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 Here's some excellent weblog coverage from the World Summit in Johannesburg. See also Quidnovi's NewsLog for comments.
Interesting interview with Naomi Klein, who says stuff like "At Rio, a deal with the devil was made. In many ways corporations funded the summit, but they funded with strings attached. And the strings were, you canÂ’t regulate us, weÂ’re going to have this voluntary partnership model. Now, corporate involvement in the summit has vastly escalated. So success for this summit is failure. When you have a failed model, its failure is a succes."
I noticed a link to Openflows. "Openflows provides news, analysis, network facilities, and the tools of Open Source Intelligence to support group, organization and community development". That sounds good. I still don't quite understand what it is.
Article at CNN about "machinima". That means that you use similar software and hardware as you would for playing Quake games, and you use it for shooting your own real-time realistic animated 3-D movies. Anybody can play.
"The next Danish prime minister will have a weblog" says Thomas Madsen-Mygdal. Sure. Denmark would be the place for that.
Father Guido Sarducci is the founder of the Five-Minute University. You know, since most of what one learns during college is eventually forgotten, courses should be reduced to key points that can be taught quickly. For example, a business course is basically about "buying stuff and selling it for more." Economics is just "supply and demand." Using this approach, the entire four-year curriculum could be trimmed down to five minutes. ... I think that's about right.
[ Diary | 2002-08-26 01:05 | | PermaLink ] More >
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 My NewsLog appears in these places: http://www.worldtrans.org/flemming.html http://flemmingfunch.com http://www.newciv.org/nl/newslog.php/_v10/
and in the NCN member area of [link] They contain the same articles, but there's an extra sidebar in the first two places, and one can only comment and see the comments from the NCN member area.
Scott Johnson writes about "Goofballs in service of corporate capitalism", about how well-meaning, but self-deluded new age people inadvertently play into the hands of the corporate status quo, because their obvious incompentence and ignorance sort of spoils the chances of those with viable functional alternative information and solutions to ever succeed in selling their ideas to the public. Rather harsh, but I agree to a great extent. A lot of the weird stuff I believe in and that I do is very new age. But I think it is much more important to gather workable solutions for the world than it is for everybody to feel warm and fuzzy about everything.
One of the RSVPs for the next L.A. NewCiv Salon has a project of starting a new country and there I found an interesting link about Micronationalism which is, in short, the idea of just imagining a country and then making it more and more real, by consistently acting as if it already exists. And I kind of like that approach.
Thomas Friedman in "Drowning Freedom in Oil" says a few good words about how US foreign policy is all based on oil. (NY Times requires a registration to look at articles).
Quote for today: "Creation of physical reality is an activity of your consciusness. Then, Why not make it consciously? That is : Why not be aware that you are doing it and control it consciously?" -- from del caribe.net
Oh, and there's this excellent piece from the same place: The Gospel According to Saint Tony about how we construct our reality.
[ Diary | 2002-08-25 12:25 | 0 comments | PermaLink ] More >
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Below are some stories and excerpts about people walking for peace gathered by Tom Atlee. Inspiring stuff. As one of them say:
In times of war Buddhist monks would leave their monasteries and walk the land, bringing their peacefulness to the people.
[ Inspiration | 2002-08-24 13:22 | 0 comments | PermaLink ] More >
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 Hm, I think I know how this should work. An easy way of making little mini-postings, which get gathered up till the end of the day, and then I hit a Publish button, and they all show grouped together in a posting of the miscellaneous news tidbits for the day. Each mini-posting could maybe have a little picture, optionally, but no subject. I'm not sure if there should be separate comments allowed for a mini-posting.
McDonalds introduces a McAfrika Burger in Norway. Eh, hmm, yeah, that's probably not such a great idea.
Damn, somebody highjacked my ICQ account. Or, rather, one of them I hadn't used recently, with an attractive low number. I fell for a scam I should have been wise enough to see through. I got an e-mail from ICQ support (I thought) which told me I hadn't used my account for a while (true) and to keep my account active I needed to log into a certain form with my ID and password, to demonstrate that I was still there. Sounded reasonably enough at first glance, so I did so. Without realizing that the e-mail wasn't really from ICQ, but from some people in Turkey pretending to be ICQ. I should have noticed from the bad spelling, or I should have double-checked where the form was being submitted to, but I didn't. Anyway, the guy who took over my account changed the profile, password and everything. And then he sent me a message on my other ICQ account, and we had a conversation of sorts, limited by the fact that his English wasn't much better than my Turkish. And as soon as I brought up the subject of why he might have stolen my account, he excused his bad English and disappeared. ... But, after pulling out my hair and trying a bunch of things, I managed to get the "Lost your password?" facility on ICQ to send me his new password, because the account still had my basic control information, even if everything else was different. So, sorry Mr. Zeybek Soner of Aydyn, I will be taking it from here.
Just saw xXx (triple-X) at the movies this evening. Woo-hoo, what a ride! Good to get a little adrenaline flowing once in a while. And, good clean fun, really. Nothing overly violent. Favorite quote:
"If you're gonna send somebody to save the world, you've better check that they like it the way it is".
[ Diary | 2002-08-24 12:08 | | PermaLink ] More >
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 I will try to do more postings where I gather different things together. More like what little tidbits I run into in a day. Even though I made this piece of software myself, I'm sort of missing something that makes that easy, so I'm going to experiment a little, and maybe add some features. I'm looking for a natural way of posting little items without it having to be any full article or anything. Just like in some other weblogs.
A mainstream columnist I always respect is Thomas Friedman. Like, here's a piece from New York Times about the Palestinian situation. However much I think Israel is out of control, it is of course very curious why Arafat rejected the best offer that was ever on the table a few years ago, leading to the much worse situation right now.
U.S. Congressman Dennis Kucinich is on the cover of Whole Life Times. "Visionary Congressman" is the title. He's the one who introduced a bill calling for a Department of Peace. Very sensible guy. Eh, maybe the only sensible person in the U.S. Congress that I'm aware of.
My next New Civilization Salon is scheduled for Friday 9/13 in L.A. It is always a fun gathering of fascinating people who're making a difference. It will again be at Malibu Phoenix in Malibu.
Based on a glowing recommendation from Frankie Lee Slater I signed up for a "Beyond the Matrix" workshop with Al Joy next weekend. I don't know what exactly to expect, but I could really use some transformational jolt right now.
Apple Mac OSX version 10.2, codenamed "Jaguar", is being released here at midnight under much fanfare. My copy should arrive Monday. I think I'm going to switch back to Mac for my main machine rather soon. OSX is the best of all worlds.
[ Diary | 2002-08-24 01:39 | | PermaLink ] More >
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 Below are a couple of article excerpts about European's perceptions of the U.S. which had been circulating and creating some debate.
Now, I'm rather fascinated by and mystified by the different group mindsets that exist in different places. Actually quite different worlds people live in.
Just having come back to the U.S. from a month in my country of birth, Denmark, I notice easily how mindsets are different in many ways. For example, yes, most Europeans would appear to look very critically at USA's blatant imperialism and arrogance on the world scene. And I would agree with them.
But now, when I go back to the U.S. there's kind of a fog that descends over me again, and the rest of the world again start looking like just some remote entertainment on TV. There's some kind of national brainwashing wave or something. OK, most of my friends here would be just as critical about US policies. But it is a minority position here, rather than a common sense that most people have. And much here in the U.S. that I would consider completely insane if I saw it from another country, I would here accept as fairly routine and normal.
I'm feeling uneasy about living in the U.S. at this point. I'll probably forget about it if I watch some more commercials on TV.
[ News | 2002-08-24 01:35 | | PermaLink ] More >
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 I just came back from a very enjoyable vacation in Denmark for a month with my family. Well, I'd sort of have preferred to post a bunch of updates along the way, but I didn't really have the excess energy for that. I can't really just take vaction for a month, so I had to keep my main computer work going, and I had various headaches just getting my computers connected, etc. But at some point I hope to be so comfortably connected that I can report on things as they happen.
We spent quite some time re-discovering our home country, driving around and playing tourists and stuff. But for me it is really the little nostalgic things that make a difference. Walking through a street I haven't seen since I was a kid. Picking up bread from the bakery in the morning. Hearing people talk Danish on the street.
And I ate way too much. But it was worth it I think.
[ Diary | 2002-08-17 09:19 | | PermaLink ] More >
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Lots of good people out there working on practical models and protocols for self-organization of groups. I just ran into Communicationism. As it says: "Communicationism is the applied philosophy of improving society through the design and development of communication systems. It is principally focused on open designs for enhancing: individual self-determination and inclusive deliberative democracy within communities. It also seems to focus a lot on protecting minority opinions, and arriving at consensus by making sure all objections are dealt with. One of the interesting articles there is some suggested Procedures for Online Consensus Democracy.
[ Patterns | 2002-07-10 18:41 | | PermaLink ] More >
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I'm just reading in a new member site about Sociocracy. It is quite similar to what my vision would be of how groups of people ought to organize and make decisions. The main 4 principles are:
Governance by Consent
Circle Organization
Double Linking
Elections by Consent
The "Governance by Consent" thing is almost the same as what I'm used to calling "Consensus". But in the text it is contrasted with Consensus. Which I can understand, because for many people "Consensus" means that everybody agrees. Whereas the Consent principle is more that everybody can live with it and don't have any specific and substantial objection.
[ Patterns | 2002-07-10 18:00 | | PermaLink ] More >
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 My friend Peter Rosen left a message that he's in town, and having a concert event thing tomorrow. He's an extremely talented and creative person, and the prime mover behind the Creativity Cafe. Anyway, while I was browsing his site I noticed this picture from last year, which is me and Greg Wright, extreme idea person, at a meteor shower gazing event, having fun with glowsticks.
[ Diary | 2002-07-10 04:59 | | PermaLink ] More >
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 There's a showdown going on between a greedy monopolistic music industry and its customers, which it (RIAA, the recording industry's organization) seems to consider consisting mostly of thieves. And there are luckily some courageous artists who are willing to provide some alternative views about this as well. Most recording artists, except for the huge stars, are getting a very short end of the stick themselves. See Courtney Love's speech where she does the math. And now Janis Ian has some rather intelligent things to say about the subject of downloads and CD copying, making the well-researched and rational argument that most recording artists and authors benefit from the increased exposure, rather than being bereft of any profit.
[ Opinions | 2002-07-09 21:16 | | PermaLink ] More >
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Take a look at this rather new site: modestneeds.org. It is a one-man operation of a fellow who lets people submit requests for small amounts of money that would help them through something in life. A new pair of dentures, an electricity bill, clothes for a new baby, the train fare to get to a funeral, etc. And then others submit small amounts of funds. And the webmaster distributes them where they seem to do the most good. Rather remarkable. And it actually seems to be working out, and more than $15,000 were distributed this month already. And the project has gotten a LOT of good press.
[ Inspiration | 2002-06-28 01:20 | | PermaLink ] More >
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 Wired has a story about biodegradable plastic. Better than just biodegradable - it is made from corn starch, and when it has been used it will melt rapidly when exposed to moisture and microorganisms in soil, and it turns into carbon dioxide and water.
[ Diary | 2002-06-28 00:07 | | PermaLink ] More >
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Grr, I really don't like monopolies that keep secrets from you in order to control you better. See this article about how car manufacturers keep the repair codes from their computers secret for anybody who isn't their own dealer. In case you don't know, all modern cars are controlled by an onboard computer, and very often the only way of diagnosing or repairing anything about the engine is by talking with the computer. But if you aren't allowed to know what its codes mean, you can't. The result is that around 10% of all car repairs can not be carried out, because the repair person doesn't have access to the computer codes, and he will have to tell the car owner to go away and go to a (much more expensive) dealer.
[ Opinions | 2002-06-26 19:50 | | PermaLink ] More >
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Long and technical but very interesting article from The Economist about emerging wireless technologies. In brief, it covers these technologies:
1. Smart Antennas for improved cellphone base-station capacity
2. Mesh Networks to make each wireless receiver also be a relay. I.e. each device connects to the device next to it, and the network gets extended to wherever there are people with antennas.
3. Ad hoc networking, which allows a network to form even where there's no centralized infrastructure. Existing devices just start talking with each other, and routing traffic between each other.
4. Ultra wideband, which currently can transmit 100 mbs wirelessly, but is only allowed to do it for a distance of 10ft.
In brief, it is becoming possible to have a very high speed wireless Internet, which is not dependent on any Internet Providers, but which will form itself wherever there are people with access points.
MeshNetworks is one of the companies working on this stuff. They have a nice presentation showing it.
[ Information | 2002-06-21 16:30 | | PermaLink ] More >
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It is very interesting how we perceive meaning in the way things are arranged. Different spaces will have different functions based on how they are arranged in relation to other spaces.
A classic book on this is "A Pattern Language" by Chris Alexander, who's an architect, which lays out how many different patterns in how spaces are arranged will affect what is likely to happen in those spaces. He is talking about physical buildings, but similar principles apply to virtual spaces.
[ Patterns | 2002-06-21 01:52 | | PermaLink ] More >
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I recently re-discovered the website of The Co-Intelligence Institute which is one of the most important resources on the net, I think. Mostly the work of Tom Atlee. Very focused, but yet very deep and wide-spanning. It is all in one way or another about "co-intelligence".
It seems to be easiest to explain what co-intelligence is by first explaining what co-stupidity is. It is when you put a group of people together and they collectively become stupider than any of them individually are. So, even if it were very intelligent and well-intentioned people that came together, the group as a whole somehow lacks the ability to originate much intelligent activity.
Then, co-intelligence is when a group of people somehow becomes more than any of them individually are. They pool their personal intelligences and the result becomes more insightful or powerful than the sum of their individual perspectives.
Needless to say, if we can know how to get to that place more often, things might not look all that bad.
[ Information | 2002-06-18 03:19 | | PermaLink ] More >
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It doesn't have much to do with anything, but I found this story fascinating. It is about a 15 year old kid who built a functioning nuclear breeder reactor in his mother's garden shed, harvesting components from clocks and smoke alarms, and sweet talking the Nuclear Regulatory Committee into giving him advice. He did it in part to earn his boy scout merit badge in Atomic Energy. ... Of course this is all a very bad idea, but I'd give him a lot of points for guts and persistence. He might not live very long, but he did pretty much what he set out to do.
[ Stories | 2002-06-17 15:08 | | PermaLink ] More >
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 "How do we come together in order to touch,
or be touched by, the intelligence we need?"
—Jacob Needleman
Tom Atlee mentioned this fabulous resource: Centered on the Edge: Mapping a Field of Collective Intelligence and Spiritual Wisdom. Be sure to click on the Continue button in the intro to get to the actual material.
A team of spiritually oriented dialogue experts interviewed a lot of people and analyzed the results and came up with a number of patterns and principles that appear to be keys to the phenomenon of how resonant intelligence emerges in groups.
[ Information | 2002-06-16 19:43 | | PermaLink ] More >
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Very interesting article by Jon Udell who's a techie who's written books about collaboration software for one thing. In this article he touches on a lot of subjects related to the social structures between people. For example, how networks with "holes" in them represent the biggest opportunities, as resourceful people might discover how to fill those holes.
[ Articles | 2002-06-15 04:24 | | PermaLink ] More >
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