Re: [FRIAM] Faber, Sapiens, or Ludens?

[Victoria Hughes]

This is an excellent question. Thanks, Steve. 
First, do you truly think it is possible or useful to have a balance between 
Faber, Sapiens, and Ludens?
Then what would it be? 
My vote would be for a Taoist approach, responding to the needs of the moment 
with the appropriate way of being. 
Rather than to create a hierarchy of use that says one approach is always 
better than the others- which may seem psychologically tidy but doesn’t work. 
Years ago in ANALOG science fiction/science fact (dating myself, it was the 
only magazine I read as a teenager) the editor wrote “The only problem with 
flawless logic is that it’s completely irrational”. Even Spock got a 
girlfriend….. 


Tory


On Feb 15, 2015, at 4:05 PM, Steve Smith  wrote:

> What represents a responsible, enlightened balance between Faber, Sapiens and 
> Ludens ?   As both Glen and Marcus have pointed out (I hope I'm not taking 
> too many liberties in interpreting them) the only way to find out answers to 
> questions like this is to proceed, and I have to agree... I just don't want 
> to see any of the three thrown out/ignored/marginalized at the expense of the 
> others. 


FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com

Re: [FRIAM] response to: Friam Digest, Vol 140, Issue 12

[Victoria Hughes]

IN the long run it is more profitable, and much less arrogant.



Tory Hughes
victo...@toryhughes.com
505-301-9142





On Feb 15, 2015, at 10:39 AM, peggy miller  wrote:

> Steve Smith and Marcus wrote of GMO's and their concerns related to how we 
> seem to construct only worse disasters as we endeavor through unnatural means 
> to address ones we have already created. I agree and add to their views with 
> this:
> 
>  "natural" is a term bandied about easily, but it is a very important 
> concept. Cells in our body and their entire method of working well and 
> keeping us healthy is based on natural design. Each time we use unnatural 
> designs for purposes of consumption, or for medicine, or even placed in the 
> air in which we live and breath,  we contribute to the destruction and 
> alteration of billions of years of carefully developed mechanisms. It is easy 
> to work within natural systems to feed and cloth ourselves, and these natural 
> methods also protect the rest of the animal population as well
> . It just isn't quite as profitable. 
> 
> Peggy Miller
> medical herbalist/writer/artist
> 
> -- 
> Miss Peggy Miller, owner:  Highland Winds, LLC (Medicinal Herbs and Art) 
> website: wix.com/peggymiller/highlandwinds; facebook link  
> Medical Herbal Practice & shop:  1520 S. 7th St. W. (Just off Russell)  
> Phone:  406-541-7577  
> Medical Herbal Consults and shop items: By appointment Tuesday - Friday, 
> 11-5.. (If you need a somewhat earlier or later time, let me know.)
> (General Reminder: many herbs shouldn't be used by those who are pregnant; 
> ask about herbs & blends.) (If you no longer want emails from Highland Winds, 
> click reply and ask for emails to stop.)
> 
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
> to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com


FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com

[FRIAM] [ SPAM ] Re: Slasdhot linked article RE; god

[Victoria Hughes]

Dang I HATE it when I hit send accidentally---
As I was typing:
I believe that believing too fervently in our technological gods keeps us from 
recognizing our immaturity of experience as a species: we have not shown much 
aptitude for using either theological or technological gods as humane, 
sustaining or intelligent activities. 
Mebbe we get the god we deserve. 
Mebbe we get the belief we have faith in. 
Whence can cometh growth?

Tory
Now! 

> On Jan 8, 2015, at 9:30 PM, Victoria Hughes  wrote:
> 
> So any belief other than one's own is a delusion?
> How convenient. 
> I do not believe that our technology is sophisticated / adept / precise / 
> subtle enough to answer any of these open ended philosophical queries. I 
> believe that believing our technology- and our ability to be responsible and 
> appropriate with its use- 
> Oops! Does that make me a terrorist? Or criminally dysfunctional? 
> Perhaps in Russia I would now be banned from having a drivers' license. 
> Gosh. 
> Good luck in your 
> Tory 
> 
> 
>> On Jan 8, 2015, at 8:03 PM, "Vladimyr Burachynsky"  wrote:
>> 
>> This is becoming a shark feeding frenzy of Media demanding that I believe 
>> different versions of the demented beliefs.
>> Which ever outlet I side with demands I become a believer. I am not Normal 
>> to begin with, otherwise I MIGHT actually take up arms and shoot at a target 
>> they suggest. Should I take a Gravol to control the vertigo as they spin me 
>> around, aiming at phantoms.
>> 
>> Hollande is strutting about like a shrunken , down sized de Gaulle after he 
>> nearly lost France to a Troop of Disgruntled Foreign Legionnaires
>> from Algeria.
>> 
>> al Jazeera wants me to believe that there is a war against all Muslims. CBC 
>> wants me to believe that the Muslims are about to attack the country.
>> Wait we are in a deep freeze and any Arab set upon conquering Canada must 
>> contend with unimaginable Arctic Cold and if they want to rob a gas station 
>> on the way they will probably freeze to death in the dark. Hollande wants us 
>> to believe he is the reincarnation of de Gaulle or Vercingetorix. Kerry 
>> wants me to believe he speaks French. Putin probably wants me to believe he 
>> is Vladimir Monomahk the slayer of Turks.
>> 
>> These  tough-guys are not so crazy as the Media. They have remained silent 
>> for now. One Canadian media outlet is attacking our National Outlet , CBC, 
>> as cowards , yes they used the word correctly,
>> who refused to show the Charlie Hebdo images on air( they were Blacked 
>> -Out). Maybe Oprah Winfry can get them to confess on prime time T.V.
>> A Montreal journalist ,  has bared his chest ( but no soul was to be seen) 
>> and declared that CBC ordered him to self-censor out of fear.
>> What a show.
>> Actually the Russian media is being rather discreet, what a shock. No one 
>> has the wherewithal to post the price of oil or the disposition of ISIL
>> and the Saudi invasions.
>> vib
>> 
>> I will snicker from my warm hovel in this cold blast.
>> I am waiting for the much feared promised global warming to arrive. 
>> Just where is Al Gore now that I want to believe in his delusions? If I pick 
>> one belief  will the others stop pestering me?
>> No I guess it is more like an attack of Blackflies or mosquitoes.
>> Perhaps Glen is correct  "Beliefs don't kill people. People kill people"
>> I might add "Believers have the right to  kill non-believers".
>> 
>> 
>> -Original Message-
>> From: Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of glen
>> Sent: January-08-15 7:24 PM
>> To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
>> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Slasdhot linked article RE; god
>> 
>>> On 01/08/2015 03:49 PM, Marcus G. Daniels wrote:
>>> Or that they are mentally ill and need `retraining'.  But that takes 
>>> us down the road of recognizing the danger latent in faith, which I 
>>> don't think the US is close to doing.
>> 
>> Exactly ... though it goes beyond just faith to any sort of psychological 
>> problem, I think.  E.g. It's fine if you're deluded into believing, say, the 
>> "law of attraction" 
>> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_attraction_%28New_Thought%29> as long 
>> as you don't do things like rely on it to heal your children or somesuch.
>> 
>> Beliefs don't kill people.  People kill people. ;-)
>> 
>> --
>> ⇔ glen
>> 
>> 
>> FRIAM Applied

Re: [FRIAM] Slasdhot linked article RE; god

[Victoria Hughes]

So any belief other than one's own is a delusion?
How convenient. 
I do not believe that our technology is sophisticated / adept / precise / 
subtle enough to answer any of these open ended philosophical queries. I 
believe that believing our technology- and our ability to be responsible and 
appropriate with its use- 
Oops! Does that make me a terrorist? Or criminally dysfunctional? 
Perhaps in Russia I would now be banned from having a drivers' license. 
Gosh. 
Good luck in your 
Tory 


> On Jan 8, 2015, at 8:03 PM, "Vladimyr Burachynsky"  wrote:
> 
> This is becoming a shark feeding frenzy of Media demanding that I believe 
> different versions of the demented beliefs.
> Which ever outlet I side with demands I become a believer. I am not Normal to 
> begin with, otherwise I MIGHT actually take up arms and shoot at a target 
> they suggest. Should I take a Gravol to control the vertigo as they spin me 
> around, aiming at phantoms.
> 
> Hollande is strutting about like a shrunken , down sized de Gaulle after he 
> nearly lost France to a Troop of Disgruntled Foreign Legionnaires
> from Algeria.
> 
> al Jazeera wants me to believe that there is a war against all Muslims. CBC 
> wants me to believe that the Muslims are about to attack the country.
> Wait we are in a deep freeze and any Arab set upon conquering Canada must 
> contend with unimaginable Arctic Cold and if they want to rob a gas station 
> on the way they will probably freeze to death in the dark. Hollande wants us 
> to believe he is the reincarnation of de Gaulle or Vercingetorix. Kerry wants 
> me to believe he speaks French. Putin probably wants me to believe he is 
> Vladimir Monomahk the slayer of Turks.
> 
> These  tough-guys are not so crazy as the Media. They have remained silent 
> for now. One Canadian media outlet is attacking our National Outlet , CBC, as 
> cowards , yes they used the word correctly,
> who refused to show the Charlie Hebdo images on air( they were Blacked -Out). 
> Maybe Oprah Winfry can get them to confess on prime time T.V.
> A Montreal journalist ,  has bared his chest ( but no soul was to be seen) 
> and declared that CBC ordered him to self-censor out of fear.
> What a show.
> Actually the Russian media is being rather discreet, what a shock. No one has 
> the wherewithal to post the price of oil or the disposition of ISIL
> and the Saudi invasions.
> vib
> 
> I will snicker from my warm hovel in this cold blast.
> I am waiting for the much feared promised global warming to arrive. 
> Just where is Al Gore now that I want to believe in his delusions? If I pick 
> one belief  will the others stop pestering me?
> No I guess it is more like an attack of Blackflies or mosquitoes.
> Perhaps Glen is correct  "Beliefs don't kill people. People kill people"
> I might add "Believers have the right to  kill non-believers".
> 
> 
> -Original Message-
> From: Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of glen
> Sent: January-08-15 7:24 PM
> To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Slasdhot linked article RE; god
> 
>> On 01/08/2015 03:49 PM, Marcus G. Daniels wrote:
>> Or that they are mentally ill and need `retraining'.  But that takes 
>> us down the road of recognizing the danger latent in faith, which I 
>> don't think the US is close to doing.
> 
> Exactly ... though it goes beyond just faith to any sort of psychological 
> problem, I think.  E.g. It's fine if you're deluded into believing, say, the 
> "law of attraction" 
>  as long as 
> you don't do things like rely on it to heal your children or somesuch.
> 
> Beliefs don't kill people.  People kill people. ;-)
> 
> --
> ⇔ glen
> 
> 
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe 
> http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
> 
> 
> 
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
> to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com


FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com

Re: [FRIAM] text and picture layout programs for mac?

[Victoria Hughes]

I've used Pages for years, and find it very responsive, comprehensive and 
robust- do all my graphics, flyers, desktop publishing, etc etc with it. In the 
iWork suite. There are lots of smaller apps as well for selected idiosyncratic 
goals although I don't use them. Comic Life, or TypeTwister, etc. 
Versatile, self-directed tools of this sort are a common desire amongst Mac 
users. 

Tory


> On Oct 4, 2014, at 8:03 PM, Gillian Densmore  wrote:
> 
> Greetings all!
> I'm looking for a program that lets you plop text, and move pictures around 
> for MacOS 
> 
> Windows can kinda-sorta do that with paint.
> 
> 
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
> to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com


FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com

[FRIAM] BBC article excerpt re frivolous GOP lawsuit against Obama

[Victoria Hughes]

"Every US president since George Washington has issued executive orders, and Mr 
Obama has not stood out in the modern era for the number he has signed.

In his six years in office Mr Obama has issued 183 executive orders, compared 
to 291 across George W Bush's eight years and 381 for Ronald Reagan, according 
to a study by the American Presidency Project at the University of 
California-Santa Barbara"

BBC online edition July 30 

Tory 


FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com

Re: [FRIAM] Oh, sad New Mexico, we love, we love you so | Chris Cervini

[Victoria Hughes]

Damn. 
Yep.

Tory

On Apr 5, 2014, at 10:02 AM, Owen Densmore  wrote:

> Holy Cow! Nailed it.
> 
>-- Owen
> 
> 
> On Sat, Apr 5, 2014 at 9:47 AM, Tom Johnson  wrote:
> I think this guy pretty well nailed it.  So what can we do?
> -Tom
> 
> http://chriscervini.com/2014/04/01/oh-sad-new-mexico-we-love-we-love-you-so/
> 
> ===
> Tom Johnson - Inst. for Analytic Journalism
> Santa Fe, NM 
> t...@jtjohnson.com.505-473-9646
> ===
> 
> 
> 
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
> to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
> 
> 
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
> to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com


FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com

Re: [FRIAM] bursting the placebo bubble

[Victoria Hughes]

Ah….
This and Steve's preceeding note are the most useful, humane comment so far in 
this thread.
Thanks, Robert.

Tory

On Apr 25, 2013, at 2:44 PM, Robert Holmes  wrote:

> Steve's post made me think of the Roger McGough poem "Let me die a youngman's 
> death": 
> 
> Let me die a youngman's death
> not a clean and inbetween
> the sheets holywater death
> not a famous-last-words
> peaceful out of breath death
> 
> When I'm 73
> and in constant good tumour
> may I be mown down at dawn
> by a bright red sports car
> on my way home
> from an allnight party
> 
> Or when I'm 91
> with silver hair
> and sitting in a barber's chair
> may rival gangsters
> with hamfisted tommyguns burst in
> and give me a short back and insides
> 
> Or when I'm 104
> and banned from the Cavern
> may my mistress
> catching me in bed with her daughter
> and fearing for her son
> cut me up into little pieces
> and throw away every piece but one
> 
> Let me die a youngman's death
> not a free from sin tiptoe in
> candle wax and waning death
> not a curtains drawn by angels borne
> 'what a nice way to go' death
> 
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
> to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com


FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com

Re: [FRIAM] beyond reductionism twice

[Victoria Hughes]

How interesting, Glen!
I'm curious- how do you talk to your friends? Or your children, if you have 
any? Or those you want to teach you something? 

Yes, I do believe, and practice as best I can, opportunities for 
non-intellectual posturing. I certainly claim the right to posture with 
knowledge and intellect - but I know absolutely that is not the only philosophy 
I practice. It is in fact not the best philosophical basis for a variety of 
purposes.

>From my perspective, anything that is actually asking a question, and actually 
>listening and considering the answer, and inquiring into it for new 
>information, and then integrating new information to continue the dialogue, is 
>not intellectual posturing.

Communication exists for many purposes. I believe that communication, of which 
sharing ideas and information is one category, is not a hierarchical system but 
a needs-based system. So by that definition, dialogue is always expressing 
something about the speaker, and her/his intentions towards the listener. And 
(in most cases other than for a didactic purpose) the purpose is the back and 
forth of the dialogue. Then what that reciprocity brings to the participants. 

If there is no particular forward motion brought about by the dialogue - in the 
direction of the purpose for which the dialogue was established - than that is 
posturing. 

But there are a myriad of options for philosophical dialogue that do have 
functional growth / expansion / increased knowledge.

I'm signing off for today, pleasure to bounce ideas back and forth as always.
Tory


On Mar 26, 2013, at 12:44 PM, glen  wrote:

> Victoria Hughes wrote at 03/26/2013 11:27 AM:
>> 1. The discussion also references non-European, non-white-male models for 
>> awareness, reality, conceptual modeling, etc.
>> 2. The discussion does not devolve into intellectual posturing. 
> 
> This reminded me of the Ulam quote:
> 
> "Talking about non-linear mathematics is like talking about non-elephant
> zoology." -- Stanislaw Ulam
> 
> I willingly admit my ignorance.  But honestly, is there _any_ philosophy
> that is not, ultimately, intellectual posturing? ;-)  Or, further, is
> there any speech/verbiage whatsoever that is not, ultimately,
> intellectual posturing?
> 
> I heard from somewhere a speculation that the emergence of human
> language replaced (to whatever extent) grooming.  If that's at all true,
> then I suppose there is some speech ... pillow talk, platitudes, or
> perhaps lyricism/poetry that is as much about physics (soothing and
> communion) as it is about the ideal of communication or intellect.  And
> I suppose one might believe (act as if) the expression of an ideal (an
> intellectual artifact) via words is somehow authentic as opposed to
> posturing.  But, when I examine my own behavior in the light of what I
> observe from others and vice versa, it's quite difficult to distinguish
> between the former (authentic expression) and the latter (posturing).
> 
> But, I also admit my gullibility and naivete.
> 
> -- 
> =><= glen e. p. ropella
> Like it's screwed itself in hell
> 
> 
> 
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
> to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com



FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com

Re: [FRIAM] beyond reductionism twice

[Victoria Hughes]

(….. but a tad more articulate, and no un-friend option …)
-
Alright. I see your cup of tea and raise you a double espresso.

To more directly answer the proposed topic: I add that I would happily discuss 
philosophy 
(about which I have strong and articulate ideas / information) with anyone 
provided that
1. The discussion also references non-European, non-white-male models for 
awareness, reality, conceptual modeling, etc.
2. The discussion does not devolve into intellectual posturing. 

Voilà Merle, less Facebook, more filling. 
Hm, or perhaps more provocative. 

Or perhaps, gasp, I too may be violently disinterested in the way philosophy is 
discussed in fora such as this.
!

Tory

On Mar 26, 2013, at 12:18 PM, Merle Lefkoff  wrote:

> Enough already!  This is beginning to sound like Facebook.
> 
> Frank, I drink tea.  As promised, you buy.
> 
> Merle
> 
> On Tue, Mar 26, 2013 at 12:11 PM, Victoria Hughes
>  wrote:
>> Jeees Louise.
>> … I've been trying so hard to curb my addiction to taking time to respond to
>> the continuously intriguing things that show up at the Friam…. but I must
>> say, Doug, that the phrase "violently disinterested" is a classic, even for
>> you.
>> And as long as I'm at it, Sas, I laughed out loud at your various
>> descriptions of the Vilmains, from your KaliLoki wife on along….
>> Thanks you all-
>> Tory
>> 
>> On Mar 26, 2013, at 12:04 PM, Douglas Roberts  wrote:
>> 
>> This list constantly reminds me that we are all, thankfully, different.
>> Offhand, I can not think of a topic that I would be more violently
>> disinterested in than the "philosophy of causation".  Unless maybe it would
>> be "the philosophy of complexity", or perhaps "the philosophy of agent-based
>> model design".
>> 
>> But I acknowledge that a not small fraction of you eat this stuff up, so
>> please: have at it!
>> 
>> --Doug
>> 
>> 
>> On Tue, Mar 26, 2013 at 11:57 AM, Frank Wimberly 
>> wrote:
>>> 
>>> Nick,
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> Here is the complete citation:
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> Glymour, C., and Wimberly, F.
>>> 
>>>  Actual Causes and Thought Experiments,
>>> 
>>>  in Joseph Keim Campbell, Michael O'Rourke, Harry S. Silverstein
>>> (eds.),
>>> 
>>>  Causation and Explanation:  Topics in Contemporary Philosopy, MIT
>>> Press, Cambridge, July 2007.
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> I’ll buy a cup of coffee for anyone who reads the whole paper.  The book
>>> contains a number of papers by luminaries in the area of philosophy of
>>> causation including Patrick Suppes, Nancy Cartwright, Christopher Hitchcock,
>>> etc.  I was surprised to find that it’s available on Google books:
>>> http://tinyurl.com/d9l44jh
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> Frank
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> Frank C. Wimberly
>>> 
>>> 140 Calle Ojo Feliz
>>> 
>>> Santa Fe, NM 87505
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> wimber...@gmail.com wimbe...@cal.berkeley.edu
>>> 
>>> Phone:  (505) 995-8715  Cell:  (505) 670-9918
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> From: Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of Nicholas
>>> Thompson
>>> Sent: Monday, March 25, 2013 11:57 PM
>>> To: russ.abb...@gmail.com; 'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee
>>> Group'
>>> 
>>> 
>>> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] beyond reductionism twice
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> Russ,
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> I don’t know wtf I am.  I have always thought of  myself as a scientist,
>>> but I am sure that many on this list have their doubts.  I am certainly not
>>> a “hard” scientist.
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> I was hoping by my comment to lure you into a more lengthy explication of
>>> the idea that real scientists don’t think in terms of causes.  But now you
>>> have smoked me out instead, so here goes.
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> Many of the philosophers I know, from time to time like to talk about
>>> causality as if it were a sophomoric illusion, citing Hume, or some sort of
>>> weird quantum theory.  But that does not keep them from using causal
>>> reasoning freely in their everyday lives.  I have never heard a philosopher
>>> w

Re: [FRIAM] beyond reductionism twice

[Victoria Hughes]

Jeees Louise.
… I've been trying so hard to curb my addiction to taking time to respond to 
the continuously intriguing things that show up at the Friam…. but I must say, 
Doug, that the phrase "violently disinterested" is a classic, even for you. 
And as long as I'm at it, Sas, I laughed out loud at your various descriptions 
of the Vilmains, from your KaliLoki wife on along….
Thanks you all-
Tory

On Mar 26, 2013, at 12:04 PM, Douglas Roberts  wrote:

> This list constantly reminds me that we are all, thankfully, different.  
> Offhand, I can not think of a topic that I would be more violently 
> disinterested in than the "philosophy of causation".  Unless maybe it would 
> be "the philosophy of complexity", or perhaps "the philosophy of agent-based 
> model design".
> 
> But I acknowledge that a not small fraction of you eat this stuff up, so 
> please: have at it!
> 
> --Doug
> 
> 
> On Tue, Mar 26, 2013 at 11:57 AM, Frank Wimberly  wrote:
> Nick,
> 
>  
> 
> Here is the complete citation:
> 
>  
> 
> Glymour, C., and Wimberly, F.
> 
>   Actual Causes and Thought Experiments,
> 
>   in Joseph Keim Campbell, Michael O'Rourke, Harry S. Silverstein (eds.),
> 
>   Causation and Explanation:  Topics in Contemporary Philosopy, MIT 
> Press, Cambridge, July 2007.
> 
>  
> 
> I’ll buy a cup of coffee for anyone who reads the whole paper.  The book 
> contains a number of papers by luminaries in the area of philosophy of 
> causation including Patrick Suppes, Nancy Cartwright, Christopher Hitchcock, 
> etc.  I was surprised to find that it’s available on Google books:  
> http://tinyurl.com/d9l44jh
> 
>  
> 
> Frank
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> Frank C. Wimberly
> 
> 140 Calle Ojo Feliz
> 
> Santa Fe, NM 87505
> 
>  
> 
> wimber...@gmail.com wimbe...@cal.berkeley.edu
> 
> Phone:  (505) 995-8715  Cell:  (505) 670-9918
> 
>  
> 
> From: Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of Nicholas Thompson
> Sent: Monday, March 25, 2013 11:57 PM
> To: russ.abb...@gmail.com; 'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee 
> Group'
> 
> 
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] beyond reductionism twice
> 
>  
> 
> Russ,
> 
>  
> 
> I don’t know wtf I am.  I have always thought of  myself as a scientist, but 
> I am sure that many on this list have their doubts.  I am certainly not a 
> “hard” scientist. 
> 
>  
> 
> I was hoping by my comment to lure you into a more lengthy explication of the 
> idea that real scientists don’t think in terms of causes.  But now you have 
> smoked me out instead, so here goes.
> 
>  
> 
> Many of the philosophers I know, from time to time like to talk about 
> causality as if it were a sophomoric illusion, citing Hume, or some sort of 
> weird quantum theory.  But that does not keep them from using causal 
> reasoning freely in their everyday lives.  I have never heard a philosopher 
> who was reluctant to say things like “my car stalled because it ran out of 
> gas”.  I think what they mean when they deny causality is the denial of 
> something that, as a behaviorist, I never thought to entertain: some deep 
> gear-and-cog mechanism lurking behind experience.   If one once concedes that 
> all one means by causality is some forms of relation between previous and 
> successive events such that a previous event makes a successive event more 
> likely, then determining causality is just an exercise in experimentation.  
> The sort of thing that all scientists do all the time.   Thus, while 
> “causality” may be unfounded in some fastidious philosophical sense, it is by 
> no means empty.  I’ll  quote below from a footnote from a paper we just wrote 
> which tries to preempt criticism our use of “causal” arguments in the paper.  
> The footnote makes reference to work by a colleague and friend of mine, here 
> in Santa Fe, Frank Wimberly.  I will copy him here to try and get him to 
> speak up.  He tends to lurk, until I say something really foolish, which no 
> doubt I have.  The whole paper is at 
> http://www.behavior.org/resource.php?id=675 . So, here is the footnote:
> 
>  
> 
> Some might argue that in falling back on a more vernacular understanding of 
> causality we have paid too great a price in rigor. However, as our Seminar 
> colleague Frank Wimberly pointed out, the vernacular understanding of 
> casualty is potentially rigorous. Research investigating what aspects of the 
> world lay people are sensitive to when assigning causality suggests people 
> are sensitive to particular types of probabilistic relationships (Cheng, 
> Novick, Liljeholm, & Ford, 2007) and that certain types of experiments are 
> better than others at revealing such relationships (Glymour & Wimberly, 2007).
> 
>  
> 
> Frank? 
> 
>  
> 
> Nick
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> From: Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of Russ Abbott
> Sent: Monday, March 25, 2013 11:05 PM
> To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] beyond reductionism twice
> 
>  
> 
> Nick,

Re: [FRIAM] Questions for you all: Photo sorting? Site mapping?

[Victoria Hughes]

Arlo, Sarbajit, Steve- thanks for these leads, I'll check into them. Steve, yes 
indeed, your assumptions about what I want are on the money. 
Knew this was the right place to ask. 
Tory


On Mar 9, 2013, at 7:42 PM, Arlo Barnes  wrote:

> Tineye has an image analysis program (separate from their free single-image 
> service most are familiar with for being similar to Google Similar Image 
> Search aside from being around first), but it costs some.
> The lead developer of Javascript asked a similar question a while back and 
> got a lot of responses, if I find the post I will link it here.
> -Arlo James Barnes
> 
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
> to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com



FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com

[FRIAM] Questions for you all: Photo sorting? Site mapping?

[Victoria Hughes]

Hello all- 
Mebbe the amassed brain and experience power here can help me: 

Do any of you have a good lead on an effective image-sorting program that sorts 
by visual characteristics?

I have thousands of images, many of them different sizes and duplicates of art 
photos: so a single object in a white field. No, I did not take the time to 
label them, so keyword and date details are not going to work. 
The best lead I've had so far, from the local Mac experts at DotFoil, was to 
hire someone to manually sort them. Well……… There has to be a better 
way now adays.


Second query: anyone have a good program for generating a site map? 
For a Wordpress site, with a Headway template. 

Thanks in advance for any ideas.

Also, I'm signed up for Scott Page's Model Thinking course. Thanks for pointing 
it out. 

Best to all-
Tory


FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com

[FRIAM] Vocabulary word

[Victoria Hughes]

This from Rob Breszny, (whom some of you may secretly read without ever 
acknowledging it)

"Sapiosexual" is a relatively new word that refers to a person who is 
erotically attracted to intelligence. Urbandictionary.com gives an example of 
how it might be used: "I want an incisive, inquisitive, insightful, irreverent 
mind. I want someone for whom philosophical discussion is foreplay. I want a 
sapiosexual." In the coming weeks, I suspect you will be closer to fitting this 
definition than you've ever been before. The yearning that's rising up in you 
is filled with the need to be stimulated by brilliance, to be influenced by 
wisdom, to be catalyzed by curiosity.

Free Will, November 21






FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

Re: [FRIAM] Fwd: Hacking the President's DNA—New Article

[Victoria Hughes]

Fascinating. The future got here before we did.


On Nov 8, 2012, at 8:43 AM, Stephen Guerin wrote:


Awesome article, Steven. Congratulations!

-S




FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

[FRIAM] Post you may find interesting, re the debates-

[Victoria Hughes]

http://www.thesadbastardbar.com/2012/10/have-you-all-lost-your-goddamn-minds.html?m=1

Tory








FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

Re: [FRIAM] faith

[Victoria Hughes]

It's your honesty I've always loved about you, Steve.
I'm going with the weasel.

T

On Sep 26, 2012, at 2:40 PM, Steve Smith wrote:


Tory -
Why is the idea of two differing but synergistic approaches so  
challenging to so many on this list? Or are you arguing for the fun  
of the game?


I'm pretty sure both the Monkey and the Weasel are in it for the  
endorphins released.


The Mulberry bush is an innocent bystander, if in fact the center of  
the play.


The Tigers are merely victims of their own Vanity and the cleverness  
of our friend Sambo.


Sambo, perhaps has more significant motives.

I know I don't.


FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org




FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

Re: [FRIAM] faith

[Victoria Hughes]

(A post script to my frustrated rant replying to this thread (not to  
this post, Roger))


 None of what I said precludes the table pounding and the whiskey.  
Need to go on record about that.



Tory

On Sep 26, 2012, at 2:02 PM, Roger Critchlow wrote:

http://www.nature.com has provoked its own discussion on faith.  In  
August:


Sometimes science must give way to religion http://www.nature.com/news/sometimes-science-must-give-way-to-religion-1.11244 
 arguing "why it will always be necessary to have ways of  
understanding our world beyond the scientifically rational" and  
setting off a long chain of online comments.  The author, an  
atheist, compared the Hindu cosmologies portrayed on friezes at  
Angkor Wat and the explanation of the Higg's Boson given in the New  
York Times.


This week: three short published responses:
Rationality: Evidence must prevail http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v489/n7417/full/489502d.html 
  "[...] the rational thought that underpins science provides us  
with a system that works."


Rationality: Science is not bad faith http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v489/n7417/full/489502e.html 
 "Viewing temples and falling in love can be moving experiences, but  
they don't reveal a hidden reality whose articulation eludes science."


Rationality: Religion defies understanding http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v489/n7417/full/489502f.html 
 "Our species has derived many things from its various religions —  
some fair and noble, others foul and destructive — but understanding  
is not one of them."


-- rec --

FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org



FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

Re: [FRIAM] faith

[Victoria Hughes]

Gentlemen and Ladies-
There is a big question in this endless and reiterative loop about  
faith and science that no one mentions.

So I will. Seems to be one of my functions.

To wit:
Even our brains have two primary and differing sections, the  
hemispheres:  for best health and growth of the individual both must  
be functioning and working together.
Why is the idea of two differing but synergistic approaches so  
challenging to so many on this list? Or are you arguing for the fun of  
the game?


For an example of how unworkable the idea of a single approach sounds,  
maybe I can ask you some questions:

Most of you are straight men, yes? Many of you have been married.

Would you agree that in your partnership only you have ever had valid  
or useful information?
IE for any situation you've been in, to which your female partners  
have contributed physical / mental / emotional / spiritual information,

yours was the only information needed or useful?

Do you think that your life, your pursuits, your existence only needs  
you and other men?
IE If there were no women anywhere, things would universally work  
better?


I could continue but you hopefully already can see my point. This  
planet is dualistic. I will explain that later if that's not. But the  
whole set-up is dualistic.
Our opportunity and challenge- particularly visible now- is to  
understand and resolve dualities as necessary for the whole, to accept  
each in turn, to mitigate harm as we do so.


Faith and religion are never going to yield to logic. They live in a  
different part of your mind, that has other things to contribute, and  
that doesn't have direct access to linear language. Art and music yes,  
as languages; words and analyses no.


 This is in no way an anti-science statement!
This is a plea for a world-view that realizes
Both are needed.

BOTH / AND
not
either /or.
Tory


http://www.nature.com has provoked its own discussion on faith.  In  
August:


Sometimes science must give way to religion http://www.nature.com/news/sometimes-science-must-give-way-to-religion-1.11244 
 arguing "why it will always be necessary to have ways of  
understanding our world beyond the scientifically rational" and  
setting off a long chain of online comments.  The author, an  
atheist, compared the Hindu cosmologies portrayed on friezes at  
Angkor Wat and the explanation of the Higg's Boson given in the New  
York Times.


This week: three short published responses:
Rationality: Evidence must prevail http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v489/n7417/full/489502d.html 
  "[...] the rational thought that underpins science provides us  
with a system that works."


Rationality: Science is not bad faith http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v489/n7417/full/489502e.html 
 "Viewing temples and falling in love can be moving experiences, but  
they don't reveal a hidden reality whose articulation eludes science."


Rationality: Religion defies understanding http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v489/n7417/full/489502f.html 
 "Our species has derived many things from its various religions —  
some fair and noble, others foul and destructive — but understanding  
is not one of them."


-- rec --

FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org



FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

Re: [FRIAM] fripm

[Victoria Hughes]

Fripm October 12.
When worlds collide.


On Sep 24, 2012, at 9:39 PM, Douglas Roberts wrote:

Worksforme.

On Sep 24, 2012 9:34 PM, "Victoria Hughes"   
wrote:

Perhaps one could rename or subset the meeting as FRIPM.
Meet at Sas' and finally combine the whiskey, the cast of  
characters, and the table-pounding.

After October 10.


On Sep 24, 2012, at 9:28 PM, Douglas Roberts wrote:

Yikes. I might just have to break tradition and attend an actual  
FRIAM meeting.  Has there ever been an actual fist fight at a FRIAM  
meeting?


-Doug

Sent from Android.

On Sep 24, 2012 9:17 PM, "Nicholas Thompson" > wrote:

Hi Russ,



Whatever SEP may have to say, we still have to talk to one another,  
right?   Notice that all these meanings have to do with God.  If  
SEP is correct, a person not concerned with god in one way or  
another would never use the word.  Do you put faith in the advice  
of your stockbroker?




Forgive me if I am being abit trollish, here;  I perhaps am not  
following closely enough, due to packing, etc., to get back to  
Santa Fe.  This week I won’t make it for Friday’s meeting, but NEXT  
WEEK, look out!




From: friam-boun...@redfish.com [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com]  
On Behalf Of Russ Abbott

Sent: Monday, September 24, 2012 9:42 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] faith



Robert Holmes quoted the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy as  
listing these senses of "faith."




·  the ‘purely affective’ model: faith as a feeling of existential  
confidence


·  the ‘special knowledge’ model: faith as knowledge of specific  
truths, revealed by God


·  the ‘belief’ model: faith as belief that God exists

·  the ‘trust’ model: faith as belief in (trust in) God

·  the ‘doxastic venture’ model: faith as practical commitment  
beyond the evidence to one's belief that God exists


·  the ‘sub-doxastic venture’ model: faith as practical commitment  
without belief


·  the ‘hope’ model: faith as hoping—or acting in the hope that—the  
God who saves exists.




Has the discussion done better than this?



It seems to me that we are getting into trouble because (as this  
list illustrates) we (in English) use the word "faith" to mean a  
number of different things, which are only sometimes related to  
each other.




My original concern was with "faith" in the sense of the fifth  
bullet. (The third bullet is explicitly based on belief in God.)  
According to the article,




On the doxastic venture model, faith involves full commitment, in  
the face of the recognition that this is not ‘objectively’  
justified on the evidence.




That's pretty close to how I would use the term. To a great extent  
the article has a theological focus, which clouds the issue as far  
as I'm concerned.  But here is more of what it says about faith as  
a doxastic venture.




A possible view of theistic faith-commitment is that it is wholly  
independent of the epistemic concern that cares about evidential  
support: faith then reveals its authenticity most clearly when it  
takes faith-propositions to be true contrary to the weight of the  
evidence. This view is widely described as ‘fideist’, but ought  
more fairly to be called arational fideism, or, where commitment  
contrary to the evidence is positively favoured, irrational or  
counter-rational fideism.




and



Serious philosophical defence of a doxastic venture model of faith  
amounts to a supra-rational fideism, for which epistemic concern is  
not overridden and for which, therefore, it is a constraint on  
faith-commitment that it not accept what is known, or justifiably  
believed on the evidence, to be false. Rather, faith commits itself  
onlybeyond, and not against, the evidence—and it does so out of  
epistemic concern to grasp truth on matters of vital existential  
importance. The thought that one may be entitled to commit to an  
existentially momentous truth-claim in principle undecidable on the  
evidence when forced to decide either to do so or not is what  
motivates William James's ‘justification of faith’ in ‘The Will to  
Believe’ (James 1896/1956). If such faith can be justified, its  
cognitive content will (on realist assumptions) have to cohere with  
our best evidence-based theories about the real world. Faith may  
extend our scientific grasp of the real, but may not counter it.  
Whether the desire to grasp more truth about the real than science  
can supply is a noble aspiration or a dangerous delusion is at the  
heart of the debate about entitlement to faith on this supra- 
rational fideist doxastic venture model.




-- Russ 





On Mon, Sep 24, 2012 at 5:00 PM, glen  wrote:

Robert J. Cordingley wrote at 09/24/2012 04:38 PM:

> But my point (regarding God) was an expectation of action by  
whatever I

> have faith in and has nothing to do with action on my part.  The
>

Re: [FRIAM] faith

[Victoria Hughes]

Perhaps one could rename or subset the meeting as FRIPM.
Meet at Sas' and finally combine the whiskey, the cast of characters,  
and the table-pounding.

After October 10.


On Sep 24, 2012, at 9:28 PM, Douglas Roberts wrote:

Yikes. I might just have to break tradition and attend an actual  
FRIAM meeting.  Has there ever been an actual fist fight at a FRIAM  
meeting?


-Doug

Sent from Android.

On Sep 24, 2012 9:17 PM, "Nicholas Thompson" > wrote:

Hi Russ,



Whatever SEP may have to say, we still have to talk to one another,  
right?   Notice that all these meanings have to do with God.  If SEP  
is correct, a person not concerned with god in one way or another  
would never use the word.  Do you put faith in the advice of your  
stockbroker?




Forgive me if I am being abit trollish, here;  I perhaps am not  
following closely enough, due to packing, etc., to get back to Santa  
Fe.  This week I won’t make it for Friday’s meeting, but NEXT WEEK,  
look out!




From: friam-boun...@redfish.com [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com]  
On Behalf Of Russ Abbott

Sent: Monday, September 24, 2012 9:42 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] faith



Robert Holmes quoted the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy as  
listing these senses of "faith."




·  the ‘purely affective’ model: faith as a feeling of existential  
confidence


·  the ‘special knowledge’ model: faith as knowledge of specific  
truths, revealed by God


·  the ‘belief’ model: faith as belief that God exists

·  the ‘trust’ model: faith as belief in (trust in) God

·  the ‘doxastic venture’ model: faith as practical commitment  
beyond the evidence to one's belief that God exists


·  the ‘sub-doxastic venture’ model: faith as practical commitment  
without belief


·  the ‘hope’ model: faith as hoping—or acting in the hope that—the  
God who saves exists.




Has the discussion done better than this?



It seems to me that we are getting into trouble because (as this  
list illustrates) we (in English) use the word "faith" to mean a  
number of different things, which are only sometimes related to each  
other.




My original concern was with "faith" in the sense of the fifth  
bullet. (The third bullet is explicitly based on belief in God.)  
According to the article,




On the doxastic venture model, faith involves full commitment, in  
the face of the recognition that this is not ‘objectively’ justified  
on the evidence.




That's pretty close to how I would use the term. To a great extent  
the article has a theological focus, which clouds the issue as far  
as I'm concerned.  But here is more of what it says about faith as a  
doxastic venture.




A possible view of theistic faith-commitment is that it is wholly  
independent of the epistemic concern that cares about evidential  
support: faith then reveals its authenticity most clearly when it  
takes faith-propositions to be true contrary to the weight of the  
evidence. This view is widely described as ‘fideist’, but ought more  
fairly to be called arational fideism, or, where commitment contrary  
to the evidence is positively favoured, irrational or counter- 
rational fideism.




and



Serious philosophical defence of a doxastic venture model of faith  
amounts to a supra-rational fideism, for which epistemic concern is  
not overridden and for which, therefore, it is a constraint on faith- 
commitment that it not accept what is known, or justifiably believed  
on the evidence, to be false. Rather, faith commits itself  
onlybeyond, and not against, the evidence—and it does so out of  
epistemic concern to grasp truth on matters of vital existential  
importance. The thought that one may be entitled to commit to an  
existentially momentous truth-claim in principle undecidable on the  
evidence when forced to decide either to do so or not is what  
motivates William James's ‘justification of faith’ in ‘The Will to  
Believe’ (James 1896/1956). If such faith can be justified, its  
cognitive content will (on realist assumptions) have to cohere with  
our best evidence-based theories about the real world. Faith may  
extend our scientific grasp of the real, but may not counter it.  
Whether the desire to grasp more truth about the real than science  
can supply is a noble aspiration or a dangerous delusion is at the  
heart of the debate about entitlement to faith on this supra- 
rational fideist doxastic venture model.




-- Russ 





On Mon, Sep 24, 2012 at 5:00 PM, glen  wrote:

Robert J. Cordingley wrote at 09/24/2012 04:38 PM:

> But my point (regarding God) was an expectation of action by  
whatever I

> have faith in and has nothing to do with action on my part.  The
> expected action can be provision of n virgins, not going to hell,  
relief
> from pain, reincarnation as a higher being and all sorts of other  
forms

> of divine intervention.

That's just a slight variation on what I laid out.  The point being  
that

whatev

Re: [FRIAM] Turning into butter, was RE: faith

[Victoria Hughes]

LadleRatRottenHut! Be still my heart.

Brilliant in sooo many ways... Yonder nor sourghum stenches shut ladle  
gulls torque wet strainers!
You know, HL Chace wrote/rewrote a number of those. All are beloved  
and collected by word-y and book-y people. And of course locally our  
own Robin Williams, the woman, the artist, the writer, uses them  
copiously in her books on graphic design.


Re Little Black Sambo, and I suppose Suzanne has several copies of it  
amongst your bookish walls?


Time to make the donuts.

...good thing this conversation is finally petering out, because  
personally I've been feeling like butter for several days...


Tory

On Sep 24, 2012, at 9:18 PM, Steve Smith wrote:


Steve,

Do you remember in what childhood story, things run round and round  
a tree

until they turn into butter?
My mixed allusions were definitely intentional.   The reference of  
course, is how we, the FRIAM community are very good at hashing and  
rehashing the same material until even those of us doing the hashing  
(can you find the etymology for hashing?) are even tired enough of  
the sight of our own tails that we might as well turn into butter  
from all that agitation.


The story of course, would be "Little Black Sambo"  where he lead  
the Tigers out to eat him for breakfast to chase one another around  
a palm tree until they turned to butter (something about vanity  
amongst the tigers who had first stolen his clothing, etc.).   This  
story, of course is now totally and completely politically  
incorrect, though the Sambo was a very dark southern Indian boy I  
believe as opposed to a Black African Slave in the southern US as  
many people assume.  (else it would have been panthers?)


In any case, the restaurant chain "Sambo's" who used the boy and his  
tigers as Icons made a mean stack of pancakes with plenty of  
*butter* (which as a child I was sure  was made of melted tigers).  
The Chain has either gone defunct or changed it's name.

Those things weren't monkeys,  weasels, OR MULBERRY BUSHES.
If I can mix metaphors, surely I can mix nursery rhymes and  
childrens stories of various origins...  when I first heard those  
stories I had never seen a weasel, a monkey, a tiger, a mulberry  
bush or a black person.  And yet somehow the stories made sense...  
how is THAT for Faith?


Ever hear the  one about... Ladle Rat Rotten Hut?

Hint:  No teacher would read this story to a child, nowadays.
My sister had a black life-sized infant doll handed down through the  
family, known as a "tar baby" referencing the days when white  
slaveholding children were allowed to "play" with slaves' babies...  
as if they were dolls.   I remember when my mother explained how  
totally politically incorrect (there was no term for this, it was  
just explained as "wrong headed") the whole situation was... until  
then, my sister thought it was "just another doll".   I lived in a  
secluded southwestern rural area where I'd never seen a "person of  
color"... well, plenty of Native Americans and descendents of  
Spanish Conquistadors, but no African Americans, and no TV either,  
though I suppose pictures in Encyclopedias and Nat'l Geographics?


-Original Message-
From: friam-boun...@redfish.com [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com]  
On Behalf

Of Steve Smith
Sent: Monday, September 24, 2012 5:23 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] faith

Doug -

Congratulations on avoiding another opportunity to become someone's  
hood

ornament!
Apropo of nothing, of course, except that I retain my faith that  
they

are out to get me when I'm on the motorcycle.
However, for the sake of the Monkey, the Weasel and the Mulberry  
bush, I
contend that your use of the world "faith" here aligns with my use  
of the
word "Faith" in general and roughly matches what those who I  
believe you

revile (or at least chide) do.  You (as they) choose a *working
statement* which has no basis in fact (has been refuted or at least  
can't be

verified), but which *works well for you* and the *rhetoric* of the
statement plays well within your community (of other riders who  
subscribe to

the same Faith).

I think I'm turning to butter.

- Steve




FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures,  
archives,

unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org



FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org




FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org




FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listser

[FRIAM] Fwd: faith

[Victoria Hughes]

Actually these elements that negotiate your behaviours are encoded  
neuroelectrical and neurochemical subroutines, not with volitional  
consciousness to decide or not decide- so 'belief' is perhaps not the  
most accurate word for Ms Stem's motivation. If she had to think and  
decide,she'd be too slow to save the rider. Needs to be a deeper level  
trigger.

Tory

On Sep 24, 2012, at 8:51 PM, Nicholas Thompson wrote:


Dean,

Yes, …. Agreed.  However, on my understanding of the term faith  
(i.e., = belief), Ms Stem has beliefs … DOES beliefs, if you will …  
about the world.  It believes, for instance, that nothing can be  
moved unless something else is fixed.


Smart, your lady stem.   But faithful, all the same.

Nick

From: friam-boun...@redfish.com [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com]  
On Behalf Of Dean Gerber

Sent: Monday, September 24, 2012 6:22 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] faith

We are all fortunate indeed that we have this very primitive stem  
brain that is extremely perceptive of and extremely knowledgeable of  
the mostly predictable physical world.  It is not distracted by all  
those "higher" issues, faith, belief,  Yahweh, etc., we all  
endlessly try to wrestle to ground.  It simply does its job, which  
is to protest us from the consequence of our of our own actions with  
that physical world; and to quickly intervene when we are not paying  
attention and are soon to either die or be seriously harmed.


I allow my razor sharp chef's knife to fall over the edge of my  
counter-top toward my bare feet directly below the plunging knife.   
Ms. Stem  jerks the proper foot, the one that would have been  
pierced, out of the way, using the other foot, the one that would  
not have been pierced, to create a stable structure  against which  
the perfect jerk can operate.  All this happens before I am even  
aware the knife has fallen.  Ms. Stem employs some might poweful  
computations to figure all his out, and this case can take immediate  
action, the proper reflex (the leg jerk) whether I liked it or not.


I think in your case, Ms. Stem had it all figured out well before  
things turned critical, but she does not know how to steer your  
motorcycle.  When she evolved to her current talent, there were no  
motorcycles, but there were plunging objects, and yes cliffs.  Along  
the way, fortunately for us, and by "us" I mean our Cerebellae, she  
can send us messages, like "move left" (you idiot, you are about to  
go over a cliff). To your credit, your particular Cerebellum got the  
message an took appropriate actions.  That goodness for that. And a  
special note of appreciation to Ms. Stem.  Nothing for God, Yaweh,  
premonition, ESP, Guardian Angel or other figments of our Cerebellae.


--Dean Gerber


From: Douglas Roberts 
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group >

Sent: Monday, September 24, 2012 2:42 PM
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] faith

I'm not prone to experiencing "premonitions".  Additional factoid: I  
ride paranoid because they *are* out to get me.


Yet, the day before yesterday as I was heading south down to Santa  
Fe on the GSA1200, my premonition organ wiggled, and a voice inside  
my head said, "I sense danger."  Like somebody who rides paranoid  
needs to hear that, right?


So I went from DEFCON 2 to DEFCON 4.  Twenty seconds later at the  
very next traffic light in Pojoaque a northbound duelly pickup truck  
turned suddenly, unexpectedly left into the intersection across my  
path, smack ass dab right in front of me.  Had the little voice in  
my head not spoken, I would have been grill hamburger.  As it was, I  
had engaged that extra little bit of defense which gave the margin I  
needed to miss him.


We won't even go into the bit about the fat guy on the Harley who  
was going to follow the truck through the intersection, and who  
nearly fell off his bike in the process of aborting.


Apropo of nothing, of course, except that I retain my faith that  
they are out to get me when I'm on the motorcycle.


--Doug

On Mon, Sep 24, 2012 at 2:01 PM, Steve Smith  wrote:
Dave -

Not true - because I have a countervailing belief - I am smarter and  
more aware than they and can thwart their evil intentions.


Inarguable reasoning Dave... I commend you.  Unfortunately I slipped  
behind the curve on my self-image regarding smart+aware a while  
back.   It may be early onset wisdom or late-stage cynicism...


It *was* my youthful idealism that had me quite willing to hurtle  
down the highways with nothing between me and the road except a few  
feet (or inches) of air and maybe a 1/8 or less of leather.   I was  
supremely confident in my own smartness and awareness as the perfect  
antidote to all challengers.


 For example, one evening just after dusk 30+ years ago, I  
was hurtling down Interstate 17 in the right lane (like a good  
doobie since I was roughly traveling at the speed limit and was not  
passing

Re: [FRIAM] Turning into butter, was RE: faith

[Victoria Hughes]

I remember. Hard to forget, and I can still see the illustrations. It  
was already Not PC when I saw it. But I read it anyway, I believe in  
the library in Manila at the American Church, which was really a  
gigantic community center for expats. They also had all of the Wizard  
of Oz books, original editions... and other treasures for voracious 6- 
year old readers.

Tory

On Sep 24, 2012, at 8:45 PM, Nicholas Thompson wrote:


Steve,

Do you remember in what childhood story, things run round and round  
a tree

until they turn into butter?

Those things weren't monkeys,  weasels, OR MULBERRY BUSHES.

Nick

Hint:  No teacher would read this story to a child, nowadays.

-Original Message-
From: friam-boun...@redfish.com [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com]  
On Behalf

Of Steve Smith
Sent: Monday, September 24, 2012 5:23 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] faith

Doug -

Congratulations on avoiding another opportunity to become someone's  
hood

ornament!

Apropo of nothing, of course, except that I retain my faith that they
are out to get me when I'm on the motorcycle.
However, for the sake of the Monkey, the Weasel and the Mulberry  
bush, I
contend that your use of the world "faith" here aligns with my use  
of the
word "Faith" in general and roughly matches what those who I believe  
you

revile (or at least chide) do.  You (as they) choose a *working
statement* which has no basis in fact (has been refuted or at least  
can't be

verified), but which *works well for you* and the *rhetoric* of the
statement plays well within your community (of other riders who  
subscribe to

the same Faith).

I think I'm turning to butter.

- Steve




FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures,  
archives,

unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org



FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org




FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

Re: [FRIAM] faith

[Victoria Hughes]

Made sense to me.

On Sep 23, 2012, at 11:29 PM, Steve Smith wrote:
Random anecdotal examples aside, my central point of "faith" as an  
article of a validated model vs "Faith" as a more consciously  
adopted element not backed up by the same type of validation seems  
pretty concise.


-- Russ Abbott
_
  Professor, Computer Science
  California State University, Los Angeles

  My paper on how the Fed can fix the economy: ssrn.com/ 
abstract=1977688

  Google voice: 747-999-5105
  Google+: plus.google.com/114865618166480775623/
  vita:  sites.google.com/site/russabbott/
  CS Wiki and the courses I teach
_



On Sun, Sep 23, 2012 at 9:58 PM, ERIC P. CHARLES   
wrote:
But Russ... if you concede Tory's point, then I think you are quite  
stuck.


There are many, many, many people for whom the everyday world  
contains a divine being... and the everyday world is the everyday  
world. There are people who train hard to see God surrounding them,  
and there are people for whom it seems to come quite naturally  
(which is not to say it didn't develop, just that it came easily).  
For these people, by your definition, belief in God, and belief  
that God will continue to be with them forever, are NOT issues of  
faith.


Eric

P.S. I have no idea what Nick will say about "faith" vs. "belief"!  
I think the concepts overlap pretty obviously, i.e., faith seems  
like it should be a subclass of belief. On the other hand, one  
could treat them as two different ways of talking about the same  
sort of thing. If we can get past your odd claim that faith has to  
be religious AND that religious things are not part of everyday  
life, I would be very interested to know how you think the two  
relate.




On Mon, Sep 24, 2012 12:41 AM, Russ Abbott   
wrote:

Nick,

As I understand your position the words "faith" and "belief" are  
synonyms. I would prefer a definition for "faith" that  
distinguishes it from "belief."


Tory,

Thanks for  you comment on my posts. I'm glad you enjoy them.

My definition of faith makes use of the notion of the everyday  
world. But I'm not saying that the  
everyday  world is the same for  
everyone. Your everyday world may be different from mine. I'm just  
saying that believing that the world will continue to conform to  
your sense of what the everyday world is like is not faith; it's  
simple belief.


Eric,

I would take "having faith in something" in the colloquial sense as  
different from "faith" in a religious context, which is what I was  
focusing on.


-- Russ 



On Sun, Sep 23, 2012 at 9:27 PM, Victoria Hughes > wrote:


Russ wrote, in part-

Faith, I would say (in fact I did earlier)

is believing something that one wouldn't otherwise believe without  
faith.


Believing that the everyday world is the everyday world

doesn't seem to me to require faith.

Russ, with all due respect for the enjoyment I get from your posts,  
I find this suspiciously tautological.


Who are you to define for the rest of humanity (and other sentient  
life forms) what 'the everyday world' incorporates? Numerous 'for  
instance' cases can immediately be made here. All you can do is  
define what you believe for yourself. You cannot extrapolate what  
is defensible for others to believe, from your own beliefs.


And this statement ' Faith is believing something that one wouldn't  
believe without faith'. Hm and hm again.


Eagleman's new book Incognito offers fruitful information from  
recent neuroscience that may interest others on this list. His  
ultimate sections bring up hard questions about legal and ethical  
issues in the face of the myriad 'zombie programs' that run most of  
our behaviour. This looks like - but is not as simplistic as - 'yet  
another pop science book.'


A review David Eagleman's "Incognito" - Brainiac

Tory


FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

 
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org



Eric Charles
Assistant Professor of Psychology
Penn State University
Altoona, PA 16601






FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org



FRIAM App

Re: [FRIAM] faith

[Victoria Hughes]

Russ wrote, in part-


Faith, I would say (in fact I did earlier)


is believing something that one wouldn't otherwise believe without  
faith.



Believing that the everyday world is the everyday world



doesn't seem to me to require faith.


Russ, with all due respect for the enjoyment I get from your posts, I  
find this suspiciously tautological.


Who are you to define for the rest of humanity (and other sentient  
life forms) what 'the everyday world' incorporates? Numerous 'for  
instance' cases can immediately be made here. All you can do is define  
what you believe for yourself. You cannot extrapolate what is  
defensible for others to believe, from your own beliefs.


And this statement ' Faith is believing something that one wouldn't  
believe without faith'. Hm and hm again.


Eagleman's new book Incognito offers fruitful information from recent  
neuroscience that may interest others on this list. His ultimate  
sections bring up hard questions about legal and ethical issues in the  
face of the myriad 'zombie programs' that run most of our behaviour.  
This looks like - but is not as simplistic as - 'yet another pop  
science book.'


A review David Eagleman's "Incognito" - Brainiac

Tory
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

Re: [FRIAM] what's old is new again

[Victoria Hughes]

	Good points, Mike. I see aggressive authoritarianism as a  
developmental stage. This behaviour did not start in the 20th century,  
it starts as humans develop a sense of individual self.
	Not just societies ( or "religions" ) but all human effort - from an  
infant growing to adulthood to our shared global culture - have to  
wrestle with growth through shifting value systems.


	Our desires are influenced by what we see outside- our ability to  
responsibly handle those desires has to develop inside us. The two are  
often in conflict. It's human nature.
	( A glitch in the programming, eh, a broken link somewhere. Who  
designed these brains, anyway?)


	The same goes for societies. The 8-year old wanting the keys to the  
Camaro, the 15-year old wanting access to billions of dollars, or to  
heroin, the 19-year old wanting to be king, or pope, or the  
Unibomber


	The immediacy of communication and access to technologies means that  
across the globe we are at different stages, but we are confronted by  
all the differences.  We see them, they impact our perception, and we  
have to find our cultural solutions in the face of all this knowledge.


	Earlier in human history, we didn't know about them, and our growth  
was more self-referential. Not less violent, but usually smaller scale  
in its effects. Again, you'll see this progression in kids as well as  
organizations and societies. Now we see everything, immediately, and  
people at any developmental level can access information and  
technologies that were developed in another developmental level.


	It reinforces that we are in this together. No matter how divided we  
feel from each other as a species, we have one planet, one set of  
resources, and one shared meta-meme-field we create and inhabit. To  
survive we will have to figure out how to work with each other,  
whatever our developmental level. Rapid growth and a wider sense of  
responsibility for our actions - small and large- is demanded of all  
of us.

Exceptions do not exist. Earth is a closed system.

Tory

On Sep 16, 2012, at 3:59 AM, Mike Oliker wrote:

Is the problem blowing up in the Middle East Islam or something  
else?  On
the one hand it is fully dressed up as Islam.  It wears turbans,  
speaks

Arabic quotes the Koran and the Hadith, issues Fatwas.  Is seems fully
Islamic and sounds like religious fanaticism.  But, oddly, if you  
strip away

the religious trappings, it looks a lot like Nazism and Communism, the
obscene 20th Century Totalitarian movements we fought for a century.

There is the desire for a single omnipotent leader, for everyone to be
forced to believe the same things as everyone else.  The belief that
glorious ends justify any conceivable means.  The blood lust and  
focus on

terror and random violence.  Hatred and scapegoats and the language of
genocide and class warfare and now sectarian warfare.  Maybe this  
isn't an
excess of religious passion, but a rather more base desire in a new  
hat.


Is this just a phase very traditional societies, with rigid  
hierarchies and
sharp sex role divisions, go through as they modernize?  As they  
modernize,
they look at the West and see decadence and weakness and calculate  
that,
instead of modernizing, they can just conquer the West and  
subordinate it.
Instead of relaxing their hierarchies, they can make the more  
extreme and

rigid on their way to world domination.  The goal seems more and more
unworkable, but the process seems to be playing out yet again.

-Mike Oliker



FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org




FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

Re: [FRIAM] Fwd: America and the Middle East: Murder in Libya | The Economist

[Victoria Hughes]

Absolutely to Steve, and whiskey and a talk about all this. I would  
LOVE to.

Just tell me the time and place.

Tory



On Sep 14, 2012, at 12:33 PM, Douglas Roberts wrote:


Victoria,

I was speaking from the perspective of two religions with which I  
have first-hand familiarity: Christianity and Islam.  Both of which  
require faith as a prerequisite of membership.


But yes, I'd enjoy drinking whiskey with you and, if I may suggest,  
Steve S. to discuss further.


--Doug

On Fri, Sep 14, 2012 at 12:30 PM, Victoria Hughes > wrote:

Doug -
You are defining religion differently than I am. I said nothing  
about blind faith. That was your term.
I was talking about belief. You have belief (blind faith?) in your  
intellectual objectivism.


Buddha said very clearly and consistently "Do not do this because I  
tell you to. Try this and see if it works for you, and then do it or  
not."


I am happy to continue this until the cows come home, but I suspect  
this list is not the place.

If you want to meet over whisky, and get into this, let me know.

Tory






Tory Hughes
unusual objects and unique adornments
www.toryhughes.com
www.toryhughes-galleryshop.com
www.facebook.com/tory.hughes1






On Sep 14, 2012, at 11:18 AM, Douglas Roberts wrote:


Well see, here we go again.

To which I come back again with the point of view that any  
philosophy, or religion that is human-centric in nature as both  
Christianity or Islam are, is inherently bad.  A narrow world view,  
enabled, promoted, and enforced with even narrower strict  
fundamentalist practitioners is by definition destructive.


There can be no greater moral deficiency than having been born with  
an intellect and then refusing to use it.


Blind faith is exactly that: blind.  "Faith" in religion is defined  
as having accepted, unquestioningly, what someone else has told you  
is the one true way.


I personally have no respect for religious faith.

I respect people's right to chose to live that way, right up to the  
point where they attempt to influence how I live and think. But not  
their decision to unquestioningly commit to a dogma.


Religion, because it requires "faith" to become a subscriber, is  
inherently bad.


And as long as we're on the subject, if religion is bad for the  
reasons described above, then the opposite of religion is  
cosmology: the science of trying to understand the universe rather  
than attempting to explain it away with fairy tales.


--Doug

On Fri, Sep 14, 2012 at 10:56 AM, Victoria Hughes > wrote:


Religion is not inherently bad. It is the use of it for mundane  
power that is the problem.
All religious traditions began with a prophet / visionary / mystic  
who urged tolerance, peace and self-awareness. Muhammad, Jesus,  
Buddha... In most cases, that person's initial followers began to  
leverage their own closeness and supposed 'superior understanding'  
to that original figure to justify behaviour that benefited their  
mundane activities.


Every religion has gone through this. Every creed of any kind has  
gone through this. The challenge is our use of belief.


Nick could speak to this too: there are developmental lines in the  
psychology of individuals, groups, nations, tribes, etc: and these  
will use powerful innate tools (like the human need to believe in  
something) for different purposes, depending on their development.


And there is nothing inherently wrong or flawed in the things in  
which people embed their beliefs. Science, truth, the divine, all  
those have positive beneficial elements. Again, it is the use of  
those concepts as tools to persuade others into actions that  
destroy that is the problem.


Self-awareness in all this is the key.

Tory

On Sep 14, 2012, at 10:41 AM, Douglas Roberts wrote:

One semi-final note from me about culture and religion:  I lived  
in Libya for a year in 1976 when I was a consultant to Occidental  
Petroleum.  I traveled extensively between Tripoli, Benghazi, and  
several points about 900 miles southeast of Tripoli in the  
northern tip of the Sahara during that year.  I quickly learned  
that the culture of the Arabic half of Libya (as compared to the  
Berber Bedouin culture that comprises the eastern half of the  
country) is dominated by the Islamic religion.  You cannot  
separate them.  Religion is interwoven into every aspect of their  
culture.  Any attempt to exclude the impact of religion on their  
culture will fail.


--Doug


On Fri, Sep 14, 2012 at 10:24 AM, Douglas Roberts > wrote:

Let's see if I understand you correctly, Owen.

There are a bunch of fundamentalist Islamists all up in arms  
shouting "Allahu Akhbar" whilst burning down our embassies and  
killing our diplomats because there is a film out that is  
derogatory of the Muslim religion.


And this is not about religion?

I don't see it.

Or you don't see it.

What I do see i

Re: [FRIAM] Fwd: America and the Middle East: Murder in Libya | The Economist

[Victoria Hughes]

Exactly.
Thanks, Roger.


On Sep 14, 2012, at 10:47 AM, Roger Critchlow wrote:

The Fixation of Belief, Charles S. Peirce, Popular Science Monthly,  
November 1877.


http://www.peirce.org/writings/p107.html

I was going to paraphrase another part of this, but looking at it  
again I realize my feeble bowdlerization wouldn't do it justice.   
[Emphasis added]


Let the will of the state act, then, instead of that of the  
individual. Let an institution be created which shall have for its  
object to keep correct doctrines before the attention of the people,  
to reiterate them perpetually, and to teach them to the young;  
having at the same time power to prevent contrary doctrines from  
being taught, advocated, or expressed. Let all possible causes of a  
change of mind be removed from men's apprehensions. Let them be kept  
ignorant, lest they should learn of some reason to think otherwise  
than they do. Let their passions be enlisted, so that they may  
regard private and unusual opinions with hatred and horror. Then,  
let all men who reject the established belief be terrified into  
silence. Let the people turn out and tar-and-feather such men, or  
let inquisitions be made into the manner of thinking of suspected  
persons, and when they are found guilty of forbidden beliefs, let  
them be subjected to some signal punishment. When complete agreement  
could not otherwise be reached, a general massacre of all who have  
not thought in a certain way has proved a very effective means of  
settling opinion in a country. If the power to do this be wanting,  
let a list of opinions be drawn up, to which no man of the least  
independence of thought can assent, and let the faithful be required  
to accept all these propositions, in order to segregate them as  
radically as possible from the influence of the rest of the world.


This isn't Peirce's solution to the question.  And it doesn't really  
matter whether you let the religious fringe, the religious  
moderates, the rationalists, or the state enforce correct doctrines,  
the doctrines are never completely correct, and you always get  
unfortunate errors in the enforcement.


-- rec --

FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org



FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

[FRIAM] Fwd: America and the Middle East: Murder in Libya | The Economist

[Victoria Hughes]

Religion is not inherently bad. It is the use of it for mundane power  
that is the problem.
All religious traditions began with a prophet / visionary / mystic who  
urged tolerance, peace and self-awareness. Muhammad, Jesus, Buddha...  
In most cases, that person's initial followers began to leverage their  
own closeness and supposed 'superior understanding' to that original  
figure to justify behaviour that benefited their mundane activities.


Every religion has gone through this. Every creed of any kind has gone  
through this. The challenge is our use of belief.


Nick could speak to this too: there are developmental lines in the  
psychology of individuals, groups, nations, tribes, etc: and these  
will use powerful innate tools (like the human need to believe in  
something) for different purposes, depending on their development.


And there is nothing inherently wrong or flawed in the things in which  
people embed their beliefs. Science, truth, the divine, all those have  
positive beneficial elements. Again, it is the use of those concepts  
as tools to persuade others into actions that destroy that is the  
problem.


Self-awareness in all this is the key.

Tory

On Sep 14, 2012, at 10:41 AM, Douglas Roberts wrote:

One semi-final note from me about culture and religion:  I lived in  
Libya for a year in 1976 when I was a consultant to Occidental  
Petroleum.  I traveled extensively between Tripoli, Benghazi, and  
several points about 900 miles southeast of Tripoli in the northern  
tip of the Sahara during that year.  I quickly learned that the  
culture of the Arabic half of Libya (as compared to the Berber  
Bedouin culture that comprises the eastern half of the country) is  
dominated by the Islamic religion.  You cannot separate them.   
Religion is interwoven into every aspect of their culture.  Any  
attempt to exclude the impact of religion on their culture will fail.


--Doug

On Fri, Sep 14, 2012 at 10:24 AM, Douglas Roberts > wrote:

Let's see if I understand you correctly, Owen.

There are a bunch of fundamentalist Islamists all up in arms  
shouting "Allahu Akhbar" whilst burning down our embassies and  
killing our diplomats because there is a film out that is derogatory  
of the Muslim religion.


And this is not about religion?

I don't see it.

Or you don't see it.

What I do see is that there is one very large disconnect on this  
particular issue.


--Doug

On Fri, Sep 14, 2012 at 10:17 AM, Owen Densmore  
 wrote:
I do not believe this to be a religious issue at all.  The question  
is of groups and institutions.


When a faction of a group becomes apparently insane, do we not  
expect the entire group, its leaders and majority, to speak up and  
to mend?


When civil rights were an issue in the south, many of us (I was at  
Georgia Tech) spoke up, and indeed many churches of all stripes did  
so.  Many NRA members also speak up about the extreme position the  
organization takes.  Examples abound.  And yes, I consider this a  
Complexity domain, much like Miller's Applause model.


Isn't this possibly a cultural issue?  Possibly regional?  The  
largest Muslim population is not Libya or Egypt or even all of the  
middle east, its Indonesia.  They do not appear to have this issue.


So my question stands as Kofi stated:
"Where are the leaders?  Where is the Majority?  Nobody speaks  
up."
NOT the religious leaders but the leaders of the culture in which  
the religion lies.


And Hussein, forgive me, but your inward religious stance has  
nothing to do with speaking out against injustice.  It is not a  
religious issue, but a civic, cultural one.


   -- Owen


FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org



--
Doug Roberts
drobe...@rti.org
d...@parrot-farm.net
http://parrot-farm.net/Second-Cousins

505-455-7333 - Office
505-670-8195 - Cell




--
Doug Roberts
drobe...@rti.org
d...@parrot-farm.net
http://parrot-farm.net/Second-Cousins

505-455-7333 - Office
505-670-8195 - Cell


FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org






FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

[FRIAM] Fwd: America and the Middle East: Murder in Libya | The Economist

[Victoria Hughes]

Re Doug's last comment:


It's about power and control. A justification for them.  They are  
using 'religion' as a potent, unquestionable label to justify their  
behaviour. Much like fundamentalists from all 'religious traditions'
Technically, the word 'religion' derives from 're-linking', as in  
'ligature'.


'Religion' is a form of behaviour that many people use as a structure  
to establish their connection to faith.


Humans are built to believe in something. Linking to a sense of  
something [ larger, more consistent, trustworthy] than our small ego- 
minds is built into our way of conceptualizing our experience.


Science, politics, the earth, the truth, skepticism, god, etc etc -  
all the 'big' words are ideas that humans build into structures to  
support their need to believe.
There is nothing wrong with that. It is not metaphysical craziness,  
just the way we are wired.


Great conversation. Thanks, Hussein.

Tory


On Sep 14, 2012, at 10:24 AM, Douglas Roberts wrote:


Let's see if I understand you correctly, Owen.

There are a bunch of fundamentalist Islamists all up in arms  
shouting "Allahu Akhbar" whilst burning down our embassies and  
killing our diplomats because there is a film out that is derogatory  
of the Muslim religion.


And this is not about religion?

I don't see it.

Or you don't see it.

What I do see is that there is one very large disconnect on this  
particular issue.


--Doug

On Fri, Sep 14, 2012 at 10:17 AM, Owen Densmore  
 wrote:
I do not believe this to be a religious issue at all.  The question  
is of groups and institutions.


When a faction of a group becomes apparently insane, do we not  
expect the entire group, its leaders and majority, to speak up and  
to mend?


When civil rights were an issue in the south, many of us (I was at  
Georgia Tech) spoke up, and indeed many churches of all stripes did  
so.  Many NRA members also speak up about the extreme position the  
organization takes.  Examples abound.  And yes, I consider this a  
Complexity domain, much like Miller's Applause model.


Isn't this possibly a cultural issue?  Possibly regional?  The  
largest Muslim population is not Libya or Egypt or even all of the  
middle east, its Indonesia.  They do not appear to have this issue.


So my question stands as Kofi stated:
"Where are the leaders?  Where is the Majority?  Nobody speaks  
up."
NOT the religious leaders but the leaders of the culture in which  
the religion lies.


And Hussein, forgive me, but your inward religious stance has  
nothing to do with speaking out against injustice.  It is not a  
religious issue, but a civic, cultural one.


   -- Owen


FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org



--
Doug Roberts
drobe...@rti.org
d...@parrot-farm.net
http://parrot-farm.net/Second-Cousins

505-455-7333 - Office
505-670-8195 - Cell


FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org




FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

Re: [FRIAM] PRES12_WTA Prospectus - The University of Iowa

[Victoria Hughes]

You have such a way with words, Doug.On Aug 19, 2012, at 3:41 PM, Douglas Roberts wrote:Or, possibly it's due to the growing education of the masses, and the attendant dawning realization that Romney believes that god is a space alien who lives on the crystal planet Kolob.  And that he baptizes dead people. And that before 1978 he held to church doctrine that black people were "loathsome unto thy people".  After 1978, of course, black people were just hunky.   In other words, it's becoming clear that he believes in really goofy shit, and his judgement may therefore be a bit suspect.I mean, of course, the above belief set as compared one that requires believing in a sadistic god and a useless savior; walking on water, rising from the dead, big floods and ocean-going animal husbandry, etc. But maybe all of the above is just my perception, and the fact that atheism continues to sound reasonable. Perhaps people are beginning to realize that the better they get to know Romney, the less there is to like about him. --DougOn Sun, Aug 19, 2012 at 1:16 PM, Owen Densmore  wrote: There has been an increase in the divergence between the two parties, possibly due to the VP choice?    -- Owen    FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org-- Doug Robertsdrobe...@rti.org d...@parrot-farm.nethttp://parrot-farm.net/Second-Cousins 505-455-7333 - Office505-670-8195 - Cell  FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listservMeets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's Collegelectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org Tory Hughesunusual objects and unique adornments www.toryhughes.comwww.toryhughes-galleryshop.comwww.facebook.com/tory.hughes1 
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

Re: [FRIAM] Fwd: Starbucks signs up with Square.

[Victoria Hughes]

The 2.75 is less than the 2.99 + 30 cents a transaction that Paypal charges. As for most people with small businesses, Paypal has been my primary tool for cc transactions for years now: I have two shopping cart websites and a number of pp buttons standing alone on one of my regular websites. Square means I don't need to rely on the customer to click through, or send an invoice and wait for payment to confirm sales. And neither of us has to be online for transactions to happen. Have heard great stories of people at yard sales and flea markets using Square. Acrually, it's becoming cash in that sense, yes? Right here, right now, I give you money and you give me stuff. We still rely on the illusion of a layer of tech to do it. We carry around our virtual cowrie shells, and agree to leave them here and there.Ever hear about Yap Money?We became a mobile economy a while ago. Does this mean the implants are next?ToryOn Aug 8, 2012, at 10:04 AM, Owen Densmore wrote:On Wed, Aug 8, 2012 at 9:56 AM, Victoria Hughes <victo...@toryhughes.com> wrote: I have one also, and love it. Artists were very early adapters to this technology, for obvious reasons.  Many of us who are small businesses / artists find this solves perennial POS issues, particularly when we have studio sales, or sell at  shows around the US.Tory  Interesting!  Any tales to tell about their account, deposits etc?  Do you find the 2.75% cost OK?My next use will be to take a friend to quail run for dinner, charge it to our bill, and take the friend's part from his credit card (he never carries money, only cards).  The interchange is necessary due to QR's quarterly meal charge .. if you don't use it, you loose it and it has to be on your account. I initially thought this was as nuts as my earlier buying tools, magnifier, etc to fix my iPhone, but thus far both have been used in interesting situations.   -- Owen  FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listservMeets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's Collegelectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org Tory Hughesunusual objects and unique adornments www.toryhughes.comwww.toryhughes-galleryshop.comwww.facebook.com/tory.hughes1 
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

Re: [FRIAM] Save the date: McCorduck reading

[Victoria Hughes]

Pamela- Congratulations! See you there, and looking forward to it-ToryOn Aug 1, 2012, at 2:29 PM, Pamela McCorduck wrote:Save the date:Pamela McCorduck will read from her new novel, Bounded Rationality, at Garcia Street Books, Saturday, August 25, at 2:00 p.m.Bounded Rationality is the second novel in her trilogy, Santa Fe Stories, and is set here in Santa Fe. It follows the adventures of a group of people you might have met in her previous novel of this series, The Edge of Chaos.  It also introduces several major new characters. The themes of complexity--in both its scientific sense and its human sense--continue to prevail. Molloy, a very wealthy individual, whom readers met in in the first novel, is now determined to establish an innovative philanthropy that will follow the principles of complexity. His new friend, a world-renown architect, is following closely. That architect's son does research at the Santa Fe Institute, seeking a scientific understanding of how cities evolve, succeed, and fail; and Judith Greenwood continues to pursue her search there for the known, the unknown, and the forever unknowable in science. Though Bounded Rationality is a sequel to The Edge of Chaos, it stands alone--you don't need to read the first to enjoy the second.<_DSC1614_3.jpeg>"He only earns both freedom and existence/Who must reconquer them each day"Goethe, "Faust""He only earns both freedom and existence/Who must reconquer them each day"Goethe, "Faust"  FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listservMeets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's Collegelectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org Tory Hughesunusual objects and unique adornments www.toryhughes.comwww.toryhughes-galleryshop.comwww.facebook.com/tory.hughes1 
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

Re: [FRIAM] iClarified - Apple News - Tactus Shows Off Real Physical Keyboard That Rises Out of Touchscreens [Video]

[Victoria Hughes]

Wow!
Great link, Owen. Startling and eery, but we'll get used to lusting  
for it very quickly, like everything else.

Tory





On Jun 5, 2012, at 9:25 PM, Owen Densmore wrote:

Whoa! A deforming touch screen so that you can have real keyboards/ 
buttons!

http://www.iclarified.com/entry/index.php?enid=22380

   -- Owen

FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org



FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

[FRIAM] Great party last night! - and speaking of Science and Art-

[Victoria Hughes]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-18302158

"At the tender age of 10, Swedish boy Linus Hovmoller Zou has had his  
name put on a research paper published in The Philosophical  
Transactions of the Royal Society.


Using his Sudoku expertise, he helped his father Professor Sven  
Hovmoller discover the atomic structure of a type of crystal called  
approximants."


At the end of the voiceover for this short story, the reporter said

 "Linus now dreams of becoming a scientist, or an artist".

Nice to see you all last night.

Tory
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

[FRIAM] Video of Brian Christian talk in Santa Fe, "What Computers Teach Us about Being Human"

[Victoria Hughes]

http://www.santafe.edu/news/item/lecture-most-human-human/Recommended. Santa Fe Institute tapes these community lectures, lucky for us. Usually engaging and thought-provoking. This one is also funny. For locals: they're held at James A Little Theater- sign up for SFI email list.  Tory Hughesunusual objects and unique adornments www.toryhughes.comwww.toryhughes-galleryshop.com 
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

Re: [FRIAM] Fwd: So, *Are* We Alone?

[Victoria Hughes]

Ditto and right back atcha.
Incidentally, did anyone else on this list attend Rebecca Goldstein's  
talk on Intuition the other day?

Victoria

On Apr 11, 2012, at 12:27 PM, Pamela McCorduck wrote:

Generally speaking, if a topic isn't interesting to me, I just pass  
over it. I don't expect other people--for whom it is interesting--to  
stop talking.


In fact, I find the logic of scientific inquiry very interesting. I  
think this is partly because what scientists actually do, and what  
philosophers say they do, is somewhat disjunct. I don't have  
anything to contribute to this discussion, but that doesn't mean I'm  
not reading or uhhumming as I read. Carry on, Nick et al.


P.

On Apr 11, 2012, at 2:18 PM, Owen Densmore wrote:

Here I am on vacation .. The Broadmoor in Colorado springs .. And  
wanting to say that

1 wtf ?? Why would you leave such an interesting discussion?
2 who would ask you to end it?
3 ..etc

When we fear for what is interesting to others, we forfeit our souls.

Really, I fear for friam.

 Owen


I am an iPad, resistance is futile!

On Apr 9, 2012, at 11:32 PM, "Nicholas  Thompson" > wrote:



Hi, everybody,



Somebody (whom I respect greatly) has “eldered” me, writing to say  
that I am in danger of driving everybody nuts with my new found  
interest in the logic of scientific inquiry.  So I will give it a  
rest, and lurk for a month.  If anybody wants to talk off line  
about  any of the topics I have been pestering you about, I would  
of course be happy to do so.  Take care.   Talk to you on May 9th.




Nick





FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org


"She instructed me as if out of bitter personal experience; she  
brooded along the edges of my childhood like someone living out a  
long Tennysonian regret."


Wallace Stegner, "Angle of Repose"


FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org



FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

[FRIAM] Fwd: [Lectures] SFI Community Lecture — Tonight, April 9, 2012 • 7:30 p.m. • James A. Little Theater

[Victoria Hughes]

FYI.

Begin forwarded message:


From: Santa Fe Institute 
Date: April 9, 2012 8:39:47 AM MDT
To: inho...@santafe.edu, activities-annou...@santafe.edu, lectu...@santafe.edu
Subject: [Lectures] SFI Community Lecture — Tonight, April 9, 2012 •  
7:30 p.m. • James A. Little Theater




*** SFI Community Lecture ***
Monday, April 9, 2012 • 7:30 p.m. • James A. Little Theater

Appealing to Intuitions:
Why We Can't Get Along Without Them



Rebecca Newberger Goldstein
former SFI Miller Scholar, a research associate at Harvard  
University, and author of both fiction and nonfiction works,  
including The Mind-Body Problem; Incompleteness: The Proof and  
Paradox of Kurt Gödel, and Thirty-Six Arguments for the Existence of  
God: A Work of Fiction



Abstract:  Appeals to intuitions have something suspect about them.  
Intuitions can vary from person to person, and even those that seem  
least assailable sometimes lead us astray, as the paradoxes of set  
theory demonstrated. Mathematicians of the last century, in their  
attempts to formalize mathematics, tried to eliminate all appeals to  
intuitions, but Gödel's Incompleteness Theorems can be viewed as a  
proof that we can’t get along without appealing to them.  But the  
entrenched practice of appealing to intuitions goes beyond  
mathematics. Intuitions are an essential part of our moral and  
philosophical thinking. But where do intuitions come from, and why  
should we trust them?  Does their fixed presence in our intellectual  
and moral lives indicate the limits of rationality?  Goldstein  
explores these questions and others in her talk.


Generous support is provided by Los Alamos National Bank and Dr.  
Penelope Penland


SFI Host:  Ginger Richardson

http://www.santafe.edu/gevent/detail/public/783/

The Santa Fe Institute's mission is to foster a transdisciplinary  
research community that endeavors to expand the boundaries of  
scientific understanding. Its aim is to discover and comprehend the  
common fundamental principles in physical, computational,  
biological, and social systems that underlie many of the most  
profound problems facing science and society today.


Donate   •   Questions 505 946 3642   •   Privacy Policy


___
Lectures mailing list
lectu...@santafe.edu
http://tuvalu.santafe.edu/mailman/listinfo/lectures



FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

Re: [FRIAM] Just as a bye-the-way

[Victoria Hughes]

Be interesting to hear why your ordination has meaning to you. That it  
does is obvious, and your willingness to engage in FRIAM about it  
implies there's an aspect of having it that you may not have  
mentioned. Yes? No? Maybe?


Tory




On Mar 23, 2012, at 3:21 PM, Douglas Roberts wrote:

Indeed, and New Mexico is one of those states.  Regardless, I am  
inordinately proud of my new ordination.


:)

-Doug

Sent from Android.

On Mar 23, 2012 3:15 PM, "James Steiner"   
wrote:
I come at the whole "I'm ordained so now I can marry folk" thing  
from a different direction:  in many states, *anyone* can be an  
officient at a wedding. No special documentation is required. In  
those places, any accrediting document for that purpose  is a joke  
document.


~~The Reverend James Steiner, ULC, FSM, CotSG
Amen, Ramen, "Bob"



FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org



FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

Re: [FRIAM] Handling Your QR Code Marketing Successfully

[Victoria Hughes]

	I used them last year in a show of my jewelry: each necklace had a descriptive tag with price, length, etc, and a QR code that took you to a page on my site where you could read the background story on the inspiration behind the piece, see photos of it worn, and purchase it through Paypal. 	Was a fair amount of work to pull that together with everything else I did for the show, and no one contacted me through them. However I've been committed to introducing QR codes to an arts milieu and glad I did it. 	I have also used them on business cards from time to time. 	The 'coolness' factor I've apparently gained has outweighed peoples' actual usage, but that's okay, there's a learning / access curve going on. 	Philosophically, I get a kick out of them. Tory Hughesunusual objects and unique adornments www.toryhughes.comwww.toryhughes-galleryshop.com On Mar 17, 2012, at 10:36 AM, Owen Densmore wrote:Eric: I noticed your LinkedIn share on QR (Quick Response) codes: http://goo.gl/PfdZ7 .. the square "bar codes" that have become so popular. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QR_codeI just wondered if there was a back-story .. how you might use them.  /. has a recent post on the "death of the business card", mentioning that personal QR codes are getting used for "social networking: http://goo.gl/UEmTM All: are any of us using them?  If so how?  If not, are you thinking about it?Apparently people want them on their business cards too, so they can scan them once home. Bump is apparently pretty widely used, 77 million! http://bu.mp/ but I'm not sure if I want them to have my info.    -- Owen FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listservMeets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's Collegelectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

Re: [FRIAM] Self publishing

[Victoria Hughes]

re my last note-
> Financial success for me.
Success for my readers in whatever category they choose.
( For those of you who want to query my vague pronoun references...)

On Feb 15, 2012, at 1:04 PM, Victoria Hughes wrote:

Thanks all, this is quite helpful. I particularly like envisaging my  
readers secretly copying my book so others can read it and  
ultimately generate financial success à la Rowling. Nice visuals.  
I'll share, when it happens.

Tory


On Feb 15, 2012, at 12:17 PM, James Steiner wrote:

On Wed, Feb 15, 2012 at 1:42 PM, Greg Sonnenfeld  
 wrote:
I've found one of the simplest ways to prevent opportunistic  
piracy of
books is to stick the buyers name on every page of the PDF  
( licensed

to: John Smith ) :P It discourage people from "lending" the pdf out
without being heavy handed.

If someone has tools to edit the name out of the PDF, they already
have tools to get past your DRM.


LOL. Yes, tools, like a printer, scissors, a copy machine, and a
grudge (or an additction).

I can't find a source, but have heard, anecdotally, that the first UK
edition of Harry Potter, released in UK in June 1997 and not  
scheduled

for US release until Sept 1998, was *manually retyped* by fans, so
that US readers who heard about it could get it. I'm sure this has
happened before then, too.

I wonder if the retypers corrected any typesetting or other editorial
errors they found, or if they left it as-was?

~~James


FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org




FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org



FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

Re: [FRIAM] Self publishing

[Victoria Hughes]

Thanks all, this is quite helpful. I particularly like envisaging my  
readers secretly copying my book so others can read it and ultimately  
generate financial success à la Rowling. Nice visuals. I'll share,  
when it happens.

Tory


On Feb 15, 2012, at 12:17 PM, James Steiner wrote:

On Wed, Feb 15, 2012 at 1:42 PM, Greg Sonnenfeld  
 wrote:
I've found one of the simplest ways to prevent opportunistic piracy  
of

books is to stick the buyers name on every page of the PDF ( licensed
to: John Smith ) :P It discourage people from "lending" the pdf out
without being heavy handed.

If someone has tools to edit the name out of the PDF, they already
have tools to get past your DRM.


LOL. Yes, tools, like a printer, scissors, a copy machine, and a
grudge (or an additction).

I can't find a source, but have heard, anecdotally, that the first UK
edition of Harry Potter, released in UK in June 1997 and not scheduled
for US release until Sept 1998, was *manually retyped* by fans, so
that US readers who heard about it could get it. I'm sure this has
happened before then, too.

I wonder if the retypers corrected any typesetting or other editorial
errors they found, or if they left it as-was?

~~James


FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org




FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

Re: [FRIAM] Self publishing

[Victoria Hughes]

Any watermark or copy protection on this format?
Thanks,
Tory



On Feb 15, 2012, at 8:16 AM, Robert J. Cordingley wrote:

We've just finished a website to sell an eBook (Kindle or EPUB) for  
an author in town, Josh Gonze, see the streetsofsantafe.com.   
Visitors buy the ebook ($11.95) via PayPal and automatically receive  
an email with a digital download link that's good for 2 days.  This  
digital self publishing approach avoids giving Amazon a chunk of the  
sales price.


Hope this helps.
Thanks
Robert Cordingley
www.cirrillian.com



On 2/14/12 9:39 PM, Nicholas Thompson wrote:


Hi, everybody,

I have signed perhaps a dozen Publishers Agreements over my life  
time  and each one was more onerous, self-serving, and stupid than  
the one before.  My favorite was the publisher who asked me to  
“hold the Publisher harmless for anything that might occur as a  
consequence of the publishing of the work.”  I asked a lawyer if  
this meant I was liable if a printer got his hand caught in the  
press while my book was running and he answered, “Well, probably  
not.”  And then he thought for a moment and said, “Oh, they’ld  
never come after you for that!” Early contracts limited my  
liability to the income from royalties, and one publisher actually  
provided authors’ insurance for a modest premium.  But no more.


Well today, I got an author’s contract for a paper I am contributed  
to an academic collection that asked me to warrant that the work  
had been commissioned by the publisher and was “work for hire”.
Now,  work for hire means that one’s surrenders ALL rights to the  
work including the right to claim it as one’s own work.  It’s the  
kind of contract you sign when you write jacket copy for a  
publisher.  ( The publisher in this case was Oxford University  
Press, in case any of you are thinking of doing business with  
them.)  I am a wishy washy fellow, but somehow I could not sign a  
document that said that my original work was “work for hire.”   
Couldn’t do it.


It’s too late for this work.  I will have to sign the rights over  
to my [young] collaborator, because she desperately needs the paper  
for her career.  But MAN! It got me to thinking.  WHAT ABOUT self  
publishing.  With, say, Amazon” Does anybody on the list have any  
experience with Amazon or other self publishing services that they  
would like to share?


My Dad was a book publisher, and I grew up with conversations  
around the dinner table about “developing authors” and trying to  
find new authors, and how a few books might have to be published  
before a new author caught on.  They published Churchill’s Memoires  
and Mein Kampf (!) and the Peterson Field Guides, among many  
others.   Now, it seems, publishers do very little, and academic  
publishers, in particular,  do nothing but scavenge off the fetid  
bits coughed up the publish or perish system. Is is it time to dump  
them?   I am sure this is a party I am late to.  Where do I get  
invited.


Nick

Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology
Clark University
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/
http://www.cusf.org





FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org


FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org



FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

Re: [FRIAM] YES

[Victoria Hughes]

Easier to interpret the sabertooth in the underbrush, and procreate thereby.From a visual maker's perspective, the human compulsion for pattern recognition leads to much of the engagement of art, in all forms. Tory Tory Hughesunusual objects and unique adornments www.toryhughes.comwww.toryhughes-galleryshop.com On Feb 13, 2012, at 9:20 AM, Owen Densmore wrote:http://goo.gl/J363l has a conversation on the YES OP.I found it interesting that our brain can use pattern recognition to decode scrambled text as easily as it does.    -- Owen FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listservMeets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's Collegelectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

Re: [FRIAM] Google unveils 'Solve for X' website, hints at TED-like think tank | The Verge

[Victoria Hughes]

Thanks, Owen. Good model.


Tory




On Feb 6, 2012, at 9:48 AM, Owen Densmore wrote:


Some more info:
http://www.thinkbelieveact.com/solveforx/
.. and here's the leaked image of 10 points used for speakers.  Its  
tiny but your browser can zoom in on it to the point that its quite  
readable.

http://www.thinkbelieveact.com/solveforx/img/culture.jpg

   -- Owen

On Mon, Feb 6, 2012 at 9:26 AM, Owen Densmore   
wrote:
This looks interesting and may connect with the recent free  
university courses at Stanford

http://www.theverge.com/2012/2/6/2774727/google-solve-for-x-think-tank
.. some of which used Google tech for the presentations and quizes &  
homework.  Udacity is also, I think, Google based.


That would be sorta nifty: TED for inspiration, and short courses to  
really expand on the inspiration.


BTW: Some of the next Stanford classes are short .. 5 weeks for the  
algorithms class for example.  This fits into Dave West's new  
curriculum ideas of quick, intensive classes with projects.


   -- Owen


FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org



FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

Re: [FRIAM] Further SOPA/PIPA

[Victoria Hughes]

Cool. Must be the subliminal messages we send through the mesh networks.

On Jan 11, 2012, at 9:54 AM, Roger Critchlow wrote:

According to http://sopaopera.org/NM/ both our senators and our  
congressman support SOPA and PIP.


-- rec --

On Wed, Jan 11, 2012 at 9:51 AM, Victoria Hughes > wrote:
Voting on SOPA is January 24th. Here's an accessible article The  
Problem with SOPA (And How to Stop It) | Copyblogger to pass around  
to those who don't quite get what is going on.

Easy online action: signing email letters.
Further action:Follow the links in the Copyblogger article to a  
discussion at americancensorship.org organizing people to meet with  
senators in person, and ask for their votes against this.  
Surprisingly few people actually doing so. I signed up; with much of  
my business online, this hits home.

Tory


FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org


FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org



FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

[FRIAM] Further SOPA/PIPA

[Victoria Hughes]

Voting on SOPA is January 24th. Here's an accessible article The  
Problem with SOPA (And How to Stop It) | Copyblogger to pass around to  
those who don't quite get what is going on.

Easy online action: signing email letters.
Further action:Follow the links in the Copyblogger article to a  
discussion at americancensorship.org organizing people to meet with  
senators in person, and ask for their votes against this. Surprisingly  
few people actually doing so. I signed up; with much of my business  
online, this hits home.

Tory
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

Re: [FRIAM] parislemon • Why I Hate Android

[Victoria Hughes]

What a great solution- the mesh network. Communal, reasonable, relying  
on interpersonal responsibility. How feasible is this actually? This  
model - what without knowing the jargon I'd call distributed or  
partnership effort, each person doing a small part of the task, and  
numbers making the big tasks happen - seems like one of those things  
that can be pulled off in small like-minded communities, or those with  
pre-existing need that hasn't been filled yet.  But not so likely in  
an area where those things don't exist. Sounds like something the  
Norwegians would do, or people in Portland, Oregon.
Say more about how it could be set up? So many applications besides  
phone service.


Tory


On Jan 10, 2012, at 5:57 PM, Arlo Barnes wrote:

Open source hardware and software can spread quickly to those who  
want it, and clearly companies that sell mobile phones do not want  
it. But there are enough smart people out there that communities  
could build the phones they want. So the issue is coverage. nG  
should be like WiFi - as open or closed as the owner of the hotspot  
wants, controllable, et cetera. As has been pointed out, a little  
weak on security, but nothing that cannot be fixed. The problem is  
that mobile devices move around more than the average computer, even  
including laptops. This is why cell towers have been built to cover  
wide areas, and of course companies need to be big enough to have  
enough money to build them. Big companies tend to not like 'open'.  
Communities might be able to raise enough money, but towers are  
unsightly and some people claim they cause health problems. So the  
answer might be mesh networks - chances are, a given mobile device  
is a lot closer to another device than the nearest tower, so signals  
do not have to have quite a strong amplitude. This means that people  
can provide each other with coverage, bypassing vendors.

-Arlo

FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org



FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

[FRIAM] Reuters article may be of interest to some-

[Victoria Hughes]

"Matt is right, in that scripting is the new literacy, and a growing  
form of artistic expression. Tech-savvy artists are creating apps and  
developing sites to put their art into the world. Whether its Matt  
Inmann creating his work and coding his site at The Oatmeal or young  
app developers likeRobert Nay, artists are becoming coders and vice  
versa, since, as Mullenweg states, scripting is “new literacy”."


2012: The year of the artist-entrepreneur | Entrepreneurial


Here's plain text:

2012: The year of the artist-entrepreneur
DEC 30, 2011 14:04 EST
(This article by Michael Wolf originally appeared in GigaOm.)

(GigaOm) – While 2011 was a big year for political unrest, another  
uprising was afoot in the world of content creators and artists.  
Everywhere you look, artists are taking more control over their own  
economic well being, in large part because the Internet has enabled  
them to do so. You see it in all forms of content, from books, to  
video to music.


A few examples from this year:

e-books: Probably the most active area in large part because there is  
huge shifts taking place in digital publishing. From former mid-list  
writers like Barry Eisler to superstars like JK Rowling, writers are  
increasingly making waves in digital publishing.


Video: The story of the year for artists-as-entrepreneur came at the  
tail-end, with Louis CK saying no thank you to corporate middlemen and  
putting his new concert video online for $5 a pop.


Radio/Music: All sorts of independent entrepreneurs are putting audio  
entertainment online, from the rise of podcast kings like Leo Laporte  
to a huge number of independents like Adam Carolla and Marc Maron.  
Music artists are being given freedom too, through new platforms to  
create and share their music like Soundcloud.


So what is driving this movement towards the artist-entrepreneur that  
will give it huge momentum in 2012?  Here are a few underlying trends:


The distribution chain is collapsing across content verticals

The middleman is under attack on all fronts, whether its in video,  
music/audio and e-books.


As devices like TVs become connected, as books become e-readers and  
tablets, and music is now digital, the storefront is fast-becoming the  
entire distribution chain.  With e-books it’s Amazon or Apple, with  
radio it’s iTunes, with video it’s Google/YouTube, Netflix and other  
upstarts who are investing in original content, or simply direct-to- 
consumer efforts using web-payment platforms like Paypal.



Louis CK, who created his own site, paid for bandwidth, and used  
Paypal for payment, captured how many artists are beginning to think  
when he said in an interview with Bill Simmons that he “didn’t want to  
cut out the middleman, I just didn’t need one. There wasn’t any reason  
to have someone there. I just thought make this thing and put it up.”


Content production, distribution and monetization tools are becoming  
democratized through the web


In e-books, distribution and storefronts have already collapsed into  
one, but managing distribution across multiple channels is difficult  
since storefronts are still siloed (Amazon is separate from Apple  
iBooks, which is walled off from Barnes&Noble, etc). However,  
companies like Smashwordsenable creation and distribution across  
multiple storefronts, while Vook, post-pivot, is working on SaaS tools  
to create e-books and manage their distribution, complete with  
reporting and management dashboards.


In music, artists are starting to embrace sites like Soundcloud to  
create music and share it, while others direct-to-fan sites like  
Topspin Media are enabling artists to create commerce sites to sell  
music in turnkey fashion. And it’s not just music sales, but actual  
concert tickets. The Pixies used Topspin to sell tickets for a recent  
concert, utilizing email campaigns and to notify fans and processed  
the tickets using an iOS app at the door.


With video, big middlemen still dominate, but that is changing as  
video creation and distribution costs come down in a world of  
connected devices. As Ryan Lawler wrote in a piece for GigaOM Pro:


“independent content creators stand to gain the most through massive  
reductions in the cost of recording equipment and editing software, as  
well as the greater availability of streaming video service on  
connected devices. They gain new distribution opportunities for their  
content and greater possibility for monetization. Consider any of the  
top YouTube video channels, which probably wouldn’t be able to survive  
in the pay-TV universe but have created thriving businesses due to the  
cost structure online.”


Generational shifts towards technology savvy-artists

As Matt Mullenweg put in in his New Year’s resolution on GigaOM:

“For a year now, I’ve said scripting is the new literacy. That’s  
something I strongly believe. In Douglas Rushkoff’s latest book, he  
talks about “program or be programmed.” Th

Re: [FRIAM] Tomorrow

[Victoria Hughes]

St Johns is closed, to confirm.



On Dec 22, 2011, at 4:53 PM, Owen Densmore wrote:

If? Where?  


FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org




FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

[FRIAM] You are Invited> All of you>My studio> Next week. Get out of the house, explore stuff.

[Victoria Hughes]

Hello all you friamistas -Come over for a visit next week, great field trip, refreshments et al.I have a nice studio at 1519 Upper Canyon,same studio compound as Orlando Leibovitz's. Quarter mile south of the hiking trails, the nature conservancy, etc.I'll be in my studio (directions below)next week, 10-5 every day except Wednesday morning. Would love to show you what I do when I am not online typing at you.Those of you who were at my presentation to SFX a couple of years ago, there's lots more to see and notice, as the Exploratorium puts it. This is a great 'Get the family out of the house' trip.If you think of it, confirm by email or voice mail that you're coming, so I haven't slipped out for coffee at the wrong time.victo...@toryhughes.com505-301-9142Hope you can make it-Tory1519 Upper Canyon RoadEast Alameda to endLeft onto Upper Canyon (across from Cristo Rey church)One mile up Left at 1519 and 1521( white numbers, black mailboxes, can't miss it)Down and around: My space is ahead on the left with the prayer flags.Tory Hughesunusual objects and unique adornments for women and menwww.toryhughes-galleryshop.comwww.toryhughes.com 
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

Re: [FRIAM] [EXTERNAL] Re: Cell Service/Tower/Reception/Repeaters/etc.

[Victoria Hughes]

Thanks!This is useful.I'm sure there is some attractive algorithm to plot my total irritation level against theirs. I will try to decrease my end and increase theirs, otherwise the universe may explode. Calling T-Mobile requires going through a webpage. They do not have any direct phone access, even to an automated system. Thus the algorithm.Tory Tory Hughesunusual objects and unique adornments for women and menwww.toryhughes.com On Dec 22, 2011, at 9:25 AM, Parks, Raymond wrote:   On Dec 21, 2011, at 11:06 PM, Victoria Hughes wrote: Well actually I was sorely tempted at the Verizon store today by a small non-smart phone. Charming and insouciente in its naiveté.    Dumb and simple? Yep. No touch screen, no google search, no watching YouTube on a telephone...   I can do all that easier and faster on my MacBook, which is almost always with me.   All I need to know is the little phone works with my Bluetooth, and gets some coverage at my studio.    So this (unlimited talk, $85 a month including taxes and fees, phone is free) is looking better and better.  Owen, you can talk phone to me any day. I'm off to peruse the rest of that thread.   Any tips on getting out of the termination fee?Work through the complaint process -   http://www.consumersunion.org/campaigns/learn_more/001038indiv.html   The process of complaining may take a month or two, but you should become so annoying that they are willing to let you go and waive the fee.   Heck, calling customer service (which should be free?) every free moment you have should cause enough annoyance to get set free. Ray Parks Consilient Heuristician/IDART Program Manager V: 505-844-4024  M: 505-238-9359  P: 505-951-6084 NIPR: rcpa...@sandia.gov SIPR: rcpar...@sandia.doe.sgov.gov (send NIPR reminder) JWICS: dopa...@doe.ic.gov (send NIPR reminder)  FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listservMeets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's Collegelectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

Re: [FRIAM] Cell Service/Tower/Reception/Repeaters/etc.

[Victoria Hughes]

Well actually I was sorely tempted at the Verizon store today by a  
small non-smart phone. Charming and insouciente in its naiveté.
Dumb and simple? Yep. No touch screen, no google search, no watching  
YouTube on a telephone...
I can do all that easier and faster on my MacBook, which is almost  
always with me.
All I need to know is the little phone works with my Bluetooth, and  
gets some coverage at my studio.
 So this (unlimited talk, $85 a month including taxes and fees, phone  
is free) is looking better and better.


Owen, you can talk phone to me any day. I'm off to peruse the rest of  
that thread.

Any tips on getting out of the termination fee?

Tory





On Dec 21, 2011, at 9:42 PM, Owen Densmore wrote:

And folks thought I was obsessive in my cell phone Odyssey!  Buying  
a cell phone is the most difficult purchase you can make.  You have  
three opposing entities:

- The Carrier: Tmo, Vzn, ATT, Sprint ...
- The OS: iOS, Android, .. and the others
- The Handset mfgr: Samsung, Apple, Moto, ...

The mix is awful.  What finally moved me to iPhone w/ Vzn (shudder)  
was that I couldn't stand the way the the handset mfgrs pissed all  
over android to "make it better".  This wasn't just me.  Tests  
showed that adding onto vanilla Android lowered battery life  
noticeably.  If you can get vanilla Android, do that.


All the info I got from that long but useful conversation (thank you  
all) was enough defense so that when I entered the arena against the  
horror (Vzn) I could smack down all their lies and get a reasonably  
good plan+phone.  I also found out that us old folks can get a  
deal.  Vzn has a 65+ plan that saves you a bunch.  Still way more  
than Tmo, but OK given the better coverage.


One warning: if you do get an iPhone, you will find that Apple will  
distort/improve (you choose) your experience because they are trying  
to make the iPhone experience the same across the carriers so they  
force the carriers into doing things they do not want to do.  For  
example, you may find them shipping the phone directly to you,  
rather than walking out of the store with the iPhone.


I have to admit that getting good coverage w/ Vzn in Santa Fe is  
nice.  It'll cost you more in those sneaky "fees and taxes" however,  
'cause Santa Fe charges them extra for the extra towers .. and you  
foot the bill.


BTW: One reason iPhone does not have 4G, 5G, LTE, Gamaray Telco w/  
radiation burns .. is that they discovered that all these super high  
bandwidth systems:

1-Only work in NY and LA (and a few other huge cities)
2-Suck battery like crazy
3-Are lies anyway
.. so they decided to go w/ standard 3G (which of course Tmo does  
NOT use) which is good enough if you get real 3G.  If you really do  
love watching videos on your phone, maybe you should consider the  
trade-offs.  BTW YouTube works fine w/ 3G.


I can go on forever, but better stop here,

   -- Owen

On Wed, Dec 21, 2011 at 8:58 PM, Victoria Hughes > wrote:

FYI re TMOBILE:

I have just had the latest in a round of totally unsuccessful  
interactions with T-Mobile.

I have a Galaxy S2.
I have only had phone service with them for three months:
however I've had to deal with constant lousy coverage and  
unexplained gaps in service,

I've replaced the original new phone that turned out to be defective,
with another 'new' phone
which today suddenly lost all signal so after almost two hours on  
live chat with a representative, I had to erase all data and re-set  
everything to the factory settings


This all started right before I had a phone meeting with a client.

T-Mobile's only comment was 'well, unfortunately things just happen  
every so often. We apologize for the inconvenience'


I could NEVER get away with that attitude as a business person. Never.

I am now happily going to pay the $200 to break my contract with  
them so I can sign up with Verizon.


Why did Americans end up with such total scam phone service?
When  did we blink? How did this get legislated?




Tory




On Dec 21, 2011, at 7:34 PM, Steve Smith wrote:


Just to follow up on this thread for those who care:

I finally got around to ordering (and then got around to  
installing) a Wilson Electronics DB Pro with a directional (Yagi)  
outdoor receiving antenna and an omnidirectional indoor antenna.   
It is a dual band "transciever", essentially taking in whatever  
signal it finds in those bands from the Yagi and retransmitting  
them (after amplification) on the omni (to be placed at least 20  
feet away and not in "front" of the Yagi).


I'm testing against T-Mobile on an iPhone4 (not 4s).  My wife is  
still on ATT with her iPhone 2g (soon to be replaced with a 4s),  
I'll do some testing there as well.   For those of you who followed  
the earlier thread, my location near Otowi bridge on NM 502 at the  
Rio Grande has almost zero effective cell co

Re: [FRIAM] Cell Service/Tower/Reception/Repeaters/etc.

[Victoria Hughes]

FYI re TMOBILE:

I have just had the latest in a round of totally unsuccessful  
interactions with T-Mobile.

I have a Galaxy S2.
I have only had phone service with them for three months:
however I've had to deal with constant lousy coverage and unexplained  
gaps in service,

I've replaced the original new phone that turned out to be defective,
with another 'new' phone
which today suddenly lost all signal so after almost two hours on live  
chat with a representative, I had to erase all data and re-set  
everything to the factory settings


This all started right before I had a phone meeting with a client.

T-Mobile's only comment was 'well, unfortunately things just happen  
every so often. We apologize for the inconvenience'


I could NEVER get away with that attitude as a business person. Never.

I am now happily going to pay the $200 to break my contract with them  
so I can sign up with Verizon.


Why did Americans end up with such total scam phone service?
When  did we blink? How did this get legislated?




Tory




On Dec 21, 2011, at 7:34 PM, Steve Smith wrote:


Just to follow up on this thread for those who care:

I finally got around to ordering (and then got around to installing)  
a Wilson Electronics DB Pro with a directional (Yagi) outdoor  
receiving antenna and an omnidirectional indoor antenna.  It is a  
dual band "transciever", essentially taking in whatever signal it  
finds in those bands from the Yagi and retransmitting them (after  
amplification) on the omni (to be placed at least 20 feet away and  
not in "front" of the Yagi).


I'm testing against T-Mobile on an iPhone4 (not 4s).  My wife is  
still on ATT with her iPhone 2g (soon to be replaced with a 4s),  
I'll do some testing there as well.   For those of you who followed  
the earlier thread, my location near Otowi bridge on NM 502 at the  
Rio Grande has almost zero effective cell coverage.   We are down  
low and all the known towers (espanola, pojoaque, white rock,  
pajarito mountain) nearby are either marginally line of site  or  
completely blocked by intermediate topography.   My goal is to get  
good enough coverage to delete my wired landline service (which we  
hardly use even with cell phones not working)... I expect to use my  
wireless (900Mhz from Tewacom) with Skype to provide a backup  
alternative to the Cell coverage.   I'm testing Google Voice to  
integrate it all (hah!).


Using the aforementioned "field test mode" on my iPhone4 I was able  
to verify that I was getting a modestly better signal...  using the  
RSSI (received signal strength indicator) measure in the field test  
mode, I was able to roughly map the net strength of signal to my  
phone with and without the repeater turned on.


The Yagi is about 15 feet above the ground (a permanent installation  
will b ecloser to 20) facing roughly due East which is both my best  
guess as to where the tower I'm most likely to use is, and  
corroborated by some ad-hoc direction testing with the RSSI. The  
Omni is roughly in the center of my 30'x30'x20'(tall) stucco-mesh- 
frame faraday cage of a house.


At the location of the Yagi, my signal strength is roughly the same  
whether the system is on or not (not surprising as one step in the  
installation is to reduce the retransmit strength until there is no  
detected interference).   At the opposite end of the house, the  
signal is similar with the system on and virtually zero without it  
(far end of my faraday cage of a house)...   at ground level, I  
normally see from 0 to 1.5 bars which means I get the occasional  
incoming call that i can't answer and can rarely call out (to the  
point of never trying).   With the system on I get a very usable  
signal equal to 3 bars...   As I wander away from the house outside,  
the rebroadcast signal drops off fairly quickly but it appears I  
might get useable signal on most of my 1.5 acre property where  
previously I had a few hot spots where I might get enough to catch  
an incoming call for a few seconds.


I am testing with data as we speak and so far, so bad... in fact,  
the whole signal dropped out in the middle of my attempt to get to  
my favorite speed-test site (speakeasy.net) and of course, when I  
got there, I am told that my favorite method requires Flash 7,  
apparently not on my Safari/iPhone4 (not surprising).  So I'll have  
to find a better solution for testing...  meanwhile anecdotally,  
Google Maps loads at least as slow as I'm used to *anywhere* without  
wifi.   Well, fortunately I don't care so much about Data, or at all  
at home where I have WiFi.


Overall I'd say the Wilson system works well, mostly as expected and  
seems to meet my needs/desires.  Internet research suggests that  
Wilson is the best system with only a few spurious compliants while  
all the other options have many complaints (though many of those  
sound spurious as well?!).


FWIW, it is also worth noticing that Wilson Electronics is a small- 
town 

[FRIAM] Fwd: FlowingData - Best statistics question ever

[Victoria Hughes]

Best statistics question ever
Posted: 28 Oct 2011 01:25 AM PDT


By way of Raymond Johnson, the best statistics multiple choice  
question ever written on a chalkboard. Try not to think too hard.  
[via]



You are subscribed to email updates from FlowingData
To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now.	Email  
delivery powered by Google

Google Inc., 20 West Kinzie, Chicago IL USA 60610



FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

Re: [FRIAM] 99%, occupyWallStreet, Santa Fe, etc.

[Victoria Hughes]

Ah Nick, you are a treasure. I have no info: very busy with a  
professional watershed event and my place in it, so I watch and honk  
as I drive by but choose not to participate. IF I had info, you would  
definitely be getting it!



Tory


Tory Hughes
www.toryhughes.com
RAM- Terra Nova
Milagro Hacienda creativity retreat






On Oct 15, 2011, at 10:55 PM, Nicholas Thompson wrote:


Dear Local Friammers,

I asked others  on the list to inform me about Occupy Wall Street – 
type activities in Santa Fe, and, since nobody did and since I  
learned a little more, myself, I thought I would say what I think I  
know.


(1)The Group at the State Capitol building house seemed to  
represent many (laudable) interests but to have no over- arching  
message yet or a well-defined local target.  Lots of friendly horn  
beeping and waves and only one negative comment from a guy who  
seemed to shout at us that we were “prawns!”  “Prawns?!” we said.   
Oh PAWNS! But then the light changed and he was gone.
(2)The center of the group’s activities has been the Bank of  
America at the corner of Peralta and St. Francis just where St.  
Francis starts up the hill toward 599 and Tesuque, etc.  Some have  
been camped  (with permission) on an empty lot across the street.
(3)That permission is running out and the group will meet there  
meet tomorrow evening to discuss next steps.  All interested parties  
presumably invited.
(4)The group’s web presence seemed not yet well organized.   
Perhaps it is getting organized as I speak, but since there are a  
lot of people on the Friam list with relevant skills, perhaps some  
of us might want to take notice.
(5)I have some experience with Google Sites and I have offered  
(please, don’t laugh), (if nobody better puts up his/her hand), to  
put together a primitive Google Site/Group for the purpose of  
posting information, offering a forum, etc.  But I have experience  
only with private Google Sites and have a sense from reading Google  
Help Forums  that public Google Sites are terribly vulnerable to  
outside interference.  Is this true?  Do you have advice to give me  
in this matter.  Is Facebook a far better way of achieving these  
goals.
(6)The above information is gathered informally and may all be  
incorrect.


Thank you for your patience.

I stipulate that this is not the place for a political discussion  
and that many of you would probably disagree with me vehemently on  
many matters, so I will leave it at that.  As soon as there is a  
local distribution list or equivalent, there will be no need to  
discuss such matters in this forum, for which, I assume, many of you  
will be grateful.


Back to the discussion of cellphone apps.

Nick





Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology
Clark University
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/
http://www.cusf.org



FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org



FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

Re: [FRIAM] One fix for the [IP] email Flu bug

[Victoria Hughes]

Hello all-
In case this helps any related issues:

>>  I posted re: my computer not holding my modem's password after I  
uploaded the iTunes update, and having to manually go deep into system  
preferences to add it in each time my laptop slept or shut down.


• The fix, given to me by my ISP:
1. Open network preferences from your WiFi icon in the menu bar.
Then click advanced. Delete the network that is giving you problems.
2. Open Keychain in the utilities folder of your hard drive. Find the  
passwords that are stored for your particular network and delete them.  
There may be multiple passwords for your network, so search carefully.

3. Repair permissions using the disk utility.
4. Reboot the computer.
5. Reenter your network data to log into the network.

Best,
Tory



 On Oct 13, 2011, at 2:02 PM, Douglas Roberts wrote:

Reports are that the IOS 5 upgrade is going anything but smoothly as  
well:


http://apple.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2472920&cid=37693996


That didn't take too long to fail. Click on "Update," and it tells  
me I have to update iTunes. OK, fine, go do that. Computer reboots.


Take 2. Click on update, it downloads the nearly 700MB iTunes  
update, and makes a backup.


And then crashes, opening an Apple KB article that tells me I have  
to update iTunes in order to install the update. Er... I already did  
that?


I'll just uninstall iTunes and ... oh, wait, you can't do that on  
Mac OS X. You have to follow some magic instructions that involve  
deleting kernel extensions and rebooting three times. I'll have to  
look that up and ... oh, hey, Apple's support site now 503s.


Awesome.

Oh, hey, it hard-crashed my phone. I'll just pop out the battery to  
reboot it, and ... oh, crap. That's right, the Apple official way to  
restart a crashed iDevice is to let the battery drain. I'd link to  
the article, but their support site is down.


This comment was cute as well:

Thank you for updating your Apple products. Please rate your upgrade  
experience:

1. Insanely Great!
2. Magical
3. Innovative
4. Religious Ecstasy


--Doug

On Thu, Oct 13, 2011 at 1:31 PM, Pamela McCorduck   
wrote:



Begin forwarded message:


From: dfarber 
Date: October 13, 2011 1:18:42 PM MDT
To: "ip" 
Subject: [IP] The email Flu bug
Reply-To: d...@farber.net

Interesting, the past few days Blackberrys have had a bad time with  
many of their services out. Still after several days they don't  
have it all working. Today Apple launched its ICloud service ( I  
say today because it took hours to get the stuff downloaded). It  
failed in a very nasty way in that mail sometime vanished,  
sometimes appeared then vanished and often there was a user and/or  
password incorrect message plus dome rather obcyre additional error  
messages.


It was frustrating to me in that I kept looking for what I had dome  
wrong. Finally in confusion I pinged IP and found out I was not  
alone.


What of the non technical user -- the house=person, the grandmother  
who believed Apple would get ut right.


Wjem wo;; they learn to stress test their products. Why don't they  
admit what happened?


Dave
Archives  | Modify Your Subscription | Unsubscribe Now  



"Nor can that observer know how the complexity of life shines with  
unfathomable beauty or how the difficulty of expressing that  
experience becomes overwhelming."


Melissa Zink



FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org




FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org



FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

Re: [FRIAM] Fwd: [IP] The email Flu bug

[Victoria Hughes]

	Would this also answer why since I upgraded iTunes last night, my  
system network can no longer remember my password for signing on to my  
own wireless - and can't hold the password when the computer goes to  
sleep or shuts down?  OS 10.5.9
	So no emails, right, nor internet access despite a nice clear signal  
from under the sofa, like always. Now reduced to memorizing a long  
erratic string of numbers and letters and inputting them everytime my  
laptop snoozes, dang.


	Incidentally, I have never mentioned how much I appreciate that  
youall launch right into tech/political talk as soon as anything is  
going on. You are my secret weapon against the listless ignorance of  
the overwhelmed. Thanks.


Tory









On Oct 13, 2011, at 2:02 PM, Douglas Roberts wrote:

Reports are that the IOS 5 upgrade is going anything but smoothly as  
well:


http://apple.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2472920&cid=37693996


That didn't take too long to fail. Click on "Update," and it tells  
me I have to update iTunes. OK, fine, go do that. Computer reboots.


Take 2. Click on update, it downloads the nearly 700MB iTunes  
update, and makes a backup.


And then crashes, opening an Apple KB article that tells me I have  
to update iTunes in order to install the update. Er... I already did  
that?


I'll just uninstall iTunes and ... oh, wait, you can't do that on  
Mac OS X. You have to follow some magic instructions that involve  
deleting kernel extensions and rebooting three times. I'll have to  
look that up and ... oh, hey, Apple's support site now 503s.


Awesome.

Oh, hey, it hard-crashed my phone. I'll just pop out the battery to  
reboot it, and ... oh, crap. That's right, the Apple official way to  
restart a crashed iDevice is to let the battery drain. I'd link to  
the article, but their support site is down.


This comment was cute as well:

Thank you for updating your Apple products. Please rate your upgrade  
experience:

1. Insanely Great!
2. Magical
3. Innovative
4. Religious Ecstasy


--Doug

On Thu, Oct 13, 2011 at 1:31 PM, Pamela McCorduck   
wrote:



Begin forwarded message:


From: dfarber 
Date: October 13, 2011 1:18:42 PM MDT
To: "ip" 
Subject: [IP] The email Flu bug
Reply-To: d...@farber.net

Interesting, the past few days Blackberrys have had a bad time with  
many of their services out. Still after several days they don't  
have it all working. Today Apple launched its ICloud service ( I  
say today because it took hours to get the stuff downloaded). It  
failed in a very nasty way in that mail sometime vanished,  
sometimes appeared then vanished and often there was a user and/or  
password incorrect message plus dome rather obcyre additional error  
messages.


It was frustrating to me in that I kept looking for what I had dome  
wrong. Finally in confusion I pinged IP and found out I was not  
alone.


What of the non technical user -- the house=person, the grandmother  
who believed Apple would get ut right.


Wjem wo;; they learn to stress test their products. Why don't they  
admit what happened?


Dave
Archives  | Modify Your Subscription | Unsubscribe Now  



"Nor can that observer know how the complexity of life shines with  
unfathomable beauty or how the difficulty of expressing that  
experience becomes overwhelming."


Melissa Zink



FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org




FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org



FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

Re: [FRIAM] Nerd humor:

[Victoria Hughes]

LOL to THAT!




Tory Hughes
www.toryhughes.com
Milagro Hacienda creativity retreat
The Creative Development manual






On Oct 9, 2011, at 10:54 PM, Tom Johnson wrote:

"We don't allow faster-than-light neutrinos in here," says the  
bartender. A neutrino walks into a bar.


-- tj

==
J. T. Johnson
Institute for Analytic Journalism   --   Santa Fe, NM USA
www.analyticjournalism.com
505.577.6482(c)505.473.9646(h)
http://www.jtjohnson.com  t...@jtjohnson.com
==

FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org



FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

Re: [FRIAM] Cell Service/Tower/Reception/Repeaters/etc.

[Victoria Hughes]

Oh joy.







On Oct 7, 2011, at 1:10 PM, Parks, Raymond wrote:


On Oct 7, 2011, at 12:50 PM, Victoria Hughes wrote:

I've just gotten T-Mobile and am having problems in many areas. I'd  
love to know what you find out. If you have specific things I can  
research, let me know. I know even less about what I don't know  
than you do, so direction is useful.

 Tory



  My working theory with respect to T-Mobile is that their IBEW and  
CWA folks that maintain the towers have either bailed or stopped  
work ever since the announcement of the AT&T takeover.


Ray Parks
Consilient Heuristician/IDART Program Manager
V: 505-844-4024  M: 505-238-9359  P: 505-951-6084
NIPR: rcpa...@sandia.gov
SIPR: rcpar...@sandia.doe.sgov.gov (send NIPR reminder)
JWICS: dopa...@doe.ic.gov (send NIPR reminder)





FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org



FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

Re: [FRIAM] Cell Service/Tower/Reception/Repeaters/etc.

[Victoria Hughes]

I've just gotten T-Mobile and am having problems in many areas. I'd  
love to know what you find out. If you have specific things I can  
research, let me know. I know even less about what I don't know than  
you do, so direction is useful.

 Tory



On Oct 7, 2011, at 12:45 PM, Steve Smith wrote:

I'm hoping *someone* out there knows more about this than I do,  
though none of the earlier discussion seemed to bring any of that out.


I took up Gary Nelson's question about Cell Towers/Coverage, my own  
frustrations, and the other resulting conversations to do a little  
research and see if I could learn more and maybe even fix up some of  
my own problems/challenges.


I'm testing iPhone 2, 3G, 4 against ATT and T-Mobile SIMS right  
now.  Mostly at my house (very marginal signal if any) but will be  
doing other places.  I'm looking at Cell Repeaters (primarily for my  
home, but maybe also mobile).   I'm therefore *mostly* sorting out  
GSM related issues, but there is a lot of overlap in general RF  
issues, repeaters, tower locations, etc.


I started trying to write up what I know (so far) and discovered  
that (as often is the case) the more I know, the more I know I don't  
know.   My 3rd Class Radiotelephony license  from 1974 and a BS in  
Physics provides just enough background to get me in trouble.  I  
wrote a long, rambly overview of what I know (dominated by what that  
made me realize I *didn't* know) and decided most of you don't care.


So, if there are others trying to make actionable sense (or merely  
slake your curiosity) about the issues of Cell Reception and the  
potential use of Repeaters, ping me and we can discuss offline.   
Maybe once we learn enough, one or more of us can write up a (more)  
concise "lessons learned".


My long-winded ramble was useful (to me) already, as trying to  
explain it to the larger crowd caused me to dig just a little deeper  
than I was for more "practical" reasons.   Now to get my nose back  
on the practical grindstone.


- Steve

--


FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org




FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

[FRIAM] another resource for kids and other humans: Khan Academy

[Victoria Hughes]

Great teaching style, use of simple accessible graphics, and what,  
over 2400 topics about math, science, finances, and more. Video format.

http://www.khanacademy.org/



Tory Hughes
www.toryhughes.com
Milagro Hacienda creativity retreat
The Creative Development manual







FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

[FRIAM] Fwd: Public meeting this Thursday re proposed Cannon Air Force Base low altitude training flights

[Victoria Hughes]

Subject: Cannon Air Force Base low altitude training flights

On Sept. 14th Cannon Air Force Base released their Environmental  
Assessment,

claiming their proposed low-altitude repetitive night flights
will have no impact on on the public or the environment
in northern New Mexico and southern Colorado.
They've set the following community forums:

All times are 6:00-9:00 P.M. and they begin tomorrow, Monday!

ALBUQUERQUE, 9/19, Training Center at 5600 Eagle Rock Ave., NE

TAOS, 9/20, Kachina Lodge, 413 Paseo del Pueblo Norte

ESPANOLA, 9/21, Santa Claran Hotel, Mountain View Room

SANTA FE, 9/22, SF Community College, Jemez Room, 6401 Richards Ave.

ALAMOSA, CO, 10/3, Alamosa Family Recreational Center,  Old  
Sanford Rd.


LAS VEGAS, NM, 10/18, Highlands Univ., Kennedy Lounge, 905 Univ. Ave.

I'm hoping as many folks as possible will pack these rooms to hear  
what the Air Force has planned for NNM and So. CO. This seems  
important to me. It's also important to send an email by Nov. 5th  
requesting a FULL Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) to Cannon  
AFB. You can download a copy of the draft EA at www.cannon.af.mil/library/environment.asp 
 or www.cannon.af.mil or at libraries in the impact area. For more  
information, go to peacefulsk...@taosnet.com. Thanks so much for  
your involvement!

I pulled this information from a Cannon AFB news release of 9/14/11.
Linda



FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

Re: [FRIAM] Fwd: The Psychology Of Yogurt

[Victoria Hughes]

I suppose a reference to Horace the cheese would be too obscure...




Tory Hughes
www.toryhughes.com
Milagro Hacienda creativity retreat
The Creative Development manual






On Sep 17, 2011, at 8:01 PM, Steve Smith wrote:


This reminds me too much of two disparate concepts:

SF Author (from ABQ no less) book "Proxies" where orphaned children  
with severe physical disabilities are offered an alternate existence  
by becoming telepresence operators of space equipment (cheaper than  
actually putting/keeping humans in space and a reasonable  
alternative for otherwise hugely physically limited children who can  
now have expanded sensoria and mobility but in an artificial  
habitat... raised as a family (of orphans), etc...   and all that  
goes with it utopian/dystopian SF Style.


http://www.amazon.com/Proxies-Laura-J-Mixon/dp/0812523873

And the Honey Mummy ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mellified_man )  
aka, the mellified man.   Not unlike a petrified tree but with a  
human and honey instead of tree and minerals.  Great source of all  
the necessary/appropriate vitamins and minerals, and tasty too!


- Steve

Nick,
I have been thinking recently about trying to write a short story.  
It would start with a version of Daniel Dennet's wonderful brain-in- 
a-vat. It would be a story of a valiant man who volunteered for the  
procedure; he volunteered for his love of science and the deep  
impact it would have on the most fundamental of questions, the  
relation of brain, mind, and body. There would be dual devices; the  
device in the head functioned to replicate effects at the surface  
of the brain and keep the space filled, the vat kept the brain  
alive, received input measures from the in-head device, and read  
any and all brain outputs. There would be details of how the vat  
perfectly replicates all effects the body would have on the brain,  
and how the artificial implant perfectly replicates all effects the  
brain would have on the body. All effects: Neuronal, hormonal,  
temperature, chemical force, everything - no safety for the body in  
a boxing ring or any other situation. And of course, our  
protagonist's heroism is rewarded. Mr. Brain-in-the-Vat functioned  
amazingly; he could move around, communicate, feel emotions, dream,  
everything. People came from miles around to wonder at him and get  
autographs ($15 extra for the paper to be signed on the vat). He  
was interviewed on every major TV show, and Larry Flynt even paid  
him a fortune for... being in film.


But one day another man showed up on Daniel's doorstep. He too had  
volunteered for a brave experiment. Sitting next to him on the  
veranda was a vat that held his kidneys and perfectly replicated  
all effects the body would have on the kidneys, and inside him was  
a genius device that perfectly replicated all effects the kidneys  
would have on the brain.


But everyone knew that would work, the kidneys after all are JUST a  
physiological system. And so, no one cared.


---
Eric



On Sat, Sep 17, 2011 04:09 PM, "Nicholas Thompson" > wrote:
I cannot … for the life of me …. Understand what the mind-body  
“problem” is any more than I can understand what the computing- 
transistor problem is (if, indeed, there are still transistors in  
computers.)  We would never wonder why a better transistor would  
make the computing better; why would we wonder why a better stomach  
would make the mind work better.   To me, the interesting  
psychological question is why people see it is a problem.  What is  
that they want to make of the mind that makes the mind-body problem  
a problem?




Nick



From: friam-boun...@redfish.com [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com]  
On Behalf Of Victoria Hughes

Sent: Saturday, September 17, 2011 1:09 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: [FRIAM] Fwd: The Psychology Of Yogurt


Probiotics, reduced anxiety, and thoughts about the weird, wrong  
perception that we exist separately from our bodies, somehow.




Date: September 17, 2011 12:18:17 PM MDT

Subject: The Psychology Of Yogurt

Source: Wired Science » Frontal Cortex

Author: Jonah Lehrer


My latest WSJ column uses a new study on probiotics as a launching  
pad to explore the mind-body problem, perhaps the most perplexing  
mystery in modern science:


One of the deepest mysteries of the human mind is that it doesn’t  
feel like part of the body. Our consciousness seems to exist in an  
immaterial realm, distinct from the meat on our bones. We feel like  
the ghost, not like the machine.


This ancient paradox—it’s known as the mind-body problem—has long  
perplexed philosophers. It has also interested neuroscientists, who  
have traditionally argued that the three pounds of our brain are a  
sufficient explanation for the so-called soul. There is no mystery,  
just anatomy.


In recent years, however, a spate of research has put an  
interesting twist on this o

[FRIAM] Fwd: The Psychology Of Yogurt

[Victoria Hughes]

Probiotics, reduced anxiety, and thoughts about the weird, wrong  
perception that we exist separately from our bodies, somehow.



Date: September 17, 2011 12:18:17 PM MDT
Subject: The Psychology Of Yogurt
Source: Wired Science » Frontal Cortex
Author: Jonah Lehrer

My latest WSJ column uses a new study on probiotics as a launching pad  
to explore the mind-body problem, perhaps the most perplexing mystery  
in modern science:


One of the deepest mysteries of the human mind is that it doesn’t feel  
like part of the body. Our consciousness seems to exist in an  
immaterial realm, distinct from the meat on our bones. We feel like  
the ghost, not like the machine.


This ancient paradox—it’s known as the mind-body problem—has long  
perplexed philosophers. It has also interested neuroscientists, who  
have traditionally argued that the three pounds of our brain are a  
sufficient explanation for the so-called soul. There is no mystery,  
just anatomy.


In recent years, however, a spate of research has put an interesting  
twist on this old conundrum. The problem is even more bewildering than  
we thought, for it’s not just the coiled cortex that gives rise to the  
mind—it’s the entire body. As the neuroscientist Antonio Damasio  
writes, “The mind is embodied, not just embrained.”


The latest evidence comes from a new study of probiotic bacteria, the  
microorganisms typically found in yogurt and dairy products. While  
most investigations of probiotics have focused on their  
gastrointestinal benefits—the bacteria reduce the symptoms of diarrhea  
and irritable bowel syndrome—this new research explored the effect of  
probiotics on the brain.


The experiment, led by Javier Bravo at University College Cork in  
Ireland, was straightforward. First, he fed normal lab mice a diet  
full of probiotics. Then, Mr. Bravo’s team tested for behavioral  
changes, which were significant: When probiotic-fed animals were put  
in stressful conditions, such as being dropped into a pool of water,  
they were less anxious and released less stress hormone.


How did the food induce these changes? The answer involves GABA, a  
neurotransmitter that reduces the activity of neurons. When Mr. Bravo  
looked at the brains of the mice, he found that those fed probiotics  
had more GABA receptors in areas associated with memory and the  
regulation of emotions. (This change mimics the effects of popular  
antianxiety medications in humans.)


Furthermore, when he severed the nerve connecting the gut and brain in  
a control group of mice, these neural changes disappeared. The  
probiotic diet no longer relieved the symptoms of stress.


Though it might seem odd that a cup of yogurt can influence behavior,  
the phenomenon has been repeatedly confirmed, at least in rodents.  
Earlier this year, Swedish scientists showed that the presence of gut  
bacteria shapes the development of the mouse brain, while French  
researchers found that treating human subjects with large doses of  
probiotics for 30 days reduced levels of “psychological distress.”  
There’s nothing metaphorical about “gut feelings,” for what happens in  
the gut really does influence what we feel.


Nor is it just the gastrointestinal tract that alters our minds. Mr.  
Damasio has shown that neurological patients who are unable to detect  
changes in their own bodies, like an increased heart rate or sweaty  
palms, are also unable to make effective decisions. When given a  
simple gambling task, they behave erratically and lose vast sums of  
money. Because they can’t experience the fleshy symptoms of fear, they  
never learn from their mistakes.


This research shows that the immateriality of mind is a deep illusion.  
Although we feel like a disembodied soul, many feelings and choices  
are actually shaped by the microbes in our gut and the palpitations of  
our heart. Nietzsche was right: “There is more reason in your body  
than in your best wisdom.”


This doesn’t mean, of course, that the mind-body problem has been  
solved. Though scientists have ransacked our matter and searched  
everywhere inside the skull, they still have no idea why we feel like  
a ghost. But it’s now abundantly clear that the mind is not separate  
from the body, hidden away in some ethereal province of thought.  
Rather, we emerge from the very same stuff that digests our lunch.


If you’d like to learn about the microbiome lurking inside your pipes,  
I highly recommend this wonderful slideshow by Ed Yong.


Read more…



FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

Re: [FRIAM] Anne Jolis: The Other Climate-Change Theory - WSJ.com

[Victoria Hughes]

Thanks, Russ. This is helpful.
Good to have more specific data.

On Sep 10, 2011, at 9:43 PM, Russ Abbott wrote:


Jasper Kirkby gives a talk here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=63AbaX1dE7I

-- Russ Abbott
_
  Professor, Computer Science
  California State University, Los Angeles

  Google voice: 747-999-5105
  blog: http://russabbott.blogspot.com/
  vita:  http://sites.google.com/site/russabbott/
_



On Sat, Sep 10, 2011 at 8:24 PM, Victoria Hughes > wrote:

Cool.



Tory Hughes
www.toryhughes.com
The Creative Development manual





On Sep 10, 2011, at 8:51 PM, joseph spinden wrote:


http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111904900904576554063768827104.html?KEYWORDS=climate+jolis

--

"Sunlight is the best disinfectant."

 -- Supreme Court Justice Louis D. Brandeis, 1913.



FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org





FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org


FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org



FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

Re: [FRIAM] Anne Jolis: The Other Climate-Change Theory - WSJ.com

[Victoria Hughes]

Cool.



Tory Hughes
www.toryhughes.com
The Creative Development manual





On Sep 10, 2011, at 8:51 PM, joseph spinden wrote:


http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111904900904576554063768827104.html?KEYWORDS=climate+jolis

--

"Sunlight is the best disinfectant."

 -- Supreme Court Justice Louis D. Brandeis, 1913.



FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org




FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

[FRIAM] Brains and Head (was Re: [sfx: Discuss] "Friam @ Lucky Bean this Friday")

[Victoria Hughes]

But isn't the point to meet at St Johns as often as possible:
 this discussion is only applicable for when that is not possible?
---
	Speaking of St Johns; I just got back from John Rees' lecture about  
Neuronal Migration, and was chagrined that I seemed to be the only  
person who attended both that and the 'Evolution of Intelligence' / 
Ulam lectures.
	Amongst topics like head transplants and the efficacy of neurotropic  
drugs for learning (" Just study better" was Rees' response, himself a  
Johnnie) were a number of questions touching on the same areas that  
David brought up, about the development and nature of computational  
models of brain activity.




Tory


On Sep 9, 2011, at 10:26 PM, Nicholas Thompson wrote:

In neither place does one get the stunning views of the Jemez and  
the Sangre de Cristo’s we get at St. Johns.




From: Victoria Hughes [mailto:victo...@toryhughes.com]
Sent: Friday, September 09, 2011 9:06 PM
To: disc...@sfcomplex.org
Subject: Re: [sfx: Discuss] Friam @ Lucky Bean this Friday

The Zia diner is a good place earlier in the day: the back room  
where the bar / lounge area is frequently hosts small groups in the  
morning, and they are happy to serve coffee or tea without food.  
They are about 150 feet from Lucky Bean. I agree with Kim re the  
atmosphere at Lucky Bean.



Tory



Tory Hughes
www.toryhughes.com
The Creative Development manual





On Sep 9, 2011, at 3:52 PM, Kim Sorvig wrote:


My feedback:
The place has all the charm of an empty warehouse, too few tables  
and seats to re-arrange, and is a depressing reminder of Borders-as- 
was.
It might serve as a backup when St John’s is closed.  Personally, I  
would prefer Downtown Subscription for that purpose.

Kim Sorvig

From: odensm...@gmail.com [mailto:odensm...@gmail.com] On Behalf Of  
Owen Densmore

Sent: Wednesday, September 07, 2011 3:35 PM
To: Complexity Coffee Group; disc...@sfcomplex.org
Subject: [sfx: Discuss] Friam @ Lucky Bean this Friday

We had wedtech today at Tesoro, as usual, and stopped into the Lucky  
Bean coffee shop & cafe which has taken over the old Borders site in  
Sanbusco shopping center.

http://sanbusco.com/stores/food/the-lucky-bean-cafe

Steve suggested we meet there Friday for our Friam chat.  Lets do  
that and we can decide if we'd like to change to that venue, either  
permanently or at least for when St John's is closed.


  -- Owen

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Santa Fe  
Complex "discuss" group.

To post to this group, send email to disc...@sfcomplex.org
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to
discuss+unsubscr...@sfcomplex.org
For more options, visit this group at
http://groups.google.com/a/sfcomplex.org/group/discuss

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Santa Fe  
Complex "discuss" group.

To post to this group, send email to disc...@sfcomplex.org
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to
discuss+unsubscr...@sfcomplex.org
For more options, visit this group at
http://groups.google.com/a/sfcomplex.org/group/discuss

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Santa Fe  
Complex "discuss" group.

To post to this group, send email to disc...@sfcomplex.org
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to
discuss+unsubscr...@sfcomplex.org
For more options, visit this group at
http://groups.google.com/a/sfcomplex.org/group/discuss

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Santa Fe  
Complex "discuss" group.

To post to this group, send email to disc...@sfcomplex.org
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to
discuss+unsubscr...@sfcomplex.org
For more options, visit this group at
http://groups.google.com/a/sfcomplex.org/group/discuss



FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

Re: [FRIAM] Friam @ Lucky Bean this Friday

[Victoria Hughes]

How many people usually meet for Friam?





Tory Hughes
www.toryhughes.com
The Creative Development manual





On Sep 7, 2011, at 3:34 PM, Owen Densmore wrote:

We had wedtech today at Tesoro, as usual, and stopped into the Lucky  
Bean coffee shop & cafe which has taken over the old Borders site in  
Sanbusco shopping center.

http://sanbusco.com/stores/food/the-lucky-bean-cafe

Steve suggested we meet there Friday for our Friam chat.  Lets do  
that and we can decide if we'd like to change to that venue, either  
permanently or at least for when St John's is closed.


  -- Owen


FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org



FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

[FRIAM] Fwd: [sfx: Discuss] Today SF_X 3p: Robert Geist, Graphics Professor from Clemson

[Victoria Hughes]

Stephen's email re today's talk.




From: Stephen Guerin 
Date: September 6, 2011 10:05:58 AM MDT
To: Owen Densmore , kordy Smythe >,  Greg Sonnenfeld , Scott Wittenburg >,  Peter Robert Guerzenich Small 
Cc: disc...@sfcomplex.org, "Wedtech@Redfish. Com"  
,  Robert Geist 
Subject: [sfx: Discuss] Today SF_X 3p: Robert Geist, Graphics  
Professor from Clemson

Reply-To: disc...@sfcomplex.org

SF_X Addicts,

Robert Geist, long time friend of Ed Angel's and Clemson Graphics  
Professor, is on a mini-sabatical for a couple months in SFe. Robert  
will be visting SF_X today for an introductory tour at 3p. This will  
be an informal chat. Robert has promised to give a more structured  
talk later in the month.


Please feel free to join us to talk about potential applications of  
his work especially around Lattice-Boltzmann models and Graphics  
Rendering. For more info on Robert, check out:

  http://www.cs.clemson.edu/~geist/homepage.html

Folks interested in Computational Thinking and Education may also be  
interested in Robert's paper, τέχνη: Trial Phase for the New  
Curriculum:

http://www.cs.clemson.edu/~geist/recent_papers/fp197-davis.pdf

-S
--
--- -. .   ..-. .. ...    - .-- ---   ..-. .. ... 
stephen.gue...@redfish.com
624 Agua Fria, Santa Fe, NM 87501
office: 505.995.0206 mobile: 505.577.5828

redfish.com  |  sfcomplex.org  |  simtable.com  |  ambientpixel.com



--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Santa Fe  
Complex "discuss" group.

To post to this group, send email to disc...@sfcomplex.org
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to
discuss+unsubscr...@sfcomplex.org
For more options, visit this group at
http://groups.google.com/a/sfcomplex.org/group/discuss



FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

Re: [FRIAM] All Together Now - NYTimes.com

[Victoria Hughes]

I agree. The issue has been getting attention from various levels at  
those levels.
Now our dilemma / opportunity is cultivating a willingness to see the  
interconnections, from which humane lasting solutions can be drawn.

Thus my reference to the implications of Krakauer's last talk.

As I was writing this, Stephen's email about Robert Geist came in:  
Robert's paper τέχνη: Trial Phase for the New Curriculum:

http://www.cs.clemson.edu/~geist/recent_papers/fp197-davis.pdf
heads in a promising direction.


Tory


Tory Hughes
www.toryhughes.com
The Creative Development manual





On Sep 5, 2011, at 9:19 PM, Marcos wrote:

On Mon, Sep 5, 2011 at 9:57 AM, Owen Densmore   
wrote:

...http://goo.gl/rm3Te
We're going through 4 huge shifts in the world, and no one has any  
idea how

to manage them:

Quote: Now let me say that in English: the European Union is  
cracking up.
The Arab world is cracking up. China’s growth model is under  
pressure and
America’s credit-driven capitalist model has suffered a warning  
heart attack
and needs a total rethink. Recasting any one of these alone would  
be huge.
Doing all four at once — when the world has never been more  
interconnected —
is mind-boggling. We are again “present at the creation” — but  
of what?


The first (the EU) freaks me out most, both because it's  
extraordinarily
difficult to manage, and because no one in the US seems to see how  
important

it is.


Cool.  Sounds like the opportunity of a lifetime.  There are a number
of folks who have anticipated these events which could roughly be
summed up as the transition from an expansion/individualistic economy
to an interconnected/collaborative economy.  Charles Eisenstein, who
presented here at sf_x, has written one of the main books on the
subject (ascentofhumanity.org) and it's worth buying a copy.

The tools in which to implement it are being explored and developed
mostly outside the mainstream consciousness and traditional centers of
dialog, but no doubt, the Internet is what is enabling it and also
what will allow it to succeed.  Glad to see the issue get some real
attention.

Marcos
sf_x


FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org




FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

Re: [FRIAM] All Together Now - NYTimes.com (Friedman+Krakauer)

[Victoria Hughes]

I'd couple this with the Ulam talks.
After further understanding the global cultural pressures we've taken  
on when we plunged gleefully over the edge into the digital  
revolution, we need to add that to the mix.


Cracking up, cracking open.
Our tools make our revolutions possible and increase their impact and  
speed.


Clearly there are dangers as well as benefits to all our hyperfast,  
hyperconnected technology.  As Krakauer ended the last talk, he  
pointed to the stock-trading algorithms that reacted faster than  
humans would have, and were a major push over the economic edge for  
us. His take: these were a more disturbing example of machine  
"intelligence" than other Doomsday machines, and are already embedded  
in our culture.


Internally, externally. Extraordinary pressures, extraordinary  
opportunities.

All connected.
We are in midair over the waterfall.

What we can do is start where we are: get honest and capable in our  
selves and our communities. Reach out from here.
We can incorporate revolutions in governments, economics,  
technologies, at a pace we can manage. We have to recognize our  
situation more clearly first.


Much bigger stakes than what passwords we should use.

Tory


Tory Hughes
www.toryhughes.com
The Creative Development manual





On Sep 5, 2011, at 9:57 AM, Owen Densmore wrote:


Interesting premise from Tom's latest op-ed piece: http://goo.gl/rm3Te

We're going through 4 huge shifts in the world, and no one has any  
idea how to manage them:


Quote: Now let me say that in English: the European Union is  
cracking up. The Arab world is cracking up. China’s growth model is  
under pressure and America’s credit-driven capitalist model has  
suffered a warning heart attack and needs a total rethink. Recasting  
any one of these alone would be huge. Doing all four at once — when  
the world has never been more interconnected — is mind-boggling. We  
are again “present at the creation” — but of what?


The first (the EU) freaks me out most, both because it's  
extraordinarily difficult to manage, and because no one in the US  
seems to see how important it is.


Worth a read.

-- Owen

FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org



FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

Re: [FRIAM] I want Owen to hate me some more

[Victoria Hughes]

L
O
L



Tory Hughes
www.toryhughes.com
The Creative Development manual





On Aug 29, 2011, at 10:03 PM, Douglas Roberts wrote:


Thanks, Tory.

Emergent.

There, we're not off-topic any more...

-Doug

Sent from Android.

On Aug 29, 2011 9:57 PM, "Victoria Hughes"   
wrote:

> Wow.
> Fabulous trip. First time I've ever wanted a motorcycle. I enjoyed  
the

> variety of scenery /geology you traveled across.
> Thanks for sharing.
>
> Tory
>
> Tory Hughes
> www.toryhughes.com
> The Creative Development manual
>
>
>
>
>
> On Aug 29, 2011, at 4:32 PM, Douglas Roberts wrote:
>
>> The finished trip blog: 
http://mc2-canada-trip-2011.blogspot.com/2011/08/day-1.html
>>
>> May favorite part was Day 19 - the Burr Trail Road: 68 miles from
>> Boulder, UT through part of Capital Reef to Bullfrog Marina at Lake
>> Powell.
>>
>> --Doug
>>
>> --
>> Doug Roberts
>> drobe...@rti.org
>> d...@parrot-farm.net
>> http://parrot-farm.net/Second-Cousins
>>
>> 505-455-7333 - Office
>> 505-670-8195 - Cell
>>
>> 
>> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
>> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
>> lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
>

FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org



FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

Re: [FRIAM] I want Owen to hate me some more

[Victoria Hughes]

Wow.
Fabulous trip. First time I've ever wanted a motorcycle. I enjoyed the  
variety of scenery /geology  you traveled across.

Thanks for sharing.

Tory

Tory Hughes
www.toryhughes.com
The Creative Development manual





On Aug 29, 2011, at 4:32 PM, Douglas Roberts wrote:


The finished trip blog:   
http://mc2-canada-trip-2011.blogspot.com/2011/08/day-1.html

May favorite part was Day 19 - the Burr Trail Road: 68 miles from  
Boulder, UT through part of Capital Reef to Bullfrog Marina at Lake  
Powell.


--Doug

--
Doug Roberts
drobe...@rti.org
d...@parrot-farm.net
http://parrot-farm.net/Second-Cousins

505-455-7333 - Office
505-670-8195 - Cell


FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org



FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

Re: [FRIAM] [sfx: Discuss] 13 yr-old builds fibonacci tree solar collector

[Victoria Hughes]

	Ya  never know. Those people had to start with a predilection for  
editorial precision.


	Question: from what circumstances do youall think invention and  
innovation arise?


	Now that Sas has brought us back into the realms of annotated  
autobiography
		>> (and this discussion has become very Friamish, so I am  
redirecting it away from the SFX site)  I want to add
	My papa did not have an icy hand. When he helped me build science  
fair projects his hands were capable and warm, if a bit eager.
	He encouraged me all along, and always made me feel that he delighted  
in my mind and curiosities, whatever my age. When we made things  
together, I felt wistfulness from him, that his choice of career moved  
him away from research into management.
	His faith in my mind, and support for my questions, meant I never  
felt that since I was a girl, I'd be unable to do things.
	I just assumed I'd find or invent a way. That was his most valuable  
legacy.

Steve, your narrative brought back lovely memories.
Thanks
Victoria

On Aug 21, 2011, at 10:11 AM, Nicholas Thompson wrote:


Steve,

It was not the icy hand of the parent I detected, but that of the  
EDITOR.  Think about those ghost written personal essays that appear  
in SA “written” by famous scientists describing their  
breakthroughs.  (Well, unless Aidan’s parent was a SA editor.)

Yuch!

Nick

From: Steve Smith [mailto:s...@lava3d.com]
Sent: Sunday, August 21, 2011 12:05 PM
To: disc...@sfcomplex.org
Subject: Re: [sfx: Discuss] 13 yr-old builds fibonacci tree solar  
collector


I raised children (2 daughters, now 30 and 32) up in a drinking town  
with a small science problem (aka Los Alamos) and enjoyed (or  
endured) any number of science fairs and the like.


Almost exclusively, I saw two kinds of science fair projects.  Those  
thrown together by the kids themselves with varying degrees of  
interest, acumen, and flair for presentation, and those either done  
by or carefully supervised by an overzealous parent.  It was not  
clear that the judges recognized or acted upon the implications of  
that division.


 I provided my daughters with lots of encouragement, some ideas, and  
the occasional hard question, but I never did their work for them...  
and it showed at the science fairs and I was proud of them.   
Daughter #1 was type-A and proceeded to excel in spite of the steep  
uphill climb in this "popular science blood sport" and daughter #2  
was quite happy to get a B for her efforts and move on to a project  
or topic less fraught with false-competition.


The elder is now a PhD researcher in biomedicine (West Nile, Dingue  
Fever).  She loves her work and hates her job (already).   She is in  
her second Lab and trying to start her own.  She competes daily with  
other researchers whose parents probably did their science fair  
projects for them... and what was quaint when she was growing up  
(taking second or third place to other kids whose work product was  
clearly not their own) is career numbing for her.  Now these very  
types are willing to say or do anything (up to and including very  
bad science) to either keep their comfortable spot comfortable or to  
advance their position.  From her point of view, big science (or at  
least medical science) is a pretty ugly scene.  Many NIH and NSF  
project reviewers seem to be cut from the same cloth as science fair  
judges.


Now, for the subject of the science project.  I don't expect a 13  
year old (or the average hockey-parent highly informing the project)  
to have very tight controls on the experiment (reflective surface  
nearby? identical, calibrated cells?) or to have a firm handle on  
the concept which they are supposedly studying.


There are at least two issues with the "fibonnaci tree solar  
collector"... one is the distribution of the angles of the solar  
cells and the other is the potential for shading.  Having done my  
own relatively ad-hoc work in this area (orientation of windows in a  
passive solar addition, and the preliminary analysis of holographic  
optical elements to enhance PVs) I know there are hidden variables  
that are not being addressed (at least not in the report).


At best, this science project is a demonstration of an already  
understood principle about the nature of fibonacci distributed solar  
collection (photosynthetic leaves).   Without looking closely at  
this young man's (or his parent's) data, I can't tell what all was  
going on, but I'd suggest that if these cells were wired in series,  
that the ones oriented toward the eastern horizon had an interesting  
effect of preconditioning the others oriented otherwise.   On cold  
mornings in the dead of winter, there are not that many hours in the  
day where a solar cell gets enough incident light to actually get  
above the threshold of functioning.   I speculate that by one or  
more cells getting an "early start" by being oriented toward the  
rising sun, the cu

Re: [FRIAM] "no one shall expel us from the paradise that Cantor has created", Hugh Woodin's "ultimate L": Richard Elwes: Rich Murray 2011.08.18

[Victoria Hughes]

"God is a circle whose center is everywhere and whose circumference is  
nowhere."


attributed to various philosophers, beginning with Empedocles

a non-dual rephrase>   " ... whose center is everywhere and  
circumference is now here".


or even "be the hologram you are, babe".







On Aug 19, 2011, at 5:11 PM, Rich Murray wrote:


each of us is all of single entire unified creative fractal
hyperinfinity ...  .   ... Rich Murray 2011.08.19

thus, just as with the one-to-one matching of any minute subset of
real line continuum with entire continuum, obvious by glancing that
concentric circles bigger and bigger around a common center, can have
infinite straight radial lines from - to + through the center at 0,0

we see any seemingly individualized "minute" process within the
fractal hyperinfinity has the same order of hyperinfinity as the whole

we can lose the concepts of inner/outer and small/large in many global
multi-dimensional geometries in which the fractal variations can not
be used to establish these kind of properties -- not simple or
primary, but applicable to limited subsets after a lot of mathematical
stage setting

the same goes for before/now/after or simple/complex or cause/effect

this present moment -- of awareness (somewhere?) of writing, and
awareness (for, "my" here, an elsewhere and a hereafter) of seeing,
reading, comprehending little crooked black ma r  ks this very in
s  t   an  t

for all sides, actually inside, highly prejudiced testimony supporting
purported sustaining reality of self/world

with severely circumscribed templates for communication/collaboration

however, actually no ground to describe measure understand limit
predict fear control the now moment movement

any holding on just more proof of already never is

now moment already timelessly locationlessly sizelessly open/vast

the shared cocreated self/world simulation already making timeless
"quantum" jumps in quality as well as quantity

we deliberately openmindedly boldly
choose/invite/allow/accept/enjoy/trust/share/celebrate/function/ 
create/serve

transformations
of self/other simulation

here float
can do no other
God willing

within mutual service,  Rich Murray
rmfor...@gmail.com  505-819-7388
Skype audio, video rich.murray11


On Thu, Aug 18, 2011 at 4:21 PM, Grant Holland
 wrote:

Rich,

Wow. Thanks for passing on such a refreshing and informative article.

You get my vote for the most entertaining FRIAM post of the year (so  
far).


Grant

On 8/18/11 9:11 AM, Rich Murray wrote:

 "no one shall expel us from the paradise that Cantor has created",
Hugh Woodin's "ultimate L": Richard Elwes: Rich Murray 2011.08.18


http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21128231.400-ultimate-logic-to-infinity-and-beyond.html?full=true

Ultimate logic: To infinity and beyond

01 August 2011 by Richard Elwes
Magazine issue 2823.

The mysteries of infinity could lead us to a fantastic structure above
and beyond mathematics as we know it


FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org




FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

[FRIAM] circuitry on your skin: electronic 'tattoos'

[Victoria Hughes]

brief description and images of temporary patches: electronics that  
measure, monitor and feed back info on activity in the heart, brain  
and muscles
Electronic Temporary Tattoo Marks Breakthrough In Health Monitoring  
@PSFK


Tory Hughes
victo...@toryhughes.com





FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

[FRIAM] Hijinks Ensue-

[Victoria Hughes]

BBC News - Animal's genetic code redesigned

The first few sentences-

Researchers say they have created the first ever animal with  
artificial information in its genetic code.


The technique, they say, could give biologists "atom-by-atom control"  
over the molecules in living organisms.


One expert the BBC spoke to agrees, saying the technique would be  
seized upon by "the entire biology community".


The work by a Cambridge University team, which used nematode  
worms,appears in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.


The worms - from the species Caenorhabditis elegans - are 1mm long,  
with just a thousand cells in their transparent bodies.


What makes the newly created animals different is that their genetic  
code has been extended to create biological molecules not known in the  
natural world.


.
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

Re: [FRIAM] Europe: 2 questions

[Victoria Hughes]

	Hm. I was a corporate kid whose family was transferred globally every  
three years. I came back to the US to go to college (did not do the  
Junior Year Abroad option) stayed in that same town for 8 years after  
graduating, then began to move again; around the US this time, every  
year or two, sometimes more often. New Mexico is the longest I've been  
anywhere. I do get restless and travel often, in the US and EU. I have  
noticed that every year or two, if I do not move, I rearrange the  
furniture and rooms in my house, often quite dramatically. I have  
always wondered at my now-ingrained need to uproot familiar  
circumstances after a couple of years, and derive it directly from  
what I perceived as benefits to leaving everything and starting anew.  
Feels strongly psychological to me. I feel like a shark who needs to  
keep swimming or I will suffocate. My one sibling, also female, does  
not have this.
	Re traveling / wealth / tolerance and bigotry: I do not believe this  
one is a direct correlation. The willingness to take in new ideas is  
exacerbated by travel experiences, but not limited to them. Reading  
has given me as much desire to understand and tolerate as seeing very  
diverse cultures all satisfied with their adaptations. And there  
certainly are bigoted, close-minded people whose travel is wide- 
ranging yet which is used to confirm their own sense of superiority.
	Another element entering into the discussion for us here is the aging  
parent phenomenon: people of either gender, or couples, who move near  
the parental orbit to take care of them, not necessarily because they  
would choose to live there otherwise. More and more of that. WIth two- 
income families the norm as well, not an issue in primates, proximity  
to family that one can trust to care for the kiddies is a requirement  
for many.


Victoria


On Aug 9, 2011, at 8:03 PM, ERIC P. CHARLES wrote:


Glen,
Excellent observation at the end. I don't know much about the human  
data (is there an anthropologist in the house?), but for every non- 
human primate species I know of, and most other mammals, either  
males disperse from their childhood groups, or females disperse. To  
have members of both sexes routinely leaving their place of birth is  
very rare. Also worth noting, male dispersal is much more typical.  
Such dispersion tends to happen around puberty, and is surrounded by  
much within group conflict (any parents of teenage children reading  
this?).


There is quite a lot of modeling / theory / investigation as to the  
social and environmental factors that determine which sex will  
disperse. Good stuff. There is little experimentation though, so I  
suspect that underlying the stability is a very stable environment,  
rather than an extremely robust behavioral system. Either way,  
humans show more flexibility 'in the wild' than other primate  
species with regard to similar traits. With that in mind, I would  
bet one could identify a set of factors that determine the  
likelihood a given man or woman will want to move around a lot. It  
is likely that if one did so, that environmental factors in  
childhood would be better predictors of dispersal than current  
environmental conditions. Put another way: It is reasonable to  
presume that some childhood environments lead to men who want to  
move a lot, and different environmental factors that lead to women  
who want to move a lot.


Eric

On Tue, Aug 9, 2011 08:41 PM, "glen e. p. ropella" > wrote:

John Sadd wrote circa 11-08-09 12:22 PM:
> 1. Monetary union without true mobility is not feasible (more  
specific

> than "just" political union). If things get bad in Nevada,
people can
> move elsewhere to look for jobs. If things get bad in Greece, it's  
not

> realistic to expect Greeks to move to and get jobs in Germany.

Just thinking out loud, here:

I've had several discussions with the "sustainability" folks here in
the
PDX area and those discussions often seem to boil down to cheap  
energy.

 Where (and to whom) energy is cheap, all sorts of things seem to
happen
transparently (finding blueberries grown in South America at your  
local

Safeway, for example, when they grow quite well right here).  I think
the same kernel might be hiding underneath the mobility part of the
argument.

In a similar vein, I've often heard that people who travel a lot are
more tolerant/aware of various customs and may take a more "liberal"
view of how others choose to live their lives.  Again, if energy is
expensive, then only the rich will travel a lot, perhaps implying that
those of us with fewer resources will tend to be more bigoted,
xenophobic, or (at least) ignorant.

Finally, I've also noticed that some people (e.g. me) like to move
around a lot and live in different (albeit not that different) places,
whereas others (e.g. my S.O. and most of her family) prefer to live in
close proximity to their family or where they were born.  And it seems
t

Re: [FRIAM] Deafening silence re downgrade -

[Victoria Hughes]

They dropped 600 and came back up.



Tory Hughes
victo...@toryhughes.com




On Aug 8, 2011, at 8:00 PM, Douglas Roberts wrote:

Dow futures are already down 263.  It's going to be ugly again  
tomorrow.


On Mon, Aug 8, 2011 at 7:58 PM, Douglas Roberts farm.net> wrote:
I'm staying at the Chico Hot Springs Hotel in Montana tonight, where  
the wireless access is iffy, at best.


My take:  we're fucked globally, for a while.  Think the 2008  
recession and I suspect we'll be in the ballpark.



On Mon, Aug 8, 2011 at 7:52 PM, Victoria Hughes > wrote:

Strong opinions stated twice. I did not vote for the Tea Party.
What's your take on this as a global situation?



Tory Hughes
victo...@toryhughes.com




On Aug 8, 2011, at 7:10 PM, Douglas Roberts wrote:

My nickel:  we're fucked.  Incompetents are running the country,   
because the system encourages incompetent ass-kissing, yes-men to  
rise to the top: we get what e voted for.  Enjoy.


--Doug

On Mon, Aug 8, 2011 at 6:51 PM, Victoria Hughes > wrote:
Like many of us, I have been reading a wide range of opinions  
online about this, and had been looking forward to the discussion  
here.


So what's the sense here?

My nickel: despite the gloom and doom, the prophecies of the final  
demise of the middle class, the unbelievable behaviour by the Tea  
Party folks- petulant, arrogant and childish behaviour- overall I  
am heartened by the necessity that we attempt to think like a  
global culture in order to resolve and upgrade how we operate.
Similarly to the weather: we finally have to confront that this is  
all one planet, like it or not: there is nowhere else to go.


Our engagement now with these two situations -  global economics,  
global weather - I think will be seen as our watershed moment in a  
couple hundred years. I am a designated optimist, so there's that.  
However, the demand right now that we work together requires  
accountability from everyone to everyone, no one left out anymore.  
We are overdue for this. I wish it weren't happening while I was  
around, but I am around.
Keeping the big picture in mind, not yielding to panic, and  
reminding people we've been through difficult times before.


Stronger opinions re China and the US/West's addiction to their  
cheaply made merchandise and to consumerism (especially after  
Sarbajit's comments re cell phones), and the Tea Party will wait  
until I see if anyone picks this thread up.

Yes, I read Tom Friedman.

Victoria


FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org



--
Doug Roberts
drobe...@rti.org
d...@parrot-farm.net
http://parrot-farm.net/Second-Cousins

505-455-7333 - Office
505-670-8195 - Cell


FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org




FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org



--
Doug Roberts
drobe...@rti.org
d...@parrot-farm.net
http://parrot-farm.net/Second-Cousins

505-455-7333 - Office
505-670-8195 - Cell




--
Doug Roberts
drobe...@rti.org
d...@parrot-farm.net
http://parrot-farm.net/Second-Cousins

505-455-7333 - Office
505-670-8195 - Cell


FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org



FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

[FRIAM] Deafening silence re downgrade -

[Victoria Hughes]

Like many of us, I have been reading a wide range of opinions online  
about this, and had been looking forward to the discussion here.


So what's the sense here?

My nickel: despite the gloom and doom, the prophecies of the final  
demise of the middle class, the unbelievable behaviour by the Tea  
Party folks- petulant, arrogant and childish behaviour- overall I am  
heartened by the necessity that we attempt to think like a global  
culture in order to resolve and upgrade how we operate.
Similarly to the weather: we finally have to confront that this is all  
one planet, like it or not: there is nowhere else to go.


Our engagement now with these two situations -  global economics,  
global weather - I think will be seen as our watershed moment in a  
couple hundred years. I am a designated optimist, so there's that.  
However, the demand right now that we work together requires  
accountability from everyone to everyone, no one left out anymore. We  
are overdue for this. I wish it weren't happening while I was around,  
but I am around.
Keeping the big picture in mind, not yielding to panic, and reminding  
people we've been through difficult times before.


Stronger opinions re China and the US/West's addiction to their  
cheaply made merchandise and to consumerism (especially after  
Sarbajit's comments re cell phones), and the Tea Party will wait until  
I see if anyone picks this thread up.

Yes, I read Tom Friedman.

Victoria


FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

Re: [FRIAM] Ongoing cell-phone thread re google voice mail

[Victoria Hughes]

Hm. Mebbe a Wedtech on understanding and applying cell phone  
technology...


But seriously: a question for Owen and all those who might know-

This afternoon I inadvertantly ended up with Google voice mail  
(thought I was getting something slightly different: I'm not familiar  
enough with google jargon to realize my error until it was too late).


I looked for a 'delete' or 'deactivate' option for the voice mail  
account.


Instead agreement in the forums is that there is no way to delete a  
google voice mail account once you have established it on your phone,  
other than changing your phone number.

 That will not work for my business.

So is this really true?
There is no way to remove my phone number from a google voice mail  
account once it's set up?


In awe of megalopolies-
Victoria


On Aug 2, 2011, at 9:37 PM, Owen Densmore wrote:


Ouch!  I realize that sounds harsh.

Let me be clearer.  Gmail is very sophisticated.  And with cleaver  
plugins, you can make it less noisy and have a UI you'd prefer (See  
Minimalist for Gmail http://goo.gl/gSAi4).


But it is not IMAP or POP.  This means 100% of new users of gmail  
haven't a clue as to how it works.


One trivial example: Sent messages.  In POP/IMAP clients, these are  
messages that you have sent from the account (SMTP).  In Gmail it is  
a system "label" (not folder).


Now lets suppose you send a message to a "conversation" (IMAP/POP:  
thread) and you later delete the thread in Gmail.  It will also  
delete your copy of your outgoing email from the Sent label/folder!


This behavior moves users to the simpler Archive usage.  Great.  You  
keep all email you've sent or read.  Ever.  You do this because  
there is really no alternative for the behavior you'd like for our  
earlier Sent message behavior.  Thus Google have a gold mine of  
preferences to use as they please.


The point I'm (badly) making is that very, very few users ..  
including 80% of Friam .. understand these subtleties.  And it is  
dangerous.


A few simple rules help.  Never use a service that entraps your  
data .. i.e. you cannot pull it back out.  Gmail is great that way:  
simply hook up an IMAP client, and it will transfer GMail messages  
to any new account you might create.  If that stops being available,  
I'd leave it.  (Yes, I use Gmail .. via DNS)


Another rule is to have your own DNS name.  Why?  Because you have a  
single identity on the web and if you move to a new ISP, you simply  
change your DNS records and no user of your identity (mail, web...)  
is confused.


For novice users, the two most difficult to understand events are:
1 - To get a new computer (Where'd my mail go? .. etc)
2 - To change ISPs (Holy cow, I'm now joe@gmail and was  
joe@earthlink .. what do I do?!)


And a third is now hot on their heels:
3 - To have multiple devices (phone, pad, TV, server, laptop,  
desktop) all of which need to share certain data like email.


Another is to be polite .. which I screwed up and hope not too  
badly!  :)


-- Owen

On Tue, Aug 2, 2011 at 8:48 PM, Owen Densmore   
wrote:
BTW Sarbajit, you are a gmail user.  Could you enumerate the  
difficulties, even immoralities,  that entails?  We have to be  
careful what we consider "free".


-- Owen


FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org



FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

[FRIAM] Fwd: [sfx: Discuss] WiFi / London’s bus network / email / phone

[Victoria Hughes]

Speaking of which-

Begin forwarded message:


From: Tom Johnson 
Date: August 2, 2011 9:43:39 PM MDT
To: disc...@sfcomplex.org
Subject: [sfx: Discuss] London’s bus network to benefit from Wi-Fi  
and open data (Wired UK)

Reply-To: disc...@sfcomplex.org

Londoners will soon have access to Wi-Fi via the bus network,  
according to Kulveer Ranger, Director of Environment and Digital  
London.


The move would be part of the Mayor Boris Johnson's drive to improve  
connectivity in the capital. In May 2010 he made  the remarkable  
pledge to the Google Zeitgeist audience that "every lamp post and  
every bus stop will one day very soon, and before the 2012 Olympics,  
be Wi-Fi enabled."


While it might be unlikely that every lamp post will be Wi-Fi  
enabled within 12 months -- there are more than 15,000 of them in  
the borough of Barking and Dagenham alone -- Ranger confirmed that  
the wheels are very much in motion to ensure that the bus network is  
connected. [more]  http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2011-08/02/bus-wi-fi-open-data




--tj



--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Santa Fe  
Complex "discuss" group.

To post to this group, send email to disc...@sfcomplex.org
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to
discuss+unsubscr...@sfcomplex.org
For more options, visit this group at
http://groups.google.com/a/sfcomplex.org/group/discuss



FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

Re: [FRIAM] Ongoing cell-phone threads, esp T-Mobile

[Victoria Hughes]

Gist of this is an interesting buried T-Mobile cell-phone service,  
inexpensive and month-to-month. No contract, no penalties.


Link:
How to Save on Your Cell Phone Plan with Secret No-Contract Deals
Post:
This is a guest post from social-media maven Laura Roeder. Laura first  
told me this story in January, and I used it as the basis for one of  
my columns for Entrepreneur magazine. Over lunch recently, she offered  
to write a guest post about her experience. I told her I’d be glad to  
share it.


Secret phone plans? No contracts? Unadvertised payment plans with no  
interest? These are all available. But you’ll never know until you ask.


I recently decided to switch carriers to T-Mobile, so I jumped on  
their website to start doing the math of the different plans that they  
offered.


Just when I felt I couldn’t possibly calculate the details of one more  
plan, I came across a section on the website that featured plans  
without contracts. This section was buried; in fact, I had to be  
logged on a friend’s account who was already a customer to be able to  
see the plans at all.


I was confused by what I found. The plans withoutthe contracts had a  
lower monthly cost than the plans with contracts. I figured there  
would be a premium fee to not be locked in to a two-year contract, but  
I was seeing just the opposite.


I went into a T-Mobile store and asked about the plans. They didn’t  
show me any plans without a long contract. So I asked about a no- 
contract plan but the sales person was dismissive, saying “but you’re  
going to have to pay full pay price for the phone.”


I insisted that I wanted to see the plan anyway, and he went to the  
back of the store to dig up the brochure for me.


The exact same plan without a contract was $110 a month instead of  
$140 a month, for a savings of $360 a year. I looked for the catch,  
but the only catch was the no-contract plan didn’t offer the usual  
discount on a new phone.


The phone I wanted to buy retailed at $500, but cost just $200 with a  
contract. (That’s a savings of $300, in case your math muscles aren’t  
working.) I quickly did the math: I could save $360 per year without a  
contract, but would have to pay $300 more for the phone. That still  
left me with $60 in my pocket for not having a contract, meaning no  
insane fees if I wanted to leave the contract or switch carriers.  
Plus, everything after the first year was pure “profit”.


I soon learned from the sales associate that apparently no one had  
ever bought a phone outright and taken them up on the no-contract  
plan. It’s not advertised and therefore usually not asked about. They  
just assume that no one will want to pay more now in order to save  
later.


The sales associate couldn’t believe that I was “baller” enough (his  
exact words) to pay $500 for a phone — even though I was actually  
saving money within a year. He even asked me what I did for a living  
to be able to afford such an extravagance!


It gets better. When he went to ring up the phone, he asked me if I  
wanted a payment plan. I asked for the details and he told me that  
they offer no-interest payment plans so that people don’t have to  
shell out the full cost outright. Meaning that if you didn’t have the  
$500 for the phone, you could still save money by going with a no- 
contract plan!


Again, this isn’t advertised. You just have to ask.

It made me wonder what other companies aren’t telling me about ways  
that I can save because they assume that no one wants to pay more up  
front.


Call your cell phone company, cable company, or insurance company  
today and ask if they have any other options. They might have  
something without a contract, a AAA discount, or other ways to save.  
Many companies have plans they don’t publish publicly. Check out these  
past Get Rich Slowly articles for more ways to save:


Save on cell phones with employee and student discounts
Prepaid phones can save you money
Don’t Wait for a Discount — Ask for One
How I cut my cable bill by 33% without losing any service
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

Re: [FRIAM] Bernd Stelzer, The Higgs Boson - A one page explanation!

[Victoria Hughes]

Oh you all are going to have a field day with this one, I can see  
already.

Howabout
how many Friamistas does it take to change a lightbulb?

The mind boggles.

Tory


On Jul 27, 2011, at 9:54 AM, Douglas Roberts wrote:

Another might be:  "Why does water swirl the way it does going down  
the drain?"  "Short answers only, please.


--Doug

On Wed, Jul 27, 2011 at 9:40 AM, Owen Densmore   
wrote:

This is kinda nifty: answer a concrete question in a page or less.

In 1993, the UK Science Minister, William Waldegrave, challenged  
physicists to produce an answer that would fit on one page to the  
question 'What is the Higgs boson, and why do we want to find it?'


http://hep.physics.utoronto.ca/BerndStelzer/higgs/

I bet one could make a hugely successful website full of "short  
answers to important questions".


One might be: why is the US government self destructing for no  
apparent reason.


-- Owen


FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org



--
Doug Roberts
drobe...@rti.org
d...@parrot-farm.net
http://parrot-farm.net/Second-Cousins

505-455-7333 - Office
505-670-8195 - Cell


FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org



FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

[FRIAM] AdaFruit did a Google+HangoutVideo based Makers' show and tell

[Victoria Hughes]

Looks like a heck of a lot of fun.

First ever electronics show-and-tell over google+ hangout was a  
success! « adafruit industries blog
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

Re: [FRIAM] Creating a Network Like Facebook, Only Private - NYTimes.com

[Victoria Hughes]

Not all people or cultures would agree that fame and lack of privacy =  
lack of safety.


On Jul 14, 2011, at 2:42 PM, Jochen Fromm wrote:


Privacy is a curious thing, especially
those who do not have it - the rich
and the famous - desire it.
Those who have it - the poor and the
nameless - do not value it. They would
like to get rid of it if they can become
rich and famous.

Is it possible that some goals in Maslow's
hierarchy of needs contradict each other?
The need for self-actualization and achievement
leads to fame and lack of privacy, and this
implies a lack of safety. Or is it just the
modern media society which plays with
human emotions by creating and destroying
"stars" ?

-J.

On Wed, Jul 13, 2011 at 4:52 PM, Owen Densmore   
wrote:
I guess I agree with Scott McNealy: you don't have any privacy, get  
used to

it!
-- Owen




FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org





FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

Re: [FRIAM] Creating a Network Like Facebook, Only Private - NYTimes.com

[Victoria Hughes]

A great example of creative action; intentional and potent.

So those who sign up have self-selected to be in a group of folks  
wanting specific things from their social networks, rather than those  
wanting- or tolerating - the wider, scattershot approach of FB etc...


Our interests are much more likely to dovetail from the start. Good  
for personal and professional reasons.


Speaking of which, what's the current opinion on length of time to get  
a G+ account once I've added my name to their list? Can someone on  
this list invite me officially, and would that give me an active  
account?


Owen, you get a lot done. You have a strategy, an approach, that works  
well. Is it possible to define it?



On Jul 12, 2011, at 7:02 PM, Owen Densmore wrote:


Whoa!  Here's the rest of the Kickstart story: http://goo.gl/PGkM

They asked for 10K$.  How much did they come up with? $200K$!  Wow  
does the world hate FB's privacy policy!


On Tue, Jul 12, 2011 at 6:52 PM, Owen Densmore   
wrote:

With the "diaspora" from Facebook to G+, comes this interesting story:
   http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/12/nyregion/12about.html
.. basically a group of hackers built a great alternative from  
Kickstarter.


-- Owen


FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org



FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

Re: [FRIAM] Google+ Circles and Social Networks

[Victoria Hughes]

I just signed up, am on the list: is there a quicker way to get an  
account?
Went to Jochen's page, looks nice and clean. Of course pictures of the  
Maldives beaches are helpful. Does a trip there come with the G+  
account?...


Tory

On Jul 8, 2011, at 7:07 PM, James Steiner wrote:


I'm in it now. it looks like the very simple concept of posting
messages to circles lets you emulate everything from twitter feeds
(short messages to the world) to newletters (longer posts to a group)
to chat rooms (posts exchanged among members of a group) to chat and
IM (posts to a single person or a one-person circle)

Interesting. Also the video-chat "hangouts" might be fun and/or
useful. Instant collaboration and mutal interest meeting spaces.

~~James
On Thu, Jul 7, 2011 at 12:31 PM, Jochen Fromm   
wrote:

I have got an account today https://plus.google.com/104191362647183926227
Does anybody has a FRIAM circle? ;-)

-J.


FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org




FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org




FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org





FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

[FRIAM] Fwd: wordply

[Victoria Hughes]

 You mean no one has posted this yet?


MENSA INVITATIONAL
The Washington Post's Mensa Invitational once again invited readers  
to take any word from the dictionary, alter it by adding,  
subtracting, or changing one letter, and supply a new definition.


Here are the winners:

1. Cashtration (n.): The act of buying a house, which renders the  
subject financially impotent for an indefinite period of time.


2. Ignoranus: A person who's both stupid and an asshole.

3. Intaxicaton: Euphoria at getting a tax refund, which lasts until  
you realize it was your money to start with.


4. Reintarnation: Coming back to life as a hillbilly.

5. Bozone (n.): The substance surrounding stupid people that stops  
bright ideas from penetrating. The bozone layer, unfortunately,  
shows little sign of breaking down in the near future.


6. Foreploy: Any misrepresentation about yourself for the purpose of  
getting laid


7. Giraffiti: Vandalism spray-painted very, very high.

8. Sarchasm: The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the  
person who doesn't get it.


9. Inoculatte: To take coffee intravenously when you are running late.

10. Osteopornosis: A degenerate disease.(This one got extra credit.)

11. Karmageddon: It's like, when everybody is sending off all these  
really bad vibes, right? And then, like, the Earth explodes and it's  
like, a serious bummer.


12. Decafalon (n): The grueling event of getting through the day  
consuming only things that are good for you.


13. Glibido: All talk and no action.

14. Dopeler Effect: The tendency of stupid ideas to seem smarter  
when they come at you rapidly.


15. Arachnoleptic Fit(n.): The frantic dance performed just after  
you've accidentally walked through a spider web.


16. Beelzebug (n.): Satan in the form of a mosquito, that gets into  
your bedroom at three in the morning and cannot be cast out.


17. Caterpallor (n.): The color you turn after finding half a worm  
in the fruit you're eating.


The Washington Post has also published the winning submissions to  
its yearly contest, in which readers are asked to supply alternate  
meanings for common words.


And the winners are:

1. Coffee, n. The person upon whom one coughs.

2. Flabbergasted, adj. Appalled by discovering how much weight one  
has gained.


3. Abdicate, v. To give up all hope of ever having a flat stomach.

4. Esplanade, v. To attempt an explanation while drunk.

5. Willy-nilly, adj. Impotent.

6. Negligent, adj. Absent mindedly answering the door when wearing  
only a nightgown.


7. Lymph, v. To walk with a lisp.

8. Gargoyle, n. Olive-flavored mouthwash.

9. Flatulence, n. Emergency vehicle that picks up someone who has  
been run over by a steamroller.


10. Balderdash, n. A rapidly receding hairline.

11. Testicle, n. A humorous question on an exam.

12. Rectitude, n. The formal, dignified bearing adopted by  
proctologists.


13. Pokemon, n. A Rastafarian proctologist.

14. Oyster, n. A person who sprinkles his conversation with  
Yiddishisms.


15. Frisbeetarianism, n. The belief that, after death, the soul  
flies up onto the roof and gets stuck there.


16. Circumvent, n. An opening in the front of boxer shorts worn by  
Jewish men.











FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

Re: [FRIAM] The Grand Design, Philosophy is Dead, and Hubris

[Victoria Hughes]

http://www.xefer.com/2011/05/wikipedia

On Jul 7, 2011, at 8:03 PM, glen e. p. ropella wrote:



Owen Densmore wrote at 07/07/2011 06:39 PM:
Good lord, how?  Is it as empirical?  Does it create as provably  
valid

models? Or is it simply as worthy an area of study as science?


Well, as I said, philosophy is engaged with inference and science is
not.  Hence, you must use philosophy in order to develop a scientific
theory.  Vice versa, science is engaged with proving your theories
false.  You can't pursue science without philosophy and you can't  
pursue

philosophy without science.


I think the Par you are considering would not include your going to a
philosopher for medical treatment, right?


Yes, actually.  Effective diagnosis requires philosophy.  Similarly,
every plumber I've ever paid has a "philosophy of plumbing".  Every
landscaper I've ever met has a philosophy of landscaping.  Etc.  So,  
the

simple answer is, yes.  Further, I would NOT go to a doctor who had no
philosophy (assuming such a beast exists).

The unfortunate part of this is that too many people engage in
philosophy with no science to eliminate their wacko theories.

Er, how does Newton deal with negation?  Isn't a clear set of  
equations
saying what *will* happen?  I mean of course one can say, It Is Not  
The
Case That F=ma Is Not True, but really, just how can we think of  
science

limited to negation?


Science is rooted in testability and falsification.  And even if  
you're

not a fan of Popper, you should still be able to admit that no
untestable, unfalsifiable theory is scientific.  So, science  
_at_least_
requires falsification.  Many of Newton's theories were falsifiable,  
but
not falsified.  Of course, it's also true that many of Newton's  
theories

were unfalsifiable and unfalsified.  So, some of what Newton did was
scientific and some was not, just like the rest of us.


Don't get me wrong, I have great respect for all the rich topics of
investigation we pursue, philosophy included.  However, I don't see  
that

they are on par in any way other than you can study it.


You may well have different conceptions of what philosophy is ... and
what science is.  That's fine.  But _I_ think they are equally  
valuable,
equally useful, and equally "real".  In pretty much every  
quantification
I can think of, they are on par ... oh, except that most people  
don't do

science.  Hence, we see a bit of a back-lash amongst the scientists
bemoaning that ... hence silly statements like "philosophy is dead".

--
glen e. p. ropella, 971-222-9095, http://tempusdictum.com



FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org





FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

Re: [FRIAM] SIGGRAPH paper and video available online

[Victoria Hughes]

Pradeep, Steve-
Really enjoyed this information as well as the presentation style.
Thanks for the re-post of the link.
Having done some welding, I was particularly impressed by the video of  
the cutting torch- it's an amazing sensation to watch that closely  
without squinting behind the mask.


Tory

Congratulations, Pradeep. Very cool work! And great to get digital  
media from NM on the map at SIGGRAPH!


Do you have beam-splitting HDR working on an iPhone or Android  
yet? :-)


-Stephen

On Wed, Jul 6, 2011 at 9:10 AM, Pradeep Sen  wrote:
Hi everyone,

In case you haven't seen it, we just posted the webpage
for our SIGGRAPH paper at http://agl.unm.edu/hdrcamera/

This is exciting because it is the first technical paper
from UNM accepted at SIGGRAPH in 38 years, and we hope that
the technology can transform cinematography since lighting
is a huge issue for them.

Please check out the video!

-Pradeep




--
Pradeep Sen
Assistant Professor
Advanced Graphics Lab
Dept. of Electrical & Computer Engineering
University of New Mexico





--
--- -. .   ..-. .. ...    - .-- ---   ..-. .. ... 
stephen.gue...@redfish.com
624 Agua Fria, Santa Fe, NM 87501
office: 505.995.0206 mobile: 505.577.5828

redfish.com  |  sfcomplex.org  |  simtable.com  |  ambientpixel.com



--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Santa Fe  
Complex "discuss" group.

To post to this group, send email to disc...@sfcomplex.org
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to
discuss+unsubscr...@sfcomplex.org
For more options, visit this group at
http://groups.google.com/a/sfcomplex.org/group/discuss



FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

Re: [FRIAM] Apropos of a certain off-limits thread

[Victoria Hughes]

And a grand bottle it was, too. Now there's a tangent, a great bottle  
of Bourbon.


Thanks, Sas, for the excellent summer get-together! Wonderful  
conversations at our table about art, science, observation, cognitive  
processing, perception, awareness, h, all the big ones.  
Consciousness. Be still my heart. Someone tell the discuss list.

Have another shindig: we'll all bring more food.
You two have the best house in the worldthe walls are made of  
books and there's no clear inside and outside to the place, just  
activity. Perhaps this is physics in actuality, rather than theory.


Have a great drive. I for one am vey curious about your  
transmutational optics project. ??


Catch ya later-
Tory

On Jul 5, 2011, at 7:11 PM, Steve Smith wrote:


Doug -


You're one of my favorites here, sas.  We can always count on you  
for a good stream of consciousness.


Thanks, It's about all I have left after I used everything else up  
trying to be a scientist.  I intend to spend the rest of my life  
honing my richochets into proper non-sequitors.  You missed the  
bottle of Boulliete Rye Saturday.  And some new characters at the  
funny farm.  And the moon is made of green cheese.  And I'm about to  
drive two days straight each way to (probably) turn 3000lbs of  
carefully constructed optical components into an equal mass of  
square marbles.  I need all the distraction I can get.  Segue.  
Careen. Tangent.


- Steve



FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org





FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

Re: [FRIAM] Experiment and Interpretation

[Victoria Hughes]

Ahem.

Thus working in a studio setting.

Don't think I am not observing the clamorous silence
 in response to my post inviting you over to experiment with
what you think will happen,
what does happen, and
how you made it happen.

VEH






On Jul 4, 2011, at 9:30 AM, Nicholas Thompson wrote:


Dear Peter,

There are three ways to learn something:  read, fiddle with things,  
and talk to somebody.  I think the best learning take place if one  
is doing all three at the same time.


Nick



From: friam-boun...@redfish.com [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com]  
On Behalf Of plissa...@comcast.net

Sent: Monday, July 04, 2011 12:35 AM
To: friam@redfish.com
Subject: [FRIAM] Experiment and Interpretation

Klowns like me are often misinterpreted, as noted by Yorick.  I am  
ardently in favor of experiment, carefully observed.  It is the  
basis of all science. But, but, the interpretation of observed  
phenomena must also be dealt with carefully.  Voodoo has a  
pernicious way of creeping in.  After all, for two thousand years we  
knew that malaria was caused by the bad air of the low, swampy  
places where it was prevalent, and deadly.  It was only in 1896,  
after the Anopheles mosquitoes started reading the Annals of  
Tropical Medicine in the Lancet (not by a Limey, but Dr. Ronald  
Ross, an admirable Scots physician) that the little critters  
realized that they had the God-given gift of spreading the disease  
by biting white people, and thus helped the indigenous populations  
by keeping Europeans out of the  “White Man’s Grave”.


I love observations, and it is not for me to challenge what people  
see.  If pious folks observe the image of the Virgin Mary on a half- 
baked tortilla, I say, “Let it be”.  She certainly has Power to do  
that, according to Those in the Know, and it seems to me like a  
folksy, open-hearted gesture on Her Part, that our president would  
do well to emulate.


But, a little learning is a dangerous thing, and it is injudicious  
to draw conclusions from phenomena that one does not understand the  
physics of.   It is certainly valid for an honest amateur to ask,  
“But how can I know if my theory is Voodoo?”  Here are some modest  
proposals:  first, study as much as you can about the subject,  
second, understand it well enough to use the professional technical  
terms of the discipline and then, third, ask a few knowledgeable  
folks privately for their opinions.


So, follows some constructive suggestions.  Read.  Learn.  The  
Picasso of irrotational rotating viscous/inviscid flows was an  
amiable Top Brit, Sir Geoffrey Ingram Taylor.  He is probably now  
sitting on some Tiepolo cloud up there watching with satisfaction  
the grand swirling vortical structure of the firmament of the  
heavens.  I knew him as a lofty figure, and was honored to present  
the G I Taylor Memorial Lecture at a university far from here some  
20 years ago.  There is lotsa stuff on GI on the internet that one  
can read and learn from – in particular the Taylor-Proudman theorem  
that has a special charm for me, since before his name was  
immortalized, I was a lowly scholar in Dr. Proudman’s grad. fluid  
mechanics classes at Cambridge.   He would not remember, but I  
recall him, as I melted silently, respectfully, into the woodwork of  
those 17 th century desks. Fer Gawd’s Sake, Newton sat right there!  
I held my peace. Dumb questions (which were all I could muster then,  
and even now) were not encouraged in the Old Maths Schools at the  
University.


As for asking folks, it is my modest guess that, for all their many  
fine qualities, not too many Friam correspondents have that much  
background in the very esoteric, and charmingly pointless, subject  
of pouring fluids outa bottles – unless they be of a good vintage.   
But I will answer privately things that folk may ask personally, to  
the extent I am capable.


It is nice, and generous, for the blind to lead the blind, but the  
truth is seldom approached by that sorta debate. It takes hard work,  
intelligence and the learning of new ideas.


Incidentally, with reference to some discussions of high and low  
pressures at surfaces: ALL free surfaces for ANY fluid motion with  
stationary air as the contiguous external fluid are at the same  
CONSTANT pressure. How could they be otherwise?


Peter Lissaman, Da Vinci Ventures

Expertise is not knowing everything, but knowing what to look for.

1454 Miracerros Loop South, Santa Fe, New Mexico 87505,USA
tel:(505)983-7728


FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org



FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

Re: [FRIAM] A Happy Thought (experiment)

[Victoria Hughes]

Be there within the hour. Want anything? TJ's is on the way.
Tory


On Jul 2, 2011, at 6:03 PM, Steve Smith wrote:


Nick, Peter -

It is good to see the curmudgeons with their curmudgeons out.  Maybe  
we can get Doug to flail (swirl?) his too!  and I think we  
have a few others here as well...


Meanwhile, we are having a soiree tonight that I invite you (all)  
to, to celebrate the rain falling on the fire just uphill from  
us...   Sort of a raindance, our native (Lakota) friend begged off  
cuz he's going to a sweat tonight and Doug is out of pocket himself,  
oh wait... Nick is in Massachusetts (damn you have a lot of ss's and  
tt's in that state name!) !  Peter.. if you are game, you can find  
us via google maps at 3 Bundy Rd, Otowi, NM... we'll be reveling for  
a number of hours yet!  No basin-drain experiments, however... I  
promise (hope?)!


Funny thing is that the rain is falling *strictly* inside the San  
Ildefonso and Santa Clara boundaries.   Of course this is very good  
news as Santa Clara Canyon and just north were the most threatening  
parts of the fire of late.   I think they might be dead out from  
that.   No evidence of same in the south or west...  and Pacheco  
Canyon looks like it's getting a bit of a dousing, but I can't see  
for the smoke (steam)?



Carry on!
 - Steve
But peter.  I actually did an experiment.  So, your criticism has  
to shift from calling me an air head to calling my experiment dumb  
… and,, presumably, having reasons why it’s dumb.


N

From: friam-boun...@redfish.com [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com]  
On Behalf ofplissa...@comcast.net

Sent: Saturday, July 02, 2011 5:16 PM
To: friam@redfish.com
Subject: [FRIAM] A Happy Thought (experiment)

I was amazed to learn that gedanken experiments involve so much  
depth.  I had thought thought experiments were just simple tests  
that it would be VERY nice to do, but for various reasons could not  
be executed.  Like having all gedanken foolosofers leap from high  
buildings (under humane and controlled conditions) and their  
trajectories measured to determine whether they obey the laws of  
gravity and Newton.



Peter Lissaman, Da Vinci Ventures

Expertise is not knowing everything, but knowing what to look for.

1454 Miracerros Loop South, Santa Fe, New Mexico 87505,USA
tel:(505)983-7728



FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org



FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org



FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

Re: [FRIAM] A Happy Thought (experiment) (action)

[Victoria Hughes]

Hello all-
	I am following this thread with interest because of similarities  
between gedanken experiments and the classic creative processes: an  
idea, whether potential scientific theory or potential visual/ 
multimedia theory is clarified, then attempted in the mind, possible /  
probable effects are visualized, the form still in the mind is  
examined again to assess whether it is worth further exploration, and  
if so it is then run physically- as an experiment, as a fabrication.
	I'd assume that gedanken experiments have a lot of depth, based on my  
studies of the process as a version of creation. Creation is complex.


	 I am not so far seeing any difference in the process between what  
you all are discussing and what I do in my studio.


	To test my gedanken experiment, and see how similar or different this  
process is, I invite a group of you to my studio.


	 I work in a very accessible material - some of you were at my  
presentation at SFX a couple of years ago and made things then. Owen,  
are you listening?
	I am serious about this. Due to a major project, I can't do this  
until after the beginning of August: you all have lots going on and  
many of you don't even live here.
	But those of you who are local and want to pursue how gendanken  
experiments work, and have moved to the part of the process where you  
test things in the real world, let's see what happens.


Victoria (if you're coming to my studio, you can call me Tory)

I was amazed to learn that gedanken experiments involve so much  
depth.  I had thought thought experiments were just simple tests  
that it would be VERY nice to do, but for various reasons could not  
be executed.  Like having all gedanken foolosofers leap from high  
buildings (under humane and controlled conditions) and their  
trajectories measured to determine whether they obey the laws of  
gravity and Newton.



Peter Lissaman, Da Vinci Ventures

Expertise is not knowing everything, but knowing what to look for.

1454 Miracerros Loop South, Santa Fe, New Mexico 87505,USA
tel:(505)983-7728


FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org



FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

[FRIAM] LANL surveillance system used to show LA evacuees situation in LA right now

[Victoria Hughes]

http://www.inciweb.org/incident/article/2385/12142/



Laboratory-Developed Military Technology Put to Use

Incident: Las Conchas Wildfire
Released: 40 min. ago
News Release Noon
News Media Information: 505-820-1226
NR#28
Laboratory-Developed Military Technology Put to Use for Las Conchas  
Fire Evacuees

LOS ALAMOS, New Mexico July 1, 2011
Los Alamos National Laboratory and a New Mexico aerial technology firm  
on Thursday deployed a cutting-edge surveillance system�normally used  
to help U.S. conventional military forces in combat for a peaceful  
purpose: helping Las Conchas fire evacuees see an up-to-date view of  
their homes. A higher resolution version of the system, known as Angel  
Fire, was developed by LANL and the Air Force Research Laboratory for  
the Department of Defense. It's described as a surveillance camera for  
a city-sized area, complete with instant replay and the ability to  
zoom in to see, for example, someone planting an improvised explosive  
device. But over Los Alamos, the system is providing snapshots in time  
viewable over a Web site. "This is like Google Earth, except it's a  
Google Earth image from today," said William Rees, LANL's principal  
associate director for Global Security. "Our evacuees can access the  
image and see their homes, or their favorite hiking areas, or the  
burned areas, on images just a few hours old." "This is yet another  
example of a technology developed for global security missions being  
used to help everyday people in a very real way," said LANL Director  
Charles McMillan. "When I learned we might be able to use it here, I  
said 'let's make it happen.'"
The image will allow zooming no closer than a typical Google Earth  
picture, but will nonetheless provide a bird's-eye view of tens of  
square miles. Transparent Sky LLC, a small, New Mexico business, is  
donating the equipment and time for these flights.To access the  
images, users should go to http://www.lasconchas.lanl.gov/
Media should call 505-820-1226 for updates and monitor http://www.nmfireinfo.com/ 
 for official fire updates.

About Los Alamos National Laboratory www.lanl.gov
Los Alamos National Laboratory, a multidisciplinary research  
institution engaged in strategic science on behalf of national  
security, is operated by Los Alamos National Security, LLC, a team  
composed of Bechtel National, the University of California, The  
Babcock & Wilcox Company, and URS for the Department of Energy's  
National Nuclear Security Administration.Los Alamos enhances national  
security by ensuring the safety and reliability of the U.S. nuclear  
stockpile, developing technologies to reduce threats from weapons of  
mass destruction, and solving problems related to energy, environment,  
infrastructure, health, and global security concerns.About Transparent  
Sky, LLC Transparent Sky is a small New Mexico firm specializing in  
aerial imagery, mapping and airborne surveillance for research and  
development. Its founder, Steve Suddarth, PhD, developed Transparent  
Sky's wide-area surveillance system while working as a US Strategic  
command liaison to Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL).
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

Re: [FRIAM] [sfx: Discuss] iClarified - Apple News - Google Launches a Social Network: Google+

[Victoria Hughes]

Speaking of which:
A pie chart of what happens on line in 60 seconds:
60 Seconds - Things That Happen On Internet Every Sixty Seconds  
[Infographic]

Search engine Google serves more that 694,445 queries

6,600+ pictures are uploaded on Flickr

600 videos are uploaded on YouTube videos, amounting to 25+ hours of  
content


695,000 status updates, 79,364 wall posts and 510,040 comments are  
published on Social Networking site Facebook


70 New domains are registered

168,000,000+ emails are sent

320 new accounts and 98,000 tweets are generated on Social Networking  
site Twitter


iPhone applications are downloaded more than13,000 times

20,000 new posts are published on Micro-blogging platform tumbler

Popular web browser FireFox is downloaded more than 1700 times

Popular blogging platform Wordpress is downloaded more than 50 times

WordPress Plugins aredownloaded more than 125 times

100 accounts are created on professional networking site LinkedIn

40 new Questions are asked on YahooAnswers.com

100+ questions are asked on Answers.com

1 new article is published on Associated Content, the world’s largest  
source of community-created content


1 new definition is added on UrbanDictionary.com

1,200+ new ads are created on Craigslist

370,000+ minutes of voice calls done by Skype users

13,000+ hours of music streaming is done by personalized Internet  
radio provider Pandora


1,600+ reads are made on Scribd, the largest social reading publishing  
company



On Jun 29, 2011, at 9:44 AM, Owen Densmore wrote:


Can anyone make sense of Google+?
http://www.iclarified.com/entry/index.php?enid=15826

I'm starting to get confused about "social media".  Personally I  
don't really care a whole lot what all of us are doing every minute  
of the day, but with all the activity, I sense I may be missing the  
point.


What is a sane view of social media?

-- Owen

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Santa Fe  
Complex "discuss" group.

To post to this group, send email to disc...@sfcomplex.org
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to
discuss+unsubscr...@sfcomplex.org
For more options, visit this group at
http://groups.google.com/a/sfcomplex.org/group/discuss



FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

Re: [FRIAM] An Open Letter to Steve Guerin

[Victoria Hughes]

I'd like to ditto a part of what Nick is saying to SG: Despite the  
brevity of your presentation at Notions of Time, your way of showing  
and telling has stayed with me clearly. I notice turbulence, and  
gradients, and the visual with the plastic bottles neck in neck or  
head to head was effective enough to remain an accessible didactic  
example long after your admittedly frustrating few minutes were over.
Always wanted to hear you speak and show - Teach - on the topic again.  
Perhaps time for a presentation? I'd be there, and bring people.


Victoria


On Jun 28, 2011, at 8:18 PM, Nicholas Thompson wrote:


Doug,

I knew that if I got no answer from anybody else, I would get one  
from you or Steve.


I expected that you would accuse me of being a dissipative  
structure.   Well, you didn’t do THAT exactly.


Actually, ever since those tornados in the spring .. and the one we  
had here about 20 miles way … I have taken anew interest in drain  
swirls.  The empty space in the middle of the swirl, LOOKS like a  
little tornado.  Is it one?

Explain your answer.  In specific terms. (;-])

N


From: friam-boun...@redfish.com [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com]  
On Behalf Of Douglas Roberts

Sent: Tuesday, June 28, 2011 9:03 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] An Open Letter to Steve Guerin

And please, couch your answer in the most general of terms.

:)

-Doug

On Jun 28, 2011 6:59 PM, "Nicholas Thompson" > wrote:

> Dear Steve Guerin,
>
>
>
> I was staring at the water swirling down the drain this evening  
and I
> thought of you (};-]). It has been a very long time since we have  
had any
> kind of conversation on this list about self-organizing systems. I  
was
> reflecting on the vigor with which the water was rushing AROUND  
the basin
> and the slowness with which it seemed to be actually going DOWN  
the drain,
> and a little voice said in my ear . I think it was your voice .  
that spiral
> in the drain is organized to increase the dissipation of energy.  
But then

> my OWN voice said, well then it isn't doing a very good job of it.
>
>
>
> So I wanted to ask you: on your account, do dissipative structures  
ALWAYS
> increase the rate of dissipation? Or is it the case that when  
structures
> form that obstruct dissipation, these are not dissipative. In  
which case,

> what are THESE structures called and when do they form.
>
>
>
> Nick
>
>
>
>
>
> Nicholas S. Thompson
>
> Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology
>
> Clark University
>
> http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/
>
> http://www.cusf.org 
>
>
>
>
>

FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org



FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org