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Saturday, April 27, 2002

Which children's storybook character are you?

This is me! :)

this quiz was made by colleen
[03:45 | wl | permanent link

Thursday, April 25, 2002

Myths Over Miami Miami
New Times | miaminewtimes.com | News : Feature

"Captured on South Beach, Satan later escaped. His demons and the horrible Bloody Mary are now killing people. God has fled. Avenging angels hide out in the Everglades. And other tales from children in Dade's homeless shelters."

BY LYNDA EDWARDS
[11:19 | wl | permanent link

Wednesday, April 24, 2002

Douglas Englebart

"Englebart's most famous invention is the computer mouse, also developed in the 1960s, but not used commercially until the 1980s. Like Vannevar Bush and J.C.R. Licklider, Englebart wanted to use technology to augment human intellect."

(apparently my previous go at this post did not work).
[12:49 | wl | permanent link

Bootstrap Institute: B/I home

"In the spirit of Engelbart's lifelong mode of working ever so fruitfully, keywords here remain pragmatic, experiential, evolutionary."

Linked to Englepart in the previous post as I had an inkling of the depth of his work - see the idea of open hypertext at work here, and the notion of augmenting intelligence. OHcourse it is patially implemented here too withthe "permanent link" on each item. Blogs have that! Which is an easily overlooked factor in their value. Interesting site, on the edge.

In the bootstrapping process does pragmatic come before soulful or is it the other way around? Anyway, experiential, evolutionary resonate well with me.
[11:52 | wl | permanent link

Wordsworth, William. 1888. Complete Poetical Works.

"... And I have felt
A presence that disturbs me with the joy
Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime
Of something far more deeply interfused,
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,
And the round ocean and the living air,
And the blue sky, and in the mind of man;
A motion and a spirit, that impels
All thinking things, all objects of all thought,
And rolls through all things."

Bartleby - a place I like to visit.
[02:30 | wl | permanent link

Monday, April 22, 2002

Free Software Politics and Advocacy

"I'm interested in linking the free software movement with the struggle for social justice and developing the synergies between them, and in connecting free software with freedom of information issues in other areas."

YES

There are good reasons for free software... free as in that it can freely flow through cyberspace and develop and grow as it moves without it becoming proprietory and closed source on the way. The GNU Licences can make it so.

it can evolve more flexibly and be more functional - it develops according to USE value - it is better

it can be available to more people - poorer people

it prevents the alienation of the people creating the work from the ownership of it

it's inner workings are visible, hence the learning is inherent in the product - the tools are at the same time educational tools and toys

it is a model of how cooperation is possible and an inspiration for people working without the constraints of the profit motive

anyone can re-build any program anyway they like and hence it enhances creativity

it is an example of how technology changes the relations of production - and bodes well for the future of production

So much for the social and political...

Psychologically... the virtual world, the mindspace, the context for the expression of out thoughts and feelings, the context for their *meaning*, feels and is different and better without a company brand name on it. Do we enter a Microsoft world - a Disney world - a neon lit suburbia - when we enter psyberspace - or can it be a national park? The commons? If we win this we will have different dreams and the anti-technology people will no-longer be right when they say there is no soul here.

Yes, we do social/political things for psychological ends (alluding to)

[02:15 | wl | permanent link

O'Reilly Network: Jeff Bezos' open letter on used book sales [April 21, 2002]

YES
[01:22 | wl | permanent link

Sunday, April 21, 2002

WTP - Ivan Illich Transcript van Illich with Jerry Brown
We the People, KPFA - March 22, 1996

"Brown: This hour we have a very special privilege and opportunity. We have here in the studio in Los Angeles Ivan Illich and Carl Mitchum, two friends of mine who I hope you'll enjoy our conversation. Listen in. You'll find it instructive. Ivan Illich is the author of a book, very famous in the 1970s, called Deschooling Society, another book called Medical Nemesis. He's also the author of Celebration of Awareness, Tools for Conviviality, Gender, and now his most recent book called In the Vineyard of the Text, a commentary on a 12th century scholar and saint, Hugh of St. Victor. Along with us here in the studio is Carl Mitchum, a professor of humanities, presently Visiting Scholar at the Colorado School of Mines and on a more permanent basis a professor at Penn State where Ivan Illich and his friends and fellow scholars meet every year for a few months to study these ideas that over the next hour we're going to do our best to elucidate and share. Ivan, why don't we just start with the book that I first encountered when I became aware of you, and that is the book Deschooling. Can you reflect on what you were thinking about when you wrote it and how you might see that reality today because we're still struggling with schools in this society. There's still a dependency on professionals that seems to have control of how we learn or don't learn and I just have to wonder have we made any progress in creating the context where people get the sense that they are in charge of their own learning?"

Interesting discussion. Does the world a context sensitive help? Not in schools which subvert that. Xenos - Zeus and hospitality? Acedia the inactivity which results from seeing how enormously difficult it is to do the right thing - is it a sin?

There is also insight into the interface - the pupil of the eye which takes in with its psychopods the other person. But they do not really grasp the potential of the medium for - conviviality and friendhip.

[14:59 | wl | permanent link

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