Posts from — August 2006

OpenAcademic :: bringing education to all:
OpenAcademic — supporting learners, teachers, and institutions.
Create an intranet. Blog. Podcast. Manage the school website, and all
the club websites. Create a private workspace. Share files. Give
students the tools to build portfolios that cross academic years and
curricular disciplines. Support teacher professional development.
Communicate with parents. Build a safe social networking environment
within your school community. Manage a class.
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hmmm this could be cool, but it will likely be a bit complex as each of these tools, as all second gen and third gen webtools do, toward the baroque.

the Phat Phree -The World:
10: red rover.
Kids just must have been out of ideas when they came up with this game. You literally just run as hard as you can into the opposing team and hope that you are able to break through their in-locked grasp. The game is essentially a self-inflicted clothesline. An early lesson in exploiting the weak, children learned quickly that the best strategy was to determine the most tenuous link, preferably two frail, timid girls, and send your fattest team member careening at them as if there was pie on the other side.

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some classics here….

more on yellow elephants:
A hallmark of this war turned occupation is the lack of real support and sacrifice from the general public. Particularly interesting is the reluctance of able bodied supporters to actually enlist – like Mr Cheney during the Vietnam war, they all seem to have other priorities.

One wonders if there will be a greater need for volunteers if the birthing pains Dr Rice describes turn into something other than sweets and roses. In any event Operation Yellow Elephant identifies the chicken hawk set mostly among college Republicans, The tactics are a bit rough, but the hypocrisy of these conservative elites is deep.
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hypocricy is deep…. deeper than their will to fight for sure.

Cultural Software: A Theory of Ideology released under a Creative Commons license:
Yale University Press has graciously agreed to release an online version of my 1998 book, Cultural Software: A Theory of Ideology, under a Noncommercial Sharealike Creative Commons license.
The book was the first to show how to use the theory of memes in social and political theory. It argues that we can explain ideology as an effect of cultural evolution; instead of viewing ideologies as overarching worldviews, it argues that we can break them down into component parts and mechanisms.
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we need more books like this….

The Dumbing Down of America:
This dumbing down of the people continues to this day. The average level of literacy of adult Americans in the 2003 Adult Literacy Survey of the U.S. Department of Education was exactly the same as in 1992. That may sound not too bad –at least there was no decline. Yet over that 11 years, the average amount of education received by Americans rose. At any given level of educational attainment, literacy declined. Only because Americans in 2003 had more years of schooling on average did we prevent an overall decline in literacy.
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I think this is because television watching went up and book reading went down…

Device Art (article):
Michelle Kasprzak pointed me to this paper by Machiko Kusahara. Some points of interest:

“Device Art is a concept for re-examining art-science-technology relationships both from a contemporary and historical perspective in order to foreground a new aspect of media art. The term “Device Art” may sound obscure, or even self-contradictory, but it is a conscious choice. The concept is a logical

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This seems to be a very interesting paper… I wish i had some more time to work through. it.

investing on fear:
A serious item to ponder is the acceptable radius for ground transportation. In the NorthEast Corridor, many of us find Amtrak a viable alternative to the airlines. It wouldn’t take much to create attractive bus service – examples exist. My guess is that ground alternatives to flying are viable for trips up to 300 miles.
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if this happens, i suspect we will see the rapid expansion of airline-clubs… that is a new broker in the airline industry that provides private jet type service to clientelle who buy the jet and hire a pilot. so… instead of paying delta to fly you to europe, you would join a club, the club would ‘vet’ you and you would pay your ownership costs and fuel costs and fly to europe without being hasseled.

Rixstep:
Shortcuts
A repository for every keyboard secret in OS X. Some of these are well known, some are not. Shortcuts in the Menu category are common rather than universal. This list should continue to grow exponentially over time.

IST Results – Do ICTs improve our lives?:
The project’s final report reveals that many of the assumptions about ICTs and their advantages or disadvantages are not entirely accurate.
We assume, for example, that computer skills improve our chances to find a new job, with an estimate of 60 percent of existing jobs and 90 percent of new ones requiring ICT skills, according to the SOCQUIT report. Based on these figures, PC skills should have a determining effect on people’s ability to find employment.
On the contrary, “Our study showed that it is the social contact with other people that influences if people find a job or not, rather than the level of their ICT skills,” explains Heres. Equally, ICT benefits for elderly people are not reflected in the job market. “We did not find convincing evidence that the employment issue can be solved with ICT. However we did find examples that because of ICT, the elderly leave their jobs,” he says. These people are not motivated to change, as there are younger people with better skills, according to Heres.

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they showed, once again, that social contact is very important.

Arden L. Bement on International Science:
“On the international scale, our value will be measured by our global research networks and our partnerships with fast-growing research economies. On the West Coast, you are in an excellent position to collaborate with Asian nations in biology, chemistry, physics, and materials science.” Arden Bement at Harvey Mudd College, January 14, 2006.
Dr. Bement has demonstrated a strong interest in international scientific cooperation, and given that the National Science Board has a task force in operation on International Science to advise the NSF, it seems useful to consider his statements on the topic. His views are especially relevant to UNESCO since he is Arden Bement, Vice-Coordinator of the Natural Sciences and Engineering Committee of the U.S. National Commission for UNESCO.

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now, if they would just do this in the cultural sphere, we’d be set.