Ming the Mechanic:
Tuesday 27 Aug 2002
The NewsLog of Flemming Funch
 Tuesday 27 Aug 20022002-08-27 01:46
29 comments
pictureby Flemming Funch

  • The NCN public News Log at [link] was accessed 143146 times in the past 5 weeks. That's the most popular place across newciv.org and worldtrans.org. 20% of all traffic. A big thank you to Richard Carlson who's the person who selects the postings that make it there.

  • Lotus Notes was the leading edge collaboration tool for corporations in the 80s. Steve Gillmor says that Notes is Dead. Well, the online world has changed. Ray Ozzie was the guy who created Notes. 15 years later he created Groove which is a very cool peer-to-peer collaboration platform. And, as you can see, he has a weblog, and encourages his employees to have weblogs too.

  • Tara Sue Grubb is the first candidate for U.S. Congress with a weblog. Libertarian from North Carolina. I think I like her.

  • Apparently Isaac Asimov's classic Foundation trilogy of science fiction books were translated into Arabic under the title "Al-Qaida" and there's some serious speculation that it might have been an inspiration for Bin-Laden's Al-Qaida. Farout, but rather intriguing.



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    28 Aug 2002 @ 06:17 by jazzolog : Logs, Not Blogs
    We wish purity of expression, yes writers?

    "Words are just like a man carrying a lamp to look for his property, by which he can say: this is my property."
    ---The Lankavatara Sutra, quoted by The Little Zen Calendar for 8/27/02

    Thank you, Ming, for the update and statistics on Log reading. I'm grateful to hear how we're doing, whether the stats are good or not. Ming established the guidelines for Front or Splash Page placement, with which I agree entirely. Essentially what happens is we look for original entries, which best represent who we writers are and what we're about. Many of us, me especially, put up entries that direct readers off to other sites and which don't reflect much of anything about me or NCN. They don't go out front...UNLESS a thread of discussion gets going that does tell folks about us---not personally or "gossiply" but philosophically or activistically or creatively or something like that. It's fun to do this job and I'm glad of the appointment. (Complaints, please direct to Management...or me, certainly, if you want.)
    Also, Ming worked long and hard, I think, to fix the NonMember Comments feature, which apparently is tricky. I want to thank him publicly for that. Some oldtimers, like that imp *sindy* and the untameable Yashmir figured out how to do it anyway, without logging in; but a nonmember probably would have to stumble upon it.

    This feature may attract some new members, but once they're inside others take over and they deserve thanks too. Shakti greets folks through the Newbie Lounge, usually individually, I understand, in Emails. This could be a pretty big job, and I'm not sure whether she has helpers. She'll probably be along in a minute to tell us more about how that's going. Still, I am wondering, many may join just to get their enterprises some free bulletin board space, and don't reply to Shakti...or ever come back in, for that matter; what percentage of new members do that? Kay and many others, I'm sure, also greet newcomers and help them find their ways around. I wonder if we need more of these features.  

    28 Aug 2002 @ 10:16 by shawa : *Piping in* :-)
    Hello! No, I don´t have helpers now. This "job" needs a constance, a permanence through time, and I just resonate nicely with the idea; maintaining spaces fits squarely into a characteristic of mine, which I see as a personal contribution to the place. I don´t do E-mails on a regular basis. Just people I feel an intuitive affinity with. Every month or so, I write a general one, to say "hello and best wishes for your navigation in here". As I said, it´s all pretty intuitive, - the people I write to usually write back to say hello as well, and "thank you for the welcome". Not all the people who come in - or through - every day check into the Lounge of course.It´s a very small percentage who do.
    It´s quite an interesting feature, a sort of potential social interface between the group of active writing members and a group of newcomers.
    I´m sure it could be amplified, and/or a group could take over. I´m open to that as well. There was a time when there was talk about receiving new people and that was my contribution. It was fun to see the process of the space actually becoming semi "official"; some of the newcomers even think at first that I´m an administrator of the place (I tell them I´m "just" a member, of course - which makes for a very nice starting conversation sometimes!)
    I don´t know if other members do that work in here, Kay, perhaps?
    What I would like to share re/Lounge is that I´m taking the whole process "with a grain of salt", and very intuitively - so it´s not heavy for me at all.

    Richard, thanks for mentioning the feature. It seems to work, if only on a very, very small scale. The whole thing could be made bigger,and perhaps more efficient, and I bet that it would respond to a generally felt need.  

    28 Aug 2002 @ 19:36 by istvan : Tara Sue
    Ming. while you may think you might like her, i am in love with her. I suspect she may be a fledg-ing homo novus, she shure in not like the rest of the candidates. Well if she became the president i would vote for Ralph as her vice. and Kuchinich for wizard general. Refreshing to see souch genuine simlicity based on street wisdom. I hope she wins.  

    28 Aug 2002 @ 23:39 by vaxen : Good grubb...
    that Grubb! Thanks ming.  

    29 Aug 2002 @ 01:06 by ming : Time for ..
    sensible young mothers to run our governments. Oh and some grandmothers. Some guys too. But real down-to-earth people.  

    29 Aug 2002 @ 20:37 by vaxen : Nah...
    I really do'nt think that that would do flemming san. That is a truly frightning thought. Young mothers and Grandmothers? No thanks. It is the Young Mothers and Grandmothers sending their sons to war...fighting amongst themselves, goading their menfolk onward to new conquests and more...I think you're a bit off on that one ming. But a 5 for your kindly thought anyway...  

    30 Aug 2002 @ 01:26 by ming : How about
    Mothers in Law, then? A world run by mothers-in-law, how's that for a frightening thought.  

    30 Aug 2002 @ 12:27 by jazzolog : Farewell Scott
    I have an email from Scott Johnson that says he has resigned. I just checked his Profile and it is so. I do not know how measurement of success and activity is done at this Network, but from my viewpoint there is an alarming turnover of "active" members here. If New Civilization Network were my property, I would be concerned and look for a remedy.  

    30 Aug 2002 @ 13:30 by ming : Success
    I don't measure success here by the degree to which everybody stays forever. Having Scott here was helpful and stimulating and enjoyable for the community here. What is not a success is how well that worked for Scott in his life. But, although I'd love for NCN to be really helpful in making things happen in people's lives, I don't have the illusion that it is going to work for everybody all the time. Anyway, I think Scott will be back when he's gotten some things in order in his life.  

    31 Aug 2002 @ 01:22 by jazzolog : The Order of Scott's Life
    It's always risky to give an impression of condescension---never meaning to, of course---when there remains so much to do on one's own side of the street. Most of your members know, Ming, your Network is as your vision realized it and it fractals on, with fine tuning adjustments. Sometimes one can appear condescending when one has trained one's mind conveniently to see the "Positive" beyond the point clearly of denying real problems. Scott has read in your Public Log here what you wrote about him. We know some people learn at their own rate, no matter what "outside" influences are at work. Nevertheless, this is what Scott has to say~~~

    "Rather interesting especially the way Ming uses (my resignation) to transfer the problem 100% on to me which is not the case. To set the record straight here is MY version...:

    "I do have a financial problem or rather I will have one if I don't sell around 500 books in the next 4 months. Of course that is very worrying for me and I have shared that worry with the NCN community in a way I wouldn't normally do publicly because I have good friends there. On a wider note I also had hoped that NCN would have been a place where it was possible to look at issues in people's lives with a view to helping each other to find solutions. In that regard I have found the personal support from a number of specific friends extremely useful. I cannot emphasise how much this has meant to me because I have always been very sceptical to online relationships but I feel I have made real friends at NCN and that alone has made the journey worthwhile. (Those folks know who they are.)

    "On the other hand I have not felt the NCN environment, in itself, to be supportive in any way. I do not discern a human touch there at all. On the contrary I experience the interactive system that is NCN as unfriendly, frustrating and ultimately unsupportive of me as a person. (I cannot emphasise too strongly that I do not in any way feel the slightest bit let down by the members -- as I say above I feel very supported by my friends and contacts at NCN.)

    "Lest anyone should fall into the trap of saying that NCN is no more or less than its members I would suggest you have the merest look at modern Systems Theory. No individual or group of individuals lives independently of their environment and that environment set clear definable limits to what is possible given the individuals various propensities and capabilities. It is of course possible to adapt to an environment and that is what evolution is all about but -- and this is crucial -- social evolution is more about adapting the environment to the individual than vice versa. At NCN I do not see the slightest indication of that happening. On the contrary the NCN environment is a fixed entity for everyone except Ming the webmaster and that imposes limits on what is possible. My response to my situation is to move outside of those limits and if you want to make a judgment on whether that is my problem or an NCN one then it might be worth recalling the ratio of active members to registered ones: it probably lies at around 1:300 which seems pretty clear evidence to me of an interactive environment that simply isn't working in terms of what it appears to set out to do.

    "The above you can put up anywhere you like on NCN, Richard, but please include the last paragraph as it is crucial to understanding the situation. Nearly everyone is immune to the extent to which they are limited by their interactive environments, real and virtual, and that is a great danger for them."  

    31 Aug 2002 @ 02:09 by ming : Scott's life
    Thanks for letting Scott explain things more thoroughly, or, rather, elaborating on what he has already stated well before. I'm going to resist the temptation to argue about any of this, as I have other things to do.  

    31 Aug 2002 @ 03:26 by scotty : I feel sure that I'm missing something
    but I don't see how our inability to move around as Ming does changes our ability to interact here - I mean - I interact with the 'people' not the machine!
    How would having the same 'powers' as the webmaster change that ! How would we be better off - to do what - if these 'restrictions' were lifted?
    Being restricted is part of living - I can't fly I can't breathe in water I can't flit from one dimension to another ... there are countless restrictions - but I am free to use my capacities to their limit .. isn't that what living is!
    My thought is to use what I have and not cry about what I imagine I might be able to do with something I haven't got !
    I honestly can't see how Ming can be seen as an oppressor suppressor or whatever
    - what can more access (to be free as Ming is) do to enhance what we're doing here?
    I'm not being funny - my questions are serious

    ------------------------------------------------
    Right on Shakti - I expect a LOT from here - cos I'm giving all I've got (myself) and I'm open to everything!
    It's soooooooo rich in here !  

    31 Aug 2002 @ 03:58 by shawa : Agree with you, Scotty!
    The place AS IT IS is largely under-used; that´s my experience. So the flaw may not be in "the place", but in the flow of creativity of the people using it. It has practically unlimited use, PROVIDED the people who use it know how to do their own thing, have something real to say, and are more or less flowing in their ability to communicate!
    If people come in wanting to be GIVEN something, communication, ideas, solutions to their lives, they´re going to get very frustrated! If you come in with a gift, and put it somewhere coherent to its nature, it will grow! Be it a particular project, or friendships.
    Someone, I think it is Swan - spoke of NCN as a House of Mirrors. That´s one of the best (though somewhat hidden) features of NCN : it reflects back to you who you are, and then, you can think some more about what you wanted from NCN in the first place.
    Scott needed a time off to put his head together on important issues in his life, not just a technical problem, - a deep think-tank time was needed.
    Ming has never "oppressed" me, and I have sure been walking about and around in his programme! :-)  

    31 Aug 2002 @ 04:29 by jazzolog : Can't Speak for Scott
    Or for Mark or for Chip. These people responded to Ming's cry for technical involvement. He said he envisioned a site where people could discuss new paradigms forming from his foundation, and lamented no one was here. They wanted to try that, and offered some suggestions, as I understand it. What bothered all three was how their ideas were dismissed. Not THAT it was done but HOW it was done. This is management style and something you'd think would be child's play for a Personal Transformation Facilitator, and the Creator of Transformational Processing (a "system" by which you can change your entire reality!). Nevertheless these valuable members gave up and moved on. They didn't have "better" things to do; they just felt there must be some kind of charlatanry going on in here, that it was Ming who had other things to do than bother with them.

    What about Scott's point, that he really wants emphasized, regarding the people who register here and then vanish? There must be a sizeable percentage who simply sign up their commercial Herb Garden and don't fill out the rest of the Profile. But what percentage do the whole thing: the Keirsey/Myers-Briggs personality test, the bio and resume, the personal message or interest or anything else about a New Civilization? People write incredible things there. Dreams and hopes and ambitions and what they expect can happen with their membership. And then what happens? A few of us make it this far---god knows how---but most of them don't. Why don't those statistics concern the Webmaster, and why doesn't he do something about it? Don't tell me all that information is just to sell to spam lists.

    I'll tell you frankly it breaks my heart sometimes when I click Activity and read one of those messages from a recent new member. They tell us so often they are launching on a great spiritual journey, and they look forward to joining with others here at NCN. Maybe they do. Maybe they email other NCNers from private accounts outside. But how many go "home" to wait for some newsletter or something to arrive, and never come back in here to do the hard work of finding anybody? How many people get the entirely wrong impression about what this site is...because they are asked to answer all these questions and take a test and other mumbo jumbo? In other words, how many people get the mistaken picture that a civilization, or at least a community, of some kind is in here? Shouldn't we either create a community at NCN, or make it clear from the git-go that this is a message board and a chatroom and that's it?

    We know that some of us are building a small community at NCN. We feel wonderful about what's happening and our explorations of real relationship on this Internet thing. But despite that, we are having new friends break off and leave us, partly because they just don't feel they matter in the bigger NCN picture. It's good that Ming resists what he sees as a "temptation to argue." How tragic he is not the kind of young man who sees instead an opportunity for open and free discussion and change...and that there is nothing better to do with the personal property of his website than precisely that!  

    31 Aug 2002 @ 06:00 by swan : I wrote this in the Cauldron and felt
    it should be added here.
    2002-08-31 05:55:21   [Edit] [Delete]
    Wow...that was a long read..now do I remember enough to make a comment?
    For what it is worth ( to quote my sister, Shakti) I have been at NCN since May and Ming has not said more than a few words to me and yet I have an art gallery and loads of friends. It was all created out of desire and intention. I started my news log the day I joined. It is about a desire to share and give as Shakti and Scotty said. If I was waiting for the welcome wagon to show up I might still be standing at the door or in the hallway. I found that once I was willing to come in and be visible this place took on a life of it's own and I discovered/discover what I need to in each moment.
    When I moved into my house here in MN. There wasn't a newletter that told me how to live in this nieghborhood. I live in an alive community and I had to go out and discover that. When I left home at 18 and moved into my own place it would have been great if I would have recieved a newletter about what to do next. I hope I didn't miss that piece of mail while I was out trying to figure it out for myself. Damn that would be a bummer.
    NCN is a path and it is up to us to find our way on it.
    ------------------------------------------------------------------------  

    31 Aug 2002 @ 06:23 by jazzolog : Is This Macbeth?
    The 3 "weird sisters" have spoken, and "the charm's wound up." Should I leave now or wait for the bushes to move toward NCN firewalls?

    Or could we extend a hand to some not so fortunate?  

    31 Aug 2002 @ 06:25 by shawa : Following this thread...
    ... way down the list of comments, in this right-hand side corner of Ming´s reality... I think it´s important for us to understand the difference between "container" and "contents". Ming, the webmaster, created the container; we, the members, are providing some of the contents. Now - what Richard is saying, I believe - is : what is the RELATIONSHIP between "container" and "contents". Yes ?
    What the heck, I´m going to elaborate on this in an Newslog entry, so see ya over there, at Shakti Ma´s Quantum Diary.  

    31 Aug 2002 @ 06:49 by scotty : Goddam !
    Richard has done it again !
    Every time he gets the chance to he tries to drag us gals off into the bushes !
    LOL!  

    31 Aug 2002 @ 07:15 by swan : Well I'm not going without kicking and
    screaming this time! R.I.C.H.A.R.D! No no no ...not the stake, not the fire...not the guillotine!!!! Oh Oh..."off with thier heads"  

    31 Aug 2002 @ 08:49 by shawa : Swan!!!
    Use the Logs! Really! "Kick and Scream" is Good for all of us!
    Macbeth!... Richard - LOL!  

    31 Aug 2002 @ 10:18 by jazzolog : Lay On, Macduff
    I thought you'd wonder who is Lady Macbeth?

    I'm casting Vaxen.  

    31 Aug 2002 @ 10:59 by shawa : Richard -
    LOL - truly.  

    31 Aug 2002 @ 11:59 by vaxen : Ooo...
    Vaxen as 'Lady MacBeth? hee hee hee Charmed. Seems somehow this thread went awry from Ms. Grubb...or is that Mrs? And now Vaxen as Lady MacBeth? Amazing! And yes, ming, Mother in Laws would be infinitely more frightening even then young ladies and grandmothers! SIGINT has it that Iraq already has been attacked twice! [:)  

    31 Aug 2002 @ 13:27 by swan : Vaxen as Lady MacBeth being chased
    By a kicking and screaming giant, white swan! There is a visual. This thread is going straight for the mark.  

    31 Aug 2002 @ 13:44 by jazzolog : Leda, Move Over
    Vaxen buddy, I think there's a piece of art or 2 coming...with your name on it. Do we have enough sexual ambiguity yet? Will we have Lady Macbeth beneath those beating wings and feathers? Damned spots!  

    31 Aug 2002 @ 14:36 by swan : RICHARD!!!
    That's not what I meant! Just for that you are wearing the pink tutu  

    31 Aug 2002 @ 15:07 by jazzolog : Sorry
    I didn't mean anything untoward. I saw something very beautiful in my mind's eye actually.

    Where imagination is valued, innovation shines forth.

    In memory of Scott's vibrant membership.  

    31 Aug 2002 @ 15:14 by swan : Ok Richard...forgiven
    "Where imagination is valued, innovation shines forth" ditto! You look kind of cute in the tu tu.(smile)  

    31 Aug 2002 @ 23:10 by vaxen : The most...
    ancient hieroglyph for the swan is the swa astika. Does this mean that I'll be chased by the Thule Group and once caught hauled off to munch hausen to become lord knows what new form of buddenbrooks?

    Actually Marge Simpson did a rather eloquent Lady MacBeth...at least I thought so. Now there's a rub. Richard in a pink tutu is a gas swan! Demasculinisation or feminist nightmare? Penis envy?

    Now how did the lady Grubb get lost in all this...or is it that she inspired all this...and she is running for Congress? Or is Congress running for her...or is it the Senate? Oh hell...Hear, now, a cheer goes up for the Lady Grubb one more time and she has paypal on her site and her run, unlike Logans', is very costly indeed! Damn I used to eat Grub worms in survival college...an accolade in passing. Pass the strawberry jam please. The link below is for all of you. Enjoy. Incidentally the english word 'God' is Sumero Babylonian in origin. Comes from the word Kutha. Kutha was a city North of Babylon. And the real reason for firing on Iraq and ridding this world of the Daemon Saddam? Eurasia is the prize. Like Mrs Grubb...See ya'z ( God, incidentally, is not an 'Israeli' concept and appears nowhere in 'the Bible' or 'TeNaCh.')

    http://www.parascience.org/BKTWO-02.htm  

    Other stories in
    2012-05-03 00:04: An evolving path
    2012-01-02 13:52: 2011 Accomplishments and 2012 Aims
    2011-11-17 02:20: Your inner piece
    2011-02-01 00:05: Slow Mo Flow
    2011-01-22 18:40: Recognition
    2010-08-23 00:36: Where's Ming?
    2010-07-20 14:24: Getting other people to do stuff
    2010-06-22 00:27: Inventory
    2010-06-19 23:10: Conversations
    2009-10-28 12:31: Then a miracle occurs


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