated to form teams to create change. However, they've got perhaps the hardest task of all as regards defining what they want and how they want to get there. What they want is initially imagined and often difficult to state precisely; stating how they want to get there must be build upon a difficult to obtain description of the messy real world." He's right, and that's something I've run into a lot. World-changers are of course VERY motivated, but it might be very hard to agree on what exactly we're doing, and how.
[ Organization | 2002-11-22 15:44 | 0 comments | PermaLink ]
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According to The Register, a group of Microsoft researchers have concluded that peer-to-peer file swapping networks will win and DRM (Digital Rights Management) and the lawyers will lose. We knew that all along, of course, but it is refreshing if even Microsoft might understand some of that. They explore a number of different scenarios, and conclude that no matter how much copy protection is put into hardware and software, smart people will always find ways to get around it, so they can share with each other. Most important is the understanding that file swapping networks are competitors to the monopolized 'legal' high-security media companies. If P2P networks deliver a higher quality and lower cost product, that's what people will choose. Of course people don't want crippled content that's expensive and complicated to buy, and which they can't use in ways that work for them. That is worth much LESS than a high quality product that is easy to get and to use. So, vendors will need to compete on price and convenience in order to stay in the game.
[ Knowledge | 2002-11-22 17:07 | | PermaLink ] More >
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| Thursday, November 21, 2002 | |
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 Public autopsy held in London. The controversial German doctor Gunther von Hagens, who previously caught some criticism for his anatomical exhibition Body Worlds, carried out the first public autopsy in many years, despite threats that he would be arrested. I applaud what he's trying to accomplish. I think it is very useful to show people how the human body works, in a dynamic and educational manner, and to get over our revulsion. Incidentally, I attended a couple of autopsies once. It was very educational, but didn't exactly strengthen my respect for modern medicine. I had imagined it to be a very precise science, sort of like clockwork repair. But it reminded me a whole lot more of a butchershop. I'll spare you the details here.
[ Science | 2002-11-21 17:09 | | PermaLink ] More >
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 MyLifeBits is a project where engineers are trying to develop a way of storing all of your life in a database. Well, it sounds like a piece of vaporware, and they're mainly talking about just storing all your photos, all your videos and all your letters in one place. What I'd really like is *everything*, automatically recorded and neatly indexed and searchable. Of course there are few searches I'd rather not do, like "my most embarrassing moments", but there's a lot of useful stuff I'd like to remember more effortlessly without having to go around thinking about it. Anyway, curiously, the idea of storing your life in an infinite digital storage place, and the idea of hypertext, was proposed in the 40s by Vannevar Bush, George W's grandfather, who was a visionary electrical engineer who ended up running a lot of America's black projects at the time, first being part of the atomic bomb project, and later being a member of Majestic12.
[ Technology | 2002-11-21 17:09 | | PermaLink ] More >
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 A Forbes article talks about the interesting possibilities in having sensors everywhere. You know, tiny little devices that power themeselves from solar or kinetic energy, and that are wirelessly networked data gathering points. There are a lot of problems in the world that can be avoided if there is a sensor watching for it. Polution, structural failures, traffic, crime, weather. The problem, of course, is that there are also power hungry governments who'd love to point these things at you and I, to catch us in doing something they don't like.
[ Technology | 2002-11-21 21:58 | 0 comments | PermaLink ]
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 I have this domain cr8.com which I feel particularly attached to, but I haven't figured out what to do with it yet. And, if you don't get it, it is supposed to sound like "CREATE". First of all, 3 letter .com domain names are very desirable, but very hard to come by. Not everybody gets the Create thing at first glance, and some people argue that it should be cre8, but I don't think that's as cool. I have gotten quite a few inquiries from other people who thought it was cool, who wanted to acquire it from me. But I jumped through some hoops to get it myself, so I don't let go of it easily. I'm still searching for the right thing to put behind it. Something about creativity or creative endeavors, obviously. A creative portal of some kind. Or a creative company or organization. I have cr8.it and a few other variations as well. Anyway, I'm just fishing for good ideas. Btw, on the subject of useless trivia, my shortest domain is b9.bz and my longest is supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.org, closely followed by idontknowwhattodowithmyself.com
[ Diary | 2002-11-21 21:58 | | PermaLink ] More >
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| Wednesday, November 20, 2002 | |
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Numbers from the U.N. predict that 10% of the world will be on the Internet this year. Growth is fastest in Asia and Africa.
[ Information | 2002-11-20 23:59 | 0 comments | PermaLink ]
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This is a volcanic erruption on Jupiter's moon Io, spewing lava several kilometers into the sky. Apparently the biggest ever erruption recorded in our solar system. I don't know why it is news now, because it seems like it was last year.
[ Science | 2002-11-20 23:59 | | PermaLink ] More >
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There are many fun games that techies play with the Google search engine. One self-absorbed game suggested by Steven Johnson, author of the book Emergence is to use Google to see what mind-share you personally appear to have in a certain subject. Like, when he looks up "emergence" he sees 1,450,000 hits, and if he looks up "emergence" together with his name, he sees 5190 hits, which means he has 0.3% mindshare on that word. Well, I can't resist playing that a little bit, being a slight bit self-absorbed. I can't find any one-word words I have much mindshare in. But, hey, if we say "New Civilization" I have 4.1%, which beats out Gorbachev at 1.7%, but not (Alvin and Heidi) Toffler, who have 6.5%. Those guys have all written books with "New Civilization" in the title, in case you didn't know. And I got 3.2% on "World Transformation". Hm, and 0.006% of "wacko".
[ Culture | 2002-11-20 23:59 | | PermaLink ] More >
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 Builders are planning cities on several artificial islands off of Israel's Mediterranan coast. There are some environmental pros and cons, and divided opinions about whether it makes economic sense.
[ Culture | 2002-11-20 23:59 | | PermaLink ] More >
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 Communities of Value form between people who have a common interest in value. It is mostly used about groups where consumers / customers / regular people are networking with each other concerning a certain type of product or service, or a certain brand. Oldfashioned companies HATE that people are sharing notes about themselves, because they want to just talk TO people without interference. Translation: companies that want to lie to people will try to sabotage any attempt of those people talking amongst themselves. What's new is that those companies will go out of business, unless they change and learn to thrive on the free networking and self-organization amongst the people they serve.
eBay has made it huge by facilitating Communities of Value. Napster was a great Community of Value, but the music industry didn't recognize it, to their own loss. Open Source software is often coordinated through Communities of Value, where both programmers and end-users participate. Linux is a great example, or PHP or MySQL. Communities of Value form by themselves all over the place, wherever online forums are easily available, and regardless of whether any related companies participate or not.
Communities of Value might also form amongst businesses that have similar economic interests, or that might find synergetic relationships amongst each other.
Read more:
Community is the best Commercial, Reshaping the Landscape, Backroads.
[ Organization | 2002-11-20 17:50 | | PermaLink ] More >
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| Tuesday, November 19, 2002 | |
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Kevin Werbach has an article on slate.com prophesizing that spam is juat about to kill e-mail as we know it. And I agree. E-mail stopped being useful to me already a couple of years ago, because the ratio of stuff I want to stuff I don't want had become just unacceptable. And now it is much worse. I get much more spam than mail from real people, and I do get a lot of real mail.
The only viable answer is going to be that people will accept mail only from people they specifically have allowed to send them mail. You will have a 'whitelist' in the form of, for example, your address book. There might be some mechanism for strangers to validate that indeed they are real people, but gone are the days where you can just get directly through to a stranger. Next I think we'll probably need that for phones too. I also get more phone calls from pushy telemarketers than from real people.
[ Diary | 2002-11-19 23:22 | | PermaLink ] More >
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 DRM - Digital Rights Management - is a euphemism for media companies trying to control your behavior in order to maximize their own profits. It is in brief that big companies will be enabled to control when and how you look at THEIR stuff, and that they'll be able to tamper with your computer, or your car stereo, or your VCR, if there is any indication that you want to play their content in a different setting than they had in mind. It is a BAD thing. See an intro here from the Electronic Privacy Information Center. Microsoft and the big record companies and movie studios love DRM. They've bribed some U.S. congress people to back them. They all think it is the solution to piracy and a rapidly changing marketplace. They can turn the clock back to the way it was, or rather, the way it always should have been, in their view. The hidden agenda seems to be to manipulate you into a position where you pay something whenever you read or view or listen to their copyrighted materials, and to pressure the hardware manufacturers and operating system manufacturers to make your hardware and software do their bidding. Apple is taking a stance against it, so buy a Mac. And read Chris Locke's righteous rage about not being able to quote a review about his own book, because of DRM.
[ Opinions | 2002-11-19 23:22 | 0 comments | PermaLink ]
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 One of my interests is to understand how we each construct our reality and how we might change that reality and how we might avoid having it manipulated against our best interests. For that matter, if I had to choose only one field of interest for myself, that would be it.
We make over-simplified conclusions about what reality we're living in, based on our incomplete perceptions and based on our abstract reasoning derived from what we previously have perceived and concluded. The neural pathways of our brains and the unspoken assumptions and fixed structures in our minds form filters that we experience the world through. Filters that make us experience only a very, very small portion of what is actually happening, and to interpret even that portion in a sketchy and generalized manner. Smart people who understand this well can provide us with manufactured scenarios that guide our perceptions into making certain conclusions about reality (which they'd like us to believe) and into avoiding certain other conclusions (which they'd like us not to know about).
Most people are so busy living IN the reality they believe they exist in so that they very rarely are able to even consider that it could be any different. So, I don't meet very many people I can talk to about these things, other than in a fairly general metaphysical context. And I'm interested in the more technical angle on it, of how we do it, and how we change it.
Right now I'm looking at organelle.org. Looks promising, like somebody delving deeply into these things.
[ Patterns | 2002-11-19 15:58 | | PermaLink ] More >
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| Monday, November 18, 2002 | |
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 The Register writes about a recent SEC filing which shows that Microsoft is losing money in every business area except Windows (86% profit) and Office (79% profit). Also see Financial Times. As Slashdot points out: The full version of Windows XP costs about $300.00. Microsoft could sell it for $45 and still make a profit. The difference between the $45 price and the $300 price is what economists call "monopoly rents". So, let me spell it out one more time: Microsoft has a de facto monopoly in two areas, where they harvest huge profits. They use those profits to try to run competitors out of business in many, many other areas, by deliberately selling products at a loss.
[ Information | 2002-11-18 17:17 | | PermaLink ] More >
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A group of 50 women from the Bay area are serious enough about peace to spell it out with their bodies, wearing nothing but afternoon rain. They're speaking out against war with Iraq, calling attention to the vulnerability of innocent civilians.
[ Inspiration | 2002-11-18 17:17 | | PermaLink ] More >
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 "'Living Machines' are whole systems approaches to treating wastewater. They are solar-powered, accelerated versions of the water treatment facilities found in mature natural systems. Incorporating helpful microbes, plants, snails and fish into diverse, self-organizing and responsive communities, Living Machines are site-specific, biological solutions that re-route waste streams into resources." That is from this introduction. See companies like Ocean Arks or Living Machines that create ecologically sound ways of dealing with waste water, often better than any purely technological solution could accomplish. A lot of good stuff seems to be going on in the State of Vermont, with companies such as Ben & Jerry's leading the way.
[ Nature | 2002-11-18 22:24 | | PermaLink ] More >
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| Sunday, November 17, 2002 | |
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 One of my strong beliefs is that we each hold an important piece of a bigger puzzle, or we ARE that piece. The Earth needs all of us to do what we're here to do. We each need to find out where we fit, and what we need to do there. The world will not completely work without you doing your particular thing, in your particular way.
That is not just an inspiring thing to say to people to motivate them. It is more than a metaphor. More like a principle of self-organization, albeit an intuitively derived one.
 The puzzle would be how we all work together as a global brain, I suppose. Which relates to how we develop a planetary organizational system that works for everyone. I postulate that, since we each posses individual consciousness and will, it can only be done in a self-organizing way. I.e. by honoring all of our diverse perspectives, and letting them negotiate the details amongst themselves. And, since we all share the same space and the same components that sustain life, we're inherently inseparable, so our solution has to form a unified non-exclusive fabric.
Chances are that you know something, or you see something, or you feel something that nobody else is feeling or seeing or knowing. If you don't think so, you might have to dig deeper into who you really are. If you don't sharpen up your unique awareness and act on it, nobody else will. And there will be a blank spot or a blind spot in our shared fabric, and your piece will not be connected.
[ Inspiration | 2002-11-17 19:03 | | PermaLink ] More >
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 There are at least two kinds of games: finite and infinite.
A finite game is a game that has fixed rules and boundaries, that is played for the purpose of winning and thereby ending the game.
An infinite game has no fixed rules or boundaries. In an infinite game you play with the boundaries and the purpose is to continue the game.
Finite players are serious; infinite games are playful.
Finite players try to control the game, predict everything that will happen, and set the outcome in advance. They are serious and determined about getting that outcome. They try to fix the future based on the past.
Infinite players enjoy being surprised. Continuously running into something one didn't know will ensure that the game will go on. The meaning of the past changes depending on what happens in the future.
[ Diary | 2002-11-17 20:03 | | PermaLink ] More >
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| Friday, November 15, 2002 | |
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 Communities of Practice is something more people are talking about. See a primary article by Etienne Wenger, who is a key proponent of the concept. It is essentially a loosely organized group of people who are sharing some kind of activity, and who are learning together. That is different from a Community of Interest, which would be people interested in a certain subject or having a shared concern or desired outcome. It is also different from a geographical community, where people are linked by the fact that they live or work in the same place. None of those necessarily involve that people are sharing the same activity. In a Community of Practice people recognize that they're doing the same kinds of things, that they need the same kinds of tools and the same knowledge about using them well, but they might very well belong to different organizations or different departments in a company. So, it is not a team or a unit or a business. It is not a set of relationships or contracts, but rather it is about the activity that people share. People belong to communities of practice at the same time as they belong to other organizational structures. The community is maintained to the degree that people contribute to the activity, adding value to it as a whole. Wenger talks about the cycles associated with such a community, from discovering a need for it, towards engaging in developing the shared practice, towards it dispersing when no longer needed. There are some examples in this article.
[ Patterns | 2002-11-15 23:59 | | PermaLink ] More >
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 I'm very interested in how different design patterns in online environments will inspire different kinds of outcomes. You know, if things are arranged one way it fosters creativity and brainstorming, and if they're arranged in another way it might foster convergent results and agreement. I'd like to understand that better, and I'd like to create different environments for different purposes.
I was just looking at OpenSpace Online, which is a system developed by Gabriela Ender in Germany, for coordinating an online conference based on Open Space principles. Look at the demo. Very nice system it seems, but fairly expensive for the settings I would probably think of.
[ Patterns | 2002-11-15 23:59 | | PermaLink ] More >
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 Two Australian scientists believe they've found signs of a parallel mirror universe, by studying craters on the asteroid Eros. Apparently the only available explanation for the layout of the craters is that they've been splattered by mirror-matter. The Near-Shoemaker spaceprobe touched down on Eros briefly in 2000.
[ Science | 2002-11-15 23:59 | | PermaLink ] More >
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 I have for years asked people to optionally fill in a Myers-Briggs or Keirsey personality test when filling in a membership profile in NCN. But the last couple of years I've just referred people to Keirsey's site, which is rather cumbersome and self-serving and asking people to register, etc. I just noticed a very simple version at Bloginality. It is kind of simple and obvious, but I'd say it works pretty well. So I'm considering switching over to something like that. It identified me as an ENTP in a minute or two. .. Ah and here's another short one.
[ Information | 2002-11-15 23:59 | | PermaLink ] More >
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| Thursday, November 14, 2002 | |
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 Leif Smith:"Weavers of freeorder are pattern seers, connection makers, thinkers, artists, entrepreneurs who work for all who discover that their home is Open Network.
Open Network names a freeorder comprised of and arising from all aspects of the world in which an explorer of sovereign spirit may rejoice.
It is very old.
No one invented it.
Freeorder is a balance among designed and spontaneous orders conducive to quest. ..." continued ..
[ Inspiration | 2002-11-14 23:59 | | PermaLink ] More >
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 One of the officially oldest known cities is Çatal Hüyük in Turkey, which is partially excavated. It was apparently home to around 10,000 people 9,000 years ago. "But it doesnÂ’t quite add up. There seem to be no signs of hierarchy; no high-status homes, public buildings or even public open spaces. The small houses were so tightly packed together that entry was through the roof! Above all, Çatal Hüyük was in the middle of a swamp and dry pasture and wheat fields must have been 12 kilometres away or more. Aubrey Manning visits the site to try to solve these mysteries."
[ History | 2002-11-14 23:59 | | PermaLink ] More >
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 Rocky Mountain Institute argues that it is no longer economical to generate electricity in large centralized plants, because the distribution grid is more costly than the plants.
"In today's electricity market, however, the economies of scale that justified building big coal-fired and nuclear power plants have been outrun by diseconomies of scale, both in the grid and in generating plants. Mass production of smaller generating units offers greater economies than big plants can gain through unit size. Centralized power generation is no longer cheaper even on its own—and when supply is expanded, new power plants now cost less than the grid linking them to customers."
[ Technology | 2002-11-14 23:59 | | PermaLink ] More >
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 A tiny battery developed by researchers at Cornell will provide power continuously for decades. It is only a cubic millimeter. Imagine never having to charge your cellphone or your laptop computer. Only problem is that ..eh .. it is radioactive.
[ Technology | 2002-11-14 23:59 | | PermaLink ] More >
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 Lisa Rein points out that U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney apparently pocketed several million dollars last year in compensation from defense related companies he's had an interest in, and there will be more this year, based on a little accounting trick of 'deferred' compensation. One of the companies in question built a certain well-known prison facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, for one thing.
[ Information | 2002-11-14 23:59 | | PermaLink ] More >
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 President Eisenhower's farewell address to the citizens of the United States, January 1961: "In the counsels of Government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the Military Industrial Complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists, and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals so that security and liberty may prosper together."
[ Inspiration | 2002-11-14 23:59 | | PermaLink ] More >
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This is a collage of things that catch my eye, things that need to be said, and stuff I really care about
TRUTH
BEAUTY
FREEDOM
LOVE
TECHNOLOGY
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