All things global

The End of the Echo Chamber

2012-01-19T11:03:00.002-05:00

A study of 250 million Facebook users reveals the Web isn’t as polarized as we thought.

Study details here: Rethinking Information Diversity in Networks

and full article here.

The day the LOLCats died

2012-01-18T14:02:00.001-05:00

The Rise of the New Groupthink

2012-01-18T10:09:00.001-05:00

The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking

top 5 regrets

2012-01-04T17:19:00.000-05:00

people make on their deathbeds

live, learn, and live it.

in related matters: The Joy of Quiet

Happy 2012!

Correlation and Causation

2011-12-15T08:46:00.001-05:00

From here

Iceland's President reflects on its Recovery

2011-12-13T19:41:00.002-05:00

In the 2008 economic meltdown, Iceland nearly collapsed. Its three banks failed, it's currency lost 50 per cent of its value and in an unprecedented display of anger, usually peaceful Icelanders took to the streets to protest.

But Iceland defied the orthodox economic wisdom of the time---bailouts and slashing government services---and now is on the road to a recovery that the rest of Europe envies.
The hero of the hour and the man almost solely responsible for this remarkable turnaround is the country's president Olafur Grimmson.
By refusing to go along with conventional thinking and by asking the people themselves what they wanted, he set a course for Iceland's remarkable economic recovery.
In this hour the president of Iceland, on democracy and the fearsome power of the marketplace.
Listen here (from The Sunday Edition on CBC radio).

Musical innovation!

2011-12-13T16:01:00.001-05:00

Louie Schwartzberg: Nature. Beauty. Gratitude.

2011-12-01T19:33:00.001-05:00

Open science now!

2011-11-15T09:46:00.001-05:00

The Great Tech War Of 2012

2011-11-09T17:57:00.002-05:00

Apple, Facebook, Google, and Amazon battle for the future of the innovation economy.

Pumped up kicks

2011-10-28T22:32:00.002-04:00

Process Praise for kids

2011-10-28T22:18:00.000-04:00

Her latest research is “Parent Praise,” and it’s a longitudinal study. In it, researchers observed, and coded, praise from parents with children 14 months old to 38 months old to see if it was more person-based (“you are really smart”) or process based (“you must have tried really hard”). When the kids were 7 and 8, they checked back to see how they felt about taking risks and whether qualities like intelligence were fixed or malleable.

The process kids won.

“The parents who gave more process-praise had children who believe their intelligence and social qualities could be developed and they were more eager for challenges,” Dr. Dweck told me.

In her previous research, she’s showed that praising children for their intelligence or abilities often undermines motivation and hurts performance. Kids who are told they are smart care more about performance goals and less about learning. Kids praised for their efforts believe that trying hard, not being smart, matters. These kids are “resilient” and take more risks.

No Digital Facelifts: Thinking the Unthinkable About Open Educational Experiences

2011-10-26T17:35:00.003-04:00

a talk by Gardner Campbell, Baylor University & Jim Groom, University of Mary Washington

Open Educational Resources

2011-10-14T11:10:00.002-04:00

The UnFacebooking world

2011-10-13T14:55:00.003-04:00

The parts in black are the parts of the world that are on facebook, the rest, not so much. Source

never question authority

2011-10-11T09:39:00.002-04:00

The Future of Power

2011-10-05T17:44:00.000-04:00

Joesph Nye talks about it.

Policies, Politics: Can Evidence Play a Role in the Fight against Poverty?

2011-10-02T13:03:00.002-04:00

Interesting talk on international development, for those who are keen. Esther Duflo argues that, contra to the institutionalist view that we have to get politics right before development happens, that changing local policies can impact on politics and bring about development.

Why the Antichrist Matters in Politics

2011-09-28T04:59:00.000-04:00

Egad

Rebel College 2.0

2011-09-19T10:15:00.003-04:00

Fear of Repression Spurs Scholars and Activists to Build Alternate Internets

Climate Reality Project

2011-09-13T16:24:00.002-04:00

Livestream starting on Sept 14th at 7PM Central

The Joy of Stats

2011-09-13T14:48:00.000-04:00

For some reason I can't embed the video here, so I'll link to it instead.

Unintended Consequences

2011-09-09T09:15:00.002-04:00

Kiva loans visualized

2011-09-09T09:08:00.001-04:00

Intercontinental Ballistic Microfinance from Kiva on Vimeo.

Watch full screen for full effect.

In Unsettled Times, Media Can Be a Call to Action, or a Distraction

2011-09-07T12:39:00.000-04:00

Says somebody

A sign from God

2011-08-29T17:23:00.002-04:00

Why the impossible...

2011-08-29T10:36:00.002-04:00

Happens more often

A beautiful new theory of everything

2011-08-26T09:13:00.002-04:00

21 tomato recipes

2011-08-09T11:54:00.001-04:00

Our garden is exploding with cherry tomatoes right now... This one is Cherry Tomatoes With Herbed Goat Cheese. Recipes here

Openness and stuff

2011-08-08T09:21:00.002-04:00

[OKCon 2011] Glyn Moody - From Openness to Abundance from Open Knowledge Foundation on Vimeo.

[OKCon 2011] Tariq Khokhar - Open Data at the World Bank: What we learned in a year and what’s next from Open Knowledge Foundation on Vimeo.

How Exercise Can Keep the Brain Fit

2011-07-28T17:46:00.000-04:00

Doesn't even need to be that hard of exercise, apparently.

Obligingly, a number of important new studies have just been published that address those very questions. In perhaps the most encouraging of these, Canadian researchers measured the energy expenditure and cognitive functioning of a large group of elderly adults over the course of two to five years. Most of the volunteers did not exercise, per se, and almost none worked out vigorously. Their activities generally consisted of “walking around the block, cooking, gardening, cleaning and that sort of thing,” said Laura Middleton, an associate professor at the University of Waterloo in Ontario and lead author of the study, which was published last week in Archives of Internal Medicine.

But even so, the effects of this modest activity on the brain were remarkable, Dr. Middleton said. While the wholly sedentary volunteers, and there were many of these, scored significantly worse over the years on tests of cognitive function, the most active group showed little decline. About 90 percent of those with the greatest daily energy expenditure could think and remember just about as well, year after year.

“Our results indicate that vigorous exercise isn’t necessary” to protect your mind, Dr. Middleton said. “I think that’s exciting. It might inspire people who would be intimidated about the idea of quote-unquote exercising to just get up and move.

...

For those among us, and they are many, who can’t get excited about going for walks or brisk gardening, scientists from the Aging, Mobility and Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory at the University of British Columbia and other institutions have shown, for the first time, that light-duty weight training changes how well older women think and how blood flows within their brains. After 12 months of lifting weights twice a week, the women performed significantly better on tests of mental processing ability than a control group of women who completed a balance and toning program, while functional M.R.I. scans showed that portions of the brain that control such thinking were considerably more active in the weight trainers.”

On the future of cyberspace

2011-07-28T13:21:00.001-04:00

Statement for the Record By Rafal Rohozinski, Commission on Security and Corporation Europe ( US Helsinki Commission). 15 July, 2011.

Chairman, distinguished members of the Commission,

I'd like to thank the Commission for the opportunity to appear and testify at today's hearing, which comes at a particularly important moment. The Internet has precipitated perhaps the fastest and largest expansion of rights in human history. And yet we are also at a constitutive moment - where our actions, and leadership can lead to two opposing outcomes. One promises a future of greater freedoms and transparency; the other threatens a return to a darker, more authoritarian past.

My name is Rafal Rohozinski, I am a senior scholar at the Canada Center for Global Security Studies, and the CEO of the SecDev Group and Psiphon Inc. For the past 10 years I've been a Principal Investigator of the OpenNet Initiative, a collaborative international research project between the University of Toronto, Harvard University, Cambridge University, and the SecDev Group, which has studied and documented the practice and policy of Internet censorship and surveillance worldwide. We have published more than two dozen case studies and thematic reports and are in the process of publishing our third volume documenting censorship practices in over 70 countries worldwide. The OpenNet Initiative has amassed the largest, most complete profile of how countries seek to shape access to cyberspace using a combination of regulation, repression, and technical means.

***

Just over 65 years ago, Winston Churchill warned an American audience of the danger of an Iron Curtain falling across Europe - casting a shadow of authoritarianism and depriving citizens of their democratic rights. Churchill spoke in 1946, at a time when the United States stood uncontested as a global power. He urged the creation of norms and institutions that would safeguard freedom, and actively oppose the forces of authoritarianism. For Churchill, the end of World War II was a constitutive moment: the choices made by the victorious Allies would have enduring consequences for the cause of freedom in Europe, and elsewhere.

Today, we stand at the threshold of a similar constitutive moment brought about by a revolution whose long-term consequences we are only now starting to grasp. For the past two decades, the emergence of the Internet and cyberspace has led to the largest sustained global expansion of knowledge, rights, and freedoms. Over a third of all humanity is connected to the Internet, and there are almost as many cell phones in circulation globally there are people. Significantly, we are now seeing the coming-of-age of the “digital natives” who have grown up knowing only a connected world. Two-thirds of those currently accessing cyberspace are under the age of 25, and over 80% use at least one form of social media.

But the numbers do not do justice to the social significance of this expansion. This revolution is so pervasive and so all encompassing that it's difficult to see just how fundamentally it has changed the exercise of individual human rights, how much it has added to the cause of basic freedoms, and the ability of all peoples - no matter how small - to make their voices heard. We need not look further than the Color Revolutions of the Commonwealth of Independent States, or the recent Arab Spring, to witness the extraordinary power of the networked social movements.
But the tectonic plates of cyberspace are also shifting. The US - once the heartland of the Internet - now makes up approximately 13% of the global Internet connected population. Europe and the US together constitute approximately 40%. The center of gravity is fast shifting to the South and East. The consequences of the shift are of direct relevance to today's proceedings.

A Digital Curtain is descending across the globe that threatens to reverse the gains made possible through the emergence of the global commons of cyberspace. Just over half of the world's Internet-connected population live under one form on-line restriction or another, and that number is fast rising. Since 2003, when we first documented the emergence of the “Great Firewall” of China, more than 45 states worldwide have adopted similar means for turning the Internet from a global commons into a gated community.

Eurasia, and in particular the states of the former Soviet Union, are a petri dish of experimentation in new forms of online repression that deprive citizens of the means to demand transparency from their leaders, accountability from their governments, and the right to seek social and political change.

These new forms of restrictions, which we have documented as second and third generation controls, leverage the ability of governments to create restrictive legal environments that attempt to enforce self-censorship through fear of punishment. They also include the application of sophisticated technical means, just-in-time blocking, disrupting access to critical information resources at times when they are most needed, sowing disinformation, and otherwise manipulating information flows – as well as the use of targeted online attacks, denial of service, injecting false content, and sophisticated information operations turned inwards at the domestic populations. These controls are pervasive, but also applied selectively, such as during elections, in order to discredit legitimate opposition groups and deprive them of the right to free and unfettered speech.

In Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Russia, and notably in Belarus, these techniques have been used with great success to silence opposition groups, driving them and their followers offline. In fact, the Internet is subject to some form of control in all post-Soviet states. Indeed, the mechanisms for control are getting deeper and more coordinated through regional bodies such as the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, and the Collective Security Treaty Organization, as well as via bilateral cooperation between governments and their security services.

Tragically, perhaps, we are complicit in this growing trend towards authoritarianism. Our own fears of cyber insecurity and terrorism make it easier for others to appropriate these terms to justify political repression.

The label "terrorists” can be applied to anyone inconveniently opposed to the political status quo; and calls for changing the Internet, introducing greater security, and the ability to identify users - helpful in tracking down hackers and cyber criminals - find their place in the arsenal of repressive regimes as a means of selectively prosecuting human rights activists, journalists, or anyone seeking to struggle for social and political reform.

Our emphasis on harmonizing laws on cybercrime and seeking global solutions to cyber security paradoxically makes it difficult to assert and demand respect for freedom of expression and access to information online.

And security is not the only means by which rights can be suppressed. Net neutrality, copyright enforcement, and the empowerment of telecommunications carriers to "clean pipes" are convenient means for regimes with less than Democratic tendencies to offload and outsource policing and ultimately repression.

There are no simple solutions to these challenges, only difficult trade-offs. To paraphrase the words of the immortal Pogo, "we have met the enemy and he is at least partially us."
So what is to be done?

Future historians will look back at this time and see it as a constitutive moment. Before us are some hard choices - but also clear norms and ideals that have been core to the Euro Atlantic alliance over the past 50 years, and part of our shared cultural and historical heritage.
Leadership comes from the courage to make the hard decisions in pursuit of a greater common good. In this respect, a commitment to an open global commons of cyberspace is by far the most important far-reaching objective for the US and its like-minded partners worldwide to support.
Security is an important obligation of the state, but must be balanced against preserving the right to dissent, communicate, and act online - even if it comes at some costs. This is especially true as the new generation of digital natives find their own voice in the online world. New forms of protest, whether they come in the form of making public confidential information, as in the case of Wikileaks, or “hacktavism” as has been exercised by LulzSec and Anonymous, may be the necessary friction for preserving a global norm that enshrines the right to seek and access information. We carefully adjust our own laws to accommodate some of the new forms of dissent that will emerge. Is there a difference between picketing an employer during a labor dispute, and making his website and Internet systems inaccessible through a denial of service attack? These are important questions and we must pause before we consider how to address them, as the rules we apply will have repercussions well beyond their own borders. In a global world, there is no such thing as a purely domestic policy.

In specific terms, at the highest level this Commission should encourage our European partners to remain committed to a global commons of cyberspace.

- Calls such as those put forward by some members of the UN to end the multi-stakeholder engagement on the governance cyberspace should be strongly resisted.
- Pressure should be applied through bilateral agreements, as well as by organizations such as the WTO to ensure that restricted access to content is also framed as a trade issue, with consequences and sanctions against countries pursuing these practices.
- Access to an uncensored Internet should become a basic measure of freedom and democratic progress, and should be made a condition for recipients of preferential US trade relationships or development assistance;
- Access to political content via the Internet should become a central component of monitoring the freedom and fairness of national elections - as important as the right to assembly, and balloting.

Preserving the global Internet commons will not be easy, but the costs of not doing so are greater. The rise of new superpowers in the East is occurring just as the tectonic plates of cyberspace are shifting to the same region.

The historical moment in which we live and which have expanded the means for human expression made possible a quest for knowledge, and an ability to network and act on a planetary scale – which risks becoming a fading chapter in the future where the same technologies enable surveillance societies that far exceed those which George Orwell's 1984 could imagine.

The future is ours to lose, and as in those March days of 1946 when Churchill warned of the Iron Curtain, now is the time for us to courageously make choices so that our constitutive moment - the future of Cyberspace – furthers, rather than constrains, the universal values of dignity, freedom, and the right to choose.

Flatland and the 4th dimension

2011-07-25T08:25:00.001-04:00

Open Science

2011-07-20T11:48:00.001-04:00

Cell phones and Cancer: the truth

2011-07-18T15:56:00.000-04:00

Oooh, the Schadenfreude...

2011-07-08T15:00:00.000-04:00

Decline and fall of the Murdoch Empire?

The headlines are happening so fast that it’s nigh impossible to get a comprehensive reading of the situation. One thing seems clear, though – Rupert Murdoch is in deep, deep trouble. The News of the World phone-hacking scandal seems to have exposed a weakness in the media mogul’s formerly impenetrable defences, and all his old enemies will now be gathering for the kill

I'll have to think about it...

2011-07-06T11:53:00.000-04:00

TED's Chris Anderson Proposes New Rules for Email

2011-07-05T12:16:00.001-04:00

1. Respect Recipients' Time
This is the fundamental rule. As the message sender, the onus is on YOU to minimize the time your email will take to process. Even if it means taking more time at your end before sending.

2. Short or Slow is not Rude
Let's mutually agree to cut each other some slack. Given the email load we're all facing, it's OK if replies take a while coming and if they don't give detailed responses to all your questions. No one wants to come over as brusque, so please don't take it personally. We just want our lives back!

3. Celebrate Clarity
Start with a subject line that clearly labels the topic, and maybe includes a status category [Info], [Action], [Time Sens] [Low Priority]. Use crisp, muddle-free sentences. If the email has to be longer than five sentences, make sure the first provides the basic reason for writing. Avoid strange fonts and colors.

4. Quash Open-Ended Questions
It is asking a lot to send someone an email with four long paragraphs of turgid text followed by "Thoughts?". Even well-intended-but-open questions like "How can I help?" may not be that helpful. Email generosity requires simplifying, easy-to-answer questions. "Can I help best by a) calling b) visiting or c) staying right out of it?!"

5. Slash Surplus cc's
cc's are like mating bunnies. For every recipient you add, you are dramatically multiplying total response time. Not to be done lightly! When there are multiple recipients, please don't default to 'Reply All'. Maybe you only need to cc a couple of people on the original thread. Or none.

6. Tighten the Thread
Some emails depend for their meaning on context. Which means it's usually right to include the thread being responded to. But it's rare that a thread should extend to more than 3 emails. Before sending, cut what's not relevant. Or consider making a phone call instead.

7. Attack Attachments
Don't use graphics files as logos or signatures that appear as attachments. Time is wasted trying to see if there's something to open. Even worse is sending text as an attachment when it could have been included in the body of the email.

8. Give these Gifts: EOM NNTR
If your email message can be expressed in half a dozen words, just put it in the subject line, followed by EOM (= End of Message). This saves the recipient having to actually open the message. Ending a note with "No need to respond" or NNTR, is a wonderful act of generosity. Many acronyms confuse as much as help, but these two are golden and deserve wide adoption.

9. Cut Contentless Responses
You don't need to reply to every email, especially not those that are themselves clear responses. An email saying "Thanks for your note. I'm in." does not need you to reply "Great." That just cost someone another 30 seconds.

10. Disconnect!
If we all agreed to spend less time doing email, we'd all get less email! Consider calendaring half-days at work where you can't go online. Or a commitment to email-free weekends. Or an 'auto-response' that references this charter. And don't forget to smell the roses.

Aaron O'Connell: Making sense of a visible quantum object

2011-06-28T12:48:00.002-04:00

Stewart and Wallace

2011-06-21T21:37:00.002-04:00

Cool idea

2011-06-21T12:49:00.000-04:00

Donate to Miles for Burma

2011-06-19T18:36:00.001-04:00

Mark Gallardo's Miles for Burma

Crazy Nastyass Honey Badger

2011-06-18T21:59:00.000-04:00

CERN Scientists Trap Antimatter for Almost 17 Minutes

2011-06-13T15:42:00.000-04:00

kinda cool, but the bit about how antimatter annihilates matter makes me worried about the future uses of thses types of experiments.

I also thought the 'ultimate question' was something like: why are we here? But no, apparently it isn't:

"In doing so, scientists hope to start working their way toward an answer to the ultimate question: Why nature favored matter over antimatter at the creation of the universe, even though the two should have been fashioned in equal amounts (and subsequently annihilated each other, we suppose)."

Pretty boring ultimate question. 42. Done.

avoiding the master switch

2011-06-12T12:21:00.000-04:00

U.S. Underwrites Internet Detour Around Censors

Cranky old man

2011-06-10T12:52:00.002-04:00

More Lessig

2011-06-01T15:20:00.004-04:00

The Architecture of Access to Scientific Knowledge from lessig on Vimeo.

Long but good.

Open from lessig on Vimeo.

The Internet in Society: Empowering or Censoring Citizens?

2011-05-30T16:17:00.002-04:00

interesting, but why do we have to answer one or the other?

Lessig gives good speeches.

2011-05-27T19:27:00.002-04:00

Keynote - e-G8 from lessig on Vimeo.

Its okey to be Takei

2011-05-20T12:14:00.001-04:00

Internet bubbles

2011-05-15T11:12:00.001-04:00

Open-sourced blueprints for civilization

2011-05-04T09:27:00.000-04:00

Reinventing education

2011-05-03T12:09:00.002-04:00

Conservative Majority

2011-05-03T09:44:00.000-04:00

Big changes up north. Conservatives win a majority (167 seats). The Liberals reduced to almost nothing (34 seats, and the NDP becomes, for the first time, the official opposition winning second place with 102 seats. Finally, the Quebec successionist party, the Bloc Quebecois, loses big time down to only 4 seats. It is a dramatic realgnment, indeed.

Is Sugar toxic?

2011-05-03T09:23:00.001-04:00

Here is a nice NYTs article on the Lustig talk shown below that I forgot to link to.

(and here is a rebuttle: Sugar isn't evil)

From the NYT piece:

Refined sugar (that is, sucrose) is made up of a molecule of the carbohydrate glucose, bonded to a molecule of the carbohydrate fructose — a 50-50 mixture of the two. The fructose, which is almost twice as sweet as glucose, is what distinguishes sugar from other carbohydrate-rich foods like bread or potatoes that break down upon digestion to glucose alone. The more fructose in a substance, the sweeter it will be. High-fructose corn syrup, as it is most commonly consumed, is 55 percent fructose, and the remaining 45 percent is nearly all glucose. It was first marketed in the late 1970s and was created to be indistinguishable from refined sugar when used in soft drinks. Because each of these sugars ends up as glucose and fructose in our guts, our bodies react the same way to both, and the physiological effects are identical. In a 2010 review of the relevant science, Luc Tappy, a researcher at the University of Lausanne in Switzerland who is considered by biochemists who study fructose to be the world’s foremost authority on the subject, said there was “not the single hint” that H.F.C.S. was more deleterious than other sources of sugar.

The question, then, isn’t whether high-fructose corn syrup is worse than sugar; it’s what do they do to us, and how do they do it? The conventional wisdom has long been that the worst that can be said about sugars of any kind is that they cause tooth decay and represent “empty calories” that we eat in excess because they taste so good.

...

Lustig’s argument, however, is not about the consumption of empty calories — and biochemists have made the same case previously, though not so publicly. It is that sugar has unique characteristics, specifically in the way the human body metabolizes the fructose in it, that may make it singularly harmful, at least if consumed in sufficient quantities.

The phrase Lustig uses when he describes this concept is “isocaloric but not isometabolic.” This means we can eat 100 calories of glucose (from a potato or bread or other starch) or 100 calories of sugar (half glucose and half fructose), and they will be metabolized differently and have a different effect on the body. The calories are the same, but the metabolic consequences are quite different.

The fructose component of sugar and H.F.C.S. is metabolized primarily by the liver, while the glucose from sugar and starches is metabolized by every cell in the body. Consuming sugar (fructose and glucose) means more work for the liver than if you consumed the same number of calories of starch (glucose). And if you take that sugar in liquid form — soda or fruit juices — the fructose and glucose will hit the liver more quickly than if you consume them, say, in an apple (or several apples, to get what researchers would call the equivalent dose of sugar). The speed with which the liver has to do its work will also affect how it metabolizes the fructose and glucose.

In animals, or at least in laboratory rats and mice, it’s clear that if the fructose hits the liver in sufficient quantity and with sufficient speed, the liver will convert much of it to fat. This apparently induces a condition known as insulin resistance, which is now considered the fundamental problem in obesity, and the underlying defect in heart disease and in the type of diabetes, type 2, that is common to obese and overweight individuals. It might also be the underlying defect in many cancers.

If what happens in laboratory rodents also happens in humans, and if we are eating enough sugar to make it happen, then we are in trouble.

President Obama at the 2011 White House Correspondents' Dinner

2011-05-01T14:08:00.002-04:00

Open science

2011-04-28T16:56:00.003-04:00

Fructose is not your friend

2011-04-17T21:42:00.003-04:00

I recommend watching this even though it is over an hour...

My favorite quote: "in life you have two choices, either fat or fart."

Rebels Hijack Gadhafi's Phone Network

2011-04-14T04:02:00.002-04:00

Could be a game changer

The art of choosing

2011-04-04T17:10:00.002-04:00

Birith of a word, and amazing data visualization

2011-04-04T08:56:00.000-04:00

Nuclear boy

2011-03-18T10:27:00.000-04:00

Car talk and vagina havers

2011-03-17T19:06:00.003-04:00

OpWisconsin

2011-03-16T09:06:00.001-04:00

Anonymous to take on the Koch brothers.

Dear Citizens of the United States of America,

It has come to our attention that the brothers, David and Charles Koch--the billionaire owners of Koch Industries--have long attempted to usurp American Democracy. Their actions to undermine the legitimate political process in Wisconsin are the final straw. Starting today we fight back.

Scientific evidence for popular health supplements

2011-03-10T16:15:00.002-05:00

LSE turmoil

2011-03-06T19:45:00.000-05:00

Not looking good for the LSE. The president has resigned to protect the school's reputation after accepting Libyan donations... and Gaddafi's son's 2007 phd from there looks to be plagarized. There is even a wiki set up for people to track instances of plagarism.

Hitler gets Netflix and hits the internet cap

2011-02-28T11:04:00.000-05:00

Clinton on Internet Freedom

2011-02-28T09:34:00.003-05:00

Another argument as to the impact of social media: The Political Power of Social Media

Summary: Discussion of the political impact of social media has focused on the power of mass protests to topple governments. In fact, social media's real potential lies in supporting civil society and the public sphere -- which will produce change over years and decades, not weeks or months.

It is good to be the king

2011-02-27T12:14:00.003-05:00

How very Darwinian of them. Annoying that they totally miss that this is for a large part a product of federal policy -- it isn't this way in every country.

My Blackberry isn't working

2011-02-13T11:32:00.001-05:00

Why'd a Battle-Ready Mubarak Turn Egypt's Internet Back On?

2011-02-03T09:29:00.000-05:00

I buy the "cutting off a modern society from the modern communications, organizing, and commerce network that his the modern Internet was simply going out step too far" hypothesis.

Egypt severs internet connection amid growing unrest

2011-01-29T09:24:00.002-05:00

Internet connections across Egypt have been cut, as authorities geared up for a day of mass protest.

According to Reuters, there are at least 74 dead, and over 1,000 injured.

In Alexandria, Protesters Rout the Police, for Now

In a sign of flagging resolve, the police began to retreat and then stopped fighting entirely. It was unclear whether this was an ordered police retreat or a spontaneous, and disorganized, reaction to the situation.

After the two-hour street battle ended, protesters and police officers shook hands on the same street corner where minutes before they were exchanging volleys of stones, and tear-gas canisters were arcing through the sky.

Riot police officers and kaffiyeh-wearing youths smiled and shared water bottles as piles of tires still burned. Then thousands lined the coastal road, the gentle green waves of the Mediterranean Sea at their backs, as they got on their knees and prayed.

Such were the incongruities on a day that began quietly as always on Friday, the Muslim holy day, but soon gave way to the unrest and tensions gripping much of the country.

How Meditation May Change the Brain

2011-01-29T09:09:00.000-05:00

How Meditation May Change the Brain

Tunisami?

2011-01-26T17:23:00.000-05:00

Egypt update, January 25

Protests in Egypt and unrest in Middle East – as it happened

WikiLeaks: Why It Matters. Why It Doesn't?

2011-01-26T13:20:00.000-05:00

Suzuki's Top 10 Sustainable Seafood Pick

2011-01-25T12:22:00.000-05:00

David Suzuki, that is. You have to be at least almost Canadian to know who he is. pdf guide here

Sablefish

Ask for: Sablefish from the Canadian Pacific or Alaska that are trap and bottom longline caught.

Avoid: Trawl caught sablefish, or those caught in California, Oregon or Washington using bottom longline. More »

Farmed Oysters

Ask for: Oysters farmed anywhere worldwide in a suspended culture system.

Avoid: Wild oysters that are caught by scallop dredge or tonging. More »

Spot Prawns

Ask for: Prawns caught in the Canadian Pacific by trap.

Avoid: Spot prawns caught in the U.S. or other species of prawns such as tiger prawns. More »

Sardines

Ask for: Sardines from Canadian and U.S. Pacific that are purse seine caught.

Avoid: Sardines from Atlantic U.S. caught by mid-water trawl or purse seine More »

Albacore Tuna

Ask for: Albacore tuna caught by troll/pole from Canadian and US Pacific waters.

Avoid: Albacore tuna caught by pelagic longline.More »

Closed Containment Farmed Salmon

Ask for: Farmed salmon raised with closed containment technology.

Avoid: Farmed salmon raised in open net pens.More »

Swordfish — Harpoon

Ask for: Swordfish from Canada and the U.S. that is harpoon or handline caught.

Avoid: Swordfish harvested with unsustainable gear types like pelagic longline or harpoon/handline, from the Mediterranean, Indian Ocean, International Atlantic or International Pacific regions. More »

Farmed Clams

Ask for: Clams farmed worldwide, or wild soft shell clams from the U.S. that are handraked. More »

Dungeness Crab

Ask for: Dungeness crab trap caught in Canada, California, Oregon and Washington.

Avoid: Dungeness crab trap caught in Alaska or Atlantic Dungeness crab. More »

Pacific Cod

Ask for: Cod caught in Alaska by bottom longline, jig or trap.

Avoid: Cod from Atlantic or Pacific waters, other than Alaska. More »

Hell freezes

2011-01-24T07:30:00.002-05:00

This is probably one of the first times I ever almost totally agree with Mr. Brooks.

Amy Chua is a Wimp

WikiLeaks has caused little lasting damage

2011-01-19T15:48:00.002-05:00

says US state department - Claims mean official stance of White House over leaked US embassy cables contradicts that of the state department

one minute on le facebook

2011-01-17T08:28:00.001-05:00

The truth wears off

2011-01-14T10:35:00.002-05:00

Is there something wrong with the scientific method?

Could It Be?

2011-01-10T13:55:00.002-05:00

Spooky Experiments That 'See' The Future

Where good ideas come from

2011-01-10T13:48:00.001-05:00

The power of intent

2011-01-07T08:52:00.002-05:00

Princeton University scientists believe that the human mind can influence machines.

Puppet McCain

2011-01-06T21:19:00.002-05:00

What if WikiLeaks' Dream of an Open Society Came True?

2011-01-03T15:03:00.000-05:00

Apparently Sweeden is almost there

Brain thickness determines political leaning

2010-12-29T10:38:00.000-05:00

Neuroscientists are examining whether political allegiances are hard-wired into people after finding evidence that the brains of conservatives are a different shape to those of left-wingers.

Self-proclaimed right-wingers had a more pronounced amygdala - a primitive part of the brain associated with emotion while their political opponents from the opposite end of the spectrum had thicker anterior cingulates.