Pop!Casts

Chris Anderson. What happens when material things become free? Long Tail author and Wired magazine editor Chris Anderson examines new models of wealth distribution and claims we’re moving from economies of scarcity to an age of abundance. A Pop!Tech lecture informing us how Media and Internet are shifting places and individuals not corporations have influence.

My Favorite Free Software | philipmorgan.net

Philip Morgan This chap is a photographer in this new tech age, and very much a participator and a sharing fellow. His photographs of the Lone Fir Graveyard are just excellent. That's all I was doing, was tracking down the source of a neat photograph. It led to this, his eclectic blog. This post is a listing of some of the most useful opensource or free software of the sort that facilitates the operation of computers for personal use. These are all intermediate or higher programs, but he's found some new ones well worth sharing. I took a few hours to plow through the list and downloaded a half dozen.

The West Banksy | Arts | Guardian Unlimited

Guerilla Graffiti on the Wall British "guerilla graffiti artist" Banksy's work is showing up on the infamous wall dividing Israel from Palestine. Here is a photo essay by the Guardian with links to background.

Jimmy Wales on Wikipedia - FORA.tv

Jimmy Wales Jimmy is the founder and chief behind wikipedia. He describes "behind the scenes". but also explains how wikipedia is not a technical but a social phenomena. These are new and radical ideas very well expressed.

By the bye, fora.tv is another aspect of this new social side of internet. Do examine the wealth of their video talks.

SOLIDARITY, SUSTAINABILITY, AND NON-VIOLENCE ~ V3 N12 DECEMBER 2007

Newsletter This newsletter is an exceptional work and this issue one of the best. It is an exhaustive review of the UN 2007 State of the Future Report with its 15 summary concerns. Further, Gutierrez integrates this report with the progress towards the 2015 Millenium Development Goals. It rather efficiently presents summarys and links to as much more information as you have time to read. An excellent view of the present and future state of the world - of where we are winning and where losing.

redhat.com | One Laptop Per Child

redhat.com | One Laptop Per Child
This imaginative project is now delivering. It has transformed from a charitable idea of helping the poor where the technology proposed was minimal. Now the technology is at the leading edge. How remarkable that the children will get the best, and not hand-me-downs! Do check in with the project and see how it will change the world for the better. It is as they say, an educational, not merely a technical project.

Pop!Casts

Martin Marty
Pop!Tech presents some marvellous talks from a wide variety of disciplines. This first link is Martin Marty, the well respected theologian who led the famous in-depth study on fundamentalism in the world religions some years back. Here he speaks on the need for more creative connections between technology and religion since neither is going away.

Among their many presentations at popcasts, here is one that will astound you.

Eloma Simpson Barnes

With a voice that could move a mountain, orator Eloma Simpson Barnes practically channels Martin Luther King, Jr., as she performs one of his speeches. She emulates King’s cadence, intonation and enunciation in this inspirational reminder to stand up for what you believe in.

It Can Happen Here, Too

Thou shall not plaigerize. This is absolutely and convolutedly delightful. It is an example of "mishrah" - a most ancient rabbinic argument as presented in a modern Jewish college. The consideration is deception and it starts with Abraham and ends up in a New York college. There isn't the tiniest aspect unconsidered. It's meaningful for the people in this place. And it's a fun look into this most particular form of reasoning.

Zamzar - Free online file conversion

Zamzar Here is a somewhat awkward service to really really help out occasionally. When your programs don't open up other peoples files, here's a solution. Visit zamar, browse to the file, choose the format you want, they email you a link, you download the converted file, and voila you can see the video, read the document or whatever. It's free. An amazing number of conversions are available.

TWikis & Electric Sheep

Now here's a strange one. We find computer game coding morphing into virtual worlds and these becoming significant social networks - then these virtual worlds being sized up by educators as a high viability learning environment and needing a means of evaluation and participation - and these choosing a novel and new forum in a new experimental collaboration system called "TWiki" based on the wikipedia model where anyone can speak, publish and share - and this hosted by one of the oldest, largest and most sophisticated peace information networks formed in 1946 from the nuclear scientists that invented the atomic bomb. And the project's startup white paper, they cite "electric sheep" as an element in this complicated dance - and electric sheep turn out to be a means of developing highly complex graphical elements for this virtuality - and this is done by joining up thousands of private computers around the world to do the humungous calculations required for this when they are not otherwise busy. By golly I expected "quantum entanglement" to turn up there somewhere. And what I was looking for was Iranian nuclear reports! But all this strange stuff is the future rapidly coming to us. So if education and training are your interest, check this stuff out.
Here's the links:
Federation of American Scientists - the best source for military stats. The FAS Virtual Worlds Project. The whitepaper "Building virtual worlds for education and training". The electric sheep tour.

Google Tech Talk - Dr. Christopher Helland, Dalhousie

Turning Cyberspace into Sacred Space Helland's excellent 54 min lecture reviews the ways the religious traditions around the world used at the beginning and are using the internet now to communicate and share their story. From cameras in Hindu temples to neo-pagan rituals, he informs us of a not-so-visible community.

BIBBY'S BLOG

Dr. Reginald Bibby Bibby is a sociologist teaching at the University of Lethbridge. His blog is an interesting place of "research, reflections and rants", and quite lively. Here is a lighter side of the scholar than his excellent books on Canadian demographics. Restless Gods - Restless ChurchesNotes Notes on two recent books on the Canadian church statistics.

Alan Watts - Work as Play

Work as Play Google video has a nice bunch of the old zen lectures of Alan Watts. Enjoy.

Town of Cochrane Mural Mosaic

WOW This community project is a beautiful mixing of large and small. Artists were given tiles to paint, each a part of the larger theme.

A New Marriage of Brain and Computer

Quantum Consciousness 59 min. Google Tech Talks September, 21 2007.

This lecture is deep water indeed. The model is put forward from evidence that human consciousness is a quantum phenomena. Stuart Hameroff has spent the last 20 years studying consciousness from the perspective of his field of anesthesiology. The talk becomes a history of the research both of computer and brain, from early simple models to the present. He challenges Kurzweil's idea that singularity will bring machine awareness (12 orders of magnitude worth says he). It ends discussing alzheimers and consciousness in general. His website is http://quantumconsciousness.org/

Everything is Miscellaneous

David Weinberger 57 min video from Google Tech Talks May 10, 2007
If ever there was a review of the explosion of information in our world that helped us understand it, it is this lecture from David Weinberger. He reviews the organization of information from Aristotle and Dewey to Google and Technorati. He explains why it is better not to organize any longer, but rather just tag. Weinberger's blog of course is http://www.everythingismiscellaneous.com/

And here's a podcast from Wired of Weinberger and Jimmy Wales (Widipedia guru) discussing these themes.

Blogger Play

Our Family this is about the best "fish bowl" the internet has so far created. the google/blogger folks stream a picture every 2 seconds that is being posted to their blog space. it is a photo album of the human family.

FORA.tv - The World Is Thinking

FORA.tv was an early entry to internet tv, but it was scheduled streaming, still requiring watching at the appointed time. Now however they have a storehouse of video on demand together with excellent indexing and an on-site flash player. Their slogan is "The world is thinking", and it is indicative of their offerings.

Richard Dawkins From their "ThinkTank" section, here for example is a nearly 2 hour summary and Q&A by Richard Dawkins on his book "The God Delusion" at Randolph-Macon Woman's College. It is well worth the watching.

Marcus Borg and Houston Smith And just to balance things out, also on the fora.tv site, from what's wrong with ancient religion, here's a reasonable view with what's right with modern religion. Internationally known biblical and Jesus scholar, professor and author Marcus Borg joins Huston Smith, one of the world's leading scholars of comparative religions, for a special Friday evening lecture at The First Congressional Church of Berkeley.

YouTube - Pavarotti sings "Nessun Dorma" from Turandot

Nessun Dorma - Pavarotti With the passing of Pavarotti last week, his signature piece "Nessun Dorma" has been remembered and relistened by the world again. It continues to stay our hearts a while. But here also is a "Nessun Dorma" to stay the heart. And it is a fairy tale story indeed. Cell phone saleman Paul Potts of Wales just won the Britain's Got Talent contest. Here is his rebirth into the world.

Nessun Dorma - Paul Potts

Lyrics Download

Education | Essential Guide Visionaries | BBC World Service

BBC
has a new series called "Visionaries" where it looks at innovation in the past and towards the future. This page is a lovely find - 5 international voices on themes of education. Audio feed and transcripts. A door into the other themes of the new series. How lovely that the internet facilittes such insights reaching us all.

Foxit Software

Foxit Software
These folks have developed pdf readers and editors in competition to Adobe. Like Adobe they offer a free reader and sell the more complex features. But what is particularly good is that their reader is efficient. It presents pdf documents almost instantaneously, and does not advertise itself constantly. Very very nice. Highly recommended.

Twitter / OceanDoctor

Twitter / OceanDoctor

dr. david e guggenheim is oceandoctor. and boy is he plugged into web 2.0. this interesting fellow isn't content with reporting every few days. here is is on twitter, reporting every hour or so. in fact he's a particularly good example of what twitter is all about. check it out.

regular reports and photos from the exploration ship esperanza and its two mini subs. check out his blog http://oceandoctor.vox.com/

also check out david troy's http://twittervision.com/ - david takes the latest twitter post every 10 seconds and points on google world where it is. it's a fascinating glimpse of the world of ordinary folks.

Ustream.tv -

Ustream.tv
the web is getting more and more immediate with the latest technology is being made freely available to people and then becoming the new trend. now it is video feeds. ustream.tv presents feeds from private individuals with a computer and a webcam. some folks get rather organized, some not. the american presidential race has started and this is part of it.

Miro - free, open source internet tv and video player

Miro - free, open source internet tv and video player
this is the new "web2 tv" you may have heard about. but "tv" is a misleading sort of name. it's more like a magazine. an efficient way to keep in touch with an area, a discipline, a voice that you respect. and like a magazine it just comes to your house and you pick it up at your convenience. and like a magazine, you get only the best words and pictures.

miro is an open source all format media player. but what makes the difference is that they have an index with about 1500 video feeds. all free. just subscribe and they show up in your computer to view at your convenience. many are hidef. very easy. much better than surfing to the source websites.

check out "national geographic" "democracy now" "ted talks"

Jaman - Home

Jaman provides access to the world's films that though important and often award winning are not readily available through movie houses, TV or video rental. They offer HD TV in 1 Gbyte per hour files. You can buy them for $5 or rent them for a week for $2. Some are free. There is social networking on site, so you can see and participate in ranking these films. A top notch example of the new internet tv phenomena and of the democratization taking place across the internet.

united church of christ videos

the united church of christ is an american equivalent of the united church of canada, being a mainline denomination with progressive perspectives. this youtube group list is a place they are inviting their general membership to contribute videos expressing this alternative and optimistic view of what the church should be in society. no preaching salvation here, and a lot of social gospel.

they've got about 50 videos so far. check out "little light shine" and "money money money".

RedemptionNow

these poems are the remarkable vision of meghan utnage . a rare voice with spiritual curiousity and insight.

結果発表 | 1-click Award

here's a group of just plain fun interactive flash graphics from japan

Democracy Now

Democracy Now is "alternative" news at its best. The net and other new technology make it possible for small groups to effectively balance the voices of mainstream media. This is an excellent example. In addition you can listen at your convenience to their streams. They are unabashedly "liberal" if that is still an operative adjective. Check it out.

Pandora - a story of misfortune and hope.

The gods presented Pandora with a box into which each had put something harmful, and forbade her ever to open it. Pandora was possessed of a lively curiosity. she had to know what was in the box. One day she lifted the lid - and out flew plagues innumerable, sorrow and mischief for mankind. In terror Pandora clapped the lid down, but too late. One good thing, however, was there - Hope. It was the only good thing the casket held among the many evils, and it remains to this day mankinds sole comfort in misfortune.

Each day one sees hope and other good things. We need to notice more. We need to share the good things we encounter.