A profile of former British diplomat Carne Ross, who resigned in protest to the Iraq war, He now offers his service as an independent diplomat - currently working on the Western Sahara issue.
04 February 2008
29 January 2008
the tag in negative
Just had an idea for del.icio.us. Well actually, for tagging in general, and in particular, for additions to a set of tagging plugins for wikidpad that i'm working on.
You know how you can ask delicious to give you bookmarks with an intersection of tags by using tag1+tag2+tag3 in the url. As with:
http://del.icio.us/jaysen/dev+audio ..which will show all bookmarks with both the tags, 'dev' and 'audio'.
Well, wouldn't the following form be useful:
http://del.icio.us/jaysen/dev+audio-radio - to give us all those tagged with 'dev' and 'audio', but not with those also tagged with 'radio'
It would mean that we'd have to say goodbye to hyphenated tags, but still, i think the added functionality would be worth it.. and i never liked hyphenated tags anyway.
to be continued..
You know how you can ask delicious to give you bookmarks with an intersection of tags by using tag1+tag2+tag3 in the url. As with:
http://del.icio.us/jaysen/dev+audio ..which will show all bookmarks with both the tags, 'dev' and 'audio'.
Well, wouldn't the following form be useful:
http://del.icio.us/jaysen/dev+audio-radio - to give us all those tagged with 'dev' and 'audio', but not with those also tagged with 'radio'
It would mean that we'd have to say goodbye to hyphenated tags, but still, i think the added functionality would be worth it.. and i never liked hyphenated tags anyway.
to be continued..
02 January 2008
radical voices
a free and easy to access online radio station with Alternative-News, Political Discourse and Commentary.
listened to some good material so far. good aggregation.
"Radical Radio is a non-commercial news, analysis and commentary-based alternative news radio that is comprised of an 18 - 25 hour program that is updated every 2-3 days and features current alternative news from sources like Democracy Now, Free Speech Radio News, the Shortwave Report and international Indy Media reports and mixes them with political speech from groups or personalities such as Howard Zinn, Michael Parenti, Noam Chomsky, Angela Davis and many, many others. This is peppered with music and poetry. We aim to offer the best in alternative news radio available on the web. We hope you like the taste more than the bland pablum of commercial radio, or the middle of the conservative perspective that NPR dishes out.. Stay tuned, stay informed and stir it up!"Click here to listen or here.
listened to some good material so far. good aggregation.
25 December 2007
25 November 2007
21 November 2007
a good brain theory?
slightly annoying, but sharp..
i liked the bit about intelligence having more to do with predictive power than it does behavior .. Maybe if this idea holds out, we might eventually do away with the Turing test for artificial intelligence -which was always so anthropocentric as to be, well, just a little bit silly ;)
The idea is that the frontal neocortex -not the older (and possibly more complex) pre-mammalian brain- is basically a mechanism to predict the future. That the neocortex can be simply modeled as vast networks of hierarchical elements that predict their future input sequences.
So, as far as i can make out, predictive subsystems
- that are based on a hierarchical theory of memory,
- and are strongly sequential/temporal.
And the model of the neocortex plugs into other components of the brain (that aren't modeled here). The intelligence (the memory and predictive components) providing the input to the older, pre-mammalian brain, which then uses this intelligent prediction to drive action and behavior via those older systems.
Anyway, sounds good so far. Probably worth keeping an eye out for On Intelligence, his book on the subject
i liked the bit about intelligence having more to do with predictive power than it does behavior .. Maybe if this idea holds out, we might eventually do away with the Turing test for artificial intelligence -which was always so anthropocentric as to be, well, just a little bit silly ;)
The idea is that the frontal neocortex -not the older (and possibly more complex) pre-mammalian brain- is basically a mechanism to predict the future. That the neocortex can be simply modeled as vast networks of hierarchical elements that predict their future input sequences.
So, as far as i can make out, predictive subsystems
- that are based on a hierarchical theory of memory,
- and are strongly sequential/temporal.
And the model of the neocortex plugs into other components of the brain (that aren't modeled here). The intelligence (the memory and predictive components) providing the input to the older, pre-mammalian brain, which then uses this intelligent prediction to drive action and behavior via those older systems.
Anyway, sounds good so far. Probably worth keeping an eye out for On Intelligence, his book on the subject
09 November 2007
The Unnatural History of the Sea
direct link to the mp3 from the Science and the City podcast.
Callum Roberts is a leading authority on the ocean environment and author of the new book The Unnatural History of the Sea, an unprecedented history of the exploitation of the ocean, its fisheries and marine life, and a look at what our future may hold. In this lecture, he shares his research, nicely highlighting the short sightedness of our past and current fishing strategies and policies.
His idea of what needs to be done is
- first, to fish less, or at least more intelligently - with more selection, and using less destructive means.
- to create marine reserves,
- and to eliminate risky decision making...
"One of the key things to do is to remove the decision making power of politicians in fishing. Politicians are not the right people to be making decisions about how many fish can be caught, because they think in the short-term, not in the long-term welfare of the industries, or the long-term welfare of the environment. Yet in most countries in the world politicians are the ones that make decisions about how much to catch.
The decisions also involve the very large presence of industry - this also involves the potential for risky decision making (what understatement!), because again, the perspectives are more in the short-term
...
we need to move to a system where we think much less about the short term and much more about the long term, because fishing and fish stocks are really too important to squander in the way that society is doing at the present."
i agree ..All serious collective decisions, like about things that impact our survival, or the future of the planet, amongst other things, deserve open processes with proper scientific rigor and method - a long way off the greedy, narrow minded bullshit we seem to put up with currently.
anyways, its a good listen. 30 minute..ish
Callum Roberts is a leading authority on the ocean environment and author of the new book The Unnatural History of the Sea, an unprecedented history of the exploitation of the ocean, its fisheries and marine life, and a look at what our future may hold. In this lecture, he shares his research, nicely highlighting the short sightedness of our past and current fishing strategies and policies.
His idea of what needs to be done is
- first, to fish less, or at least more intelligently - with more selection, and using less destructive means.
- to create marine reserves,
- and to eliminate risky decision making...
"One of the key things to do is to remove the decision making power of politicians in fishing. Politicians are not the right people to be making decisions about how many fish can be caught, because they think in the short-term, not in the long-term welfare of the industries, or the long-term welfare of the environment. Yet in most countries in the world politicians are the ones that make decisions about how much to catch.
The decisions also involve the very large presence of industry - this also involves the potential for risky decision making (what understatement!), because again, the perspectives are more in the short-term
...
we need to move to a system where we think much less about the short term and much more about the long term, because fishing and fish stocks are really too important to squander in the way that society is doing at the present."
i agree ..All serious collective decisions, like about things that impact our survival, or the future of the planet, amongst other things, deserve open processes with proper scientific rigor and method - a long way off the greedy, narrow minded bullshit we seem to put up with currently.
anyways, its a good listen. 30 minute..ish
11 September 2007
25 August 2007
The Century Of The Self -bump
Just finished the series and its probably some of the best TV I've ever seen. So this repost was the least i could do.
from the wikipedia article:
...The Century of the Self describes the impact of Freud's theories on the perception of the human mind, and the ways public relations agencies and politicians have used this during the last 100 years for their "engineering of consent".
Among the main characters are Freud himself and his nephew Edward Bernays, who was the first to use psychological techniques in advertising. He is often seen as the "father of the public relations industry". Freud's daughter Anna Freud, a pioneer of child psychology, is mentioned in the second part, as well as Wilhelm Reich, the main opponent of Freud's theories.
Along these general themes, The Century of the Self asks deeper questions about the roots and methods of modern consumerism, representative democracy and its implications. It also questions the modern way we see ourselves, the attitude to fashion and superficiality.
The business and, increasingly, the political world uses PR to read and fulfill our desires, to make their products or speeches as pleasing as possible to us. Curtis raises the question of the intentions and roots of this fact. Where once the political process was about engaging people's rational, conscious minds, as well as facilitating their needs as a society, the documentary shows how by employing the tactics of psychoanalysis, politicians appeal to irrational, primitive impulses that have little apparent bearing on issues outside of the narrow self-interest of a consumer population. He cites a Wall Street banker as saying "We must shift America from a needs- to a desires-culture. People must be trained to desire, to want new things, even before the old have been entirely consumed. [...] Man's desires must overshadow his needs." ...
It is all hosted in google video, you can view it by following the links below:
Part 1/4:
Happiness Machines
Part 2/4:
The Engineering of Consent
Part 3/4:
There is Policeman Inside all
our Heads He Must Be Destroyed
Part 4/4:
Eight People Sipping Wine
from the wikipedia article:
...The Century of the Self describes the impact of Freud's theories on the perception of the human mind, and the ways public relations agencies and politicians have used this during the last 100 years for their "engineering of consent".
Among the main characters are Freud himself and his nephew Edward Bernays, who was the first to use psychological techniques in advertising. He is often seen as the "father of the public relations industry". Freud's daughter Anna Freud, a pioneer of child psychology, is mentioned in the second part, as well as Wilhelm Reich, the main opponent of Freud's theories.
Along these general themes, The Century of the Self asks deeper questions about the roots and methods of modern consumerism, representative democracy and its implications. It also questions the modern way we see ourselves, the attitude to fashion and superficiality.
The business and, increasingly, the political world uses PR to read and fulfill our desires, to make their products or speeches as pleasing as possible to us. Curtis raises the question of the intentions and roots of this fact. Where once the political process was about engaging people's rational, conscious minds, as well as facilitating their needs as a society, the documentary shows how by employing the tactics of psychoanalysis, politicians appeal to irrational, primitive impulses that have little apparent bearing on issues outside of the narrow self-interest of a consumer population. He cites a Wall Street banker as saying "We must shift America from a needs- to a desires-culture. People must be trained to desire, to want new things, even before the old have been entirely consumed. [...] Man's desires must overshadow his needs." ...
It is all hosted in google video, you can view it by following the links below:
Part 1/4:
Happiness Machines
Part 2/4:
The Engineering of Consent
Part 3/4:
There is Policeman Inside all
our Heads He Must Be Destroyed
Part 4/4:
Eight People Sipping Wine
18 August 2007
FREE CULTURE
FREE CULTURE by Lawrence Lessig: halfway through and I'm thinking its just fucking brilliant!
copyright, ownership, derivative content, universal access, and the impact of new technology on all of these. its an essential debate that simply needs to happen more. Lessig argues for sensible change so simply and clearly that you've got to read Free Culture if you're interested in any of it. (naturally its a free download)
I'll try to write some more, or to summarize fully when I've finished, but i probably wont be able to do any of it justice without simply pasting in large bits of text from the book.
btw, he doesnt just push open-content, he nicely describes how and why copyright itself should be re-negotiated.
Checkout the audio version if you want to listen to it.. like maybe, while doing something else ;)
"Free Culture" as a popup audiobook
copyright, ownership, derivative content, universal access, and the impact of new technology on all of these. its an essential debate that simply needs to happen more. Lessig argues for sensible change so simply and clearly that you've got to read Free Culture if you're interested in any of it. (naturally its a free download)
I'll try to write some more, or to summarize fully when I've finished, but i probably wont be able to do any of it justice without simply pasting in large bits of text from the book.
btw, he doesnt just push open-content, he nicely describes how and why copyright itself should be re-negotiated.
Checkout the audio version if you want to listen to it.. like maybe, while doing something else ;)
"Free Culture" as a popup audiobook
Subscribe to:
Posts
(
Atom
)