High School Speech by Peace Prof Raises Ire Published on Tuesday, November 20, 2001 in the Boston Herald

High School Speech by Peace Prof Raises Ire

by Ed Hayward



School officials are being asked to justify a recent speech given by peace activist Howard Zinn at Newton North High School in which he equated the U.S. military strikes in Afghanistan with the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

The controversial historian and former Boston University professor stressed that the U.S. bombing raids aimed at toppling the Taliban and hunting down fugitive terror boss Osama bin Laden were killing children and innocent civilians.

``The terrorists of Sept. 11 did a horrible thing to us, so we do terrible things to the people of Afghanistan. That is immoral and puts us on the same level as a terrorist,'' Zinn was quoted as saying in a report in the school newspaper.

Parents questioned exposing young teens to Zinn's opinions.

The New York Observer “Everybody would come up to me on the street and say, ‘Are you writing? Are you writing?’ And it became a burden. I just went, ‘No, I don’t do that anymore.’”

Phil Agre book review:

Tom Kelley, The Art of Innovation: Lessons in Creativity from IDEO,

America's Leading Design Firm, Doubleday, 2001.  IDEO, as you surely

know by now, is the leading industrial design firm.  This book is a

how-to derived from its celebrated techniques of innovation.  It is

not perfect -- to benefit from it, you have to cut through its Tom

Peters turbo-charged gee-whiz writing style.  And on first reading,

much of its advice will seem like common sense.  But persevere.  Ask

yourself: if this stuff is such common sense, why aren't you doing it?

There are just some things that we all need to be told: put together

an interdisciplinary team of fun people who respect one another, go

looking at what people actually do, brainstorm a hundred ideas, shoot

the bad ones, build dozens of prototypes, and keep everyone in the

loop until it's a real manufactured product.  The stories are great,

and to really appreciate them you should keep handy a copy of IDEO's

coffee-table book: Jeremy Myerson, IDEO: Masters of Innovation, King,

2001.  In a sense you only learn this material through stories: you

need conceptual frameworks, but the conceptual frameworks themselves

are rather simply and become alive only in the process of applying

them to real cases.  On the other hand, because it claims to package

IDEO's skills for other companies to use, the book underplays

the skills of IDEO's own employees, particularly the ones that they

brought with them from innovative academic design schools such as

the Royal College of Art.  But okay, if the stories get you motivated

to try the methods for yourself, then they've done their job.

Cutting the Cord Finlayson, and thousands like him all over the world, are crafting a new vision of Internet access, a cooperative, community-based endeavor that provides wireless high-speed bandwidth, eliminating monthly fees charged by telephone and cable companies.

These activists are cobbling together systems in garages and attics, taking the wired high-speed connections that come into their homes and throwing them open to neighbors. This utopian vision of free, high-speed access, any time and anywhere, is rooted in the earliest days of the Internet, when colleges and universities freely pooled computing resources and made them available to anyone connected to the system.

Independent News There are other stories of suicides. Northern Alliance troops say foreign Taliban fighters have been blowing themselves up with grenades as soldiers try to capture them. Mr Omar talked about a second incident, in which Alliance fighters saw about 60 foreign fighters jump into a river near the town of Emam Sahib.



I've got to reread Dune. This is so alien.

From Dave Farber's IP list:

You don't have to like Richard Dawkins' politics or believe in the 

>ontological reality of memes [see note below] to recognize that there's a 

>remarkable similarity between epidemiological notions and the phenomena of 

>terrorism.  Smallpox was eradicated by the application of four basic 

>principles that can easily be extended to apply to terrorism itself:

>

>* distinguish among toxins, diseases, and infectious agents: bombs, 

>suicide detonations, and terroristic tracts and schools, respectively.

>* immunization of threatened populations: education in  the futility of 

>terrorism and provision of alternative conflict-resolution options. Many 

>commentators have attributed terrorism to the helplessness of third world 

>poverty; it would be marvelous to see actual data on "natural experiments" 

>that show causation rather than mere correlation.

>

>* eradication of reserviors of infection ("draining the swamps") - 

>destruction of terrorist training camps, replacement of governments 

>supporting terrorism, and interdiction of organized financial support.

>

>* quarrantine of both reservoirs and individual infected victims: 

>embargoes against state sponsors and imprisonment of terrorism advocates. 

>This point suggests that censorship of communications may be more 

>effective than sanctions against material trade. Of course there are 

>enforcement problems for, say, books smuggled inside bags of grain.

>

>Clearly this vastly oversimplifies the problem of terrorism, but I hope it 

>also shows the great opportunities for valuable research.

It's not often that the IT industry can hold up a glass and toast a gaggle of geese for doing what IT managers, system administrators and supreme court judges have wanted to do for years.

InformationWeek > Instant Messaging > IM Usage In Workplace Is Rising > November 14, 2001 The total minutes U.S. workers spent using the top three instant-messaging applications--from AOL, MSN, and Yahoo--increased 110% from 2.3 billion minutes in September 2000 to 4.9 billion in September 2001.
By Tischelle George



The use of instant messaging is rising at businesses throughout the United States, according to a recent report by Jupiter Media Metrix.
The total minutes U.S. workers spent using the top three instant-messaging applications--from America Online, MSN, and Yahoo--increased 110%, from 2.3 billion minutes in September 2000 to 4.9 billion in September 2001. The number of unique users of instant-messaging applications in the workplace also jumped 34%, from 10 million in September 2000 to 13.4 million in September 2001.
While AOL has the most users in the workplace, MSN and Yahoo are quickly gaining in popularity. In some cases, employees are using more than one brand of messenger. The Jupiter report indicates that 23% of workers with IM use at least two competing brands, compared with 18% in September 2000. Users are finding ways to directly communicate with people on different instant-messaging networks, Jupiter adds.

T >> MiniDisc <-> MP3 >> Sony MZ-R70 [ PC to Sony MZ-R70 MP3-MiniDisc Recording

MOVABLE TYPE :: Personal Publishing System November 5, 2001 | 12:13 AM

Version 1.2 Released

We have released a new version of Movable Type, version 1.2. Existing users of either version 1.0 or version 1.1 should use the upgrade distribution to update their MT installation, and should follow the new upgrade instructions.

In addition to bug fixes and improvements to general stability, this release adds the following features:

Ability to export entries from Movable Type for backup purposes, or for importing into another blog (more information)



When uploading images meant for popup windows, Movable Type will now create an HTML file to surround the image in the popup window, which fixes browser offset problems (more information)



Ability to link templates to external files, which allows templates to be edited through a standard text editor, then automatically synchronized with the Movable Type database (more information)



Greymatter comments can now be imported, either along with your Greymatter entries, or--if you have already imported your GM entries--without them



Implemented the movabletype.org Recently Updated List (more information)



Movable Type will now run on perl 5.004_04 (previously it required 5.005_03)



Added support for the weblogs.com XML-RPC ping (more information)

Search Results Humanities & Social Sciences, 600 S Clyde Morris Blvd, Daytona Beach, FL 32114

http://www.erau.edu/jobs

saveASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH/HUMANITIES

The Department of Humanities & Social Sciences at Embry-Riddle University invites applications for a generalist in English, tenure-track, at the rank of Assistant Professor. The successful applicant will have university-level experience in and commitment to teaching freshman composition, as well as interest/expertise in one or more of the following areas: (1) interdisciplinary humanities;(2) literature(field open);(3) technology and culture. Faculty commitment is primarily in the realm of general education, with teaching responsibilities at the freshman-sophomore level and in upper-division courses. Humanities & Social Sciences is a large and diverse department serving the needs of a diverse student body enrolled chiefly in technological disciplines. Teaching load is 12 hrs/sem. Terminal degree in discipline required. Salary is competitive and commensurate with experience. To apply, please send letter of application, vita, and the names of three references to: Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, Human Resource Department, 600 S. Clyde-Morris Blvd., Daytona Beach, FL 32114, or fax to: (386) 323-5060 or apply by email to: jacobska@db.erau.edu. EOE M/F/D/V

www.PostNuke.com :: Beware the mutant...

All Things Considered - August 14, 1998 Friday Sports Talk -- Noah talks to sports reporter Stephen Fatsis who just returned from the National Scrabble Championships. Fatsis describes the colorful scene, the fierce competition, and the final winner, Brian Cappelletto. (4:00)

EPICURIOUS: RECIPE: SPEIDIES

Re:What does that give ya? (Score:5, Insightful)

by dillon_rinker (dillonunderscorerinkerathotmaildotcom) on Wednesday November 14, @10:51AM (#2563611)

(User #17944 Info | http://slashdot.org)

the bit that was removed is not needed to understand the movie (then why did the director put it in?)



Apparently you live in a world where all directors are ascetic celibates. However, in my world, directors often add nude scenes because they like to see live nude girls doing what they tell them to do. About Basic Instinct, the American writer gave some song and dance about the artistic necessity of the nudity and sexual situations in the film...the Dutch director was much more straightforward. He liked looking at naked women. I doubt that you disapprove of his opinions. Why then do you disapprove of the opinions of people who DON'T want to look at naked women?



What this thing produces are censored versions of movies.

The word is "expurgated." You apparently live in a world where if a person denies anything to themself, then Big Brother won't let them watch it. (Censorship is editing by others). If someone else wants to avoid hearing profanity, or vulgarity, or obscenity, why not let them? If you have the right to hear those words in a movie, why should someone else not have the right to NOT hear those words?



It's great that directors can do anything they want to with their films. Fair use lets other people

adbusters

Here is an entry.

Transcript Order Form BYU Transcript Order Form

Yahoo Decides to Grow Up As it embarks on a focused strategy to make more money, the company also said youth and arrogance were "out" and experience and humility were "in."

indie pop live

Slashdot | Convert Movies From R to PG13 to PG On The Fly Roger Ebert: The fundamental problem with the MPAA is that it avoids making any kind of common-sense evaluation of a film, and simply counts f-words and evaluates nudity. ''Waking Life,'' one of the most affirmative and challenging films I can imagine for smart teenagers, gets the R rating, while the thriller ''Domestic Disturbance,'' which shows a small child exposed to a murder, an incineration, the beating of his mother (leading to a miscarriage) and the beating of his father, after which the kid himself causes an electrocution, gets the PG-13--presumably because there is no nudity and the language stays below the cut-off point. What sane parent would prefer their teenager to see ''Domestic Disturbance'' rather than "Waking Life''?

Passenger Prompts Landing At Dulles (washingtonpost.com) Two sky marshals -- one with a gun drawn -- and a third man ordered Ortiz to get on the ground. He complied without a struggle, Cannon said. He "kept saying: 'I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I just wanted to go to the bathroom.' "

Passenger Prompts Landing At Dulles (washingtonpost.com) Agnes Ortiz said her son is not a terrorist. "No way, he's Navajo -- Native American -- from this country. We were here before all you people," she said.

Fake or Photo?

OpenP2P.com: Peer and Web Services are Technologies of Connection and Coordination [Nov. 09, 2001] The scale and richness of cyberspace changes everything. Now that the Internet encompasses all of those LAN-based workgroups and so much else too, new modes of collaboration can take root and flourish.

IrfanView - Freeware Graphic Viewer

plans

Salon.com News | "A struggle for the soul of the 21st century" I honestly believe it's very important if you want to understand the world in which you live that you see September the 11th as the dark side of all the benefits we've gotten from tearing down the walls, collapsing the distances and spreading the information that we have across the world. We have not changed human nature, we have not solved all the problems, and there are a lot of people that see the world differently than we do. You cannot collapse walls, collapse differences and spread information without making yourself more vulnerable to forces of destruction. You cannot claim the benefits of this new world without becoming more vulnerable at home.

Research Participatory Research in a Mixed-Mode Classroom

Review Of Ballots Finds Bush Still Winner However, the review also found that Gore may have defeated Bush if he pursued a full statewide recount, instead of the partial recount.

DON'T YOU KNOW THERE'S A WAR ON? DENVER -- United Airlines Flight 1240 to Washington last Wednesday had just pulled out of the clouds when the captain's voice came over the loudspeaker, saying:

"Good afternoon ... Unfortunately our country is at war. People are out to destroy us. Political correctness is out now. If you see anything suspicious, be ready to fight. Do not act like sheep and be led to your death. Be ready to fight ..."

I didn't get all the rest of it before he wished us a pleasant flight and reminded us to remain in our seats until he turned off the seatbelt sign.

New Rules for the New Economy

Science -- Kelly 279 (5353): 992 But the most striking aspect of this new culture was its immediacy. "Unlike previous intellectual pursuits," Brockman writes, "the achievements of the third culture are not the marginal disputes of a quarrelsome mandarin class: They will affect the lives of everybody on the planet."2 Technology is simply more relevant than footnotes.

Science -- Kelly 279 (5353): 992 The third culture creates new tools faster than new theories, because tools lead to novel discoveries quicker than theories do. The third culture has little respect for scientific credentials because while credentials may imply greater understanding, they don't imply greater innovation. The third culture will favor the irrational if it brings options and possibilities, because new experiences trump rational proof.

Science -- Kelly 279 (5353): 992

kalsey :: Rant

Science -- Kelly 279 (5353): 992 The only reason to drag up this old rivalry between the two cultures is that recently something surprising happened: A third culture emerged. It's hard to pinpoint exactly when it happened, but it's clear that computers had a lot to do with it. What's not clear yet is what this new culture means to the original two.

Windows 2000 Hints & Tips

Welcome to WorkingForChange A sore press corps is a better press corps

Laura Flanders - workingforchange.com

CIA tried to listen to Soviets with eavesdropping feline "They slit the cat open, put batteries in him, wired him up. The tail was used as an antenna. They made a monstrosity. They tested him and tested him. They found he would walk off the job when he got hungry, so they put another wire in to override that,'' he said.

News: PC death greatly exaggerated To really understand the nature of computers, observe the Mac users out there who drool over ownership of the fabulous-looking G3 and G4 machines. Mac users love having a hot-looking machine to show off.
And have any of the post-PC people paid any attention to the sociology of the physical machine itself? It's a big box that people want. Not too big, but big enough to see. Since the invention of the Altair in 1975, the relative size of the machine has stayed within a certain range.

PC Magazine: John C. Dvorak -- The DOOM Factor (June 22, 1999) One observer on TV called DOOM and other games "murder simulators," pointing out that the military even practices on DOOM. In fact, as I listened to various pundits discuss the role of violent games, few brought up the incredible effectiveness of many simulations.
Pilots learn to fly those jumbo jets on computer simulators, and the Army tank corps uses computer simulators to make the corps world-class. My eldest son learned to drive a car on a computer, and he's the best driver in the family. I've been using a simulator to practice skeet shooting, and last year when I grabbed a shotgun for the first time, I hit the first four birds out of the chute. The instructor called me a natural. The fact is, computers are great training tools.
There's no doubt that DOOM and other games are in fact murder simulators. If you're going to tear up a place like a maniac, you'll do a lot more damage after playing DOOM for a year or two than if you've never played the game. But so what?

LaunchPlug : MemPlug & Launche Visors CAN NOT upgrade their OS at this time. Handspring releases patches from time to time, but never one large enough to bring a 3.5 OS Platinum up to a 4.0 OS. That means that All Visors are stuck with either 3.0.x or 3.5.x OS versions, without any VFS capabilities. Unless you own a MemPlug and install PiVFSmgr as well. Using a MemPlug and PiVFSmgr will add VFS enabled capabilities to your Visor, almost exactly like other PDAs with OS 4.0 installed. It isn't a perfect version, as MemPlug will tell you, but it is very close and will allow Visor owners to run most VFS enabled programs just like the "other" PDAs.

So what does the VFS enabled option do? Very simply, it lets you store the databases of programs you like to use on external media, while the programs themselves remain on your Visor internal memory. If the database is changed in some way (added to or parts removed) then the changes can even be saved back to the external memory card.

On the other hand, this tutorial shows you how to trick your Visor into thinking that almost any other program is visible from an external memory card, and allows you to store the entire program on your external media. The downside is that in this case the programs would be stored on external media while the databases must remain on your Visor internal memory. This is the opposite of how true VFS enabled programs often work.

American Irish Speaking of lunch, this is for all my brothers and sisters in the digital media industry of America: it's nice not to eat lunch at your desk, and to take an hour or so and leave the building. Outside, during the day, there are other people and stuff. I recommend trying it, it's good for the soul. Leave your desk and eat a proper lunch, and think of me while you drink your double decaf soy latte.

Metafilter | Comments on 12165 Yes - I can confirm moz's thought about that timecube thing. I could tell it was done by a wacko becuase, for some reason, all sites done by crazies HAVE to use an ENORMOUS font!
posted by bradlauster at 10:08 AM PST on November 8


all sites done by crazies HAVE to use an ENORMOUS font!

I was choking back laughter at that one.
posted by SiW at 11:43 AM PST on November 8

>To: dave@farber.net

>Subject: latest revelation from The Department of Truth Management

>Date: Thu, 08 Nov 2001 16:31:37 -0500

>From: "Mike O'Dell"

>

>

>http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/134363780_microsoft08.html

>

> Gates also took some credit for the genesis of open-source

> software. He said Microsoft made it possible by standardizing

> computers: "Really, the reason you see open source there at all

> is because we came in and said there should be a platform that's

> identical with millions and millions of machines," he said.

>

>

>This is like an Anthrax bacillus taking credit for mail delivery.

I, Cringely | The Pulpit The fact that Microsoft makes in excess of 90 percent of the profit of the entire software industry, well that's just the happy result of a lot of hard work. Pay no mind to that $36 billion they have in the bank.



New Cringely!

This American Life | 1998 archive The story of a White House Scandal from the year 1881. President James Garfield lay dying of a gunshot wound during the summer of 1881. But because our nation is crazy when it comes to the President, and because the White House is a national movie screen onto which we project a whole array of fears and misplaced idealism, Americans projected one of the big fears of the day onto Garfield. Namely, the fear of sewer gas. Rumors abounded that Garfield was not dying from the bullet in his back, but from vapors rising from the antiquated White House toilets. It became so serious that an independent expert was brought in to give a bipartisan assessment of the problem. The Senate voted to spend $300,000 to build a new White House, a sanitary one, right next to the original White House. And it would be nice to believe that all of this was the kind of hysteria that was only possible before the germ theory of disease was proven. But in fact, now we know how diseases are transmitted. Now that we know that there's no such thing as "sewer gas." But still, when it comes to germs, and our fear of disease, we are still irrational beings.

Le Carre: A War We Cannot Win (1) Now Bakunin in his grave and bin Laden in his cave must be rubbing their hands in glee as we embark on the very process that terrorists of their stamp so relish: as we hastily double up our police and intelligence forces and award them greater powers, as we put basic civil rights on hold and curtail press freedom, impose news blackpoints and secret censorship, spy on ourselves and, at our worst, violate mosques and hound luckless citizens in our streets because we are afraid of the color of their skin.

Ftrain: Cleaning My Room The first few times they came to visit, that scratching filled me with horror, going on for hours at night, during which I would lie awake and wonder when they would break through, and how many there were, and if they would eat me.

Ftrain: Cleaning My Room ``I'm not confident, right now, that I'm staying in the right place,'' she said. ``What's in there? A human arm? Your ex-girlfriend? I haven't seen you in a few years, and you won't let me look in your fridge. Anything could have happened.''

``It's just a problem I'm having. I could explain it, but I don't want you to be as disappointed in me as I know you would be if I told you the whole story. It's just in your best interest to leave it alone. I only want you to enjoy your time in New York.''

``And I'll enjoy it less if I look in, say, your freezer?''

``Given that the freezer is inside the fridge, yes, I think so. I think that would make you feel sad, and concerned for my well-being.''

LinuxPlanet - Tutorials - Using Apache with Suexec on Linux - Executing CGI Scripts as Other Users Using Apache with Suexec on Linux
Executing CGI Scripts as Other Users

Ken Coar

[I hope this works.]

Barnett Williams' Recumbent Page Source of the muffler bent.

Optimild muffler recumbent



This thing is sweet!

The Muffler Frame Recumbent The main tube:

This pipe should be made from 2 inch muffler pipe. The standard wall thickness is 1.5 mm or 0.60 inch or 16 gauge. This is the desirable thickness for adequate stiffness. Do not get anything too much thicker or weight becomes too great.

gladwell dot com--Drugstore Athlete It is hard to believe, for instance, that the sprinter Florence Griffith Joyner, the star of the Seoul games, was clean. Before 1988, her best times in the hundred metres and the two hundred metres were, respectively, 10.96 and 21.96. In 1988, a suddenly huskier FloJo ran 10.49 and 21.34, times that no runner since has even come close to equalling. In other words, at the age of twenty-eight--when most athletes are beginning their decline--Griffith Joyner transformed herself in one season from a career-long better-than-average sprinter to the fastest female sprinter in history.

The Sims Take on Al Qaeda Lustick has run these types of programs more than 10,000 times in the last three years to examine the effect of social trends and government policies on anti-American sentiment and terrorism in the Middle East. He is looking for ways that seemingly small actions have big consequences.



"I think about terrorism in terms of popcorn," he said. "You assume you'll always have some kernels that are going to pop. How much lower does the temperature have to get before you have a dramatic decrease in the ability of terrorists to operate?"

The Sims Take on Al Qaeda In the new war against terrorism, with its infinite possibilities for unpredictable violence, the military is attempting to understand jihad through the infinitely patient and dogged computer. "Interesting things happen," said Michael Zyda, who is leading the Navy's simulation project here, "things you didn't expect."

[Wylug-help] Apache Suexec problem.



This is my problem too. Sob.

List Download



List DB and great tools to go with it, for the palm.

New Forms of Journalism

news.telegraph.co.uk - Afghans cheer as US jets hit Taliban Smoke billowed from the spot and the men and children of the Kukcha turned to stare. "It hit, it hit," one said excitedly. "Thank you, America," said another, dancing for joy. For the people of Mawara-e-Kukcha, which comprises the four provinces along the river, yesterday was a day to celebrate.

For months they have been harried by Taliban artillery and jets which shelled their settlements. Last winter the Taliban briefly seized the west bank before being driven back in an offensive that cost the Northern Alliance 700 men.

Victor Davis Hanson on war on National Review Online Culture is not immune to the ripples of battle. The accelerators of Modernism were Verdun and the Somme. Perhaps the present brand of Postmodernism was born in France after the inexplicable and humiliating German romp through the Ardennes in 1940. The crater in New York at the very epicenter of American arts and letters will have a similar, if not more profound, effect.

Networking on the Network Since most researchers already know personally the finite world of individuals whose opinions of their work really matter, and since libraries already make their publications available to the few people who don't get them by exchanging drafts, they do not have strong incentives to create an elaborate home page with their publications and so on. That's how powerful the existing institutions are: they bond people so tightly that even the Internet does not radically change the dynamics. The Internet makes it easier for people in outsider universities (such as the former students of people at the insider universities) to stay in the loop, and as I say it speeds everything up. But the fundamental phenomenon, the one that drives and shapes the research community's day-to-day practices, is the complex of institutions that rewards some activities and not others.

Books By Other Than Sandra Felton

BBC News | ASIA-PACIFIC | Maori take on hi-tech Lego toys After challenging Danish company Lego to stop using Maori words for its hi-tech toys, New Zealand Maori are now planning to work with the company to draft guidelines on how to use traditional knowledge.

Last week a Lego representative went to New Zealand to meet with the Maori, who had complained at Lego's use of Maori words in its Bionicle game

PSYCHOLOGIE EN GEZONDHEID Echinacea really works

At first it was thought that it was merely the suggestion on our immunity that made the herb Echinacea stimulate immunity. But Canadian researchers have shown us that Echinacea contains different active elements that boost our immune system. It promotes in your body the manufacture of white blood cells. We advise you to take echinacea in 125 mg capsules one to four times daily, as soon as you notice the first signs of a cold or the flu.

Future Positive : Welcome Howard Rheingold, in Virtual Communities, was one of the first writers to make the connection between digital communications and gift exchange; since then, it has been repeated in the popular press so often, the connection is taken for granted. We freely circulate information on the Internet in the expectation that we will benefit from the information freely circulated by others.
There's only one problem: gift economies don't work this way. In traditional anthropological studies, gifts are given on ceremonial occasions to members of one's tribe, or the tribe of somebody else to which one wants to affiliate. At weddings, to take one example, there can be a complex arrangement of gift giving between various members of the two families involved. Although somewhat altered, gift giving at occasions such as weddings and birthdays remains a common practice.

SourceForge: Project Info - PalmOS Flat-File Database Tools

The Evil Gerald Online - Oh no, it's another dinner invitation from the Chomskys But it's the way he talks, too. Really measured and monotone, and you can see him almost making these little mental footnotes of further reading for you to follow up later if you've got a few centuries. By now, everybody's staring at their plates or just watching him, eyes glazed, nodding stupidly.

I usually pretend to have indigestion and run for the bathroom. Then I get my phone to ring and pretend I've suddenly got to dash home. But how many times can I pull that trick? And now with the recent events and all... I'm definitely not looking forward to next Thursday.

Economist.com God meets Mammon

Oct 18th 2001 | MILWAUKEE
From The Economist print edition


The profit of turning thugs into programmers



A brother who could spare a dime
MILWAUKEE'S South Side is not a promising place to start a business. The city has a 60% high-school dropout rate and proportionally twice as many murders as New York. After he had buried his 28th gang member, Brother James Holub, a Jesuit, looked for a way to stop the killings. Arguing that “nothing stops a bullet like a job”, he decided to turn youngsters from local street gangs into programmers.

Stanford, Berkeley scientists awarded `genius grants' (10/24/2001) Dickinson and his colleagues hope to build mechanical, flying robots. Such robots could be tossed into a burning building to scan for people inside or could retrieve data from outer space, Frye said. He was eager for his boss's return.

``He's a very humble guy. I can't wait until he gets back so I can tease him about it,'' Frye said. ``He'll be all red and hunch into his hands.''

'Gaydar' device clears up mixed signals Gaydar, or gay radar, billed as the first portable interactive electronic icebreaker/matchmaker for gay men and lesbians, ends the guesswork about the sexual orientation of that person across the room.



Perhaps they could make all sorts of clandestine radar. What happens when gay-bashers buy these and entrap people? Whatever happened to personal semiotics for determining stuff like this? Weird.

Wicked Fresh Interview -- Joshua Allen of Fireland.com WF: Describe your most ridiculous moment of paranoia since September 11th.

Joshua: I swear, I almost skipped my daily Mango Anthrax Smoothie but then stopped and said: No, if I do, then they win.

Networking on the Network Fifth, the purpose of networking is to let you escape pathological people by building your own supportive community. The stronger and more extensive your community, the less power the pathological people will have over you. Your network is your personal intelligence system. Your conversations with other people in your network will help you understand how different organizations do things, and they broaden your thinking by helping you internalize a wider range of perspectives on the institutions and the research. When a network is functioning properly, a kind of electricity runs through it: the excitement of the research, the affirmation that comes from sharing that excitement with others, and the confidence that comes from a continually updated affirmation that your research is finding a real audience. The electricity of a functioning network makes pathological personalities seem less important.

Networking on the Network In a narrow sense, the claimed results must be seen to follow from the premises. But in a broad sense, the research topic itself must be seen as legitimate: that is, as novel, conceptually coherent, defensible in its working assumptions, intrinsically important, likely to lead to practical applications, likely to lead to more productive research, and so on. The precise criteria will depend to some degree on the field (engineering is evaluated differently from history), but every field needs someone to put up a fight when the legitimacy of the field's research topics comes into question.

Networking on the Network So is your advisor deliberately brainwashing you in order to build an empire of clones and acolytes? It could be.

Advisors' incentives to stifle creativity

The next concept that you need is not so fun. This is the incentive that thesis advisors have to stifle the creativity of their students. It's an insidious phenomenon, and it is not entirely the advisors' fault. Here is how it works. Your advisor will organize seminars, or otherwise recommend reading, and the reading lists that result will derive from the advisor's own voice -- from an intellectual map of the world that reflects the advisor's own effort to define a research program and situate it within an existing network of professional relationships. If you confine your reading to your thesis advisor's recommendations -- or, even worse, if you feel so overwhelmed with work that you accept your advisor's interpretations of those readings rather than engaging with them afresh yourself -- then your thinking will be organized and bounded by your advisor's thinking. You will talk the way your advisor talks, cite the same work, address the same audience, and so on. Of course, this needn't be a disaster. If you are smart, and if your advisor has chosen an expanding disciplinary universe, then you will write a good dissertation within that universe. You will get a good job, and you will take your place in a hierarchy. When the people in your advisor's cohort finally retire, then you will be in charge. It is not such a bad life. But it is not the life that you were meant to live -- the life that you would create

Networking on the Network Invisible colleges also help explain the emerging uses of technology in research. "Collaboratories", for example, are on-line research community environments that cause invisible colleges to become, so to speak, more real. Most invisible colleges already have conferences, journals, and the like. They may even have Web sites and mailing lists. In each case the pressure is toward ever-greater integration of the different research groups within an invisible college. As the collaboratories become more technically feasible, these pressures will become even more intense. Ongoing real-time collaborations between researchers at different sites will become more common, and seminars might even be held at several sites simultaneously over video links. The details will depend on the needs and finances of each field, of course, but the general direction of the pressure toward integration will be largely the same. It is worth wondering, then, whether too much integration can be a bad thing. It is useful for each university to have its own distinctive approach to a field. Diversity is good, and the institution only supports diversity if a new approaches can colonize a small number of universities without excessive pressures to be interlocked with their opposite numbers at other universities. This may be an important issue in the future.

Networking on the Network The concept of an invisible college is useful for several reasons. First of all, it helps to explain some of the institutional tensions that universities face: individual researchers generally identify more strongly with their invisible college than they do with the organization that employs them. After all, it is principally the invisible college that evaluates the researcher's work by writing letters and refereeing articles. Universities are always threatening to be pulled apart by these centrifugal forces. Industrial labs, likewise, often have trouble persuading researchers to focus on the issues that affect customers, because the researcher's long-term career success depends on staying current with research agendas in the invisible college.

Networking on the Network you are a puzzle piece

A common mistake during a job interview is to focus your attention on the faculty and ignore everyone else. You need to listen to the students. Are they smart? Mature? Demoralized? Excited about their work? Engaged in a rebellion? Just punching the clock until they get their credential? What are their complaints? What agendas do they bring to the hiring process? Are you only hearing from the activists and complainers, or are you hearing representative views? Try to talk with a group of students without any faculty present. Very often the most vocal segment of students, who may or may not represent a majority, have definite ideas about what sort of faculty are needed -- basically, faculty who can teach the things that they want to learn and that the current faculty can't teach. If you can teach those things then by all means get conversation going on that topic. If not then elicit a broader range of issues and concerns to discover whether that particular topic is the only important one. In addition, graduate students will often have elaborate views about the politics of their department. You can listen to these views as anthropological data, but in practice students' political analyses are wildly uneven in quality; some are very astute -- these are smart people, after all -- but in other cases they just don't have enough information to develop informed ideas. So listen to them, but don't automatically believe or act on what you hear from them.

Networking on the Network . If you want to cause a little trouble, ask innocently about the history of the department and watch what happens.

Networking on the Network Several million people employ electronic mail for some significant portion of their professional communications. Yet in my experience few people have figured out how to use the net productively. A great deal of effort is going into technical means for finding information on the net, but hardly anybody has been helping newcomers figure out where the net fits in the larger picture of their own careers. These notes are a first attempt to fill that gap, building on the most successful practices I've observed in my twenty years on the net. I will focus on the use of electronic communication in research communities, but the underlying principles will be applicable to many other communities as well.

Web Design Patterns Web Design Patterns

Our students, who will spend most of their working lives in the 21st century, will need to see the computer and related technologies as an extension of themselves, as a tool as important as the pencil or quill pen was for the last several hundred years. Fifteen years ago, few people knew what a personal computer was. Now personal computers are ubiquitous. With the proliferation of personal computers and linked computer networks, there has been an increase in the amount of information produced, as well as new avenues of finding the information. Personal Knowledge Management (PKM) attempts to utilize the computer to help the individual manage the information explosion in a meaningful way.
What is personal knowledge management? It’s a system designed by individuals for their own personal use. Knowledge management has been described by Davenport and Prusak as a systematic attempt to create, gather, distribute, and use knowledge. (a) Lethbridge characterizes it as the process of acquiring, representing, storing and manipulating the categorizations, characterizations and definitions of both things and their relationship. (b) PKM, as conceived at the Anderson School, is a conceptual framework to organize and integrate information that we, as individuals, feel is important so that it becomes part of our personal knowledge base. It provides a strategy for transforming what might be random pieces of information into something that can be systematically applied and that expands our personal knowle

Interview | Neil Gaiman And I thought, then: It's not the selling out that's bad. It's that these people are selling out for absolutely nothing. You know, if you're going to sell out, sell out for a million dollars. Sell out for 10 million. Don't sell out to the point where you look at yourself in the mirror going: Oh my Gopod, I'm a hack. Why am I doing this for 2000? For 1500? For heaven's sake!

Interview | Neil Gaiman So you hadn't met him? It wasn't the kind of biography where you tour with the band for half a year or anything?

No. It was the kind of biography where you go down to the BBC and you say: Hello, BBC press cuttings library? I would like to buy everything you have with the words "Duran Duran" in it. And you pay 150 pounds for all their photocopying and you take it away and you take all of these press clippings and you write it into a book. And you listen to the albums.

Interview | Neil Gaiman And I learned a lesson that every now and then the universe conspires to remind me of. It's like my one lesson and if somebody, while writing my life as one of these comedic tragedies, people would point to it as one of those recurring themes that he's needs to be every now and again retaught this one, which is: Whenever I do things for the money...

Whenever I do things because I want to do it and because it seems fun or interesting and so on and so forth, it almost always works. And it almost always winds up more than paying for itself. Whenever I do things for the money, not only does it prove a headache and a pain in the neck and come with all sorts of awful things attached, but I normally don't wind up getting the money, either. So, after a while, you do sort of start to learn [to] just forget about the things where people come to you and dangle huge wads of cash in front of you. Go for the one that seems interesting because, even if it all falls apart, you've got something interesting out of it. Whereas, the other way, you normally wind up getting absolutely nothing out of it.



Stolen from Evhead.com. This has been my experience as well. Whenever I follow the money I get hosed. Something to keep in mind while job hunting.

DRUDGE REPORT FLASH 2001® AFGHAN soldiers were told yesterday that while they were dying in the war their leader was enjoying a life of pleasure with his three wives.



Loudspeaker broadcasts beamed down from American planes accused one-eyed Taliban cleric Mullah Mohammed Omar of hiding in a well-equipped bunker. The speakers boomed out in local dialects: "If dying for this form of Islam is noble, why doesn't Mullah Omar go to the f

putnam mutual funds SUCK. Goodbye life savings!

BBC News | UK | Douglas Coupland (version 164.4.0.3) "My mother, at the age of 62, decided: 'Dammit, I'm tired of being out of the loop, I want to know what's going on'. So she went out, got her own hardware and service provider and now, gosh, it's that Cocoon thing - she's a whole new person!"

WAKING LIFE / **** (R) . It must be depressing to believe that you have been supplied with all the answers, that you must believe them and to question them is disloyal, or a sin. Were we given minds in order to fear their questions?



--Roger Ebert, on Richard Linklater's new film, Waking Life.

Minerva Record View 1 Title:Interactions.

Publisher:New York, NY : Association for Computing Machinery, Inc., c1994-









Location:KERSEY LIBRARY bound periodicals stacks



Call Number:x QA 76.9 .H85 I5925

Number of Items:4

Status:On Shelf

WSJ.com -- From the Archives Knitting needles, pointed metal sticks that average 14 to 16 inches long, can look particularly ominous. Ms. Smith remembers a man who seemed fascinated by her knitting during one flight, and finally commented, "You know, if we crash, you're going to impale yourself."

"Well," she replied, "If we crash, I won't care."

Still, she's mulled the potential danger of the dull-tipped tools. "You'd need something to pound it in with," she says. "And it would be a slow death."

Animating a Waking Life "I'm not a technological fetishist," Linklater says. "I want to tell a story in the right way. Technologies can help us in our human desire to express ourselves, to communicate and share our experiences.
"I think that's why Waking Life is more than just an interesting moment in the history of film technology. The technology has allowed this particular story -- a story that probably wouldn't have worked in any other form -- to be told."

Why Linux is About to Lose Here's a comment from my tech-illiterate wife: "Get that damn Linux installed -- I'm sick of this s**t from Microsoft!"



If my wife, of all people, is asking for an alternative to M$'s stuff, then there really is some hope. Linux may never get beyond a 10% desktop share, but just giving up because there's no good spell checker for Linux is silly.

Using N4, N5 or NVivo with your reference material While you would use a bibliographic program to organise your references and for the 'Cite while you write' functions they provide, it is valuable to use NVivo (or N4/N5) for organising your notes you have made (or even downloaded full text) for each reference to assist you in writing the text of your review. You can have the best of both worlds by using the programs in conjunction with each other. Export a bibliography from EndNote or ProCite that is configured to contain also the notes and abstracts fields (perhaps for a selected set of documents, e.g. sorted by keyword), so you get the extra data you have put in. This will be exported as an .rtf file (by default) or a .txt file (by request), so it can be immediately imported into your project with no further work, or you might choose to add some additional formatting to facilitate retrieval of reference details (see below). If you don’t have a bibliographic database, then use NVivo for recording the notes you make as you read—or record them in Word and then import them into NVivo.

If you are using EndNote, choose your preferred output style, and then request that each reference ends with the Notes and Abstracts fields. Users of ProCite, should select the additional fields (such as Notes and Abstracts) in the Configure dialogue when setting up to create their bibliography.

JOrdan Running shops for a carmp3:



Though I'm sure you're all sick of me talking about my homebuilt car MP3 player that, while perfect in design, has yet to, well, exist, it just keeps getting better. Today, Slashdot linked to this review of Shuttle's SV24 small form-factor barebones system. The case is 10.7" deep, 7.6" wide, and 6.4" tall (270 x 190 x 160mm) and made out of lightweight aluminum. The motherboard is packed with good stuff, including onboard Ethernet, audio (front-mounted output & input), S-video, composite (TV-out), and VGA video output, and both USB (front-mounted) and Firewire (!). It supports Socket 370 CPUs (Celeron and P3). On top of that, it has a hard drive bay, plus one 5.25" empty drive bay and one 3.5" bay, and one PCI slot.



The review gives it 5/5 and an Editor's Choice award. Though it borders on overkill for a simple CarPC, that's about the only strike against it. It lists for $250, but doesn't come with a processor, memory, or hard drive. Pricewatch says that two 64MB DIMMs ($3 each), a 40GB hard drive ($75), and a 500Mhz Celeron ($30) would set me back $111. That's $361 for a fully operational computer system that you could easily carry under one arm (I'd be inclined to attach a handle to the top).



Why this instead of the $200 "New Internet Computer" above? First and foremost, no hacking necessary. Using the N.I.C. would always feel kludgy for me.

June 10, 1999, Thursday Coming Of Age In Palo Alto
By KATIE HAFNER

IN 1981, while doing postdoctoral field work in cultural anthropology, Bonnie A. Nardi lived
with villagers in Western Samoa, trying to understand the cultural reasons that people there have an average of eight children.

Today Dr. Nardi works at AT&T Labs West in Menlo Park, Calif., and has no regrets. She left academia in 1984 and is considered a pioneer among anthropologists who are employed by high-tech companies to examine consumers' behavior in their homes and offices. ''Usually people say, 'What is an anthropologist doing here?' '' Dr. Nardi said. ''But when I explain that I study how people use technology in order to get new ideas for products and services, it instantly makes sense.'' No longer do companies study consumers' psyches only by asking people what they think about technology and how they use it. Now they conduct observational research, dispatching anthropologists to employ their ethnographic skills by interviewing, watching and videotaping consumers in their natural habitats. In the past several years, companies like Apple, Motorola, Xerox and Intel, as well as telecommunications and cable companies, have brought anthropologists into the corporate fold. The goal is to apply what the anthropologists learn to new product concepts. ''It's the extreme form of understanding the customer,'' Dr. Nardi said.

Ok.



So last night Ezra, my four-year-old son, asks me to help get this stuffed duck out of the pine tree in front of our student apartment. I throw a broom up into the tree, and it is slung back into my face, popping me next to the eyeball. We're talking 16 stitches! Now I need to find a shirt that says "My name is not Luka."

A Japanese Writer Analyzes Terrorists and Their Victims "If you are trained you can find the passage and come and go between the two worlds. It is easy to find an entrance into this closed circuit, but it is not easy to find an exit. Many gurus offer an entry into the circuit for free. But they don't offer a way out, because they want to keep followers trapped. Those people can be soldiers when they are ordered to be. I think that is very much like what happened with those people who flew the planes into those buildings."

Apache Tutorial: Dynamic Content with CGI CGI outside of ScriptAlias directories
CGI programs are often restricted to ScriptAlias'ed directories for security reasons. In this way, administrators can tightly control who is allowed to use CGI programs. However, if the proper security precautions are taken, there is no reason why CGI programs cannot be run from arbitrary directories. For example, you may wish to let users have web content in their home directories with the UserDir directive. If they want to have their own CGI programs, but don't have access to the main cgi-bin directory, they will need to be able to run CGI programs elsewhere.
Explicitly using Options to permit CGI execution
You could explicitly use the Options directive, inside your main server configuration file, to specify that CGI execution was permitted in a particular directory:

Options ExecCGI


The above directive tells Apache to permit the execution of CGI files. You will also need to tell the server what files are CGI files. The following AddHandler directive tells the server to treat all files with the cgi or pl extension as CGI programs:
AddHandler cgi-script cgi pl

audio for HTML using the EMBED tag Embed mp3 Files Most simply, try to embed your mp3 files in a similar manner to wav files:

This works on some servers (It depends on the MIME configuration). If this does not work properly, ask your server to setup the MIME type for mp3.
For better streaming (more immediate play) use a text editor to write a "m3u" file with one line something like this:
http://www.yoursite.com/file.mp3
Save the file as "file.m3u" and upload it to your site. On your web page, embed the mp3 file like this:

Music To add music files to your site, use midi files (.mid). Midi files are much smaller than wav files and, if the user has a good sound card, the quality can be much better.

Citation Methods & tools: The activity checklist: a tool for representing the “space” of context

On the Relationship Between Old and New Technologies Witte, Stephen (1999). Literate communication within professional work activity: Toward an activity theoretic perspective on expertise, unit of analysis, and methodology in advanced workplaces. (CRWL Tech. Rep. No.7). Kent, OH: Center for Research on Workplace Literacy.

Statement by John J. Maresca, Vice President, Unocal Corporation One obvious potential route south would be across Iran. However, this option is foreclosed for American companies because of U.S. sanctions legislation. The only other possible route option is across Afghanistan, which has its own unique challenges.

The country has been involved in bitter warfare for almost two decades. The territory across which the pipeline would extend is controlled by the Taliban, an Islamic movement that is not recognized as a government by most other nations. From the outset, we have made it clear that construction of our proposed pipeline cannot begin until a recognized government is in place that has the confidence of governments, lenders and our company.

In spite of this, a route through Afghanistan appears to be the best option with the fewest technical obstacles. It is the shortest route to the sea and has relatively favorable terrain for a pipeline. The route through Afghanistan is the one that would bring Central Asian oil closest to Asian markets and thus would be the cheapest in terms of transporting the oil.

Unocal envisions the creation of a Central Asian Oil Pipeline Consortium. The pipeline would become an integral part of a regional oil pipeline system that will utilize and gather oil from existing pipeline infrastructure in Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Russia.

Geology may give bin Laden away / Experts study recent video with hope of identifying his location in Afghanistan He said, "The photo image appears staged, probably with special lighting, in front of rocks that indicate (bin Laden) was probably in a ravine deep inside Paktia, which is a southwestern province in Afghanistan, and Pushtun tribal territory."

NATURAL CAVES IN AREA

In that region, "the rock has a number of natural caves, as well as hand- dug ones," Shroder said in an e-mail. "This site looks reasonably natural, with the hole behind him either being an animal burrow or possibly a site where some human has dug in a bit looking for gold or some other mineral of interest.

"Local peasant people dig all over the place looking for various minerals that they hope will somehow make them some money."

TheFamily.com Home Page

Cold War II: America needs you, Harry Truman Might it not, therefore, be most prudent simply to swallow our ire and "mind our own business" in the hope that the terrorists will leave us, our friends, and our interests be? Remember the Twin Towers and ask yourself how likely that is. If the answer is "not very" then all those American officials and defense intellectuals so recently accused of being "nostalgic for the Cold War" can again get up in the morning with a reason for living. And all of us Vietnam veterans and diplomatic historians can leap to remind them of the qualities most needed - but not always present - in our leaders during Cold War I, including determination, realism, courage, prudence, patience, and faith. Let the saints within us whisper, "Do justice and walk humbly with your God," while the heroes within us shout, "Don't Tread on Me."

CRG -- "OSAMAGATE" Among the foreign mercenaries now fighting in Macedonia (October 2001) in the ranks of self-proclaimed National Liberation Army (NLA), are Mujahideen from the Middle East and the Central Asian republics of the former Soviet Union. Also within the KLA's proxy force in Macedonia are senior US military advisers from a private mercenary outfit on contract to the Pentagon as well as "soldiers of fortune" from Britain, Holland and Germany. Some of these Western mercenaries had previously fought with the KLA and the Bosnian Muslim Army.18

Eszter Hargittai and Miguel Centeno examine ways to define and map globalisation - On Line Opinion 15/9/01. Second, it is clear that globalisation does not involve a flattening of a global hierarchy. Some countries are richer, have better communications, and play a more central role. Moreover, there are clear benefits to be derived from this centrality. As globalisation intensifies, these benefits might even increase, producing practically insurmountable (if invisible) walls around the new empires. More specifically, practically all the studies point to the dominant position of the United States in practically every international network. In many ways, globalisation may be better understood as the Americanisation of the world.

James S. Robbins on war/ bin Laden on National Review Online So the World Trade Towers had to come down because some psychopath can't come to grips with the end of World War I? Basically, yes.

CBS Considers WTC Comedy CBS Considers WTC Comedy

After weeks of Hollywood going out of its way to eliminate images of New York's skyline--particularly the Twin Towers--from movies and TV shows, CBS says it's considering a comedy set in the aftermath of the World Trade Center tragedies.



Network president Leslie Moonves told reported Thursday that he's considering green-lighting a romantic comedy series about two people brought together after their spouses are killed in the collapse of the landmark complex.

Moonves said a producer (whom he declined to name) pitched him a series involving a middle-aged couple prior to the events September 11. Following the attacks, the producer came back and said the premise "could easily be changed" to "heighten the stakes" and tell some of the more poignant personal yarns that came out of the disaster.

"Is it exploitive to do something like that? Not if it's handled properly," Moonves said.

Eszter Hargittai and Miguel Centeno examine ways to define and map globalisation - On Line Opinion 15/9/01. The new geography of globalisation should begin to gather data at levels of aggregation smaller than the nation-state. Cities or specific regions within countries (e.g., Emilia-Romagna in Italy, Catalonia in Spain, the American coasts) are much more integrated into the global economy. Cross-border zones are very much a part of globalisation and may account for a disproportionate share of relational links. The new geography should make every attempt to privilege these sub-units, which are increasingly more relevant than our nation-centric analytical atlas.

Walter Lippmann gave the conflict its name - the Cold War - and a left-to-right spectrum from Henry Wallace to George Kennan to Robert Taft immediately warned that a protracted conflict against the communist conspiracy might draw the United States into unlimited commitments, Machiavellian ploys, and collusion with all manner of foul bedfellows. But the Congress and public stood up almost as one behind the Truman Doctrine, Marshall Plan, NATO, and the Korean War.



The second Cold War may also have crept up on us slowly. Leaving aside introspective domestic recriminations to the effect that America deserved the attack of September 11 (a matter best left to the purveyor of "infinite justice"), historians are certain to clash over questions of causality and blame. Did Americans' energy-guzzling habits, hence dependence on Persian Gulf oil and support for authoritarian Muslim regimes, create fertile soil for Islamic fanatics? Did American disengagement from Afghanistan following the expulsion of the Soviets permit the Taliban to seize power? Did American support for Israel and the 1991 war on Iraq validate in the bazaars an image of the United States as the Great Satan? Did the George H W Bush administration's display of irresistible military might but reluctance to finish off Saddam Hussein all but invite rogue states to wage asymmetrical warfare, including sponsorship of terrorist groups, to promote their agendas? Did the Clinton administration's penchant for poking, but not killing, t

How the terror trail went unseen The latest evidence from the FBI suggests that the hijackers easily hid under the noses of the American government, not by using advanced technology but by being as American as apple pie.

Xeno's Arrow - 10 Laws of Bad Science Fiction Remember that technology introduced at the start of the story always causes everyone's problems, while technology introduced in the middle or at the end of the story always solves everyone's problems.This could be referred to as the "If-Only-I'd-Invented-It-Ninety-Minutes-Later" Conundrum.

Requiem for a Cheerleader: Silicon Alley Magazine Is Dead "Having a magazine about the Internet now is like having a magazine about refrigerators," he said. "What can you say about them? They work."

AlterNet -- 10 Things to Know About the Middle East 3. Why is there so much violence and political instability in the Middle East?

For most of the past 500 years, the Middle East actually saw less violence and warfare and more political stability than Europe or most other regions of the world. It has only been in the last century that the region has seen such widespread conflict. The roots of the conflict are similar to those elsewhere in the Third World, and have to do with the legacy of colonialism, such as artificial political boundaries, autocratic regimes, militarization, economic inequality and economies based on the export of raw materials for finished goods. Indeed, the Middle East has more autocratic regimes, militarization, economic inequality and the greatest ratio of exports to domestic consumption than any region in the world.

MOVABLE TYPE :: Personal Publishing System

Red Rock Eater Digest - notes and recommendations Computer networks do sometimes promote transparency, but
the conditions under which they do so are complicated.

A later version is the concept of community of practice, which began
with work by Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger at a Xerox PARC spinoff,
the Institute for Research on Learning, in the 1980s. Etienne later
wrote a book called Communities of Practice (Cambridge University
Press, 1998). A community of practice is a group of people with
its own culture, which uses its rituals to pool knowledge among
its members. New members are acculturated by participating at
the edges of the activity, for example through apprenticeship, and
then by moving to successively more central roles in the community.
The community of practice framework does not provide hard-and-fast
generalizations about the workings of the communities, but rather
a set of concepts that have proven useful in analyzing the workings
of many particular cases. In a series of papers and a recent book,
The Social Life of Information (Harvard Business School Press, 2000),
John Seely Brown and Paul Duguid have developed the community of
practice framework in making suggestions about the future of several
institutions, such as politics and the university. The key in each
case is to amplify (and certainly not to destroy) the conditions that
make communities of practice possible. A university, for example,
should be viewed (at least from one perspective) as a mechanism for
introducing an individual into the community of practice in which they
will spend their career.

DVDx - Home

CONVERT

VCD Tools

Computers Invite a Tangled Web of Complications For that matter, what do I know? If I were Web savvy, I could find out. And easy access to facts is one more terrible thing about writing with computers. There's nothing worse than getting a hard fact stuck in the Royal portable (or IBM Selectric) when you're trying to pound out truths. Imagine "Gulliver's Travels" if Jonathan Swift had known what was on the other side of the world.

EQUINOX Tourlite Options The EQUINOX Tourlite Nordic Sled

FEATURES

Simply release the tongue and wheels, attach skis or snow blanket and your are set to take your children cross country skiing with the EQUINOX Tourlite Nordic Ski Sled Kit.

EQUINOX Tourlite Nordic Sled can be purchased as a Ski Sled alone, or as a Optional Kit for The EQUINOX Tourlite Bicycle Trailer, EQUINOX Stroller, etc.

The 2,988 Words That Changed a Presidency: An Etymology They knew little for certain, and knowing little increased their natural tendency to sound like Churchill, whose writing they all liked. Gerson tried out: ''In the long term, terrorism is not answered by higher walls and deeper bunkers.'' The team kept going: ''Whether we bring our enemies to justice or bring justice to our enemies, justice will be done.'' The computer screen filled with rolling triads. ''This is the world's fight; this is civilization's fight; this is the fight of all who believe in progress and pluralism, tolerance and freedom.'' Words tumbled out.

''They were just sitting there, jamming,'' said Juleanna Glover Weiss, the vice president's press secretary, whose office is next door. ''There was a sort of one-upsmanship to it.'' Gerson wrote, ''Freedom is at war with fear.'' Together, they tweaked it: ''Freedom and fear are at war.'' They worked steadily, getting meals from the White House mess to keep them going.

Justin Hall Reviews GameStudies The editors feel their time has come: "Today we have the possibility to build a new field. We have a billion dollar industry with almost no basic research, we have the most fascinating cultural material to appear in a very long time, and we have the chance of uniting aesthetic, cultural and technical design aspects in a single discipline" (Computer Game Studies, Year One by Espen Aarseth).

sachs gear inch calculator

waredevil / services / web maintenance comparison chart Based on a junior web designer salary of $50,000 and a senior web design salary of $100,000. (We have not accounted for insurance or other forms of compensation with these figures.)

For more accurate figures visit Salary.com's US averages for Web Designer and Web Designer, Sr..

DoCTA Resources - Literature Review Kaptelinin, V. & Nardi, B. A. (1997). The Activity Checklist: A tool for representing the "space" of context. Working paper. Department of Informatics, Umeå University, .
This paper introduces the Activity Checklist, a practical tool to provide guidance and structure for empirical work that takes account of context in design and evalutation. The Checklist is based on activity theory, whick provides concepts and vocabulary for analyzing the context of computer-supported work. The paper discusses activity theory, presents the Checklist, and shows its use via an example of a specific technology, Apple Data Detectors.

Mark,
There is not a short answer to your question. But below is a list of resources that might be helpful. If you haven't read Cole's book or Engestrom's book, that is the place to start. Also, there is a lot of stuff from the field of human-computer interaction (HCI) that explains AT much more clearly than anything in our own field and I would encourage you to seek that out. Specifically, Kaptelinin, V; Nardi, Bonnie and Macaulay, C . The Activity Checklist: A Tool for Representing the "Space" of Context. Interactions 6. This article is specifically intended for people who need some guidance in using AT in their own work. Also, Bodker is someone who explains things pretty clearly for the HCI audience. I also find Stephen Witte to be extremely clear on this topic. Really my best advice is to find people outside our field who have been using AT as a methodology rather than a theory; they explain it the best. HCI wins the prize in my book for explaining AT so well that lots of people in the field actually started to use it.

David Russell has just written a paper that attempts to clearly outline the terms for our field, but it's not published yet. I've written an article trying to do a similar thing that is under consideration. We both feel that there is really nothing in OUR field that is clear enough to get people on board. Until Russell's new article comes out, though, I'd suggest you read some of the things in the list below. Engestrom's triangle, explained by Engestrom and then Cole is the absolutely crucial thing to try to get.

Basically, I would have to say that it took me about 2 years of mentoring with David Russell to get a grasp on AT. I think that without that face to face help I would not have really ever known what I was talking about. If you all are loving AT but finding no one there to guide you in it, you might put AT aside for a while and read Etienne Wenger's Communities of Practice. It is a lot clearer and really makes many of the same points as AT.

To your particular question I will just say that the primary unit of analysis is the ACTIVITY SYSTEM. Within that Engestrom has outlined six components than can be helpful in mapping out what is happening within the activity system that you as the researcher have decided to examine. Keep in mind that YOU, the researcher, decide to look at a particular activity system but that decision is really rather arbitrary. My classroom might be an activity system, but my dept might be also, and maybe my college. Maybe even the university. There are systems within systems and lots of activities within those systems and lots of overlapping systems; as a researcher you just have to decide what you are focusing on and remember not to be too structuralist about it. Within that system you can pick any activity to focus on, also keeping in mind that it is not THE only activity you could be focusing on. What is important is the object of the activity and the tools people use in common to accomplish the activity.

Hope this helps some.
Elizabeth

Engestrom, Yrgo. Learning By Expanding: An Activity-Theoretical Approach To Developmental Research. Helsinki: Orienta-Konsultit, 1987.

Cole, Michael. Cultural Psychology. Harvard University Press, 1996.

Witte, Stephen. Literate Communication Within Professional Work Activity: Toward An Activity Theoretic Perspective On Expertise, Unit Of Analysis, And Methodology In Advanced Workplaces. CRWL Technical Report. Kent, OH: Kent State University, Center for Research on Workplace Literacy, 1998.

Witte, Stephen. The Advanced Workplace Ensemble (AWE): An Introduction to a Unit of Analysis for Studying Literacy in Advanced or Professional Workplaces.

Russell, David. Looking Beyond the Interface. Forthcoming.

Prior, Paul. Writing/Disciplinarity: A Sociohistoric Account of Literate Activity in the Academy. Mahwah: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1998.

Hasu, Mervi and Yrgo Engestrom. Measurement In Action: An Activity-Theoretical Perspective On Producer-User Interaction. International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 53, 2000. 61-89.

Decortis, Francoise; Samuel Noirfalise and Berthe Saudelli. Activity Theory, Cognitive Ergonomics And Distributed Cognition: Three Views Of A Transport Company. International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 53, 2000. 5-33.

Cole, Michael and Yrgo Engeström. A Cultural-Historical Approach To Distributed Cognition. In G. Salomon (Ed.) Distributed Cognitions: Psychological And Educational Considerations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993. 1-46.





At 02:26 PM 10/2/2001 -0400, you wrote:

Hello.

This is Mark Crane from your former place of education. We have a problem that we are too embarassed to ask about.

Various individuals who remain nameless start playing with activity theory around here. At some point they start designing a study, and start asking the question,

"So what's the unit of activity? The student text? The classroom? The Department?"

After about three days of this they start badmouthing AT and just steal key terms and use them out of context.

So, my question is, how would you answer the above question about context? Given that you are closer to Mecca than we are, we thought you could help us out here.

The Unofficial Audrey Home Page The Unofficial Audrey Home Page

A Cautionary Tale for a New Age of Surveillance "The technology here is geared up to terrorism," Parsons told me. "The fact that we're getting ordinary people -- burglars stealing cars -- as a result of it is sort of a bonus."

Have you caught any terrorists? I asked. "No, not using this technology, no," he replied.

LILEKS (James) The Bleat Here’s a definition of the times in which we find ourselves: a jet gets blown up by an errant rocket, a Florida man comes down with anthrax, the Afghan refugee camps are swept by an Ebola-style bleed-from-all-available-exits disease, and it’s not necessarily a big news day. A brisk one, yes, but nothing to get excited about. The sight of the two tall towers coming down set the standard for News. Military action by US forces will be the only thing to really set pulses galloping again.

Biking @ 80 MPH Its interesting that there is no sport body able to successfully promote HPV racing. The technology potential doesn't diminish the athletic acheivement the same way golf does, and its suprising because it gives the manufacturers more crap to sell, which one would assume drives the sport.



... Maybe I've been around the golf industry to long.

Noam Chomsky Most specialists on the region, and in fact, foreign leaders, NATO leaders, have been telling Washington as loudly as they can that if the U.S. carries out a large military attack which very visibly kills a lot of innocent Afghans, that will be an answer to Bin Laden’s prayers. It will be like virtually a recruitment procedure for new people to join his horrendous cause. And if he’s killed, even more so, he then becomes an martyr. I think that’s probably why Washington has backed off from its early militant rhetoric, it’s been hearing that message. That would not only be a crime in itself but as you said, it would be a way of recruiting others who want to take revenge for the crime. That’s just what the terrorists want. They would react the same way many people here reacted to the bombing of the World Trade Center. They want revenge. If we want to be serious about it, we have to choose a course of action which will not escalate the cycle of violence and play into the hands of the terrorist groups.

Noam Chomsky ??



Noam Chomsky: Personally I don’t think and have never thought that we should discontinue support of Israel. I am very critical of their policy towards Israel but that’s in part because I think it’s very harmful to the people of Israel. It happens to support the government, but it’s harmful to the people in my opinion. What we should do, I think, is join what has been a very broad international consensus for about 25 years now, which calls for a two state settlement on the internationally recognized borders (that means pre-June 1967) in recognizing the rights and guaranteeing the security of all states in the region including Israel and a Palestinian state. That has been the overwhelming position of the entire world for 25 years. In fact, the resolution to that effect was vetoed by the United States at the Security Council 25 years ago and Washington has been blocking similar initiatives ever since, still is. I don’t think that that is moral or wise.

So do Bob Dylan's lyrics even apply any more?



Come you masters of war

You that build all the guns

You that build the death planes

You that build the big bombs

You that hide behind walls

You that hide behind desks

I just want you to know

I can see through your masks



You that never done nothin'

But build to destroy

You play with my world

Like it's your little toy

You put a gun in my hand

And you hide from my eyes

And you turn and run farther

When the fast bullets fly



Like Judas of old

You lie and deceive

A world war can be won

You want me to believe

But I see through your eyes

And I see through your brain

Like I see through the water

That runs down my drain



You fasten the triggers

For the others to fire

Then you set back and watch

When the death count gets higher

You hide in your mansion

As young people's blood

Flows out of their bodies

And is buried in the mud



You've thrown the worst fear

That can ever be hurled

Fear to bring children

Into the world

For threatening my baby

Unborn and unnamed

You ain't worth the blood

That runs in your veins



How much do I know

To talk out of turn

You might say that I'm young

You might say I'm unlearned

But there's one thing I know

Though I'm younger than you

Even Jesus would never

Forgive what you do



Let me ask you one question

Is your money that good

Will it buy you forgiveness

Do you think that it could

I think you will find

When your death takes its toll

All the money you made

Will never buy back your soul



And I hope that you die

And your death'll come soon

I will follow your casket

In the pale afternoon

And I'll watch while you're lowered

Down to your deathbed

And I'll stand o'er your grave

'Til I'm sure that you're dead







Copyright © 1963; renewed 1991 Special Rider Music

13 Labs You know,



. . . and pardon me if I'm stating the obvious here. But I just took a moment to reassess all the information I've been aborbing up to and through this morning from a wide range of sources--sources as disparate as msnbc, zmag, the tribune, the nation, cnn, harpers, npr, salon and on and on . . .



. . . as I check all that against what I know of history, namely, the inception of past global conflicts, I have to say, really, that we're on the threshold of a third world war here. I think this may be it. I hope I'm wrong.

posted by Musashi, Miyamoto ; Killer of men 11:33 AM link

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The internet has just reached its full potential.

ZOOLANDER / * (PG-13) There have been articles lately asking why the United States is so hated in some parts of the world. As this week's Exhibit A from Hollywood, I offer "Zoolander," a comedy about a plot to assassinate the prime minister of Malaysia because of his opposition to child labor. You might want to read that sentence twice. The logic: Child labor is necessary to the economic health of the fashion industry, and so its opponents must be eliminated. Ben Stiller stars as Derek Zoolander, a moronic male model who is brainwashed to perform the murder.

Tensions Stagger Mideast Startups "The (situation) is a depressant," Hecker said. "Every day there are several shootings on the roads, prevented suicide attacks, mortars fired in Gaza. Those are normal days.... It paralyzes you. It's difficult to care about defining (Omnisky's) location-based instant messaging services when there are bombs exploding down the street."

Slashdot | Managing Mailing Lists If we take mailing list technology as a given, there are still some pieces of advice that I think are required for anyone running a mailing list:

- Always moderate your mailing list. There are too many e-mail worms and other nasty crap that happens via e-mail these days. It's possible to infect hundreds of people instantaneously via an unmoderated mailing list. This stuff can be caught if a human reads every submission.

- Moderate daily. People hate seeing their messages sit in queue for too long.

- Moderate mistakes. One-line "I agree" posts, "fuck you" posts, posts that clearly were not intended for the list, and empty posts should never go to the list.

- Resist the urge to limit discussion. If someone has an opinion that you disagree with, this is exactly the sort of thing that you want to see on your list. Most moderators make the mistake (as they do on Slashdot) that because they disagree with the poster's opinion, it shouldn't be seen by anyone. A healthy disagreement is critical to the survival of any online forum.

Economist.com Until now, size and production cost were the main obstacles that stopped companies from embedding identification chips in everyday items. But Hitachi has managed to create an integrated circuit that is not only tiny but cheap. The company expects a single chip to cost less than ¥20 (16 cents). Originally, the chip was built in an attempt to foil counterfeiters. It is small and thin enough to be woven into paper, and folding does not harm it. In combination with a bar-code reader, the chips can prove the authenticity of money or official documents, thwarting counterfeiters before they have even begun.

digitalMass at Boston.comElm Square has designed touchscreens with simple graphics and bold colors (to replace ancient machines that had 200 buttons with menu items scrawled in tiny print) networked to kitchen computer screens that can translate orders into Spanish or German. Portuguese is on the way. The new computers require fewer key strokes for every sale, and they show how to make change, with pictures of dollar bills and coins. A Web system lets Shapiro monitor the store remotely, so he can track sales hour by hour, check staffing and customer waiting time, and communicate with managers. Self-service ordering for customers is just around the corner.

Here's my blurb on Alias I've been playing with since I saw it:



'Imagine the hair of "Run, Lola Run", the teeth torture of "Marathon Man," the butt-kicking female agent of "La Femme Nikita" and some heavy John Wu influence. Now add the subplots and soundtrack from Felicity. And wrap the whole thing inside a Nokia commercial.'



They're going to make a bazillion dollars. Not to lose my street cred here (like I have any) but it was pretty durn violent for network teevee. It's a good thing they pulled those teeth out of the back so she'd still look good later in the show. My wife *hated* this show. She said something like, "We just saw people falling out of exploding buildings. I don't need this right now."



I felt kind of worked over after seeing it.

Business 2.0 - Web Article - The Peter Drucker Interview -- Unabridged Why are so many management thinkers also consultants?

Fifty-five years ago, I said no to the Harvard Business School. One of the main reasons was the then-dean laid down the rule that faculty could only have one day a week consulting. He had a problem with faculty spending more time off campus. To me, management is a practice, and a practitioner needs a practice. I look at my consulting practice as my laboratory. Before World War II, there were almost no graduate schools of business. There were only schools of commerce. And now there are more than 600. And it grew so fast that faculties now have almost no practical experience. Now that this rapid explosion is flattening out, I hope they will learn that they should have consulting services just as in medical school, where you can bring the patient into the classroom. You can't do that in management school, so you have to go out and get your practical experience as a consultant.

Business 2.0 - Web Article - The Peter Drucker Interview -- Unabridged You know what the Internet is? Not a few days goes by when on my e-mail there is not a letter from a student someplace in the world asking me to write their paper for them. It usually says, "Dear professor," or, "Mr. Drucker: On Monday morning I have to hand in a paper on management. Will you please be good enough to send me immediately what I should be writing about?" Most of these letters do not tell me where they come from. They come in all languages. I throw them in the wastepaper basket and that's it. And the kids know that. But what is the risk? It doesn't cost anything.

news.telegraph.co.uk - I was one of the Taliban's torturers: I crucified people "At first, Mr Hassani's job was to patrol the streets at night looking for thieves and signs of subversion. However, as the Taliban leadership began issuing more and more extreme edicts, his duties changed.

Instead of just searching for criminals, the night patrols were instructed to seek out people watching videos, playing cards or, bizarrely, keeping caged birds. Men without long enough beards were to be arrested, as was any woman who dared venture outside her house. Even owning a kite became a criminal offence."



I wonder if full encryption is allowed in Afghanistan? I wonder what they could do with face-recognition technology?

RUST PRIMER A Primer on Rust