Inside in

Great line from Bryan: letting Loki in with the learning. Amen. How can there be learning without Loki there at some point? A specific kind of playfulness: riddling, purposely disruptive. Mercury, Hermes.

Shout out to Hugh Blackmer here—with his turnofthecentury images. Cool. Mario opera. Delight in social archiving. (nice phrase.)

Sterling: 911.net

“pentagon’s new map”

History Channel does Rome Total War

Bryan issues a stirring call for the Republic of Letters—nice.

The mid-century is an earnest, heavy-handed, commonplace age: a drab age. Then ... the unpredictable happens. Fantasy ... paradox, colour, incantation return.... Nothing in the earlier histories of our period would have enabled the sharpest observer to foresee this transformation.

I do not claim to know why there many [people] of genius at that time. The Elizabethans themselves would have attributed it to Constellation."

We do not speak of isolated clever tricks that help in particular situations. We refer to a way of life in an integrated domain where hunches, cut-and-try, intangibles, and the human "feel for a situation" usefully co-exist with powerful concepts, streamlined terminology and notation, sophisticated methods, and high-powered electronic aids.

This Web site is devoted to lexpionage, the sleuthing of new words and phrases. These aren't "stunt words" or "sniglets," but new terms that have appeared multiple times in newspapers, magazines, books, Web sites, and other recorded sources.

Indeed, the very institutionalization of schooling may get in the way of creating a subcommunity of learners who bootstrap each other.

Nothing is "culture free," but neither are individuals simply mirrors of their culture. It is the interaction between them that both gives a communal cast to individual thought and imposes a certain unpredictable richness on any culture's way of life, thought, or feeling.

School ... [is] both an exercise in consciousness raising about the possibilities of communal mental activity, and ... a means for acquiring knowledge and skill.

[E]ducation is a major embodiment of a culture's way of life, not just a preparation for it.

[T]he metalinguistic gift, the capacity to "turn around" on our language to examine and transcend its limits, is within everybody's reach.

The chief subject matter of school, viewed culturally, is school itself. This is how most students experience it, and it determines what meaning they make of it.

[E]ducation is too consequential to too many constituencies to leave to professional educators.

Finding a place in the world, for all that it implicates the immediacy of home, mate, job, and friends, is ultimately an act of the imagination.

To summarize, you are made of proteins; proteins are little programs that are the computational byproducts of RNA transcription. RNA functions like a system bus, and DNA is RAM that stores everything about YOU as 6-bit sequences of nucleotides. Most organic life is made out of 21 amino acids because 21 is the number of building blocks that can be efficiently encoded in organic RAM with error correction. You are a giant, walking, talking Lego construction assembled by proteins from trillions of little amino acid building blocks and sea water whose sole purpose is to compute new copies of yourself before the inevitable accumulation of calculation errors causes you to crash permanently.

Both the word and the concept are Japanese, and in Japan are of some antiquity. Umami is hard to translate, to judge by the number of English words that have been suggested as equivalents, such as savoury, essence, pungent, deliciousness, and meaty. It’s sometimes associated with a feeling of perfect quality in a taste, or of some special emotional circumstance in which a taste is experienced. It is also said to involve all the senses, not just that of taste. There’s more than a suggestion of a spiritual or mystical quality about the word.

Happiness, in one sense, is a function of how closely our world conforms to the infinite variety of human preference. But that makes it easy to forget that sometimes happiness can be found in having what we've always had and everyone else is having.

The narcissist in me likes the idea of being able to make my every whim and musing available for the whole world to see. But the perfectionist in me feels funny about making those whims and musings available in anything less than brilliant prose. Consequently, hitting the "Save!" button in my blog admin panel is often more an act of ambivalence than empowerment.

The unifying power of a great equation is not as simple a criterion as it sounds. A great equation does more than set out a fundamental property of the universe, delivering information like a signpost, but works hard to wrest something from nature. As Michael Berry from Bristol University once said of the Dirac equation for the electron: "Any great physical theory gives back more than is put into it, in the sense that as well as solving the problem that inspired its construction, it explains more and predicts new things" (Physics World February 1998 p38). Great equations change the way we perceive the world. They reorchestrate the world -- transforming and reintegrating our perception by redefining what belongs together with what. Light and waves. Energy and mass. Probability and position. And they do so in a way that often seems unexpected and even strange.

If we go out a few more years, iPods and similar devices will be able to store massive numbers of movies, rather than the paltry one or two you can carry around today. In fact, 20 years from now, a teenager will probably be able to shuffle down the street with every movie ever made in a $400 iPod. There will be tremendous business opportunities in digitizing old television shows and films, and for developing technologies that will let users browse and search them all. And of course we’ll witness epic battles over content ownership and compensation.

Now a new Microsoft challenger is emerging on the horizon: Google. What makes Google different is that it follows innovative rules as it carves out a share of the IT business. Google's emerging strategy may give us a clue as to who may be bidding for IT leadership in our uncertain industry by the end of this decade. Microsoft's power is based on selling customers software that becomes a sequence of increasingly sticky entanglements. Once you've installed Microsoft operating software on a desktop, laptop or cell phone, the steadily increasing inclusiveness of features will raise your costs for choosing any alternative. Google, on the other hand, relies on a generic browser to gain access to a rapidly growing menu of services.

But the basic, overarching idea with the Semweb was - and still is, really - to throw together so much syntax from so many people that there's a chance to generate meaning out of it all.

Some argue that it's impossible to look into the future and determine which of today's formats will survive and which will go the way of the VP 415. Poppycock! As a society we have a very good understanding of what will make one file format endure while another one is likely to perish. The key to survival is openness and documentation.

I feel sometimes as if I were a child who opens its eyes on the world once and sees amazing things it will never know any names for and then has to close its eyes again. I know this is all mere apparition compared to what awaits us, but it is only lovelier for that. There is a human beauty in it. And I can't believe that, when we have all been changed and put on incorruptibility, we will forget our fantastic condition of mortality and impermanence, the great bright dream of procreating and perishing that meant the whole world to us. In eternity this world will be Troy, I believe, and all that has passed here will be the epic of the universe, the ballad they sing in the streets. Because I don't imagine any reality putting this one in the shade entirely.

an organizational entity that spans distance, supports rich and recurring human interaction oriented to a common research area, and provides access to data sources, artifacts and tools required to accomplish research tasks.

Exploration is not a luxury. It defines us as a civilization. It directly or indirectly benefits every member of society. It yields an inspirational dividend whose impact on our self-image, confidence, and economic and geopolitical stature is immeasurable.

In ordinary hernia operations, the chances of recurrence are one in ten for surgeons at the unhappy end of the spectrum, one in twenty for those in the middle majority, and under one in five hundred for a handful. A Scottish study of patients with treatable colon cancer found that the ten-year survival rate ranged from a high of sixty-three per cent to a low of twenty per cent, depending on the surgeon. For heartbypass patients, even at hospitals with a good volume of experience, risk-adjusted death rates in New York vary from five per cent to under one per cent—and only a very few hospitals are down near the one-per-cent mortality rate. It is distressing for doctors to have to acknowledge the bell curve. It belies the promise that we make to patients who become seriously ill: that they can count on the medical system to give them their very best chance at life. It also contradicts the belief nearly all of us have that we are doing our job as well as it can be done. But evidence of the bell curve is starting to trickle out, to doctors and patients alike, and we are only beginning to find out what happens when it does.

We are used to thinking that a doctor’s ability depends mainly on science and skill. The lesson from Minneapolis is that these may be the easiest parts of care. Even doctors with great knowledge and technical skill can have mediocre results; more nebulous factors like aggressiveness and consistency and ingenuity can matter enormously.

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What if we don't know how to think about the tools we are so skilled at creating? What if we could learn? Perhaps knowing how to think about technology is a skill we will have to teach ourselves the way we taught ourselves previous new ways of thinking such as mathematics, logic, and science.

BEST BLOG Absolutely everything about the future winner of this category should be perfect - it should tackle poignant issues, have a great design and even better writing. BEST SUBJECT In the category of "Best Subject," Weblogs will be honored that deal with a single issue and provide excellent analysis, original information or service. BEST DESIGN In this category, we will be rewarding sites with clearly structured, functional and topically suited design. The blog should also be aesthetically pleasing, leaving no desire unfilled. BEST BLOG INNOVATION The award for most-innovative Weblog is intended for excellent and helpful portals, technologies, software and other innovations that foster the growth and advancement of the blogger community. BEST JOURNALISTIC BLOG/ARABIC BEST JOURNALISTIC BLOG/CHINESE BEST JOURNALISTIC BLOG/ENGLISH BEST JOURNALISTIC BLOG/GERMAN

To build a public encyclopedia, you don’t need faith in the possibility of knowledge, he says. “What you have to have faith in is human beings being able to work together.”

"What we found is that the longtime practitioners showed brain activation on a scale we have never seen before," said Richard Davidson, a neuroscientist at the university's new $10 million W.M. Keck Laboratory for Functional Brain Imaging and Behavior. "Their mental practice is having an effect on the brain in the same way golf or tennis practice will enhance performance." It demonstrates, he said, that the brain is capable of being trained and physically modified in ways few people can imagine. Scientists used to believe the opposite -- that connections among brain nerve cells were fixed early in life and did not change in adulthood. But that assumption was disproved over the past decade with the help of advances in brain imaging and other techniques, and in its place, scientists have embraced the concept of ongoing brain development and "neuroplasticity."

"What we found is that the trained mind, or brain, is physically different from the untrained one," [Richardson] said. In time, "we'll be able to better understand the potential importance of this kind of mental training and increase the likelihood that it will be taken seriously."

This view shows an educational 'arena' containing interactive resources. Molecular models with simulated physical properties can be made available to researchers, educators, and learners.

Question: What is the Croquet Project? Answer: The Croquet project is an effort to develop a new open source computer operating system built from the ground up to enable deep collaboration between teams of users. To do this, the project seeks to define and develop a system is focused on the simulation and communication of complex ideas. We call this "communication enhancement" - the direct extension of the abilities of humans to develop, understand, and describe even the most complex simulations. Croquet enables this communication by acting as the equivalent of a broadband conferencing system built on top of a 3D user interface and a peer-to-peer network architecture.

Question: What is the value of Croquet to higher education? Answer: Croquet provides means for educators, researchers, and other learners to encounter one another and establish authenticable peer-to-peer interactivity and deep telepresence. Croquet's architectural approach provides a secure framework for peer-to-peer rich media interaction between users. Researchers, educators, and learners are able to meet and discover one another within a common online knowledge space in which a rich set of peer- and community-based learning opportunities are possible. Croquet environments may also be used as a participatory theater for real-time demonstrations. For example, a chemistry professor may communicate directly with the members of his/her class through chat or voice over IP, load a three-dimensional molecular model into the scene, and then manipulate the model in real-time within the shared environment. The educator may choose to leave the model in the scene and restrict or control its access to others over the course of the semester and beyond. The professor may also create objects in the vicinity of the model that point to associated web-based learning objects. Additionally, the professor may choose to "publish" the object and associated materials to a larger audience by setting their viewing rights and positioning them within an appropriate locale of the shared environment. To move beyond the current online learning environments for higher education implies a significant paradigm shift. Rather than limiting our vision to automating quiz grading and dispensing instructor powerpoint slides, we see Croquet as a first step toward a system designed for deep user collaboration, scalable realtime interaction, and authoring supported by a digital repository and an implicit content management system.

As Edison’s electricity system expanded, for example, it became apparent that it could only supply electricity efficiently within a couple of kilometers of a generator. This reverse salient, identified by other inventors, led to the development of alternating-current distribution. Charting the development of technological systems, and spotting which parts are falling behind, can help innovators decide where to focus their efforts.

Even more impressive is a 1940 survey of reading among pupils at nonacademic [British] high schools, where education terminated at age 14. This sample represented something less than the working-class norm: the best students had already been skimmed off and sent to academic secondary schools on scholarship. Those who remained behind were asked which books they had read over the past month, excluding required texts. Even in this below-average group, 62 percent of boys and 84 percent of girls had read some poetry: their favorites included Kipling, Longfellow, Masefield, Blake, Browning, Tennyson, and Wordsworth. Sixty-seven percent of girls and 31 percent of boys had read plays, often something by Shakespeare. All told, these students averaged six or seven books per month. Compare that with the recent NEA study Reading at Risk: A Survey of Literary Reading in America, which found that in 2002, 43.4 percent of American adults had not read any books at all, other than those required for work or school. Only 12.1 percent had read any poetry, and only 3.6 percent any plays.

"The next decade should see the development of a more thoughtful internet. We've had the blood rush to the head, we've had the hangover from that blood rush; this next decade is the rethink" (Rose Vines. technology journalist). Unpleasant surprises: The experts are startled that educational institutions have changed so little, despite widespread expectation a decade ago that schools would be quick to embrace change.

Prediction: Enabled by information technologies, the pace of learning in the next decade will increasingly be set by student choices. In ten years, most students will spend at least part of their “school days” in virtual classes, grouped online with others who share their interests, mastery, and skills.... Many of the respondents who have had experience with teaching online said only highly motivated, mature students exhibit the ability to be successful in a learning environment in which so much responsibility is placed upon a student. Moira K. Gunn, host of public broadcasting’s Tech Nation, wrote, “I do not now, and have never, witnessed successful benefits in virtual classrooms. While the role of the teacher will change from authority figure with all the information to one-on-one educational coach, the one-teacher-one-student paradigm will remain the most effective.” Indeed, children in elementary school “still need a watchful eye and human attention,” according to one expert.

Most important, ubiquitous computers will help overcome the problem of information overload. There is more information available at our fingertips during a walk in the woods than in any computer system, yet people find a walk among trees relaxing and computers frustrating. Machines that fit the human environment, instead of forcing humans to enter theirs, will make using a computer as refreshing as taking a walk in the woods.

We must learn to awaken and keep ourselves awake, not by mechanical aids, but by an infinite expectation of the dawn, which does not forsake us in our soundest sleep. I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by a conscious endeavor. It is something to be able to paint a particular picture, or to carve a statue, and so to make a few objects beautiful; but it is far more glorious to carve and paint the very atmosphere and medium through which we look, which morally we can do. To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts. Every man is tasked to make his life, even in its details, worthy of the contemplation of his most elevated and critical hour.

Interesting…the financial state of public education is, at best, abysmal, yet there seems to be an abundance of money available for blog registrations, conference fees, suites, etc.. I am glad to see that the tuition I pay for my son to attend UMW is going to better HIS learning. Comment by TGAMM — 1/25/2005 @ 9:49 am

BlackBox is a portable live production switcher/Web streaming appliance. For under $5K, BlackBox allows the user to produce a live event, including switching multiple cameras, graphics, pre-recorded video material, PC screen shots, etc. (eight simultaneous video and graphic sources) and stream the output to the Web in real time. There is no other similar product in terms of price range, range of functionality and portability, on the market today.

In any case, we probably wouldn't want to make machines that are too much like humans, he [Robert Hecht-Nielsen] says, or we might end up with systems that are influenced by personal biases, just like many people are. Instead, AI systems will handle tasks that humans aren't particularly good at today, like dependably answering tedious customer questions with an endless supply of patience. "AI will mean ennoblement for the customer," says Hecht-Nielsen. "Someone will answer calls in a call center and spend as much time as the customer needs, and they will be polite and fun. It just won't be a person."

One is Jerry Slezak's blog on a screencast about the Wikipedia article on "umlaut bands." The Wikipedia article itself is fascinating ("rockdots"--who knew?), but Jon Udell's screencast takes it to a whole 'nother level and immediately triggers my devious faculty brain into imagining scads of wonderful assignments, projects, etc. Another is Martha Burtis's cris de coeur (I hope I spelled that right; French is not my forte) regarding information overload. Food for thought about, well, too much food for thought.

It is noteworthy that Azyxxi did not come out of the hospital's IT department, after the appointment of a task force, the drawing up of a detailed needs analysis and approval of a long-term capital budget. There was no request for proposals, no campaign to win "buy-in" from staff, nor was a dime allocated for training. The system was designed largely by two extraordinary doctors who were lured from George Washington University a decade ago with a mandate to fix an under-performing emergency room with nine-hour waits, dissatisfied patients and an unhappy staff.

According to Wikipedia's lists of most active editors, Greenstein made 1,809 edits during the past month. But she thinks that the timing is off and that those numbers refer to the work she did in December. "I suppose knowing that the 1,800 number was wrong says more about me than the fact that I edited 1,800 during some 30-day period." Greenstein's passion in the real world is the same as it is on Wikipedia: fixing things. She is as likely to put misplaced books back in order in a bookstore as she is to correct a Wikipedia article. "I can't understand why people would take a book off the shelf to see if they like it, and then put it back in the wrong place," she said. Greenstein has covered a wide variety of topics. Her favorites are primates and cephalopods, and recently, New York City subways. She considers it her mandate to be as good a Wikipedia citizen as she can, especially as the project has grown up. "I care a great deal about ... Wikipedia," she said. "The concept of 'freedom to do as we please' has finally begun its maturation to 'responsible to do what we need.'"

Heavy Metal Umlaut: The Making of the Movie by Jon Udell -- Jon Udell explains the process of making a documentary screencast, taking a look at the various screencast genres and examining the potential significance of this medium.