Wednesday, December 29, 2010

The Immediacy of Rhetoric: Definitions, Illustrations, and Implications, by Steven D. Krause

The Immediacy of Rhetoric: Definitions, Illustrations, and Implications, by Steven D. Krause

Wittgenstein

Cuadernos Azul y Marrón. Estructura y función (1968:1) Titulo original: The Blue and Brown Books Editorial Tecnos Madrid 1968,

“para comprender el significado de «significado» es necesario comprender también el significado de «explicación de significado». En pocas palabras: «preguntémonos que es la explicación de significado, pues lo que esto explique, será el significado». El estudiar la gramática de la expresión «explicación de significado» enseñará algo sobre la gramática de la palabra «significado» y protegerá contra la tentación de buscar en torno de uno algún objeto al que se podría llamar «el significado»” (1968:1)

Further Readings

The Internet Enycolpedia of Philosophy
http://www.iep.utm.edu/w/wittgens.htm

Stanford Encyclopedia University
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wittgenstein/

Wikipedia
http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludwig_Wittgenstein

The Cambridge Wittgenstein Archive
http://www.wittgen-cam.ac.uk/cgi-bin/forms/home.cgi

Filosofía Comtemporánea
http://www.e-torredebabel.com/Historia-de-la-filosofia/Filosofiacontemporanea/Wittgenstein/Principal-Wittgenstein.htm

Multimedia de Mac Evoy que integra frases de Wittgenstein, frases sobre él y su vida
http://www.handprint.com/start.html

Tuesday, December 21, 2010

Persuasive Effects of Presence in Immersive Virtual Environments, by Dan GRIGOROVICI

Persuasive Effects of Presence in Immersive Virtual Environments, by Dan GRIGOROVICI.
Being There: Concepts, effects and measurement of user presence in synthetic environments G. Riva, F. Davide, W.A IJsselsteijn (Eds.) Ios Press, 2003, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Monday, December 13, 2010

Let your finger do the walking: The space/place metaphor in on-line computer communication

Let your finger do the walking: The space/place metaphor in on-line computer communication, by Bjørn Sørenssen.

XX. IAMCR Conference.Sydney. August 18-22, 1996. Commmunication Technology Policy Session.

How traffic is measured at Second Life

Linden Lab Official:What is traffic (formerly known as dwell)?

"Traffic is a numerical metric calculated for every parcel of land inworld. This score can be summarized as "the cumulative minutes spent on the parcel by all visitors to the parcel within the previous day, SLT." It's calculated by taking the total seconds spent on the parcel, dividing by 60, and rounding to the nearest whole minute. For example, if your parcel has a cumulative seconds total of 121s over the course of a day, your score will be 2".


About Traffic at Second Life

Wednesday, December 8, 2010

The Playboy Interview: Marshall McLuhan




The Playboy Interview: Marshall McLuhan, Playboy Magazine (March 1969 ©)

Some parts of the interview

PLAYBOY: What do you mean by "acoustic space"?

_. MCLUHAN: I mean space that has no center and no margin, unlike strictly visual space, which is an extension and intensification of the eye. Acoustic space is organic and integral, perceived through the simultaneous interplay of all the senses; whereas "rational" or pictorial space is uniform, sequential and continuous and creates a closed world with none of the rich resonance of the tribal echoland.

Our own Western time-space concepts derive from the environment created by the discovery of phonetic writing, as does our entire concept of Western civilization. The man of the tribal world led a complex, kaleidoscopic life precisely because the ear, unlike the eye, cannot be focused and is synaesthetic rather than analytical and linear. Speech is an utterance, or more precisely, an outering, of all our senses at once; the auditory field is simultaneous, the visual successive.

The models of life of nonliterate people were implicit, simultaneous and discontinuous, and also far richer than those of literate man. By their dependence on the spoken word for information, people were drawn together into a tribal mesh; and since the spoken word is more emotionally laden than the written--conveying by intonation such rich emotions as anger, joy, sorrow, fear--tribal man was more spontaneous and passionately volatile. Audile-tactile tribal man partook of the collective unconscious, lived in a magical integral world patterned by myth and ritual, its values divine and unchallenged, whereas literate or visual man creates an environment that is strongly fragmented, individualistic, explicit, logical, specialized and detached.

(...)

PLAYBOY: But literate societies existed in the ancient world long before the phonetic alphabet. Why weren't they detribalized?

MCLUHAN: The phonetic alphabet did not change or extend man so drastically just because it enabled him to read; as you point out, tribal culture had already coexisted with other written languages for thousands of years.

But the phonetic alphabet was radically different from the older and richer hieroglyphic or ideogrammic cultures. The writings of Egyptian, Babylonian, Mayan and Chinese cultures were an extension of the senses in that they gave pictorial expression to reality, and they demanded many signs to cover the wide range of data in their societies--unlike phonetic writing, which uses semantically meaningless letters to correspond to semantically meaningless sounds and is able, with only a handful of letters, to encompass all meanings and all languages.

This achievement demanded the separation of both sights and sounds from their semantic and dramatic meanings in order to render visible the actual sound of speech, thus placing a barrier between men and objects and creating a dualism between sight and sound.

It divorced the visual function from the interplay with the other senses and thus led to the rejection from consciousness of vital areas of our sensory experience and to the resultant atrophy of the unconscious. The balance of the sensorium--or Gestalt interplay of all the senses--and the psychic and social harmony it engendered was disrupted, and the visual function was overdeveloped. This was true of no other writing system.

(...)

._PLAYBOY: Why do you feel that Gutenberg also laid the groundwork for the Industrial Revolution?

._MCLUHAN: The two go hand in hand. Printing, remember, was the first mechanization of a complex handicraft; by creating an analytic sequence of step-by-step processes, it became the blue-print of all mechanization to follow.

The most important quality of print is its repeatability; it is a visual statement that can be reproduced indefinitely, and repeatability is the root of the mechanical principle that has transformed the world since Gutenberg.

Typography, by producing the first uniformly repeatable commodity, also created Henry Ford, the first assembly line and the first mass production. Movable type was archetype and prototype for all subsequent industrial development. Without phonetic literacy and the printing press, modern industrialism would be impossible. It is necessary to recognize literacy as typographic technology, shaping not only production and marketing procedures but all other areas of life, from education to city planning


._ PLAYBOY: You've discussed that constellation in general terms, but what precisely are the electric media that you contend have supplanted the old mechanical technology?


._MCLUHAN: The electric media are the telegraph, radio, films, telephone, computer and television, all of which have not only extended a single sense or function as the old mechanical media did--i.e., the wheel as an extension of the foot, clothing as an extension of the skin, the phonetic alphabet as an extension of the eye--but have enhanced and externalized our entire central nervous systems, thus transforming all aspects of our social and psychic existence.

The use of the electronic media constitutes a break boundary between fragmented Gutenberg man and integral man, just as phonetic literacy was a break boundary between oral-tribal man and visual man.

In fact, today we can look back at 3000 years of differing degrees of visualization, atomization and mechanization and at last recognize the mechanical age as an interlude between two great organic eras of culture.

The age of print, which held sway from approximately 1500 to 1900, had its obituary tapped out by the telegraph, the first of the new electric media, and further obsequies were registered by the perception of "curved space" and non-Euclidean mathematics in the early years of the century, which revived tribal man's discontinuous time-space concepts--and which even Spengler dimly perceived as the death knell of Western literate values.

The development of telephone, radio, film, television and the computer have driven further nails into the coffin. Today, television is the most significant of the electric media because it permeates nearly every home in the country, extending the central nervous system of every viewer as it works over and molds the entire sensorium with the ultimate message. It is television that is primarily responsible for ending the visual supremacy that characterized all mechanical technology, although each of the other electric media have played contributing roles.

._PLAYBOY: A good deal of the perplexity surrounding your theories is related to this postulation of hot and cool media. Could you give us a brief definition of each?

._MCLUHAN: Basically, a hot medium excludes and a cool medium includes; hot media are low in participation, or completion, by the audience and cool media are high in participation.

A hot medium is one that extends a single sense with high definition. High definition means a complete filling in of data by the medium without intense audience participation. A photograph, for example, is high definition or hot; whereas a cartoon is low definition or cool, because the rough outline drawing provides very little visual data and requires the viewer to fill in or complete the image himself.

The telephone, which gives the ear relatively little data, is thus cool, as is speech; both demand considerable filling in by the listener. On the other hand, radio is a hot medium because it sharply and intensely provides great amounts of high-definition auditory information that leaves little or nothing to be filled in by the audience. A lecture, by the same token, is hot, but a seminar is cool; a book is hot, but a conversation or bull session is cool.

In a cool medium, the audience is an active constituent of the viewing or listening experience. A girl wearing open-mesh silk stockings or glasses is inherently cool and sensual because the eye acts as a surrogate hand in filling in the low-definition image thus engendered. Which is why boys make passes at girls who wear glasses. In any case, the overwhelming majority of our technologies and entertainments since the introduction of print technology have been hot, fragmented and exclusive, but in the age of television we see a return to cool values and the inclusive in-depth involvement and participation they engender.

This is, of course, just one more reason why the medium is the message, rather than the content; it is the participatory nature of the TV experience itself that is important, rather than the content of the particular TV image that is being invisibly and indelibly inscribed on our skins.

Tuesday, December 7, 2010

Mobile Communication and Society Mobile Perspective, 2007

The space of flows, timeless time and mobile networks, in Manuel Castells, Mireia Fernández Ardèvol, Jack Linchuan Qiu and Araba Say, Mobile Communication and Society Mobile Perspective, 2007

The Status of Objects in the Space of Flows, by Felix Stalder, Ph.D.

The Status of Objects in the Space of Flows, by Felix Stalder, Ph.D.

Cityspace, Cyberspace, and the Spatiology of Information By Dr. Michael L. Benedikt,

Cityspace, Cyberspace, and the Spatiology of Information
By Dr. Michael L. Benedikt

"The continuity of these two kinds of space, I will argue, is that they are both ultimately constituted by information, information spread through space and seeking, almost of itself, to maximize its own complexity and organization. The most basic discontinuity between cityspace and cyberspace exists because cityspace is bound up with the principle of least action, with energetics, with friction, gravity, occlusion, and mechanical contact. Cyberspace and what happens there is all but free of these constraints. Of particular interest to me, however, is this fact: because each space can—indeed must—be experienced at some level spatiotemporally,cyberspace, like cityspace, can be inhabited, explored, and designed. Indeed, I am going to argue
that community, economy, art, design, commerce, recreation, and other urban amenities are possible in both worlds, in the real and the virtual, in cityspace and in cyberspace" (....)

"We are in cyberspace every time we are “on the phone,”every time we use a cash machine or log into a networked computer. We are there every time we drift through a magazine, go to a movie, listen to the radio, or watch television. Indeed, virtual
worlds in the form of communities of interest and of the imaginal lives of institutions like corporations and religions have long captivated our attention as fully as has the real and“unmediated” world." (page 3)

about definitions of space

"For Plato, space was the totality of geometric relations possible, i.e. the totality of numerical facts applicable to distances and directions, and vice versa; in short, proportion. The attention to proportion that characterizes classical architecture to this day, as well as the link that still exists between ratio as a comparison of two quantities and ratio- as the prefix to words denoting reasons itself, derive from this Platonic definition. For Aristotle, space was nothing other than place, or the generalized sum and place of all places.

If Plato’s definition was geometrical, Aristotle’s was more topological: (the) place (of something), he said, was the inner surface of the first stable, environing container. The place of a chair is the room it is in, the place of a river is the riverbed, the place of the moon is the next outward celestial sphere. The Medieval period saw these views commingled; but a new and spiritual element was added. Space was light, or Spirit, or God Himself. Whence, and why else, the apparent infinitude, insubstantiality, immanence, and permanence of space? (Henderson, 1983)

By the time Descartes put his mind to the problem, space per se had become an impossibly mystical notion. Descartes brought back to it a dynamic and mechanical aspect. In classifying space and everything physical as “extension” and by opposing this to “thought,” Descartes reasoned that space was simply that which permitted mechanical motion. One atom impinged upon the other directly, like so many ball bearings but without any empty space between them. Vacuum, void, was impossible; space was full of atoms-in-contact.

Rather than specify what space is, he specified what it did: space allowed motion. Dissatisfied with only mechanical terms, Leibniz was to extend this kind of operational definition further. Space, he argued, was that which permitted not only atoms and motion but the very existence of identity and simultaneity as such. Without space, he argued, things could be neither unique nor countable. Everything would be collapsed to a single “point,” to one thing,
which is to say, to no-thing, since there would be no room for an-other thing to distinguish itself from the first.

Moreover, in order to introduce change, such as motion, and in order for there to be more than one object in motion, not only simultaneity, but also an object-identity-thatsurvives- motion is required so that the motion can be said to have happened at all. With his principle of the “Identity of Indiscernibles”—as this doctrine is called, and which we will discuss presently—Leibniz probably came closest to what we could call an information-theoretical view
of space.

Newtown, for his part, thought of space as pure vacuum, Absolute and unmoved, a plenum of nothing but positions—points—continuous and empty in every direction. This view remained largely intact for a hundred years. But by the twentieth century, space could no longer be thought of without time.
After Einstein in particular, the project enlarged to understand spacetime as the four-dimensional, fundamental “unified field” providing both the totality of all cosmic frames of reference in relative motion as well as the “substance” of reality itself as the ultimate weaving of light with gravity." (page 5)

Relationship between space and information

"The question naturally begins to arise: is information in space, or is space in information? I submit that this is a pivotal question. In fact, we are ready to take the next step, which is to explore the more radical idea that space and information are one and the same “thing.”" (page 7)

"With our modest thought experiment we found ourselves engaged in increasing the
amount of space (or time) available in order to lose no data to limited intrinsic dimensions. To the extent that each N-dimensional data-point was unique—if only by one numerical value on one dimension—we sought to maximize the display of its uniqueness. If the conservation of information necessitates the conservation of space, then the production of new information in addition necessitates the production of new space" (page 9)

about which elements gives form to space

"Space itself can have no shape of course; light scattering objects and surfaces can, and certainly this is what is really involved when architects and urban designers work so hard “to shape a space.” Walls and ceilings, buildings and trees, are positioned in such a way as to modulate experience: not just the experience of those very walls and ceilings (and buildings and trees), but the experience of the people and signs, images and machines, and so on, that move about and populate the room or cityscape. In other words, the disposition of enclosures, screens, and plays of elevation and light, etc., do more than make architectural spaces, they regulate the
presentation of the rest of the world’s contents to its inhabitants, pacing it, segmenting it, ordering it in importance, controlling its density.
Any “grammar of forms” that would hope to help designers do their job would have to be one that took into account both of these functionalities: space as form(ed) qua space, and space as a medium of information transmission, where that information is itself sedimented in space in a way that tells of its sources-where they are, what they are, and even why" (page 12)

Saturday, December 4, 2010

Asking to a Akemi Mochizuki, a professional scripter in S.L about how she finds scripting software of open source environments



Akemi Mochizuki (Draceina Pinion avatar) is a professional scripter who makes scripts for several individuals and enterprises and who also design educational tools which can be seen and tried by using the demos that she has displayed on her shop, Dracy´s Virtual Shop at Second Life.
She designs devices oriented to satisfy several needs and purposes in Virtual Environments, especially, intendeed to facilitate the learning/tecahing process of a language in this Virtual Worlds. Thus, their tools are being used by Schools set in Second Life as ESL (English as a Second Language, SL) or by marbachgerman2go.

Because Akemi Mochizuki is the best scripter I meet, I wanted to know her opinion about how she finds scripting at Virtual Worlds of Open Source. I have entered in some of them and, for me are pretty similar to Second Life but I have not enought knowledge of scripting for knowing if that Virtual Worlds are offering the same options than Second Life.


G._Akemy, as professional scripter at Second Life, can you enumerate for the problems, if any, you find when scripting at Virtual Worlds of Open Acesss?

A._Actually S.L script is better than the one which can be used at Virtual Worlds of Open Source but this seems logic because these Virtual Environments are under developing. When comparing Second Life with Virtual Worlds of Open Source from the scripter perspective, I found that the order of linking changes in Virtual Worlds of Open Source differs from the one used in Second Life. Apart from this fact, it is important to point out that some function of LSL cannot be used now in those Virtual Environments. For example, if I use 'llDie()' in the script, objects often fail to vanish in opensim. One example of other option which does not work is the touch_start one.
Furthermore, in SL I could use many notecards in one prim. This feature is very important.For illustrating what is for, I give you an example: Using many notecards in a prim, allows ne to save many questions in one tool. For example, in S.L. DRACY CROSSWORD PUZZLE can has 30 puzzles saved but in open source just one.

As Akemy has stated, the fact that scripting of Open Source Virtual Worlds is not so developed as the one used in Second Life, is not of surprise when taking into account that these Virtual Environments are under development. Taking into account the possibilities that these virtual environments are now offereing as allowing to import/export items by using Imprudence viewer (we must have all the permissions of the items) or as permitting to be teletransported between grids by using the hypergrid protocol. (this means, using one avatar, with its inventory), allows to think that these platforms will have more users each day and perhaps we see, a convergence of platforms whereby we can use our avatar with its inventory for entering in all of them, without need to follow a long process. In this way, the communication between users, facilitated by channels as the mail lists as Opensim users mail list would make the process easier.

On the other hand, it seems not fair that for exporting all the items we have in Second Life, we must use a device as Stored Inventory which, surprisingly or not is done by Linds and for which we must pay for. Would be more reasonable to can export our items and our contacts freely between these Virtual Environments because there are many time invested and experience obtained that is needed to protect.

Further readings:

Mochizuki, A.(2009) Description of two educational tools for Second Life:
Memorize and Categorize.
IV Congress of Cibersociety

Mochizuki, A. (2009) Notes about Linden Scripting Language (LSL) and its possible applications. IV Congress of Cybersociety.

Saturday, November 27, 2010

Metaverse Creativity. Volume 1, Issue 1.


The Volume 1, Issue 1 of Metaverse Creativity Journal is published.
From the Intellect website, you can read all the articles by free.

This new Journal is edited by Elif Ayiter (Sabanci University) and Yacov Sharir (University of Texas, at Austin). From here congratulations to both for such a wonderfull work.Specially, my recognisement to Elif Ayiter.

The Editorial Board of Metaverse Creativity is integarted by Trish Adams (The University of Queensland, Australia, Selim Balcisoy (Sabanci University, Turkey, Andrew Burrell (University of Sydney, Australia), Stefan Glasauer (Ludwig-Maximilians University, Munich, Germany, Beth Harris (Museum of Modern Art, New York, US), Patrick Lichty (Columbia College, Chicago, US), Steven Zucker (Fashion Institute of Technology, SUNY, US)and the Advisory Board is formed by Howard Rheingold (Stanford University, US) and Roy Ascott (University of Plymouth)

The articles you can read in this first number of Metaverse Creativity are:

Cyber-archaeology and metaverse collaborative systems, by Maurizio Forte and Gregorij Kurillo
For a critical perspective of the value of web art, by Claudia Sandoval
Using 2D photography as a 3D constructional tool within the metaverse, by Murat Germen
Epoch of plasticity: The metaverse as a vehicle for cognitive enhancement, by Natasha Vita-More
LPDT2, by Roy Ascott, Elif Ayiter, Max Moswitzer and Selavy Oh
Surpassing human nature: Reinventions of and for the body as a consequence of astronomical experiments in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, by Luca Ayala
Virtual puppet, my love impossible, by Semi Ryu

With these interesting articles, there is one I made and titled: Brainflowing, virtual/physical space and the flow of communication: An explanatory approach to the metaverse through a tool designed for brainstorming. On it I try to identify the mainstream characteristics of Virtual Environments (in this case, Second Life), by describing the actions undertaken in the design process of brainflowing, created with Akemy Mochizuki (Draceina Pinion avatar). By considering Second Life as a flow of communication and as a space for communicating, I identify which of the actions performed are more related to one or to another dimension of this Virtual Environment.

From this Intellect webpage, "Brainflowing, virtual/physical space and the flow of communication: An explanatory approach to the metaverse through a tool designed for brainstorming"can be accessed by free



Note 1: This volume 1, issue 1 can be accessed, by free from intellect website

Note 2: Brainflowing has a symbolic price of 2000 linden Dollars, which are equivalent to $5.28, £4.68 or €5.52, and it is available in Dracy´s Virtual Shop, http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Zerelia/227/99/74, the shop that Akemi Mochizuki has in Second Life.

Tuesday, November 23, 2010

Walking around Open source Virtual Worlds.




After doing a small travell around some of the open source Virtual Worlds, it is clear that their features and characteristics are almost the same than Second Life ones. If we have in mind the prices that these Virtual Worlds set for having a land there, it seems that they will receive many users in not many time but some disadvantages have this environments now.

Some of the visible disadvantages of these Environments are.

1. It is not possible to import the contacts our avatar has on S.L., although it is allowed to import the calling cards of the avatars you has offered (and they accepted) friendship in Second Life.

2. It seems that is possible to import the items we have in S.L by using this format (see Open Simulator. Inventory Archives)and by using a device which is supported by Linden Lab and which is needed to pay for and called storedinventory. This means that users will need to learn to use that format after paying for having saved all that they have in Second Life. Imprudence viewer allows users to import and export items (one by one) but the user must have all the rights of that items.

3. The language script seems to be not so developed as the one that scripters use in Second Life.

Thus, according to Akemy Mochizuki (Draceina Pinion avatar), professional scripter, she can use plural notecards in one prim in SL but just one in opensim.In SL DRACY CROSSWORD PUZZLE can have 30 puzzles in it but just one in Opensim

3rdrockgrid: After registering on their webpage, you can enter by using the Imprudence viewer. Is similar or equal to SL and OSgrid. It also uses the same language for scripting, though and users reported me, it has some lacks which are being arranged.They have currency but still not fixed.
Giantgrid
The same interface and functions than the others Virtual Worlds reviewed. Also have their own currency. Is needed to register and then, it is possible to enter by using Imprudence.
Inworld
The same interface and features than another virtual worlds.

Monday, November 22, 2010

Open Source technology for creating Virtual Worlds


There are several Platforms done by different communities

Open sim,

realXtend,

Open Wonderland,

Open Cobalt

OSgrid and Reactiongrid are grids, applications of the platform Opensim

Until now, I have entered at Osgrid (first is needed to download it), by using Imprudence Viewer (which alows to enter in OSgrid, 3drock, cyberlandia, gigantgrid, inworldz, legencityonline, localhost, meta 7, reactiongrid, roleplaysworld, sciencesim, second life, theneworldgrid, worlddsimterra or youralternativelife)

The experience is the similar that you can feel when entering in Second Life and the interface is pretty similar, if not the same. You can also enter with the avatar name that you has on Second Life. But, the appeareance will be not the same. By default, my avatar is a man.

James OReilly comments, ways for exporting your things from Second Life to another Virtual Worlds.

Tuesday, November 16, 2010

Immersiveness, Presence, Copresence

Immersiveness and Symmetry in Copresent Scenarios’, Ralpg Schroeder, Ilona Heldal, Anthony Steed, Ann-Sofie Axelsson, Josef Widestrom and Maria Spante, Proceedings of IEEE VR 2005, Bonn, German

Beyond Presence and Copresence: A Phenomenological Account of Experiences in
Shared Virtual Environments
, by Ralph Schroeder

Copresence and Interaction in Virtual Environments: An Overview of the Range of Issues, by Ralph Schroeder

Becker, B and Mark, G (2001) Social conventions in Computer Mediated Communication, In Schroeder, R (Ed) The Social Life of avatars. Presence and Interaction in Shared Virtual Environments. Springer-Verlag London Limited. Great Britain.

Staler, M and Steed, A. Meeting People Virtually: Experiments in Shared Virtual Environments in Computer Mediated Communication, In Schroeder, R (Ed) The Social Life of avatars. Presence and Interaction in Shared Virtual Environments. Springer-Verlag London Limited. Great Britain.

The Usability of Collaborative Virtual Environments and Methods for the Analysis of Interaction

The Usability of Collaborative Virtual Environments and Methods for the Analysis of
Interaction
, by Ralph Schroeder, Ilona Heldal and Jolanda Tromp

Virtual Environments and Other Media for Being There Together: Towards a Convergence of Technologies, Uses, and Research Agendas Ralph Schroeder

Virtual Environments and Other Media for Being There Together: Towards a
Convergence of Technologies, Uses, and Research Agendas
, by Ralph Schroeder.
Proceedings of Presence 2007, Barcelona, Spain, October 2007.

The case study research

Building Theories from Case Study Research, by KATHLEEN M. EISENHARDT.
Academy ofManagement Review, 1989, Vol 14, No 4, 532-550

The Case Study Method in Social Inquiry, by Robert E. Stark

The Art of Case Study Research, by Robert E. Stark.

Saturday, October 30, 2010

Web science: a new frontier presentations

Web science: a new frontier presentations
Organised by Professor Nigel Shadbolt, Professor Dame Wendy Hall, Professor James Hendler and Professor Bill Dutton
Video recordings of presentations from 27 and 28 September 2010

Introduction
Professor Nigel Shadbolt, University of Southampton, Web Science Trust

The structure of the Web
Professor Albert-László Barabási, Northeastern University and Harvard Medical School

Networks and webs in ecosystems and financial systems
Lord May of Oxford, OM AC FRS, University of Oxford

The mathematics of Web science: structure, dynamics and incentives
Dr Jennifer Chayes, Microsoft Research

Understanding social and information networks
Professor Jon Kleinberg, Cornell University

Programming the social computer: using computational logic to specify webs of interaction
Professor Dave Robertson, School of Informatics, University of Edinburgh

Towards a decentralised and personalised Web
Dr Anne- Marie Kermarrec, INRIA

Enhancing communication and creativity with structured data on the Web
Professor David Karger, MIT

The nature of collective intelligence
Professor Pierre Lévy, University of Ottawa

Social networks in the internet: what social research knows about it
Professor Manuel Castells FBA, University of Southern California

New models of government via the Web
Professor Helen Margetts, Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford

Augmented intelligence: the Web and human computation
Professor Luis von Ahn, Carnegie Mellon University

The EventWeb: towards experiential computing
Professor Ramesh Jain, University of California, Irvine
Launch the player to watch The EventWeb: towards experiential computing

Developing Web Science to understand and enable 21st century multidimensional networks
Professor Noshir Contractor, Northwestern University and Web Science Trust

Will the Web break?
Professor Jonathan Zittrain, Berkman Center for Internet and Society, Harvard University

Future hopes for the Web
Sir Timothy Berners-Lee OM, KBE, FRS, FREng, Web Science Trust

Saturday, October 23, 2010

Virtual communities - exchanging ideas through computer bulletin boards By Howard Rheingold,

Virtual communities - exchanging ideas through computer bulletin boards
By Howard Rheingold, UC Berkeley, Stanford
This is an essay originally published in Whole Earth Review, Winter, 1987.
Reprinted in the Journal of Virtual Worlds Research, Vol.1, issue 1 by permission of author

Information Technology, Globalization and Social Development, by Manuel Castells

Information Technology, Globalization and Social Development
Manuel Castells

UNRISD Discussion Paper No. 114, September 1999

The Virtual Community: Chapter Ten: Disinformocracy, by Howard Rheingold

The Virtual Community: Chapter Ten: Disinformocracy, By Howard Rheingold

Manuel Castells, "The Network Society and Organizational Change" and "Identity in the Network Society"

Manuel Castells, "The Network Society and Organizational Change" and "Identity in the Network Society"

Postmodern Virtualities, by Mark Poster

Postmodern Virtualities, by Mark Poster

The Economy of Ideas Selling Wine Without Bottles on the Global Net by John Perry Barlow

The Economy of Ideas. Selling Wine Without Bottles on the Global Net
by John Perry Barlow

Free Culture By Lawrence Lessig

Free Culture, By Lawrence Lessig

Friday, October 22, 2010

Learning and Relationships in the Cyberspace

Learning and Relationships in the Cyberspace, by Gioacchino Lavanco, Viviana Catania, Anna Milio, and Floriana Romano.World Academy of Science, Engineering and Technology 38 2008

Thursday, October 21, 2010

The Effect of Interactivity on Learning Physical Actions in Virtual Reality

The Effect of Interactivity on Learning Physical Actions in Virtual Reality, by
JEREMY BAILENSON (Stanford University), KAYUR PATEL (University of Washington),
ALEXIA NIELSEN (Stanford University), RUZENA BAJSCY (University of California at Berkeley), SANG–HACK JUNG (University of California at Berkeley), GREGORIJ KURILLO
(University of California at Berkeley)

Monday, October 18, 2010

Global Internet Freedom Consortium

Global Internet Freedom Consortium

The Shaping of Power, Rights, and Rule in Cyberspace

The Shaping of Power, Rights, and Rule in Cyberspace. Edited by Ronald J. Deibert, John G. Palfrey, Rafal Rohozinski and Jonathan Zittrain. Foreword by Miklos Haraszti. The MIT Press

opennet innitiative

The OpenNet Initiative

"is a collaborative partnership of three institutions: the Citizen Lab at the Munk Centre for International Studies, University of Toronto; the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University; and the SecDev Group (Ottawa).

Our aim is to investigate, expose and analyze Internet filtering and surveillance practices in a credible and non-partisan fashion. We intend to uncover the potential pitfalls and unintended consequences of these practices, and thus help to inform better public policy and advocacy work in this area. To achieve these aims, the ONI employs a unique multi-disciplinary approach that includes:

Development and deployment of a suite of technical enumeration tools and core methodologies for the study of Internet filtering and surveillance;
Capacity-building among networks of local advocates and researchers;
Advanced studies exploring the consequences of current and future trends and trajectories in filtering and surveillance practices, and their implications for domestic and international law and governance regimes.

Social Media Filtering Mapp

Acces Denied:The Practice and Policy of Global Internet Filtering.

Ronald Deibert, John Palfrey, Rafal Rohozinski, Jonathan Zittrain, eds., Access Denied: The Practice and Policy of Global Internet Filtering, (Cambridge: MIT Press) 2008.
Online Version

2010 Circumvention Tool Usage Report, by Hal Roberts, Ethan Zuckerman, Jillian

2010 Circumvention Tool Usage Report (October, 2010), by Hal Roberts, Ethan Zuckerman, Jillian. Berkman Center for Internet and society.

"All circumvention tools use the same basic method to bypass this sort of network filtering: they proxy connections through third party sites that are not filtered themselves. By using this method, a user in China who cannot reach http://falundafa.org directly can instead access a proxy machine like
http://superproxy.com/, which can fetch http://falundafa.org for the user. The network filter only sees a connection to the proxy machine (superproxy.com), and so as long as the proxy itself remains unfiltered, the user can visit sites through the proxy that are otherwise blocked by the network filter. Some, but not all, tools also encrypt traffic between the user and proxy, both so that the traffic between the user and proxy is much more difficult to surveille and so, that filtering triggered by the content of the traffic (instead of merely the destination of the traffic) will not work. Despite this core similarity, circumvention tools differ significantly in many implementation details. We break circumvention tools into four large categories based on their proxy implementations. Each category of tool is distinguished from one another also by virtue of each being closely associated with a single model of financial support. The four categories of tools are:

• blocking-resistant tools
• simple web proxies
• VPN services
• HTTP/SOCKS proxies

"Be cunning and full of tricks. Innovative Learning in Second Life and Beyond", by John Lester

"Be cunning and full of tricks. Innovative Learning in Second Life and Beyond", by John Lester. The Prospects of Learning in Second Life. Abo Akedami University, Turku, Finland, October, 14-15, 2010.

Friday, October 15, 2010

Improving three elements involved in the learning process of a language by using tools designed for Second Life (SL Languages 2010)

From today SL Languages 2010 begins at Second Life. We encourage you to take a look into the schedule SL Languages Schedule.

Saturday 16 October 2010. 7am PDT (SL Time)/2pm GMT / 10pm CST (China Standard Time)
(See in this link (The Fixed Time World Clock) what is the time of the presentation, depending on where you are.)

In the parallel session 5.1. Parallel session 5.1 Akemi Mochizuki (Draceina Pinion avatar)and me will present:

"Improving three elements involved in the learning process of a language by using tools designed for Second Life. Grammar, Vocabulary and Use in context: Word Puzzle Ball, Dracy Crossword (type 5 and Making Panel) and Brainflowing"

Abatract
Second Life is an adequate environment for learning languages not just because allows to join individuals from several places, facilitating the exchange of ideas between them but also because of the immersive character of this virtual environment, which permits people to share a common space where they can interact with ease and where they feel comfortable. Even without the need of using tools, Second Life, understood as an space is a very adequate place for practicing languages but it is mainstream taking advantage of the easiness that we experiment in this Virtual World for designing and creating intelligent tools oriented to achieve specific objectives involved in the process of learning a language. Therefore, in this demonstration, we will introduce tools focused on practicing three main issues that take part in the learning process of a language:

Word Puzzle Balls
and Dracy Crossword (type 5 and Making Panel) are created by Draceina Pinion and aim to help people to improve grammar and vocabulary in many languages. Thus, Word Puzzle Balls can be used for learning and teaching the grammar of all the languages which can be used in Second Life and Dracy Crossword can be applied for learning and teaching vocabulary of English, German, Spanish, French, Italian and Hirigana, the first of all the writing systems taught to Japanese children. Brainflowing, created by gloriagdiagoGalicia and Draceina Pinion is a tool intended on facilitating the brainstorming activity in Second Life. It permits to brainstorm, by using several languages, being very adequate for practicing a language in context. Furthermore, because permits people to brainstorm by anonymity, the learners, will be not afraid of committing mistakes when writing and the teacher could correct them without referring to the persons who have done.

This session lasts for 120 minutes and takes place in AVALON Learning Sandbox

VENUE: AVALON Learning Sandbox
http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/AVALON%20Learning/101/65/36

Note: all the tools are available in Dracy´s virtual shop, at Second Life.
http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Zerelia/233/98/74

Outcomes obtained after brainstorming at ISTE by using Brainflowing

Note: photos taken by Akemi Mochizuki (Draceina Pinion avatar)




Yesterday, Akemi Mochizuki (Draceina Pinion avatar) and me enjoyed a very nice time presenting and using Brainflowing at ISTE. We thank all of them for their collaboration and engagement and we also thank to Terra Sieberman (Louise Borgnine avatar), who is Membership Development at ISTE (International Society for Technology in Education)

Brainstorming about advantages of Second Life

Participants identified, among others, the following ones:
- global connections,
- collaboration personal
- learning network
- professional opportunities
- meeting people
- Kurka-licious fun
- collaboration
- personal learning network
- professional opportunities
- museums
- art shows
- beauty
- imagination
- creativity


Brainstorming about alternatives to Second Life.

All Participants agree about the bad consequences that the elimantion of spetial prices for educational and non profit places in Second Life not just for these Institutions but also for the users who were atteding the events they organize. We were sharing about the best alternatives to this Virtual World and the following virtual environments were cited:

- Reaction Grid
Based on Unity3D combined with custom software and inworld scripting it is quickly
becoming a hit for high concurrency-easy to login to use cases. System
Architecture PDF. Highlights:Cross Platform Windows & Mac, Browser plugin, Game
Console Ready Iphone/Ipad/Ipod Touch capable, Android Ready, Standard 3D Mesh/CAD
Import, C#/Javascript/Boo Inworld Scripting, Concurrency to 1000+ Per Level, Vivox
Voice

Opensimulator is open source software that is a favorite for educational users on ReactionGrid.
GaiaOnline
World of Warcraft
Blue mars
The Blue Mars Virtual World Platform is made up
of the Blue Mars Client, the Blue Mars Sandbox Editors, BlueMars.com, and the Blue
Mars Servers.

Eve Online
- Wonderland
Open Cobalt Alpha
Open Cobalt Alpha is the first step in a long term
project to make available to all people a free and open source platform for
constructing, accessing, and sharing virtual workspaces for research and
education. This 3D multimedia wiki technology makes it easy to create deeply
collaborative and hyperlinked multi-user virtual workspaces, virtual exhibit
spaces, and game-based learning and training environments that run on all major
software operating systems. By using a peer based messaging protocol to reduce
reliance on server infrastructures for support of basic in world interactions
across many participants, Open Cobalt makes it possible for people hyperlink their
virtual worlds via 3D portals to form a large distributed network of
interconnected collaboration spaces. It also makes it possible for schools and
other organizations to freely set up their own networks of public and private 3D
virtual workspaces that feature integrated web browsing, voice chat, text chat,
and access to remote desktop applications and services
.
Croquet
Croquet is a powerful open source software
technology that, in the form of the Croquet Software Developer's Kit (Croquet
SDK), can be used by experienced software developers to create and deploy deeply
collaborative multi-user online virtual world applications on and across multiple
operating systems and devices. Derived from Squeak, the Croquet system features a
peer-based messaging protocol that dramatically reduces the need for server
infrastructures to support virtual world deployment and makes it easy for software
developers to create deeply collaborative applications. Cobalt is a National
Science Foundation-sponsored effort to develop an open source virtual world
browser and authoring toolkit application based on the Croquet technology.

Science Sim
The 3D Internet refers to a currently disparate
but rapidly converging set of 3D technologies used for visualizing 3D information
on the web. This convergence promises to provide a new set of collaborative tools
with application in collaborative visualization, education, training and scientific
discovery. As part of the Supercomputing Conference this year working with
supporters in the community we have made available a virtual world based on the
open source package OpenSim

Jokaydia
The Islands of jokaydia Project is facilitated by
Jo Kay aka jokay Wollongong. It was launched in September 2007 and aims to provide
a space to explore the uses of virtual worlds in education, the arts and social
change. We are a community of practice, and have homes in various virtual worlds
including our very own jokaydiaGRID running on Opensimulator, along with presence
in Second Life, Jibe and Reaction Grid. We are also exploring BlueMars, World of
Warcraft, Aion and a number of other virtual worlds and gaming platforms.


3rd Rock Grid
Within the virtual world you will find houses,
businesses, music clubs, role playing areas, parks, museums, whatever the community
decides to build or develop, either collectively on community property or
individually on your own property. You will also meet and talk to other
individuals, Americans, Canadians, Australians, Europeans, and others from all
corners of the globe.You are represented by a three dimensional “avatar” that you
control , you control the looks, the clothes, and its movement throughout the
virtual world. The possibilities are endless and completely up to you - the
creator! You will find individuals from 18 to 70 and beyond in world, it is not a
predetermined game, with your interaction with the other individuals your world
becomes what
you make it.
SpotOn3d
potON3D's ™ 3DWeb Systems empower Internet users to break out of the flat 2D web
page, and GO TO A PLACE on the web – 3DWeb Worlds - where they can experience much
of the same functionality & experience they enjoy in the real world without having
to spend the time or money get to there.

Participants also pointed the fact that there is an HyperGate, teleporter system between worlds which permits to walk to one place to another.Other issue that was pointed out is that OpenSim is much less expensive in comparision with Second Life and in some ways much easier to change.

Thursday, October 14, 2010

Brainstorming with Brainflowing at ISTE (strengths of Second Life and current alternatives to this Virtual Environment)

Thursday, October 14, 2010, 6-7 PM SLT (that's 9PM EST)
ISTE (International Society for Technology in Education) Educators Social Events at Second Life

Facilitator: gloriadiago Galicia & Draceina Pinion
Location: ISTE Island Campfires http://slurl.com/secondlife/ISTE%20Island/182/91/23

Gloria Gómez-Diago (gloriagdiagoGalicia SL) and Akemi Mochizuki (Draceina Pinion SL) will introduce Brainflowing, a device for brainstorming in Second Life, and for transferring the outcomes generated to other contexts. After explaining how the tool works, two brainstorming will be held with all the participants. First we will be focused on identifying tasks which can be undertaken in this Virtual World for achieving objectives involved in a teaching/ learning process. Then, taking in mind the removal of the educational/non-profit discount in Second Life_ issue considered worthy of attention_ we will brainstorm about the current alternatives to this Virtual Environment. Therefore, by sharing experiences about the use of other platforms, we will to seek their salient advantages and failures.
Brainflowing has a symbolic price of 1000 linden Dollars, which are equivalent to $3.64, £2.34 or €2.76, and it is available at Dracy´s Virtual Shop.
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Zerelia/240/105/74

NOTE: Take note of the time of the event depending on your localization by seeing "Worldwide GMT Fixed Time"

Wednesday, October 13, 2010

Monday, October 11, 2010

Web 3.0 and beyond: the next 20 years of the internet

Web 3.0 and beyond: the next 20 years of the internet, by Jonathan Richards

The Web Wide World -- The Web Spreads Into the Physical World

The Web Wide World -- The Web Spreads Into the Physical World

Internet of things

Internet of Things"(wikipedia)

Digital Life

Digital Life


"Utilising cutting edge techniques and taking advantage of market-leading expertise, Digital Life offers both a lens on the digital world and the frameworks required to make actionable business decisions within it. It can be used to drive global strategies or inform local tactics (...)Interviewing almost 50,000 consumers across 46 countries, including all BRIC and most N-11 markets, Digital Life is the largest, most comprehensive study of the Global Digital Consumer, ever. These markets represent 88% of the global Digital population; we cover markets from where Digital is close to ubiquitous to those beginning their digital journey whether through PC at home, mobile or internet cafés"

Streams of Content, Limited Attention: The Flow of Information through Social Media

"Streams of Content, Limited Attention: Thedanah boyd. Flow of Information through Social Media", by danah boyd.

Saturday, October 9, 2010

How Handwriting Trains the Brain

How Handwriting Trains the Brain. Forming Letters Is Key to Learning, Memory, Ideas
By GWENDOLYN BOUNDS. The Wall Street Journal

Tuesday, October 5, 2010

Internet 2009 in numbers

Internet 2009 in numbers. Royal Pingdom

2010 Rankings: Doctoral Programs in America

2010 Rankings: Doctoral Programs in America

About 5,000 university doctoral programs, in 59 fields of study, have been ranked in terms of quality by the National Research Council. To see how a particular program fared, start by clicking in Column 1, "Choose a Broad Field," and proceed through the next two columns. You will then be able to explore 21 features of that program, such as the average annual number of publications per faculty member, or the percentage of students with financial support. You can then compare the program with others in the field. And you can see how the program ranks on the NRC scale based on criteria like those.

2010 Rankings: Doctoral Programs in America. The Cronicle of Higher Education

Monday, October 4, 2010

The Democratization of Online Social Networks

Tracking online life: How women use the Internet to cultivate relationships with family and friends May 10, 2000

Tracking online life: How women use the Internet to cultivate relationships with family and friends, Pew Research Center, May 10, 2000

The Online Male Takes a Licking and Keeps on Clicking

The Online Male Takes a Licking and Keeps on Clicking By Delphine Schrank
Washington Post Staff Writer .Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Top Countries according to their Internet speed

Top Countries according to their Internet speed

Users Over 50 Double Social Networking Use in a Year

Users Over 50 Double Social Networking Use in a Year

Strong Growth for Twitter's Mobile Audience, Jack Marshall. September 10, 2010.

Strong Growth for Twitter's Mobile Audience, by Jack Marshall. September 10, 2010.

Internet Traffic Report

Internet Traffic Report.

"The Internet Traffic Report monitors the flow of data around the world. It then displays a value between zero and 100. Higher values indicate faster and more reliable connections."

Sunday, October 3, 2010

BlogPulse

BlogPulse

Email Statistics Report, 2009-2013”

Email Statistics Report, 2009-2013, by the Radicate Group

Internet world stats

Internet world stats. Usage and Population Statistics.

Domain Name Industry Brief, by VeriSign

Domain Name Industry Brief, by VeriSign

September 2010, web server survey, by Metcraft

September 2010, web server survey.

The Mobile Communication Society.

The Mobile Communication Society. A cross-cultural analysis of available evidence on the social uses of wireless communication technology, 2004. By Manuel Castells, Mireia Fernández Ardavol, Jock Linchuan Qiu and Araba Sey (USC)

Abstract
This research report offers an analytical overview of existing research on the social uses of wireless communication technology. It seeks to provide a solid empirical basis for an informed discussion of the social uses and social effects of wireless in Europe, the Asian Pacific and the United States. Major themes explored include the deep connection between wireless communication and the emergence of youth culture, the transformation of language by texting and multimodalty, the growing importance of wireless communication in socio-political mobilization, and changes in the practice of time and space resulting from wireless communication.

(...)

"The structure of the research report presented here is straightforward. We start with a statistical overview of diffusion of wireless communication in the last decade in different areas and countries of the world. Afterwards we provide the aggregate data on patterns of social differentiation in the diffusion of the technology. Then we present an analysis of the social uses and social effects of wireless communication in different domains of human activity, differentiating our synthesis of evidence in the three areas of our study: Europe, the Asian Pacific and the United States. We then enter into the specific consideration of some major themes that have appeared as clearly essential in the course of our research. The first one is the deep connection between wireless communication and the emergence of a youth culture (that leads to what we call a mobile youth culture) in all areas under
our observation. The second is the process of transformation of language by texting and multimodality. The third, is the growing importance of wireless communication in the processes of socio-political mobilization, particularly outside formal politics, a topic that we have considered by focusing on case studies of mobilization in a variety of contexts. The fourth theme, on which we have only limited information but seems to be worth of exploring refers to the changes in the practice of time and space resulting from wireless communication. Finally, we have attempted to summarize
the main trends resulting from our observation in a concluding section that, deliberately, raises more questions than it answers" (9)

Friday, October 1, 2010

Mathematical Theory of Communication,by Klaus Krippendorff

Mathematical Theory of Communication,by Klaus Krippendorff, in Encyclopedia of Communication Theory, S.W. Littlejohn & K.A Foss (Eds)Los Angeles: Sage, 2009.pp 614-618.

Saturday, September 25, 2010

Navigating the narrative in space: gender and spatiality in Virtual Worlds, by Mary Fanagan

Navigating the narrative in space: gender and spatiality in Virtual Worlds, by Mary Fanagan

Gender in Applied Communication Contexts. Edited by Patrice M. Buzzanell, Helen Sterk and Lynn H. Turner, 2004

Gender in Applied Communication Contexts. Edited by Patrice M. Buzzanell, Helen Sterk and Lynn H. Turner, 2004

Rethinking Organizational & Managerial Communication from Feminist perspectives, by Patrice M. Buzzanell

Rethinking Organizational & Managerial Communication from Feminist perspectives, by Patrice M. Buzanell, 2004

Reworking Gender: A feminist communicology of organization,edited by Karen Lee Ashcraft and Dennis K. Mumby, 2004.

Reworking Gender: A feminist communicology of organization,edited by Karen Lee Ashcraft and Dennis K. Mumby, 2004.

Gender Differences in Computer-Mediated Communication: Bringing Familiar Baggage to the new frontier, by Susan Herring

Gender Differences in Computer-Mediated Communication: Bringing Familiar Baggage to the new frontier, by Susan Herring

Grant Lee Buffalo (mockingbird)

Saturday, September 11, 2010

Cybersociety 2.0. Reinventing Computer -Mediated Communication and Community. Edited by Steven G. Jones

Cybersociety 2.0. Reinventing Computer -Mediated Communication and Community. Edited by Steven G. Jones

Weaving the Authoritarian Web: The Control of Internet Use in Nondemocratic Regimes, by Taylor C. Boas

Weaving the Authoritarian Web: The Control of Internet Use in Nondemocratic Regimes, by
Taylor C. Boas

worldometers

Worldmeters.World statistics updated in real time


Sources
Worldometers collects its statistics and data from the most reputable national and international organizations, including the United Nations, the World Health Organization, the Food and Agriculture Organization, OECD and others.

Each Worldometers counter has its specific set of sources, which are listed on its dedicated page (accessible by clicking on the counter text link, when available).

Data, estimates, and projections displayed on Worldometers' counters are for the most part provided by organizations included in the following list of United Nations Statistics Division's partners.
Algorithm
The counters that display the real-time numbers are based on Worldometers’ algorithm that processes the latest and most accurate statistical data available together with its estimated progression to compute the current millisecond number to be displayed on each counter based on the specific time set on each visitor’s computer clock.

Thursday, September 9, 2010

Cyberspace and Identity, by Sherry Turkle

How computers change the way we think, by Sherry Turkle

How computers change the way we think, by Sherry Turkle, 2004

A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace by John Perry Barlow

A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace, by John Perry Barlow, 1996

Doing Internet Research. Critical Issues and Methods for Examining the Net

Doing Internet Research. Critical Issues and Methods for Examining the Net, Edited by Steve Jones, 1999.
Hanging out in the virtual pub: masculinities and relationships online, by Lori Kendall, 2002

Does Your Language Shape How You Think?, by Guy Deutscher

Does Your Language Shape How You Think?, by Guy Deutscher. August, 26, 2010.

Democratizing Innovation, by Eric Von Hippel, 2005

Democratizing Innovation, by Eric Von Hippel, 2005

Saturday, August 21, 2010

Media Cloud, A Project of the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard

Media Cloud

"Media Cloud is a system that lets you see the flow of the media. The Internet is fundamentally altering the way that news is produced and distributed, but there are few comprehensive approaches to understanding the nature of these changes. Media Cloud automatically builds an archive of news stories and blog posts from the web, applies language processing, and gives you ways to analyze and visualize the data. The system is still in early development, but we invite you to explore our current data and suggest research ideas. This is an open-source project, and we will be releasing all of the code soon. You can read more background on the project or just get started below."

No time to think, by David.M.Levy

Monday, August 16, 2010

WORDS and What They Do To You, by CATHERINE MINTEER

WORDS and What They Do To You, by CATHERINE MINTEER. Illustrations by Lucy Ozone. 1965, Catherine Minteer. Web Edition © 2001, 2004 Institute of General Semantics

Friday, August 13, 2010

Phoenix (1901)



Counting all different ideas drifting away
Past and present -- they don't matter.
Now the future's sorted out
Watch, you're moving in elliptical pattern
Think it's not what you say
What you say is way too complicated
For a minute thought I couldn't tell how to fall out.

It's 20 seconds 'til the last call, going "hey hey hey hey hey hey"
Lie down, you know it's easy like we did it all summer long
And I'll be anything you ask and more, going "hey hey hey hey hey hey"
It's not a miracle we needed, and no I wouldn't let you think so
Fold it, Fold it, Fold it, Fold it

Girlfriend, know your girlfriend's drifting away
Past and present, 1855-1901
Watch them build up a material tower
Think it's not gonna stay anyway
Think it's overrated
For a minute, thought I couldn't tell how to fall out

It's 20 seconds to the last call, going "hey hey hey hey hey"
Lie down, you know it's easy, like we did it all summer long
And I'll be anything you ask and more, going "hey hey hey hey hey"
It's not a miracle we needed, and no, I wouldn't let you think so
Fold it, Fold it, Fold it, Fold it
Fold it, Fold it, Fold it, Fold it

Note: Lyrics obtained here

Blog Archive