Accuracy&Aesthetics » Spiral Model

Spiral Model An interesting tapestry of interwoven threads of ideas and images. As you regard any theme, related ones show. I was searching images of spirals and then found many extravagant and inspiring images, including this one
Rapidly Changing vs Fixed where a teacher and artist examines the perennial tension between student and teacher.

Joost - What's Joost?

Internet TV for Free Here is another source of the new internet tv. Full Screen size. Not by subscription as MIRO, but by browsing their content menus. They are just passing out of their experimental phase, and being new, their presentation is rather friendly and their downloadable interface is easier than most. They offer a mix of the small independent video blogger, and the professional videographers. These include entertainment and documentary sources. And some actual archived tv shows. Check it out. An example. A 25 minute film from Amnesty International Ten Videos That Will Change Your Mind About Human Rights.

Big Think - We Are What You Think

New Video AggregatorThese folks want to participate in the new internet with it's sharing of serious comment. The idea here is to gather conversations around ideas. They divide the categories into physical and meta-physical. Experts interact with netizens. The formats of participation are unique. It's only a few days old but they are starting with 3877 ideas. Check it out.

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.