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(continue reading &aquo;)Yochai Benkler correctly suggests that "peer production is as efficient and significant for the 21 century as the assembly line was for the 20th century." I also agree with Benkler when he suggests that through peer production "people can do more by and for themselves" but I add that the pleasures of online sociality are exploited. Communities are often deceived and commodified. They are unfairly used as a resource, often without their consent and knowledge. It's a bit like Mark Twain's "Whitewashing the Fence" in Tom Sawyer.
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(continue reading &aquo;)Seth’s blog » Blog Archive » Natural versus Unnatural Learning
How to Stop Procrastinating So that I Am Not a Bum - A Self-experiment | FlowingData
Intelligent Design Rules Out God's Sovereignty Over Chance - David White - Open Salon
So do you feel vindicated by this current crisis?I feel angry. Very, very angry. I described the way it happened, I described the mistakes, and I see all these people explaining it backwards. Let me make another metaphor: you have a hundred people playing Russian roulette, and one of them killed themselves, and economists are theorizing that he killed himself because he held the gun in a certain way. You require something vastly more structural. Let's go back to roots. Let's do real things. Let's have more transparency, fewer complicated products we don't understand. Let's generate economic growth by old traditional ways, let's favor technology companies, let's not favor all this financial bulls---. Because it was a Ponzi scheme, I don't know any other way to call it.Nassim Nicholas Taleb - TIME (continue reading &aquo;)
25 Ways to Build Your Community 1. Read at least 100 blogs regularly. Not every post, but a variety. Extra hint: go OUTSIDE your particular passion circle. 2. Write brief, tight, actionable posts that people want to reference later. 3. Don’t ignore the value of linkbait and viral content. Don’t ALWAYS do that, but hey, it can work. 4. Give people your best. I know that sounds trite, but I’m saying don’t charge for the best and give away your crap. That’s a yard sale. Be Tiffany & Co. 5. When you write about people, use LINKS to connect your writing to them. This encourages good neighbor policies. 6. Write great titles that draw people in. (Brian Clark is the master.) 7. Keep lists of blog topics handy for when you feel down. 8. Learn how to write more than one post a day, and put the others in your blogging platform for rainy days (or when you’re busy). This saves my butt TONS of times. (I have a day job, you know.) 9. Promote other people’s work 12 times as much as you promote your own. This comes back as great karma, plus it shows people you recognize that other people are brilliant, not just you. 10. Comment the HELL out of other people’s blogs. Not fishing for your blog. Just adding your voice to theirs. 11. Get regular or irregular opportunities to guest blog. Years ago, I was blogging for Leon Ho at LifeHack.org. That got me plenty more friends than I had before. 12. “Claim” your blog with Technorati 13. List your blog in Dmoz.org, Yahoo, Google, etc. 14. Make subscribing easy. I use FeedBurner to do that. I also use easy to find buttons. I also ASK people to subscribe in about 5 different ways. 15. Build outposts. 16. Use Twitter effectively. 17. Use plug-ins like ShareThis and AddThis that add little “share” buttons after your posts. 18. Occasionally, when it’s a really good post, stumble yourself or bookmark it in Delicious. (Then go stumble 10 or 12 other people’s good work to absolve your sin.) 19. Go to meetups, conferences, and all types of live events. The more that people know you and can put your face to your work, the more they are likely to promote your work (and you theirs). Yes, this takes time, but you asked how I did it. That’s also how. 20. Make the occasional video or audio post so that people start to connect you the human to you the blogger. This works to “humanize” your efforts, and this is vital to what I think has made me successful. 21. Don’t be snarky. There are precious few who do it well. And plenty who do it poorly. Yes, it seems to help grow traffic, but I’m not going to advocate for it. Sorry. 22. Thank people endlessly. Be so full of humility and thanks and gracious awe at the fact that people share time with you (while not being one of those put-down artists) that your work comes off as perpetually fresh and energized and useful. 23. Be helpful. Have you ever heard that from me? Be helpful. Be helpful. The more you do for others, the more they want to point it out. 24. Keep your eyes on the STRATEGY of what you’re doing. Otherwise, there are tons of ways to fall into rabbit holes. 25. Encourage participation. Make your blog about other people, not you. Share and encourage and ask questions. Give your stage to your guest performers. Make it ALL a partnership with your community.25 Ways to Build Your Community | chrisbrogan.com
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(continue reading &aquo;)100+ Free Applications for Mac OS X - Annotated
Nike+ Sets Roadmap for Corporate Social Networks | Media Caffeine
he experiment was stunning in its simplicity. A group of teachers at a low-income South San Francisco elementary school were asked to begin the year by administering the “Harvard Test of Inflected Acquisition” to their students. The results were processed and the teachers were given back a list of students whose intellectual abilities were expected to “bloom” that year. At the end of the school year the test was administered again and, sure enough, the bloomers were found to have bloomed, surpassing the other students. But there was just one catch: the test was actually a simple IQ test and the “bloomers” were actually chosen randomly.Science That Matters (continue reading &aquo;)
The result was called the “Pygmalion effect”: teachers who expected their students to do better actually caused their students to do better. It was a classic self-fulfilling prophecy. The study (published as Pygmalion in the Classroom) was widely hailed. It made the front page of the Times, The Today Show, the New Yorker, and Time, among others. Teacher workshops in avoiding the effect spread from Puerto Rico to Saudi Arabia. LA banned IQ tests in its elementary schools. Presidents, textbooks, and Wikipedia articles repeat the notions to this day, over 30 years later.
Except none of it was true. (emphasis mine)
Harpers180.gifHarper's IndexHarpers Magazine 11/5/2008Estimated value of U.S. economic growth lost due to the global credit crisis : $2,000,000,000,000 (see page 35)Portion of U.S. subprime mortgage buyers since 2003 who might have qualified for a prime mortgage : 3/5Number of times that speakers at the Republican National Convention said the word "economy" : 31Number of times they referred to President Bush by name : 1Minimum number of reporters who traveled to Wasilla, Alaska, in the two weeks following Sarah Palin's selection as VP : 90Estimated number of votes that Oprah Winfrey's endorsement swung to Barack Obama's primary campaign : 1,015,559Amount that corporate donors to both conventions have spent lobbying Congress since 2005 : $1,316,151,129Minimum amount the U.S. government has paid contractors in the Middle East since 2003 : $8,200,000,000Total value of federal small-business contracts obtained by Blackwater between 2005 and 2007 : $110,000,000Percentage of former terrorist groups worldwide that stopped operating because of military force used against them : 7Percentage that stopped because they had achieved their stated goals : 10Percentage of Afghans who say they would support a coalition government that included the Taliban : 54Chances that an Israeli Arab says he or she would rather live in Israel than anywhere else : 3 in 4Average number of religions practiced in each world nation : 32Estimated number in Papua New Guinea, which has the most : 648Percentage of U.S. doctors who think God has the power to cure a fatally injured patient : 20Chance that a U.S. conservative today believes church leaders should be involved in politics : 1 in 2Chances in 2004 : 7 in 10Percentage of Americans in 2006 who were "not at all" confident that President Bush had won reelection "fair and square" : 32Minimum number of Brazilians running for political office this year under the name "Obama" : 5Date on which the U.S. must leave its only South American military installation, by order of Ecuador, its host : 11/12/09Date on which Playgirl magazine will become an online-only publication : 11/18/08Amount that Paris Hilton's parents have donated to John McCain's campaign : $4,600Amount the co-founder of the gay-dating Web site Manhunt has : $2,300Number of registered users on AshleyMadison.com, a site for people who "want to explore the new infidelity" : 2,540,000Number of scenes of or references to sex between a married couple shown during an average week of NBC programming : 1Number showing or referencing adultery or sex with minors, respectively : 1, 1Chances that a U.S. woman who gives birth is unmarried at the time : 2 in 5Minimum number of children in the United States who have at least one parent in the country illegally : 5,100,000Average number of new federal crimes that Congress creates each year : 56Chance that a 411 call in the United States is handled by a federal prisoner : 1 in 136Number of marijuana plants found under cultivation inside Miami's Mall of the Americas in August : 360Average number of hours per week that an American and a Chinese person, respectively, spend shopping : 4, 10Number of the 77 applications to protest during the Beijing Olympics this summer that were denied : 1Number that were withdrawn by the petitioners or suspended for incorrect paperwork : 76Number of South Koreans pardoned by the country's president on August 15 : 341,864Total votes cast online last fall to decide which Thanksgiving turkeys President Bush should pardon : 27,726Margin by which U.S. dog owners favor John McCain over Barack Obama : 43-34Margin by which Americans would rather watch football with Obama than with McCain : 50-47Number of free tattoos of Obama's face given out so far by a body artist in Moore, Okla. : 300The Cagle Post -- Print Column (continue reading &aquo;)
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(continue reading &aquo;)First, let’s consider when giving it up for nothing can work in your favor:You have no clients or portfolio. If you left your staff position without any customer testimonials or work samples, you may have to do a freebie or three for a worthy small business to prove to paying clients that you’ve done this before. Pick short-term projects (several days, tops) so you’re not stuck working pro bono until the next decade.Your dream client has shallow pockets. Writers, artists and performers are all too familiar with this phenomenon. Example: The indie magazine that barely pays its freelancers but, thanks to the power of PIE, has landed many of them agents, book deals and art shows. For business consultants, speaking at a highly publicized conference might yield similar results, in the form of new clients and paid speaking gigs. Be sure to build such unpaid work into your annual promotional plan (which can be all of two paragraphs) so you don’t give away too much time each year.You’re donating time to a worthy cause. When donating your services to your favorite nonprofit or charity, my motto is, “Give big.” Think high-profile auctions, galas and fund-raising marathons; the more PIE potential, the better. Although you’re doing the job gratis, send the client a short, informal contract clearly stating what you will and won’t do, and when.When to Work for Nothing - Shifting Careers Blog - NYTimes.com
Tags: consulting
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(continue reading &aquo;)What enabled all of this to happen? Three factors come to mind:1. Increasingly, after World War II, a college education in the US became little more than preparation for a job. "Learning for learning’s sake" came to be regarded a kind of luxury.2. American universities adopted the model of the corporation, and teaching was in turn modeled on the corporate-client relationship: the professor is there as a "provider" of a "commodity," which the students "purchase" from the institution. Once education became commodified in this way, respect for it basically evaporated. It became purely instrumental, rather than being seen as a way of life, or a way of deepening one’s understanding of the world and of oneself.3. As the humanities lost respect, many teachers of the humanities lost respect for their own discipline. By the 1970s, a curious phenomenon known as "postmodernism" emerged, in which professors not only abandoned the search for truth, but began to argue that it didn’t even exist. This was a formula for academic irrelevance, if not suicide.The humanities exist to ask–and answer–the question, What are we living for?, or What is the meaning of human life?DARK AGES AMERICA -- Blog for Morris Berman
The trial over, the judge sentences our heroes to a year in jail, commenting that “your callous disregard for other human beings threatens to rock the very foundations of society.” But which society? Larry and Jerry make it quite clear that in their view, callous disregard for other human beings is the foundation of society–American society, that is. And so the subtext finally breaks through in no uncertain terms: Seinfeld was A Show About Something, after all.DARK AGES AMERICA -- Blog for Morris Berman
"Not an aristocracy of power, but an aristocracy of the sensitive, considerate and the plucky. Its members are to be found in all nations and classes and through the ages, and they know each other when they meet. ... Authority, seeing their value, tries to net them and to utilize them. ... But they slip through the net and are gone; when the door is shut they are no longer in the room; Their temple is the Holiness of the Heart's Imagination, and their kingdom, though they never possess it, is the wide open world."In this they are deathless.Like periwinkles.Joe Bageant: The Audacity of Depression
Tags: hope, the future, leadership
(continue reading &aquo;)Compounding everything is the fact that it is quite human and even pragmatic to passively accept reality as it is. Until it's too late to do anything. As my late friend Virgil the philosophical backhoe operator summed it up: "If we fucked everything up so bad tryin' to do our best, maybe we oughtta just leave'er be for a while. Quit thinking about it so much."Joe Bageant: The Audacity of Depression
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(continue reading &aquo;)John Lundberg: Poetry For Politics: How To Make It Through The Last Week
Podcast: Buddhist Geeks - Seriously Buddhist, Seriously Geeky
