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1x.com - Photo: JELANGKUNG by A.madestra. W

Sun, 29 Nov 2009 01:19:06 -0800

A Metathinking Manifesto & emergent by design

Sat, 28 Nov 2009 09:27:24 -0800

A Metathinking Manifesto

The significant problems we face today cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them. - Einstein

This starts out looking like another search for a theory of everything. Well, almost. It starts here:

* Social media is fundamentally changing the human experience.
* The world is increasing in complexity.
* We are experiencing accelerating change.

and ends up here:

I'm proposing that this may require a new approach to thinking in general, a new "thought architecture"; to expand thinking to a systems level in order to develop a big-picture understanding of how information is related. I haven't found a term that accurately describes this concept, so I've been referring to it as "metathinking." My theory is that by implementing this approach, it will cause a reorientation in the relationship we have to information, and cause a paradigm shift that would:

* enable us to develop better strategies for critical thinking
* facilitate creativity and innovation
* equip us to anticipate and rapidly adapt to change

I put this blog on my RSS to see where this goes.

from the collective intelligence via alexko

IntrepidDreamers reviews - StumbleUpon

Thu, 26 Nov 2009 06:38:16 -0800

Sebastian's Thanksgiving lineup:

Fresh cranberry bread (out of the oven just now) and Guatemala coffee
Tart apples and Manchego for snacking
Hot apple cider with this
Chips and dip (five kinds, including shrimp dip that Serina made)
Brussel sprouts saut�ed with bacon and lemon (not bitter with sprouts on the stalk. Learned to add baking soda to keep the color.)
Fresh cranberry orange relish
Mashed potatoes (turned out fluffy) and gravy
Fresh rolls or sweet bread (went with sweet bread rolls, store bought)
Mandarin-pignoli dressing (pine nuts were a nice touch, will go lighter on sage next time)
Peach pie and pecan cream pie (Note to self: Next time, choose)
Turkey basted in orange-honey
Cooper Mountain Vineyards Reserve Chardonnay (Too wimpy, we thought. Should have gone with a cabernet.)

Bring back the Tag Cloud

Wed, 25 Nov 2009 23:37:32 -0800

Bring back the tag cloud

People feel rather strongly about this. If you want to keep the tag cloud (or know someone who does), follow this link and click on "I like this idea". Otherwise, it is going away.

Nobel Conference 2008- Robin I. M. Dunbar

Wed, 25 Nov 2009 08:47:32 -0800

Nobel Conference 2008- Robin I. M. Dunbar

What Makes Us Human? Imagination

I will argue that the key differences lie in the world of the imagination - our ability to live in a mental universe that parallels the conventional. I suggest that the archetypical examples of this are religion and story-telling. It is these that gives us our especially human characteristics, that define what it is to be human. By placing these questions into the framework of the social brain hypothesis, I shall try to show why these capacities evolved in the human lineage, and why they are unique to modern humans.

This video is a little heady. You need to be fluent in English and focused to really enjoy it. If you are trying to organize Thanksgiving at the same time, you have to replay sections and that kinda takes the fun out of it. (I researched this personally.) That said, there's a particularly interesting section about music and language triggering endorphin release around 40:00 but I found it worth watching throughout.

Watch the video

Janine gave me this cat.

1x.com - Photo: The fabulous sunrise ... by Michal Ostrowski

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 23:32:23 -0800

He Bids His Beloved Be at Peace

Let Me Sleep On It: Creative Problem Solving Enhanced By REM Sleep

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 09:19:58 -0800

REM directly enhances creative processing more than any other sleep or wake state (according to a study by Sara Mednick, PhD, assistant professor of psychiatry at UC San Diego and the VA San Diego Healthcare System, and first author Denise Cai, graduate student in the UC San Diego Department of Psychology).

"We found that - for creative problems that you've already been working on - the passage of time is enough to find solutions," said Mednick. "However, for new problems, only REM sleep enhances creativity."

Read the entire article

1x.com - Photo: setting markers by mvbalkom

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 00:42:13 -0800

'night, Buckeroo.

Join the moblin development community | moblin.org

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 00:07:06 -0800

Moblin

Best damn operating system I ever saw. ~ID

When ID got his eepc netbook several months ago, I asked "But why?" "I can take it everywhere!" he said. "Why would you want to?" I mumbled under my breath. And my fears were born out. It frequently lost its mouse, or froze to the tune of "It isn't responding", and I had time for my nails to dry between page loads.But I think Moblin is going to change all that.

Moblin is different. It's a friendly way to get the most out of your netbook. It doesn't work like most other computers because it's optimized for enjoying media, interacting with your social networks and the internet.

Great hype! So ID and I took it for a test drive. Cynics that we are, we loaded it on a flash drive. It booted in 11 seconds. We clicked like mad through the various screens with near immediate throttle response. Nothing hung up, not even Firefox.

Moblin stands for Mobile Linux and sits on top of the linux kernel that we know and swear at. The layout is made for social networking. ID logged into Twitter and he Twitter app will work for me, though; I'm too Tweetdeck.

We installed the SU toolbar on the streamlined version of Firefox that comes with and you can indeed use this for stumbling. There's also an API, developer toolkits and even documentation. No, I'm not kidding. (If you do want to develop for it, you'll want to stay with C for awhile though, as it doesn't have all the bindings. But the docs are good. You could learn to program here).

There an office documentation app and other apps you can download from the garage. I didn't find a spreadsheet, but there probably will be one. A presentation manager, while not strictly within the realm of internet app, would move Moblin into "business class" for those social sales and marketing folks who travel and won't want to cart along another device (i.e., creating solutions for types of people, not a type of product that people have to fit into). A painfree Skype equivalent app would also be good; configuring Skype for eeebuntu devices was traumatic, as would being able to play .mp3s out of the box (There's the Banshee app, but we think it should come standard).

The only downside I noticed is that there are some complaints in the Moblin comments that the core developers are unresponsive and don't communicate to the Moblin community. Gee, that must suck.

Moblin overview at Wikipedia

Screenshot - note the su.pr link

More screenshots

More information in ID's review of my review

Watch the little video (1:40)

There's a lot more to Moblin than I can review here, but I think it's very promising. I may buy a netbook. Or commandeer ID's. He's a moblin convert.

Photo Gallery: On Tour with the Roma - SPIEGEL ONLINE - News - International

Sun, 22 Nov 2009 10:35:49 -0800

Ardashir