too many topics,

    too little time.

little rhymes:

classic.

:

The life of an eighteen-year-old girl in Israel is interrupted when she is plucked out of her environment at an age when sexual, educational, and family values are at their highest exploration point. She is then placed in a rigorous institution, where individuality becomes a secondary matter, making room for nationalism. “I solemnly swear…to devote all of my strength and to sacrifice my life to protect the land and the liberty of Israel,” repeats the newly recruited soldier during her swearing-in ceremony. She enters the two-year period in which she will change from a girl to a woman, a teenager to an adult, all under a militaristic, masculine environment, and in the confines of an army that is engaged in daily war and conflict

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the meaning and requirements of national militarism is transformational to many identities.

Did Sam’s Club Go Too Far?:

A Pittsburgh man was shopping at a Sam’s Club store in Monroeville, Pennsylvania when store security stopped him. He was told that they had been
watching him and had video tape on his activities at two other Sam’s Club stores as well as information on his buying habits. He was not allowed to
purchase the items that he had in his cart, his Sam’s Club membership card was confiscated and he was told to never set foot in any Sam’s Club or
Walmart again or else he would be prosecuted. When a reporter contacted the corporate offices of Sam’s Club to inquire about the incident, he was
told that there had been a mistake. An apology was given to the man and he was told that there would be an investigation.

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your book buying cards and supermarket discount clubs have no importance to your identity at all… right. Riiiiigggggghhhhhhhtttttttt. This is the sort of thing that you get when you sign away your identity for analysis, read your contracts.

Inside the Mind of Gloria Brame: Eclipse with bird:

Eclipse with bird

A bird sits on a tree during a solar eclipse in Islamabad…

This is the best picture i’ve seen from the eclipse…. art still lives in islamabad.

Multitasking less efficient, easier for young people:

TIME magazine covers what they call “Generation M” - M for multitasking - made up of overstimulated teenagers who constantly split their time and attention between instant messaging, Facebook, Myspace, their iPods, cell phone and blogs.

Psychologists say this kind of multitasking is easier for young adults than children or older people because of development in a certain area of the brain, and is also a lot less efficient than focusing on one task at a time.

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if human brains adapt or can be habituated to certain mental conditions, which in my experience is clearly true, within certain frameworks of capacity, then it seems clear to me that if you train a brain to multitask efficiently, it could become less efficient at other things, that is… if there is a trajectory model of adaption which is implied by limited capacities. Thoughts?

AxisofLogic/ Economy:

March 23rd is more than a normal day. A release from DownsizeDC serves as a reminder that today the Federal Reserve stops publishing a statistic known as M3 - the best information available on how much new currency is being created and held around the world. The release points out that “The Federal Reserve can create new dollars out of thin air. … When more dollars are created prices rise and the value of your savings fall.”

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isn’t this sort of like what happened in weimar germany before hyper inflation?

Clapton Miller Sanburn :

Clapton Miller Sanburn

End hunger in a video game:

Not all video games are horrible. Just try out the simulation called Food Force, in which players take on six missions to help feed millions of hungry people in a place called Sheylan in the Indian Ocean. 

The game, freely downloadable off of Yahoo, was created by, of all groups, the United Nations. The UN has a sub-organization called the World Food Programme (WFP) whose mission is “halving the proportion of hungry people in the world.” The game is mostly educational, representing to players what the day to day tasks of the WFP are: from determining a what a balanced diet for the people of Sheylan would be to figuring out they best way to distribute aid. No guns, no shooting, but there are a few helicopter rides.

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interesting simulation….

‘Party in your pants’ iPod accessory ships Stateside [printer-friendly] | The Register :

‘Party in your pants’ iPod accessory ships StatesideBy ‘ard RegPublished Tuesday 28th March 2006 12:41 GMTThe iBuzz, the infamous iPod-enhanced vibrator, has…er…come to the US. Already on sale in the UK, the device has now gone one sale to North Americans keen to really ‘feel’ the music, movies or even video games…

Dubbed the “music-activated orgasm machine”, the iBuzz connects to an iPod or any other digital music player, using its audio output to drive a vibrating bullet. The pack contains a set of his’n'hers spikey latex sleeves for “extra excitement”.

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the cultural replacement of pair-bonding relationships with ipods…. continues! heh

California Town Installs
Stockades for Smokers > The LaLa Times:

CALABASAS, Calif. – Thinking of lighting up in California? Think again. A new shaming law here takes effect this month will put smokers in publicly placed stockades for up to 30 days as part of legislation intended to shame smokers and cut health care costs.

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Civilization is grand

desktopblues.lichtlabor.ch:

I like it.

computerworks:

follow the pink ball.

Global Desktop:

Through the Global Desktop Project, partners will benefit not only from the development of a user-friendly open source desktop, but also from: 

1. . Significant local expertise in Linux, open source and distributed development methodologies, which will position participating regions as a desirable location for companies moving software development efforts to Asia;
2. . Integration of distributed development, Linux and related software into the local educational curricula and improved training for students in IT, computer science, engineering and other technical programs;
3. . A support and information network of IT users in government; enterprise IT, small and medium-sized enterprises, that channels local needs into software that such organizations use on a daily basis; 
4. . Positioning Institutes of Higher Learnings as valued and influential members of the worldwide open source community; 
5. . Empowering individuals, government agencies, local businesses and other organizations towards technological self-determination.

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sounds like this could be a good project. but it does ring of ’strategic’ move more than ‘universally beneficial’ move.

Stanislaw Lem - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:

Stanisław Lem (September 12, 1921 - March 27, 2006) was a Polish science fiction, philosophical, and satirical writer. His books have been translated into 41 languages and sold over 27 million copies. At one point he was the most widely read science fiction author in the world. Lem’s writing is full of intelligent humor, puns, and neologisms, and Michael Kandel’s translations into English have been praised by many for capturing Lem’s style.

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Stanislaw Lem passed on today. The world is at a great loss.

MIT Media Lab Guru Says No Computers in Schools:

Michael Schrage of the MIT Media Lab wrote a piece for The Financial Times saying that there should be no computers in schools. He argues that billions could be saved by keeping useless technologies out of schools. As an educational technologist, I felt that I needed to address his critique.

 
I think his main argument is with educational software companies, but he fails to differentiate between them and between teachers using technology in the classroom. His article cites nothing other than his own opinions, but it is an interesting read nonetheless.

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No to computers in schools… but…. having the underfunded developing world pay for laptops from their national budget to the tune of ten’s of millions of dollars… that’s a great idea… Isn’t it? I’m not sure computers should be ubiquitous in education at all. I think that students need to experience diverse informational experiences, not just computer based, not just book based, but also oral traditons, etc.