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 A subject that continuously fascinates me is that of higher dimensions. I'm not primarily thinking about the meta-physical idea of dimensions, but rather the matematical. I believe that a lot of our problems would be easily solved if we learned to think and operate in more than our customary 3 or so dimensions.
We can most easily understand that by studying dimensions of a lower number than 3. If you look at something in 2 dimensions, it is all flat, like a piece of paper. And you can see everything on the paper at the same time.
Likewise, a 4th dimensional being would quite naturally be able to see everything in a 3 dimensional scene at the same time, including what is at any point inside your body, or inside closed rooms, or inside solid objects.
[ Patterns | 2002-05-11 02:53 | | PermaLink ] More >
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Below is my draft for a set of rules of the NCN member area. There have been a number of discussions in the last few months where people have expressed that it wasn't clear what the rules were here. So, I'm trying to remedy that.
[ NCN | 2002-05-09 17:23 | | PermaLink ] More >
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 In the news: "Israeli security Cabinet OKs retaliation". For the record I just want to say that I think any kind of state-sponsored retalitation is insanity. If somebody does criminal acts and blows buildings up and kills other people, by all means, bring the guilty people to justice. But when the actions are done by individuals and particular groups, it makes absolutely no sense to go and bomb some different people, and end up killing a bunch of kids who had nothing to do with it, just to make a point, and because they're considered part of the same ethnic group. I.e. it makes no sense for Israel to go and bomb Palestinian police stations whenever somebody blows themselves up in a crowded area in Israel. In the first place you can't really "retaliate" against people who already committed suicide. And you can't assume that you're dealing with an enemy like yourself, who orders all the violence from the highest state level.
[ Thoughts | 2002-05-08 23:42 | | PermaLink ] More >
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 I've noticed that most people who appear to have monetary success are not at all sharing how it happened. People who have an abundance of money are usually extremely vague when you question them on how that came about.
You know, I'd like most everybody to be successful and abundant and confortable in their lives. So, I figure, if we just shared widely the most workable methods of arriving there, we could all just use those methods.
Unfortunately I don't think it works that way when we're talking about money. Most people who are very financially comfortable can't give you a formula you can follow. Either because they don't know, or because they arrived there by some coincidence or one-shot opportunity that can't be duplicated, or they arrived there through some shady transactions that they would rather not share.
[ Thoughts | 2002-05-08 17:06 | | PermaLink ] More >
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I was looking at a page about "Creative Resourcing" at the changemakers.net site. To answer the question "What is Creative Resourcing?" it says: "Creative Resourcing describes an ability to find new ways of engaging the resources in the local environment (i.e. funds, people, goods and services) to support an organization and make it self-sustaining". Which is a great thing, of course. And my first thought was: "Great, that's exactly what I'd like to have happen". But my second thought, after looking at the examples, was that what I'm really interested in is something more pervasive.
[ Projects | 2002-05-07 22:07 | | PermaLink ] More >
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A key purpose for the New Civilization Network was for me always that it would somehow be a connecting glue between many different groups, organizations, individuals, websites, etc. I.e. it wouldn't in itself be an organization or a hierarchy, but it would be a *network* - a self-organizing structure where many independent nodes can connect with each other in any way they choose, where any one of them can take a lead in some area, as they're inspired, but where there's no hierarchy of who's in charge.
It so far didn't entirely happen, as most people seem to identify NCN as a particular website, or a certain isolated group of people. And, for that matter, it is of no importance whether the network forms under the banner of NCN or under any other banner. The point is: how do we most effectively network all those diverse people who are working on pieces of the bigger puzzle, and how do we do it in a way that persists no matter whether any particular one group or websites persists or not.
Thinking about this, an obviously important factor is what exactly it is that holds such a network together. I.e. what is the one thing that people in NCN have in common, and what is the one thing they have in common with the people who make up many other communities, networks, websites, organizations, etc.?
[ Thoughts | 2002-05-06 23:59 | | PermaLink ] More >
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 Adobe wins a suit against Macromedia (the makers of Flash) and gets $2.8 million in damages. All because Macromedia used some little tabs on the windows in their programs, which was similar to what Adobe was using. Hmmm, I was seriously considering buying a copy of Adobe GoLive for web design. I'm now going to change my mind, and I'm now going to pay for Macromedia Dreamweaver instead. The new version looks pretty cool anyway. I think companies using software patents to try to wipe out the competition should be boycotted.
[ News | 2002-05-03 15:01 | | PermaLink ] More >
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Well, I was really planning on starting to point my newslog outwards, to the rest of the world, rather than talking about internal NCN stuff all the time. But I guess the energy is flowing a little different.
For years I've wondered what kind of role I ought to personally take for NCN that would best help things actually working. Because I noticed early on how I easily became a bottleneck or even an obstacle in making things happen.
[ NCN | 2002-05-01 14:44 | | PermaLink ] More >
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My friend Paul Hoffman asked a couple of big questions in an e-mail, to survey people who's opinion he'd like to hear. The first question is "What are the top five problems facing our planet, our species?". Since it took me a little longer than the 5-8 minutes he suggested to come up with some quick answers, I'd better share them here too, and hear what others will come up with. It really is meant as a quick survey, not as any precise analysis.
[ Thoughts | 2002-04-13 22:31 | | PermaLink ] More >
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 The Utne Reader magazine has a feature this month about social inventors. Big thing about Global Ideas Bank and also pieces about Bagelhole and some mentions of NCN pages. And since I've had a hand in all of them, and they're the work of fellow NCN members, I think that's all good news. I didn't actually see a copy of it yet, but they just wrote and said they're going to send one, and it is on their site as well.
[ Diary | 2002-03-19 11:39 | | PermaLink ] More >
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 It is interesting how different environments inspire different kinds of things to go on in them. Now, I'm particularly thinking about that in terms of online programs. Like, this News Log program is structured so that when one posts something it is a bit of an event. That is, one has an article or a poem or something, or at least a link to it somewhere else. And one posts it and everybody notices it, and a bunch of people comment on it, etc.
You know, that is contrasted to an environment where it makes more sense to post many little items. I'm comparing with some of the other programs in the class that the News Log program is in: Web Log programs. Logs made with tools by Userland or Blogger are more suited to mentioning many little tidbits that one might be interested in during the day, without any of them having to be any very big item.
[ Diary | 2002-03-19 01:13 | | PermaLink ] More >
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 I'm excited about the possibilities in syndication of web content through open web standards. In part because I have a vision of creating better wiring for the global brain, and this stuff fits right in there.
In short, there are simple wide-spread protocols that make it possible for different websites to pick up content from each other, and to contribute to news feeds of various kinds.
In part what is cool is that the most workable schemes have been developed by small groups of creative people and have been adopted on a grassroots basis.
[ Projects | 2002-03-17 17:06 | | PermaLink ] More >
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 Here is a great little online book from some people I really respect. It is by Paul Glover, who's the inventor and champion of "Ithaca Hours", the alternative local currency system in Ithaca, New York, and it is illustrated mostly by Thomas Slagle, whose work I've really enjoyed in the past. He does large paintings of scenes from alternative futures for Los Angeles. Anyway, the book/website is a detailed vision about a different, much more sustainable, future metropolis.
[ Inspiration | 2002-03-12 04:16 | | PermaLink ] More >
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 Another Internet technology that mysteriously didn't quite happen when it was expected to is video conferencing. 5 years ago I was frequently hanging out in video chat rooms with groups of other people, all of whom I could see live video of. And that was when I had a dial-up connection and a computer that had about 20 times less capacity than what I use today. And yet, today, I don't really know anybody who's using their cameras for anything. At the time I was using CU-SeeMe for the software. And when I now research it a little bit, it turns out that nothing much better has replaced it, and it still appears to be the most easily available video conferencing program that will work on different platforms. Even though no new versions have been developed for quite some time.
[ Projects | 2002-03-11 15:13 | | PermaLink ] More >
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 This is technical, so probably not for everybody.
I was looking around for whatever happened to the rush towards 3D virtual reality on the web 5 years ago. At that time it looked like all sorts of things would end up in VRML pretty quickly. Virtual Reality Modeling Language was a standard for representing and exchanging 3D objects or worlds, which you could access with a plugin in your browser.
The action seems to now be in X3D - Extensible 3D Graphics, which is a standard being developed by the Web3D Consortium, which is superseeding VRML.
[ Information | 2002-03-06 23:03 | | PermaLink ] More >
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 Another type of place to meet in is virtual reality. My favorite place so far is a place called AlphaWorld. About 3-4 years ago I had a lot of fun there and built an NCN Information Center and various other buildings there. And a few other NCN people, like Roan Carratu were hanging out there too, and building buildings next to it. And my kids and all the kids on my street were busy building there. Anyway, all of that still exists, and it could very well be an environment for exploring new civilizations. So, come by and visit if you have a chance. The software unfortunately only works on Windows, but you get it at Active Worlds. It doesn't cost anything if you're only a "tourist" there, but you can't build. The coordinates of our little village is in AlphaWorld at 895N 814W. Let me know if you succeed in going there and I'll meet you.
[ Projects | 2002-03-05 20:02 | | PermaLink ] More >
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 Yesterday I went with my daugther to an Open House evening at University of Santa Monica, which she's thinking about going to. USM is a rather unusual university, as universities go. It is at the forefront of "soul-centered education" and gives master's degrees in spiritual psychology. Now, what is unique is that the program is a lot more like an ongoing personal development seminar than it is about full auditoriums with a teacher who lectures to you from the book and then you go to exams. This is essentially education in being a human, how to live from one's authentic self, how to access what one is really about, and how to deal with others in a similar fashion. This used to be just sort of a weird Southern California thing, but it is no longer as weird, as the world is increasingly recognizing the need for that kind of thing.
[ Diary | 2002-03-04 13:10 | | PermaLink ] More >
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Here are some of the things I'm planning for the NCN software. This is just to give a hint of what I'm doing and what direction my mind is going in. And there are a lot of details, but these are some of the headings:
- Surveying and Polling
- Shared connections with other sites and networks
- A market place for services offered and unmet needs
- Specialized workspaces
- More personal organizer features
- More simple, intuitive layouts wherever possible
- Access for people speaking different languages than English
[ NCN | 2002-02-27 14:17 | | PermaLink ] More >
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I've noticed an omission in the design of this support structure for NCN. Or, rather, it is something that ought to be invented, or arranged a little differently, in order for things to work more smoothly and synergetically.
I'm often preaching about my vision of a world that needs to have room for all sorts, having freedom enough for people to make their different choices. And how NCN ought to have the same kind of basic principle. You know, we don't have to agree, and if you want to do something, go and do it, even if nobody else agrees. I will always defend that principle, but the problem here is that it is something I've been *preaching*, and something one would sort of have to buy into. And if somebody didn't agree with it, we'd have to have a big argument about it, etc.
The much better way would be if the virtual environment we meet in here automatically would facilitate a creative diversity amongst us, and help things flow so as to avoid unproductive clashes.
[ Patterns | 2002-02-26 19:04 | | PermaLink ] More >
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 For many years I've counted for my family's health on a certain healthcare modality, which involves the diagnosis of physical conditions with a device that does electrical measurements on acupuncture points, and that pinpoints all sort of detailed information by placing various substances or frequencies into the circuit.
And it just sort of dawned on me that it is still a little known approach. Certainly in the U.S. where I live. And, looking around on the Internet, I am reminded that there are still many medical doctors willing to claim that it is complete quackery and useless. I can sort of understand why, as I haven't seen anything in traditional western medicine that is remotely as fast and precise, so I suppose they feel threatened.
[ Information | 2002-02-26 15:15 | | PermaLink ] More >
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