tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33932062011-04-21T16:53:14.022-07:00Wild Green YonderLooking for a shiny new-green future.
<br>
Mail to wildgreenie (a t) yahoo.com. <br>
<br>
<b>I'm in:<br>
OAKLAND, CA<br>
</b>
<br>
<br>
<i>What's this book about, anyways, and who the hell is Alex Steffen?</i> [link coming sometime later, if ever]
<b>New site:</b>
<br>
<a href="http://www.worldchanging.com/">WorldChanging</a>Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11068729657969553502noreply@blogger.comBlogger2151100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3393206.post-1096677702355063892004-10-01T17:41:00.000-07:002004-10-01T17:41:42.356-07:00A few of my recent favorites:
Bruce Sterling on the UN, Bright Green Living Wiki, Network Advocacy, Bright Green Funding, Network-Centric Thinking and NGOs, Bright Young Greens, Technology and the Developing World, Leapfrog, Tech and India.Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11068729657969553502noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3393206.post-1092846969358470842004-08-18T09:33:00.000-07:002004-08-18T09:36:09.360-07:00sequencing the planet
worldchanging art
freeze your head futurismAlexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11068729657969553502noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3393206.post-1092455028242160022004-08-13T20:37:00.000-07:002004-08-13T20:43:48.243-07:00climate foresight
Making Room for the Third World in the Second Superpower
energy independence
open source conservation
barefoot solar engineersAlexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11068729657969553502noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3393206.post-1085083164772265662004-05-20T12:58:00.000-07:002004-05-20T12:59:24.773-07:00More Day After Tomorrow debate...Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11068729657969553502noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3393206.post-1084298718844271372004-05-11T11:04:00.000-07:002004-05-11T11:05:18.843-07:00some more stories I want to keep track of
Environment blog?
the day after tomorrow
biophilia architecture
beyond sustainability
green futurism
worldchanging scenarios
open the future
green nanotechAlexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11068729657969553502noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3393206.post-1083736139683331502004-05-04T22:37:00.000-07:002004-05-04T22:52:11.140-07:00Way New Urbanism
Green Biotechnology
Lula's Brazil
Fome Zero
Neobiological Design
Nature and Technology
Circular Mills
Titanic or Shuttle
LEDs
Brazilian Telecentros
Smart Breeding and Green Biotech
Biomimicry
ThinkCycleAlexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11068729657969553502noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3393206.post-1083735436179408722004-05-04T22:36:00.000-07:002004-05-04T22:40:27.750-07:00The transcommercial enterpriseAlexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11068729657969553502noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3393206.post-1080528781170029632004-03-28T18:50:00.000-08:002004-03-28T18:55:35.140-08:00So, I'm almost never updating this site, but if you're interested in tools to change the world you know where to head.Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11068729657969553502noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3393206.post-1071017018165631092003-12-09T16:43:00.000-08:002003-12-09T16:44:22.590-08:00Redistributing the future... open source and the developing world.Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11068729657969553502noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3393206.post-1070361804777860532003-12-02T02:43:00.000-08:002003-12-02T02:44:01.780-08:00Open Source Biotech
One way to change the world: Universal Jurisdiction
neo-biological designAlexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11068729657969553502noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3393206.post-1070067126570620402003-11-28T16:52:00.000-08:002003-11-28T16:52:40.110-08:00bruce sterling's comments on worldchangingAlexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11068729657969553502noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3393206.post-1070064921623497482003-11-28T16:15:00.000-08:002003-11-28T16:15:55.623-08:00a piece I wrote on transcommercial enterprises and the future of business....Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11068729657969553502noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3393206.post-1069408265303033102003-11-21T01:51:00.000-08:002003-11-21T01:51:32.013-08:00a piece I wrote on the tech bloom
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/149006_techbloom20.htmlAlexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11068729657969553502noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3393206.post-1069296077352676992003-11-19T18:41:00.000-08:002003-11-19T18:41:42.293-08:00Great notices for World Changing!
http://blog.wired.com/sterling/
http://www.viridiandesign.org/notes/351-400/00391_another_world_is_here.htmlAlexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11068729657969553502noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3393206.post-1067454483597702942003-10-29T11:08:00.000-08:002003-10-29T11:08:02.943-08:00I've moved my blogging over to WorldChanging. I'll continue to leave this up as an archive, but come check out what we're doing over there.Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11068729657969553502noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3393206.post-1065633706507219232003-10-08T10:21:00.000-07:002003-10-08T10:36:31.726-07:00THANKS
by W.S. Merwin
Listen
with the night falling we are saying thank you
we are stopping on the bridges to bow from the railings
we are running out of the glass rooms
with our mouths full of food to look at the sky
and say thank you
we are standing by the water thanking it
smiling by the windows looking out
in different directions
back from a series of hospitals back from a mugging
after Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11068729657969553502noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3393206.post-1065207748635371282003-10-03T12:02:00.000-07:002003-10-03T12:02:28.723-07:00Propaganda Works, Study Shows
Just in case any of us have any doubts that media consolidation has a direct impact on politics, here's a solid study showing that the War in Iraq was overwhelming supported by those who held three key mistaken beliefs (that WMDs were known to exist in Iraq; that there was evidence linking Saddam Hussein to the 9/11 terrorists; and that folks in the rest of the worldAlexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11068729657969553502noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3393206.post-1063763699491855242003-09-16T18:54:00.000-07:002003-09-16T18:54:59.936-07:00Seven Short Memes About One Thing
So, every day it seems more apparent that the various folks out there discussing the social singularity, the second superpower, the sixth estate, emergent democracy, napster society/ P2P society/ death of scarcity, "anarchism triumphant" and the global generation are all talking about different parts of the same moving elephant.
But what does the elephant as a Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11068729657969553502noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3393206.post-1063478910382045602003-09-13T11:48:00.000-07:002003-09-13T11:48:30.390-07:00The Real Cost
This has been linked to everywhere, but these pictures of the international responses to 9-11 is one of the true measures of how deeply incompetent and morally wrong this Administration is. For during a window of time, the world was united with us in our shock and grief. A real leader might have used that window to create momentum for actually solving the world's problems. Ours Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11068729657969553502noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3393206.post-1063477917838996952003-09-13T11:31:00.000-07:002003-09-13T11:31:57.850-07:00RIP, Mr. Cash
Well you wonder why I always dress in black
Why you never see bright colors on my back
And why does my appearance seem to have a somber tone
Well there's a reason for the things that I have on
I wear the black for the poor and the beaten down
Livin' in the hopeless hungry side of town
I wear it for the prisoner who has long paid for his crime
But is there because he's a victim of Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11068729657969553502noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3393206.post-1061671564077257272003-08-23T13:46:00.000-07:002003-08-23T13:49:07.406-07:00Go Organic - With Your Solar Cells
Dutch designers have come up with "Nanocrystalline dye sensitized Solar Cells," which have the potential to not only greatly reduce the cost of solar photovoltaics, but make their manufacture much more benign. This is soooo cool.
"The dye-sensitized solar cell replicates the most important principles of its prototype, photosynthesis. Due to its simple Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11068729657969553502noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3393206.post-1061225659134601562003-08-18T09:54:00.000-07:002003-08-18T12:10:56.073-07:00Costly in Blood and Treasure
The Daily Kos has a biting post today on the costs of war, at home and abroad, to which I added the following comment, which has since been getting picked up elsewhere:
So, let me see if I've got this right:
1) we have the worst budget deficits in our nation's history;
2) our national infrastructure is crumbling, social safety nets for the old, young and veterans Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11068729657969553502noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3393206.post-1061223545930817392003-08-18T09:19:00.000-07:002003-08-18T09:42:58.296-07:00Army of One
Every soft-bellied bully from our chicken-hawk right-wing should have to watch and answer this Take Back the Media animation. While conservative talk-jocks have been shrilling at this war's critics for "not supporting the troops" this Administration has turned, in the words of a major veterans' group, "the armed services into a superb machine for the creation of poverty," cutting VA Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11068729657969553502noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3393206.post-1061221168716762342003-08-18T08:39:00.000-07:002003-08-18T08:39:28.666-07:00Oh the Anomie! Oh the Tedium! Oh, ho, it's a writer's life for me!
Charlie Stross (who is, btw, the man) lays it all out for the folks at home here:
"I'm in the second and final edit pass through that goddamn novel, and there is absolutely nothing on the web with which I can distract myself. Baah. Near as I can figure I've got a 500-word glue scene to write (to replace the scene I wheeked out ofAlexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11068729657969553502noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3393206.post-1061178207123997102003-08-17T20:43:00.000-07:002003-08-17T21:01:57.323-07:00Barking Crickets kick ass!
This sustainable design portal made me jump out of my chair and throw my arms up, shouting "Yes!" It is, simply put, the best collection of links I've ever seen for tools, techniques and practices for our mission of recrafting this drab, ruined future we've been handed into something rich, strangely irresistable, and deeply sustainable. Jumpin' Jesus on a hotplate this Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11068729657969553502noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3393206.post-1060878544719638592003-08-14T09:29:00.000-07:002003-08-14T09:33:37.910-07:00Is California's Recall the Beginning, or the Beginning of the End?
Republicans are not-very-quietly crowing about how California's gubernatorial recall vote is the beginning of a wave of Republican political domination that'll last decades. Others are not so sure that recall will actually pass, or that Schwarzenegger can actually win.
While it's illuminating - and amusing, if one has a sardonic Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11068729657969553502noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3393206.post-1060721341909688972003-08-12T13:49:00.000-07:002003-08-12T13:49:01.810-07:00The Universe, a weirder place than we ever thought, part 493:
"By studying the mysterious properties of black holes, physicists have deduced absolute limits on how much information a region of space or a quantity of matter and energy can hold. Related results suggest that our universe, which we perceive to have three spatial dimensions, might instead be "written" on a two-dimensional surface, Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11068729657969553502noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3393206.post-1060712736803640572003-08-12T11:25:00.000-07:002003-08-12T11:25:36.816-07:00Ready to do the Gaia Hypothesis one better? Step up to the Selfish Biocosm hypothesis:
"Gardner's hypothesis is called the "Selfish Biocosm." It states that intelligent life plays a key role in a cosmological cycle whereby the universe, over enormous timescales, creates new copies of itself. The laws of physics, in this view, strongly favor the emergence of life and intelligence -- and indeed Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11068729657969553502noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3393206.post-1060545716559448312003-08-10T13:01:00.000-07:002003-08-10T13:01:56.446-07:00"Graft, which is like a leech, draining the blood of all civic virtue..."
Great NYT piece on corruption around the world, why it's hard to fight, and what can be done about it:
• The most corrupt nations are indeed poor ones, but grand corruption can be found everywhere: illicit deals between top officials and big business have brought down governments in Japan and Europe. Money distorts Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11068729657969553502noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3393206.post-1060310795921236092003-08-07T19:46:00.000-07:002003-08-07T19:47:33.213-07:00Remember Afghanistan?
My friend and land-partner Melody Ermachild Chavis is on tour for her new book, Meena, Heroine of Afghanistan, which is about the founder of RAWA, the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan, which has got to be about the toughest, most bad-ass women's rights group in the world. Melody's a terrific writer. If you're around when she's in town, do yourself the Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11068729657969553502noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3393206.post-1060310256739784092003-08-07T19:37:00.000-07:002003-08-07T19:39:06.620-07:00I wrote the following this morning in a fit. Don't pay it too much attention:
Three-ring circus. Carnival. Ship of fools. Inmates running the asylum. Yes, it's suddenly election season again in California, and the national press is on a bender, writing stories about how goofy those Left-Coasters are. And the coming vote on whether to recall Governor Gray Davis is weird, and crazy, and worth Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11068729657969553502noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3393206.post-1060120912824366252003-08-05T15:01:00.000-07:002003-08-05T15:02:32.050-07:00Speaking of the Strange and Funny
Skot may be one of the funniest bloggers alive... well, maybe not quite alive, but still writing at least:
My Bother, The Car
All right. It was time to stop jerking around. This car thing had gone far enough. I was going to fix things one way or another. I grabbed some stuff at the bookstore and walked up to the moribund little pile of shit.
I was calm. I wasAlexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11068729657969553502noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3393206.post-1060117079693834622003-08-05T13:57:00.000-07:002003-08-05T13:57:59.580-07:00Radio Free Left Coast
For those of you with Pacifica stations in the hood, I'll be making my fifth appearance on Caroline Casey's Visionary Activism show on KPFA 94.1 this Thursday at 2:00 pm PacTime. It's far-out, eccentric and currently my favorite news program on the air. Check it out.Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11068729657969553502noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3393206.post-1060116545187125922003-08-05T13:49:00.000-07:002003-08-05T13:49:05.106-07:00Ask Dr. Hal!
When I was living in the Mission, going to see Hal Robins perform his zany and brilliant "Ask Dr. Hal" show was frequently one of the highlights of my week. Now SF Weekly has done a pretty good profile of him and his work. Few artists more deserve the press. I can't wait to see him being dragged around the playa on a lifesize replica of a pirate ship, reciting the Rime of the Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11068729657969553502noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3393206.post-1059075238678379512003-07-24T12:33:00.000-07:002003-07-24T12:33:58.693-07:00Fear and Loathing and the Bush Administration
Hunter S. Thompson has risen, and is staggering around, ranting prophetic:
When I went into the clinic last April 30, George Bush was about 50 points ahead of his closest Democratic opponent in next year's Presidential Election. When I finally escaped from the horrible place, less than three weeks late, Bush's job-approval ratings had been cut in Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11068729657969553502noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3393206.post-1058299371894066462003-07-15T13:02:00.000-07:002003-07-15T13:03:04.290-07:00Aula's Third Place for the 21st Century
I know the Aula co-op is kind of old news for those wired into the Smart Mobs idea, but I just saw the design prospectus and photos they've posted online.
The place is a co-op for members, a semi-private third place where you can go to sit together with others at the long coffee table, crash on the futons to read a book, use the meeting room and copy Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11068729657969553502noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3393206.post-1057684978818961292003-07-08T10:22:00.000-07:002003-07-08T10:22:58.813-07:00Back from Humboldt. Too many projects, potential projects and biz details to post much, but here are some tasty bits:
Clay Shirky is on a roll. Clay thinks about social software networks, how they grow, what they mean, how they act. Cory Doctorow took notes at his latest talk at the Supernova conference. Clay's point? That American telecommunication corporations have become for us what Minitel Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11068729657969553502noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3393206.post-1057191150267983462003-07-02T17:12:00.000-07:002003-07-02T17:12:30.276-07:00My friend Caroline said the other day, quoting someone, that the bigger the island on knowledge becomes, the faster the shoreline of wonder grows.
This forty-foot long sea blob, a previously unknown species just stretched out my shoreline of wonder like saltwaterAlexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11068729657969553502noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3393206.post-1056597454492839922003-06-25T20:17:00.000-07:002003-06-25T20:17:34.546-07:00As many of you know, last winter I guest-edited an issue of Whole Earth review - what was to be their Spring issue. Unfortunately, Whole Earth has hit some hard times, and they're still trying to finish raising the money to publish that issue. As part of an appeal for subscriptions and donations, though, they've put up a selection of pieces from the issue
The issue explores the idea of the Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11068729657969553502noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3393206.post-947455752003-05-22T10:19:00.000-07:002003-05-27T20:52:36.000-07:00this freaks my shizz out
scientists in germany have combined long-term studies of female beauty with software that morphs and combines pictures to generate new faces to come up with - in a very short time - a face with a perfect beauty score. she doesn't exist, but i think i have a crush on her.
bruce sterling writes that in the future everyone will possess "the anonymous beauty of the reshapedAlexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11068729657969553502noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3393206.post-945981832003-05-19T13:51:00.000-07:002003-05-19T13:51:23.600-07:00"Up to now, one of the fixed features over all recorded history has been human nature and human physique; human beings themselves haven't changed, even though our environment and technology has. In this century, human beings are going to change because of genetic engineering, because of targeted drugs, perhaps even because of implants into their brain to increase our mental capacity. Much that Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11068729657969553502noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3393206.post-945909262003-05-19T10:59:00.000-07:002003-05-19T11:29:03.000-07:00There'll be more news soon.
So, I'm reading Martin Rees (Not Our Final Hour, of which I have an advance copy and which I plan to review once I feel I have more new things to say about species-extinction-level threats) on the nature of the Universe, and how the very laws of nature probably vary from Universe to Universe and how rare a Universe that allows life, much less intelligent life, to Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11068729657969553502noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3393206.post-943115622003-05-13T22:28:00.000-07:002003-05-13T22:28:32.130-07:00"In broad strokes, there were hundreds of years after
Aristotle when
we didn't really understand a whole lot. Once Kepler,
Copernicus, and
Newton began explaining what they saw through math,
there was a great
era of understanding, through certain classes of math
problems that
could be solved. All the mathematics that let us
understand laws of
physics-Maxwell's equations, thermodynamics, on
Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11068729657969553502noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3393206.post-921965322003-04-07T20:42:00.000-07:002003-04-07T20:42:34.403-07:00 to resume blog, hit Alt +...
Nothing to see here, at least for a while.
I'm working on a new project, which, if it materializes, will bring with it a new page and such. More news by May 1st.Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11068729657969553502noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3393206.post-916886562003-03-30T21:15:00.000-08:002003-03-30T21:15:40.090-08:00Buffalo Commons, Anyone?
Largest wind farm to rise in Iowa:
"DES MOINES, Iowa, March 26 — A power company controlled by billionaire investor Warren Buffett said Tuesday it plans to build the largest land-based wind farm in the world across 200 acres of Iowa farm fields. The $323 million, 310-megawatt project, to be built by MidAmerican Energy Co., would have 180 to 200 turbines with the capacityAlexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11068729657969553502noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3393206.post-910755952003-03-20T11:33:00.000-08:002003-03-20T11:33:40.576-08:00War is Bad for Living Things, part XXXVII
New Scientist is reporting that the potential for an eco-catastrophe in Iraq is significant. Other sources are reporting worries that burning oil wells, oil spills, the release of raw sewage and industrial pollutants and the explosion of military ordinance could all cause real harm, especially to Iraq's fragile (and extremely damaged) marshes, which UNEP Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11068729657969553502noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3393206.post-910125752003-03-19T12:52:00.000-08:002003-03-19T12:52:04.123-08:00
There's some pretty crazy shit going on at CITRIS: Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society: unicomp being used to create super-energy-efficient buildings, monitor nesting seabirds (a use which gave me a jolt of present shock, being eerily reminiscent of the Ecosystem Game I speculated on in a Viridian Note a few years back), check buildings for hidden earthquake Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11068729657969553502noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3393206.post-908254122003-03-16T16:29:00.000-08:002003-03-16T16:29:22.890-08:00Thought these pieces might interest some of you:
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/03_12/b3825801.htm
Business Week:
"The U.S. has already lost the prewar battle over Iraq, whatever the outcome of a further U.N. vote. Even if it wins a fig-leaf majority vote in the Security Council, America will be entering its first preemptive war faced with opposition from nearly all of its alliesAlexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11068729657969553502noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3393206.post-907570962003-03-15T02:19:00.000-08:002003-03-15T02:19:20.483-08:00
This is pretty stunning. A Business Week editorial on BWThe High Price of Bad Diplomacy which makes many of the same points that many of us have been making about the dangers of the Bush Doctrine and unilateralism:
"The U.S. has already lost the prewar battle over Iraq, whatever the outcome of a further U.N. vote. Even if it wins a fig-leaf majority vote in the Security Council, America will beAlexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11068729657969553502noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3393206.post-905961402003-03-12T09:21:00.000-08:002003-03-12T09:21:14.996-08:00
A great NY Times piece on biotechnology, and how, while the pace is definitely quickening, we have to remember that the overall context is poorly understood:
...no cell ever grows from scratch from DNA in a test tube. Every cell that has ever existed arose from a cell that preceded it. Every cell on earth is part of a line of ancestry that traces from the very first primordial cell.
"People Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11068729657969553502noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3393206.post-905400972003-03-11T12:12:00.000-08:002003-03-11T12:12:57.326-08:00This is the kind of shit that makes me think we should secede
House cafeterias change names for 'french fries' and 'french toast' to 'feedom' fries and toast.Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11068729657969553502noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3393206.post-905333902003-03-11T10:06:00.000-08:002003-03-11T10:06:32.420-08:00And Toxic Sludge is Still Good for You
Disinfopedia is a collaborative, distributed, wiki-based, open-source-fueled encyclopedia of propaganda and disinformation, launched by John Stauber of PR watch. Cool.Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11068729657969553502noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3393206.post-901819442003-03-05T08:19:00.000-08:002003-03-05T08:19:08.890-08:00Elected Dictatorship
Charlie Stross makes some great comparisons between Thatcher and Bush II, warning that he has the capacity to permanently change the nature of American Democracy:
The leader comes from the major right-wing political party, but represents a right-wing faction within it rather than the party mainstream.
The leader and their coterie form a tightly-knit community, bound Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11068729657969553502noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3393206.post-901618492003-03-04T22:29:00.000-08:002003-03-04T22:29:58.546-08:00Eschscholzia Californica
My new place has a very nice backyard which leads down to a tree-shaded stream. It's peaceful, green and quiet. It could use some color, though. So today I made my first gardening purchase - a packet of California Poppy seeds.Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11068729657969553502noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3393206.post-900743492003-03-03T14:48:00.000-08:002003-03-03T14:48:52.340-08:00Speaks for Itself
U.S. Secession From Earth Nearly Complete. (from Electrolite)Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11068729657969553502noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3393206.post-898101632003-02-26T18:07:00.000-08:002003-02-26T18:07:59.106-08:00Pluckin' for Peace
This is pretty cool. Musicians from all over the Bay Area and in several other cities will be rocking out in public to protest the war. The jam's on Satyrday, from 1 - 2 pm. Start your own band! Make a joyful noise!Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11068729657969553502noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3393206.post-897864422003-02-26T10:32:00.000-08:002003-02-26T10:32:40.093-08:00My Planet, Right or Wrong
He overstates his case (saying, for instance, that "global democracy was born" at the protests on February 15th). Still, Johnathan Schell's column in this week's Nation is worth a read:
"When terrorists attacked the Pentagon and knocked down the World Trade Center on September 11, everyone marveled that nineteen men had coordinated their actions for evil with such Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11068729657969553502noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3393206.post-897279702003-02-25T11:41:00.000-08:002003-02-25T11:41:37.090-08:00Fast, Cheap and Beyond Authoritarian Control
Joichi Ito's essay on
Emergent Democracy is the latest piece in a puzzle that I've been seeing come together: a broad theory of how emergent, collaborative, distributed networks may be the most important tool we have to fix the dire problems facing the world.
This is not a perfect essay, but it's an important one:
"The world needs emergent democracy Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11068729657969553502noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3393206.post-896695842003-02-24T14:23:00.000-08:002003-02-24T14:23:50.140-08:00Let's Review
The largest protests in human history. (Great photos! Thanks Sue!)Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11068729657969553502noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3393206.post-896607212003-02-24T11:47:00.000-08:002003-02-24T11:47:10.716-08:00Three Books I Can't Say Enough Good Things About
In the last couple weeks I've read three books that cracked my foundation. So, so good.
The first is Geoff Dyer's Yoga for People Who Can't Be Bothered to Do It. Dyer, who also wrote the astoundingly good Out of Sheer Rage - the best book about not writing written in my lifetime - has crafted a wry, sharp, brilliant book about the years he spentAlexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11068729657969553502noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3393206.post-895861932003-02-22T22:11:00.000-08:002003-02-22T22:11:37.236-08:00Your Creativity Is Punishable By Law
This is really cool: an exhibit of illegal art.
"The laws governing "intellectual property" have grown so expansive in recent years that artists need legal experts to sort them all out. Borrowing from another artwork--as jazz musicians did in the 1930s and Looney Tunes illustrators did in 1940s--will now land you in court. If the current copyright laws had Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11068729657969553502noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3393206.post-895014912003-02-21T07:53:00.000-08:002003-02-21T07:53:29.030-08:00
The LA Weekly is running a terror piece this week: "If It Happened Here" (Nice title, editors, very reminiscent of the Red Scare). It's titilating reading, but sort of bullshit.
Let's repeat the basics: at current technologies, chemical and biological weapons are far less dangerous than nearly all of us have been lead to believe. You actually stand a very, very good chance of surviving an Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11068729657969553502noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3393206.post-894498202003-02-20T11:41:00.000-08:002003-02-20T11:41:17.240-08:00Davos Letter Starts Snowball
Omigod. This whole Laurie Garrett "smoking letter" thing is just too weird and fun.
Here's the story: Newsday journalist (and Pulitzer-prize-winning author of The Coming Plague) Laurie Garrett got invited to Davos, to the World Economic Forum. While there, she wrote a very interesting letter to her friends about how freaked the world's richest people are about our Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11068729657969553502noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3393206.post-894257662003-02-20T02:51:00.000-08:002003-02-20T12:03:41.000-08:00Weird
I've suddenly (in the last couple weeks) been getting a lot of requests to reprint this piece.(Go ahead, by the way). I wonder what's changed?Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11068729657969553502noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3393206.post-893859142003-02-19T12:38:00.000-08:002003-02-19T12:38:25.773-08:00Towards a Science of Cooperation
Howard Rheingold makes some terrific points here in this post on the Edge:
Because scientific propositions must be testable, and because questions of humanism versus science come down to how these ways of knowing affect our lives, I propose a test for the role of scientific understanding in human affairs: Can science improve life for most people alive today, and Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11068729657969553502noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3393206.post-893497062003-02-18T19:48:00.000-08:002003-02-18T19:48:41.080-08:00Solar cells in the shape of denim
Make no mistake: This new generation of solar photovoltaic materials will change the way we build and reshape our cities.Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11068729657969553502noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3393206.post-893489572003-02-18T19:36:00.000-08:002003-02-18T19:36:47.613-08:00New as the News
This is wild: a bunch of German writers swarming to produce a book together in 12 hours.Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11068729657969553502noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3393206.post-891919732003-02-16T09:17:00.000-08:002003-02-16T09:17:56.346-08:00The only thing we have to fear...
Gregg Easterbrook? Not one of my favorite writers. His essay The Smart Way to Be Scared, however, is terrific, at least to the extent that he reminds us that the risk of becoming a terrorism casualty is absurdly low. We're not all in mortal peril, folks. Chill. Breathe. Go to the protests. Let's restore some sanity to our Republic:
"The British and Germans used Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11068729657969553502noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3393206.post-890202872003-02-12T23:06:00.000-08:002003-02-12T23:06:52.996-08:00Dyson on the End Being Near
Freeman Dyson answers Bill Joy and reviews Michael Chrichton, whole performing various other acrobatic feats involving the history of arms control and Milton's Areopagitica, in his new essay, The Future Needs Us!Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11068729657969553502noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3393206.post-888863462003-02-10T18:17:00.000-08:002003-02-10T18:17:19.623-08:00The Rise and Fall of an Icon
GROVER IS BITTER, the story of Grover's hellish descent from Sesame Street stardom to the depths of alcoholism and depression. One of the funniest things I've read in ages.
(from bOINGbOING)Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11068729657969553502noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3393206.post-888736332003-02-10T14:15:00.000-08:002003-02-10T14:15:30.486-08:00Boredom is counterrevolutionary..Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11068729657969553502noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3393206.post-883202452003-01-31T02:51:00.000-08:002003-01-31T02:51:33.690-08:00The wild sloth chase
Here's the text of the original Wild Sloth Chase message. Sigh. As I move towards completing this book, I'm feeling nostalgic about everything involved.Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11068729657969553502noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3393206.post-882508382003-01-29T21:11:00.000-08:002003-01-29T21:11:17.496-08:00World War 2.5
The possible results of a war in Iraq in game form.Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11068729657969553502noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3393206.post-882216272003-01-29T11:37:00.000-08:002003-01-29T11:37:16.756-08:00Davos v. Porto Allegre
The American Prospect has a good piece. contrasting the views of corporate globalization (as seen at the World Economic Forum) and NGO internationalism (as seen at the World Social Forum:
Lula's victory certainly helps make the case for the Porto Alegre theme, "Another World Is Possible." But the vision of that other world is still incomplete. There is no consensus among Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11068729657969553502noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3393206.post-880705652003-01-26T17:26:00.000-08:002003-01-26T17:26:43.676-08:00Dust Bowl, 2003
Huge dust clouds are blowing across China. Experts blame climate change, overpopulation, and industrial agriculture, but whatever the causes, these Asian dust bowls are serous as a telegram:
"The clouds sweep up millions of tons of precious topsoil from Chinese fields and pastures. Gone in a single day, the soil will take centuries to replace. But this is just the most dramatic Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11068729657969553502noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3393206.post-879791232003-01-24T14:31:00.000-08:002003-01-24T14:31:22.036-08:00Our Ancestors Were Star Gazers
A German scientist has identified a star chart perhaps 35,000 years old carved on a mammoth bone and found in a cave in the Rhine Valley. It portrays the constellation Orion. Cool.
(from Jon's Weblowsky)Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11068729657969553502noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3393206.post-879258042003-01-23T15:59:00.000-08:002003-01-23T15:59:06.246-08:00Sim City for Eco-Wonks, Sort Of...
I'm pretty disappointed in UBC's QUEST game. It's definitely worth a look: a simulation of the ecological, land-use and economic choices facing the greater Vancouver area. You get to prioritize different aspects of change, and then it spits out the results in 2040. But that's about as far as it goes.
While I think simualtions are great tools for examining Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11068729657969553502noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3393206.post-877909382003-01-21T09:24:00.000-08:002003-01-21T09:24:08.156-08:00"No need to worry about these problems, as long as your children like plankton stew."
The NYT ran a fabulous piece on Daniel Pauly, the UBC fisheries scientist who is perhaps the leading authority on the state of the planet's oceans (it's bad, very bad).
I suspect that oceanic environmentalism will become a major force over the decade, as coral reefs (more important even than rainforests) bleachAlexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11068729657969553502noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3393206.post-865949872002-12-27T10:19:00.000-08:002002-12-27T10:19:36.980-08:00The Defense of the Indefensible
Orwell's classic essay, Politics and the English Language, is available online. My good friend Nic pointed it out to me, and rereading it, I think it's even more brilliant than I'd remembered.
"In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible. Things like the continuance of British rule in India, the Russian purges and Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11068729657969553502noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3393206.post-863244602002-12-20T08:59:00.000-08:002002-12-20T08:59:24.766-08:00Lott Goes, Time to Clean House
Now that Trent Lott is stepping down from leadership, maybe it's time to drag out from the closet the skeletons of other Republican leaders. The Republicans have been getting away with their little winking game for far too long. You know the one: the one where, when the camera's on and the public's watching, they scream about how unfairly they're stereotyped in the Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11068729657969553502noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3393206.post-863239242002-12-20T08:45:00.000-08:002002-12-20T08:45:43.126-08:00Krugman - they ought to give that guy a job, like at the Times or something
Another great piece from Paul Krugman today, this time on the Mayberry Machiavellis of the Bush-Rove Administration and how they will do anything to gain power, but have no idea how to use it, except to undermine needed regulations and cut taxes for the wealthiest 1% of Americans. Krugman's been hitting the mark an awful Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11068729657969553502noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3393206.post-862859872002-12-19T12:56:00.000-08:002002-12-19T12:56:58.116-08:00A Minor Paine
Josh Marshall's Talking Points Memo is fast becoming a bit of my essential daily reading: he takes particular delight in skewering hypocricy through the use of a well-timed hyperlink. Check it out.Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11068729657969553502noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3393206.post-862857772002-12-19T12:52:00.000-08:002002-12-19T12:52:43.736-08:00'Tis the Season for Wild Political Bile
This Buffalo newspaper has compiled a list of the most loathsome people in America. It's damn funny.
"JOE LIEBERMAN
Misdeeds: Is short; is vengefully unprincipled; seems like the kind of person who out of all of the people solemnly hanging their heads at a funeral would be most likely to be thinking about calling his pollster. Wishes he weren't Jewish, Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11068729657969553502noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3393206.post-858131032002-12-10T17:46:00.000-08:002002-12-10T17:46:50.003-08:00"It's just embarrassing..."
Technical Difficulties, a funny litle ad apologizing to the rest of the world for the difficulties we're having with our democracy.Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11068729657969553502noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3393206.post-856901742002-12-08T12:15:00.000-08:002002-12-08T12:15:35.626-08:00And the farmer who feeds us, each and all...
We're used to thinking of poverty as an urban problem, mostly afflicting people of color. The largest single group in poverty, however, is rural and white. The poorest places in America are almost all rural places. "Of the 25 poorest counties in the nation, 5 are in Nebraska, 5 are in Texas and 4 are in South Dakota," reports the New York Times. Large Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11068729657969553502noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3393206.post-855598682002-12-05T14:35:00.000-08:002002-12-05T14:35:58.590-08:00Stop, Listen, What's That Sound?
John Perry Barlow, has a great piece over on Boing Boing about the current onslaught of repressive laws and governmental terrorism:
"Thomas Pynchon on bad acid couldn't dream up the paranoid nightmares now pouring out of Washington.
"Today we learn that the CIA has been given authority to kill any American citizen who is *suspected* of terrorism. Say again? YouAlexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11068729657969553502noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3393206.post-855468962002-12-05T09:52:00.000-08:002002-12-05T09:52:15.820-08:00Why I'm a Dog-Person
"Cats, for example, do poorly on many animal I.Q. tests simply because it's almost impossible to devise a reward that cats care enough about to work for." (From a NYT story on how we'reDog's Best Friend.Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11068729657969553502noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3393206.post-852623572002-11-29T10:30:00.000-08:002002-11-29T10:30:12.426-08:00Crimes Against Humanity, the Lighter Side of
Get Your War On does Henry Kissinger. Funny:
"There's something so precious about a young child's first encounter with Henry Kissinger... 'Mommeeee! Who's that scary old man in the bad suit standing at the podium with President Bush? And why is there a huge pile of skulls and dead bodies all around hime?"Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11068729657969553502noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3393206.post-851733792002-11-27T10:52:00.000-08:002002-11-27T10:52:21.913-08:00Doing Your Part by Doing Nothing
Friday is Buy Nothing Day, the easiest protest you'll ever take part it: just stay home.Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11068729657969553502noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3393206.post-851731162002-11-27T10:46:00.000-08:002002-11-27T10:46:33.346-08:00Window on a Life
I truly enjoy Caterina Fake's blog. It's more in the school of blog as online diary, and thus has its moments of cloying sentimentality (like when she talks about her dog), but it's saved by the writing. Today's entry:
My fluctuating intelligence is at a low ebb right now, and though I seem to be carrying off a reasonable facsimile of the chit-chat required for daily Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11068729657969553502noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3393206.post-850660902002-11-25T10:46:00.000-08:002002-11-25T10:46:03.486-08:00The Other Rupblican Agenda
The police state which the Bush Administration has been busily erecting has rightly captured much of our group attention recently. The wag-the-dog war on Iraq has captured much of what's left. But if you believe that environmental sustainability is important, the Republican's anti-environmental agenda is just as shocking. Over the next two years, we are going to be Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11068729657969553502noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3393206.post-850185782002-11-24T12:21:00.000-08:002002-11-24T12:21:59.433-08:00The Bush Junta Has the Russians Freaked
The Moscow Times ran a powerful editorial Friday on the Bush Administration's grab for tyrannical authority. You know things have gone too far when the Russians start calling your government a dictatorship:
What we are witnessing is the mutation of a democratic republic into a military autocracy: Bush bases his claim of arbitrary power on the president's Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11068729657969553502noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3393206.post-849749142002-11-23T09:58:00.000-08:002002-11-23T09:58:18.386-08:00Sims
David Brooks - a writer I increasingly dislike - has a piece on the Sims in this week's NYT magazine. It bites, not least because Brooks decides to try to use the Sims as another exhibit for his defense of sprawl, but also because the things he points gleefully to (the materialism and suburban decor-mania of Sim life) are not the point of the Sims world, they're the window dressing. What's Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11068729657969553502noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3393206.post-849366012002-11-22T11:22:00.000-08:002002-11-22T11:22:30.436-08:00America's So-Called Meritocracy
Another great Paul Krugman essay in the NYT this morning, this time on the increasingly inherited nature of privilage. It's long been an open secret that America has a ruling class (sometimes best seen in the nature of the admissions processes of our elite universities, where family legacy and having gone to the right school are still dominating factors). What Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11068729657969553502noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3393206.post-848811972002-11-21T10:42:00.000-08:002002-11-21T10:42:39.746-08:00Sequencing the Wide Sargasso Sea
Craig Venter, who's certainly not my hero, as he's been on the frontlines of the effort to privatize our common genetic resources, has a new effort underway: the sequencing of the genomes of 100 million microbes a year in order to provide a pool of genetic resources for industrial biotech (in this case, assembling critters that can eat the CO2 coming out of Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11068729657969553502noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3393206.post-848331082002-11-20T13:11:00.000-08:002002-11-20T13:11:45.300-08:00Progressives in a Defensive Crouch, #396
Today's Bay Guardian has some decent articles about the amazingly rapid growth of the anti-war movement.
It goes and spoils the effect, though, by headlining the issue "Resistance Is Not Futile!", which seems to me to be precisely the kind of thing one says when trying to convince oneself that resistance isn't, in fact, as you deeply suspect, totally Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11068729657969553502noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3393206.post-848320042002-11-20T12:48:00.000-08:002002-11-20T12:59:59.000-08:00Game Over? Not Yet.
A great NYT piece on how to prevent asteroids from hitting the Earth. It appears this is a problem we can solve. (One interesting candidate strategy would simply be to paint an incoming asteroid black, changing how much heat it absorbs and altering its path.)
The truly interesting thing about all this, though, is its larger meaning: that we are in the process of discovering Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11068729657969553502noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3393206.post-848314022002-11-20T12:34:00.000-08:002002-11-20T12:34:53.553-08:00It's too early in the morning for this sort of thing
Across the street from my apartment, a female clown is setting up the gear for a photo shoot.Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11068729657969553502noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3393206.post-848311372002-11-20T12:29:00.000-08:002002-11-20T12:29:32.516-08:00Minute Particulars
Emerson once wrote that if you wish to truly do good, and know that you have done good, you must do it in the "minute particulars."
The Adopt-A-Minefield campaign has a very specific, particular goal: to clear minefields in developing countries. 45 to 50 million landmines are scattered about the war-torn parts of the world, and at least 10,000 people (many of them children) Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11068729657969553502noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3393206.post-848305902002-11-20T12:17:00.000-08:002002-11-20T12:17:15.150-08:00Or We Could Change the Government...
John Gilmore calls for us all to begin encrypting everything in a bid to make totalitarianism more difficult for the US government:
The US government's moves to impose totalitarian control in the last
year (secret trials, enemies lists, massive domestic surveillance) are
what some of the more paranoid among us have been expecting for years.
I was particularlyAlexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11068729657969553502noreply@blogger.com