So you think you make up your own mind, right? Well, to round out this series of blogs on human behavior (my own little experiment), here is a link to ten of the most revealing studies in the field.
From social identity to risk assessment, humans behave in predictable fashion, while thinking that they are making their own decisions. Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson discovered much of this when they worked for PsyOps during WWII. Their observations became the basis of modern advertising, a field I know well.
My favorite? The first, the Robbers Cave Experiment, conducted the year I was born.
Doesn't it just make you want to (ring bell now) salivate?
The Ten Most Revealing Psych Experiments
Sunday, February 28, 2010
Saturday, February 27, 2010
Monkey See, Monkey Do
Here's an interesting vid I found on YouTube. I am familiar with the experiment and know it to be true, but I wonder how long it takes humanity to overcome the social inertia that keeps us from change, since at various times, we have.
Friday, February 26, 2010
Water, Power
Two very interesting items have popped up on my radar screen in the past few days.
First, Bobble, is a reusable, $10 water bottle with a carbon filter that is made in the US from recycled plastic, is BPA free, FDA approved and will filter out all the toxic crap in 300 gallons of tap water, while leaving in the minerals. That sure beats $1 per 16 oz. for bottled water from the store.
Second, my good friend Andrew Padula, got me onto this new tech that, while being rumored to be forthcoming over this last couple of years, has finally been unveiled (on 60 Minutes, no less).
The Bloom Box is a new fuel cell technology that promises to deliver low cost, clean electricity from common ingredients. Although in it's final testing stages, Bloom Box energy servers are being used at Bank of America, Google, Ebay, Walmart and FedEx (among others) and have the endorsement of luminaries such as Colin Powell, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Diane Feinstein and Michael Bloomberg. I suggest that you go to the website to learn more and then begin to salivate for the IPO. If you'd like to watch the 60 Minutes story on Bloom Energy, I've included it below.
Do we live in a great country or what?
Watch CBS News Videos Online
First, Bobble, is a reusable, $10 water bottle with a carbon filter that is made in the US from recycled plastic, is BPA free, FDA approved and will filter out all the toxic crap in 300 gallons of tap water, while leaving in the minerals. That sure beats $1 per 16 oz. for bottled water from the store.
Second, my good friend Andrew Padula, got me onto this new tech that, while being rumored to be forthcoming over this last couple of years, has finally been unveiled (on 60 Minutes, no less).
The Bloom Box is a new fuel cell technology that promises to deliver low cost, clean electricity from common ingredients. Although in it's final testing stages, Bloom Box energy servers are being used at Bank of America, Google, Ebay, Walmart and FedEx (among others) and have the endorsement of luminaries such as Colin Powell, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Diane Feinstein and Michael Bloomberg. I suggest that you go to the website to learn more and then begin to salivate for the IPO. If you'd like to watch the 60 Minutes story on Bloom Energy, I've included it below.
Do we live in a great country or what?
Watch CBS News Videos Online
Thursday, February 25, 2010
You See What Ya' Wanna' See And You Hear What Ya' Wanna' Hear
New research just in! People pay no attention to facts that challenge their preconceived ideas. That's a ground shaker isn't it?
The Cultural Cognition Project at Yale has made this discovery. It basically boils down to this. Give people access to the facts about any issue and they then filter them through their cultural belief system, basically picking and choosing the facts they will accept to bolster their own belief system.
Give rugged individualists facts about climate change and tell them that the solution to global warming is to regulate industrial pollution and many then reject the climate science. But when you tell them that more nuclear power will fix the problem, says social scientist and lawyer Don Braman, "they said, you know, it turns out global warming is a serious problem. It doesn't matter whether you show them negative or positive information, they reject the information that is contrary to what they would like to believe, and they glom onto the positive information," Braman says.
The same can be said for the second group called "communitarians." When given the same information about climate change, they say that industry needs to be regulated. When told that nuclear power can help, they reject that.
Braman adds, "These two groups start to polarize as soon as you start to describe some of the potential benefits and harms."
"Basically the reason that people react in a close-minded way to information is that the implications of it threaten their values," says Dan Kahan, a law professor at Yale University and a member of The Cultural Cognition Project.
From vaccines to nanotechnology to climate change to gay parenting to whatever, we have our minds made up going in and nothing's going to change them, especially nothing as relevant as pesky little facts.
Here's a link to an article in Nature that delves a little deeper into this troubling situation.
The Cultural Cognition Project at Yale has made this discovery. It basically boils down to this. Give people access to the facts about any issue and they then filter them through their cultural belief system, basically picking and choosing the facts they will accept to bolster their own belief system.
Give rugged individualists facts about climate change and tell them that the solution to global warming is to regulate industrial pollution and many then reject the climate science. But when you tell them that more nuclear power will fix the problem, says social scientist and lawyer Don Braman, "they said, you know, it turns out global warming is a serious problem. It doesn't matter whether you show them negative or positive information, they reject the information that is contrary to what they would like to believe, and they glom onto the positive information," Braman says.
The same can be said for the second group called "communitarians." When given the same information about climate change, they say that industry needs to be regulated. When told that nuclear power can help, they reject that.
Braman adds, "These two groups start to polarize as soon as you start to describe some of the potential benefits and harms."
"Basically the reason that people react in a close-minded way to information is that the implications of it threaten their values," says Dan Kahan, a law professor at Yale University and a member of The Cultural Cognition Project.
From vaccines to nanotechnology to climate change to gay parenting to whatever, we have our minds made up going in and nothing's going to change them, especially nothing as relevant as pesky little facts.
Here's a link to an article in Nature that delves a little deeper into this troubling situation.
Sunday, February 21, 2010
One More Food Tidbit
I forgot one other seed source that I really like: The Southern Exposure Seed Exchange in Mineral, Virginia.
As they write on their website; "Southern Exposure Seed Exchange is a wonderful source for heirloom seeds and other open-pollinated (non-hybrid) seeds seeds with an emphasis on vegetables, flowers, and herbs that grow well in the Mid-Atlantic region. We support seed saving and traditional seed breeding. Seed savers and breeders are to thank for our rich selection and we will do whatever we can to support our customers and associates to carry on this noble tradition." I hope you support them, also.
Grow your own, eat well.
As they write on their website; "Southern Exposure Seed Exchange is a wonderful source for heirloom seeds and other open-pollinated (non-hybrid) seeds seeds with an emphasis on vegetables, flowers, and herbs that grow well in the Mid-Atlantic region. We support seed saving and traditional seed breeding. Seed savers and breeders are to thank for our rich selection and we will do whatever we can to support our customers and associates to carry on this noble tradition." I hope you support them, also.
Grow your own, eat well.
Food Rules
The rules are clear and simple ideas about eating in healthy ways, such as: "don't eat anything your great-grandmother wouldn't recognize as food" and "regard nontraditional foods with skepticism" and "eat when you are hungry, not when you are bored."
If you want to change the way you eat, the (un)common sense contained in its pages will help.
As Pollan writes, "Eat food, mostly plants, not too much."
Michael Pollan's Website
Purchase Food Rules on Amazon
Saturday, February 20, 2010
Food Does Not Come From A Store. Part Two: Meat
Let's pose a simple question: what kind of meat would you like to be eating? Would you prefer meat from animals that have been raised in cramped pens and boxes, fed hormones to make them grow faster, given antibiotics to prevent the spread of infectious disease? Or would you rather eat meat from animals that were raised like they were a hundred years ago, as in free-range and fed clean feeds (grass, grain, the things that they ate for thousands of years previously)?
If you don't mind the first, you're in luck. About 85% of the meat that you get to chose from comes from non-organic, non free-range raised, sources. If you prefer the latter, your choices are much smaller and the meats more expensive.
Take hamburger. Most of the commercially available burger is laced with the "pink slime." Never heard of it? I'm not surprised. The "pink slime" is fatty slaughterhouse trimmings treated to remove the fat. Ammonia is added to retard spoilage and turned into a mashlike substance frozen into blocks or chips. This is then added to hamburger to increase profits. The U.S.D.A. also allows the ammonia to be listed as "a processing agent" instead of by name. And they also okayed the processing method and later exempted the hamburger from routine testing, strictly based on the company's claims of safety, which were not backed by any independent testing.
And to emphasize: this pink slime isn't just in fast food burgers or free lunches for poor kids. This processed beef has become a mainstay in America's hamburgers. McDonald's, Burger King and other fast-food giants use it as a component in ground beef, as do grocery chains. The federal school lunch program used an estimated 5.5 million pounds of the processed beef last year alone.
This saves three cents a pound off production costs.
How about poultry? The birds are given feed laced, again, with hormones and antibiotics, kept in small confined spaces and most are debeaked to reduce the feather pecking that can occur in birds when they are unable to go about their normal bird behaviors of foraging, dustbathing, and wandering about. This causes the birds stress and pain and produces related hormones that then go into the meat and eggs of the animal. This is what goes into you when you consume them.
And you don't get many companies to choose from when you consume poultry products. As an example, Cargill, is one of the world's largest poultry producers. All of the eggs used in McDonald's restaurants in the United States pass through Cargill's plants.
Although some grocers have begun to stock organically raised meats and eggs, many are reluctant to carry products that fewer consumers purchase, are more expensive and that often have a shorter shelf life. Over the past few years, this has begun to change.
Wegmans, a large mega-store chain, has organically raised beef, chicken and eggs. Most other large chains at least carry organic free range chicken eggs. But how do you go to the next step, insuring that the meats and eggs you buy come from farms whose practices are clean and healthy?
Buy local, that's how.
Below are links for just a few sources for organic free range meats and eggs in Virginia. Also included is a link to Buy Fresh, Buy Local. If you do a little research, you can find sources for almost anything you'd like. Healthy eating.
The Home Farm Store in Middleburg, Va, carries many organic and free range products.
Ayrshire Farm has heirloom free range meat and eggs.
Hollin Farms has beef and pork in Delaplane, VA.
Eatwild is a site with info on grass-fed meats.
Buy Fresh, Buy Local has listings for most of Virginia.
Next: a simple, short book about eating well.
If you don't mind the first, you're in luck. About 85% of the meat that you get to chose from comes from non-organic, non free-range raised, sources. If you prefer the latter, your choices are much smaller and the meats more expensive.
Take hamburger. Most of the commercially available burger is laced with the "pink slime." Never heard of it? I'm not surprised. The "pink slime" is fatty slaughterhouse trimmings treated to remove the fat. Ammonia is added to retard spoilage and turned into a mashlike substance frozen into blocks or chips. This is then added to hamburger to increase profits. The U.S.D.A. also allows the ammonia to be listed as "a processing agent" instead of by name. And they also okayed the processing method and later exempted the hamburger from routine testing, strictly based on the company's claims of safety, which were not backed by any independent testing.
And to emphasize: this pink slime isn't just in fast food burgers or free lunches for poor kids. This processed beef has become a mainstay in America's hamburgers. McDonald's, Burger King and other fast-food giants use it as a component in ground beef, as do grocery chains. The federal school lunch program used an estimated 5.5 million pounds of the processed beef last year alone.
This saves three cents a pound off production costs.
How about poultry? The birds are given feed laced, again, with hormones and antibiotics, kept in small confined spaces and most are debeaked to reduce the feather pecking that can occur in birds when they are unable to go about their normal bird behaviors of foraging, dustbathing, and wandering about. This causes the birds stress and pain and produces related hormones that then go into the meat and eggs of the animal. This is what goes into you when you consume them.
And you don't get many companies to choose from when you consume poultry products. As an example, Cargill, is one of the world's largest poultry producers. All of the eggs used in McDonald's restaurants in the United States pass through Cargill's plants.
Although some grocers have begun to stock organically raised meats and eggs, many are reluctant to carry products that fewer consumers purchase, are more expensive and that often have a shorter shelf life. Over the past few years, this has begun to change.
Wegmans, a large mega-store chain, has organically raised beef, chicken and eggs. Most other large chains at least carry organic free range chicken eggs. But how do you go to the next step, insuring that the meats and eggs you buy come from farms whose practices are clean and healthy?
Buy local, that's how.
Below are links for just a few sources for organic free range meats and eggs in Virginia. Also included is a link to Buy Fresh, Buy Local. If you do a little research, you can find sources for almost anything you'd like. Healthy eating.
The Home Farm Store in Middleburg, Va, carries many organic and free range products.
Ayrshire Farm has heirloom free range meat and eggs.
Hollin Farms has beef and pork in Delaplane, VA.
Eatwild is a site with info on grass-fed meats.
Buy Fresh, Buy Local has listings for most of Virginia.
Next: a simple, short book about eating well.
Friday, February 19, 2010
Food Does Not Come From A Store. Part One: Seeds
The loss of genetic seed diversity facing us today may lead to a catastrophe far beyond our imagining. 100 years ago we planted over 150 different food crop species, now we are down to about two dozen. As just one example, of the over 10,000 varieties of apples, but we only utilize about ten now.
The Irish potato famine, which led to the death or displacement of two and a half million people in the 1840s, is an example of what can happen when farmers rely on only a few plant species as crop cornerstones.
Here are some more worrying facts about the food we have available to us.
One kind of seed, called First generation hybrids (F1 hybrids), have been hand-pollinated, and are patented, often sterile, genetically identical within food types, and sold from multinational seed companies. From thousands of seed companies and public breeding institutions three decades ago, 10 companies now control more than two-thirds of global proprietary seed sales. The proprietary seed market (that is, brand-name seed subject to exclusive monopoly – i.e., intellectual property), now accounts for 82% of the commercial seed market worldwide.
A second kind of seed is the genetically engineered seed (also know as a GMO - genetically modified organism). GMO seeds are fast contaminating the global seed supply on a wholesale level, and threatening the purity of seeds everywhere. The DNA of the plant has been changed. A cold water fish gene could be spliced into a tomato to make the plant more resistant to frost, for example. And we wonder why grocery store tomatoes don't taste all that good. Also, recent research has shown that GMO corn is linked to kidney and liver disease in test animals. If you are eating ANY processed corn product (corn chips, foods with corn syrup, etc.) you are eating GMO corn.
Do you want to do something about this? Let's start with seeds. Grow your own. Here's where and how.
Bioneers is a nonprofit educational organization that works to restore the biological diversity of our world.
Beauty Beyond Belief has heirloom vegetable seeds. Beautiful wildflower seeds, too.
Appalachian Seeds has heirloom tomatoes and seeds.
Seed Savers Exchange is a good place to start if you want to "grow your own."
Seeds Of Change pretty much started the organic, heirloom seed business.
Next time: Meat, buying locally (and not at the grocery store).
The Irish potato famine, which led to the death or displacement of two and a half million people in the 1840s, is an example of what can happen when farmers rely on only a few plant species as crop cornerstones.
Here are some more worrying facts about the food we have available to us.
One kind of seed, called First generation hybrids (F1 hybrids), have been hand-pollinated, and are patented, often sterile, genetically identical within food types, and sold from multinational seed companies. From thousands of seed companies and public breeding institutions three decades ago, 10 companies now control more than two-thirds of global proprietary seed sales. The proprietary seed market (that is, brand-name seed subject to exclusive monopoly – i.e., intellectual property), now accounts for 82% of the commercial seed market worldwide.
A second kind of seed is the genetically engineered seed (also know as a GMO - genetically modified organism). GMO seeds are fast contaminating the global seed supply on a wholesale level, and threatening the purity of seeds everywhere. The DNA of the plant has been changed. A cold water fish gene could be spliced into a tomato to make the plant more resistant to frost, for example. And we wonder why grocery store tomatoes don't taste all that good. Also, recent research has shown that GMO corn is linked to kidney and liver disease in test animals. If you are eating ANY processed corn product (corn chips, foods with corn syrup, etc.) you are eating GMO corn.
Do you want to do something about this? Let's start with seeds. Grow your own. Here's where and how.
Bioneers is a nonprofit educational organization that works to restore the biological diversity of our world.
Beauty Beyond Belief has heirloom vegetable seeds. Beautiful wildflower seeds, too.
Appalachian Seeds has heirloom tomatoes and seeds.
Seed Savers Exchange is a good place to start if you want to "grow your own."
Seeds Of Change pretty much started the organic, heirloom seed business.
Next time: Meat, buying locally (and not at the grocery store).
Thursday, February 18, 2010
More Pictures of Landscapes and Food
I'm going to be writing about food for the next few entries and I thought I'd start with something uplifting.
World-Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms, is part of a global effort to link volunteers with organic farmers, promote an educational exchange, and build a community conscious of ecological farming practices.
Portland, Oregon photographer, Jake Stangel, wanted to leave his urban home, ditch his tech and do something real. So he contacted WWOOF (as it's more commonly known) and the organization connected him with a couple who operate an organic farm in Central Florida, where he spent two weeks learning how to work with his hands. "I got to work with a handful of other people — to use my hands and power tools — on this beautiful farm in the middle of nowhere."
Although he left his computer at home, he did bring his camera and the link below shows you some of the results.
Jake Stangel's Florida Farming
World-Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms, is part of a global effort to link volunteers with organic farmers, promote an educational exchange, and build a community conscious of ecological farming practices.
Portland, Oregon photographer, Jake Stangel, wanted to leave his urban home, ditch his tech and do something real. So he contacted WWOOF (as it's more commonly known) and the organization connected him with a couple who operate an organic farm in Central Florida, where he spent two weeks learning how to work with his hands. "I got to work with a handful of other people — to use my hands and power tools — on this beautiful farm in the middle of nowhere."
Although he left his computer at home, he did bring his camera and the link below shows you some of the results.
Jake Stangel's Florida Farming
Monday, February 15, 2010
New Augmented Reality Mapping from Microsoft
In this February 13th, 2010 TED talk, Blaise Aguera y Arcas demonstrates new augmented-reality mapping from Microsoft. This technology integrates Photosynth, shown in the previous blog entry, into the mapping technology already available on Bing Maps and the walk around that you'll see of the Udvar Hazy Air and Space Center at Dulles Airport, by clicking on the link in this sentence, is pretty impressive. I was certainly impressed. Once you get to the map click on the "picture frame" to the left of the screen next the weather conditions in Chantilly.
Then watch the video below.
Then watch the video below.
Microsoft Photosynth
I like maps. Street, treasure, geologic, topographic, pictorial; doesn't matter - if it's a map, I like it. But the world of maps and map making, is being turned upside down.
Internet mapping sites are revolutionizing the way we get from one place to another and will probably soon put hard copy, paper map publishers out of business, for good reason. Paper maps can't be updated just before (or during) your trip. You can't look at a map and see where construction is taking place. You can't zoom down into a map, get down on street level and look around you. These are just a few of the options that are available with web based mapping sites.
Some of the most exciting work in this area is coming out of Microsoft and over the next couple of days I'm going to be looking at it here. There are several components to their work and I'm going to start with Photosynth, which lets users upload a series of photos of a particular location and then link them together into an immersive multi-panoramic exploration of that location. This information is now in the process of being embedded in Microsoft's Bing Maps site. Let's start with the two presentations below. After the window loads, roll your mouse over the photo in the window, then click. Next entry: Bing Maps.
Microsoft Photosynth presentations
Urqhart Castle, Loch Ness
Kamchatka Mountains - Vachkazhets
Internet mapping sites are revolutionizing the way we get from one place to another and will probably soon put hard copy, paper map publishers out of business, for good reason. Paper maps can't be updated just before (or during) your trip. You can't look at a map and see where construction is taking place. You can't zoom down into a map, get down on street level and look around you. These are just a few of the options that are available with web based mapping sites.
Some of the most exciting work in this area is coming out of Microsoft and over the next couple of days I'm going to be looking at it here. There are several components to their work and I'm going to start with Photosynth, which lets users upload a series of photos of a particular location and then link them together into an immersive multi-panoramic exploration of that location. This information is now in the process of being embedded in Microsoft's Bing Maps site. Let's start with the two presentations below. After the window loads, roll your mouse over the photo in the window, then click. Next entry: Bing Maps.
Microsoft Photosynth presentations
Urqhart Castle, Loch Ness
Kamchatka Mountains - Vachkazhets
Sunday, February 14, 2010
TeleKast Open Source Teleprompter Software
In a former life I directed and produced television commercials. I quit and then edited news for a while as I tried to figure out how to get the media monkey off my back. Now I teach guitar for a living and while I’m much happier, I still have the urge to produce consumable media once in a while. I also have a great fondness for open source software.
One of the things that helps me scratch both itches is a program called TeleKast. It’s an open-source teleprompter software. For those of you not familiar with teleprompters, they’re devices used to make TV hosts, newscasters and politicians seem as though they’re looking right at you as they speak, when in reality they’re reading from scripts rolling up on screens, right underneath the camera’s lens.
TeleKast lets me do the same job at a fraction (as in 0%) of the cost of a professional teleprompter package. TeleKast provides a Script Editor window to type in my script. Another window called Segments allows me to organize my script into scenes. While I’m working on a script, I can see it in the upper-right hand Segment Preview window. I can also add cues for camera, audio, video, talent and one for other.
When I’m ready to roll, there’s a pop-up window that scrolls up my text to read while I record my on-camera or voice-over work. I can adjust the text size and scroll speed and the text background and cue colors. I can start and stop scrolling with the space bar. It’s simple, flexible, powerful.
It pretty much keeps me from sounding stupid when I have to do a read of some sort. While reading my lines on my monitor, I can look directly at my webcam and appear to not in fact be reading my lines, just as the transparent screen of a teleprompter allows speakers to look at an audience and appear as though they're not in fact reading from notes -- even though they are. It's very useful for webcasts. It looks like the software has been in an alpha state for a while, but I’ve been using it for more than a year and like it very much. Works with Windows 95/98/NT/2000/XP/Vista and Linux.
Here's a video of my review. I'm using TeleKast for the read.
One of the things that helps me scratch both itches is a program called TeleKast. It’s an open-source teleprompter software. For those of you not familiar with teleprompters, they’re devices used to make TV hosts, newscasters and politicians seem as though they’re looking right at you as they speak, when in reality they’re reading from scripts rolling up on screens, right underneath the camera’s lens.
TeleKast lets me do the same job at a fraction (as in 0%) of the cost of a professional teleprompter package. TeleKast provides a Script Editor window to type in my script. Another window called Segments allows me to organize my script into scenes. While I’m working on a script, I can see it in the upper-right hand Segment Preview window. I can also add cues for camera, audio, video, talent and one for other.
When I’m ready to roll, there’s a pop-up window that scrolls up my text to read while I record my on-camera or voice-over work. I can adjust the text size and scroll speed and the text background and cue colors. I can start and stop scrolling with the space bar. It’s simple, flexible, powerful.
It pretty much keeps me from sounding stupid when I have to do a read of some sort. While reading my lines on my monitor, I can look directly at my webcam and appear to not in fact be reading my lines, just as the transparent screen of a teleprompter allows speakers to look at an audience and appear as though they're not in fact reading from notes -- even though they are. It's very useful for webcasts. It looks like the software has been in an alpha state for a while, but I’ve been using it for more than a year and like it very much. Works with Windows 95/98/NT/2000/XP/Vista and Linux.
Here's a video of my review. I'm using TeleKast for the read.
Available from SourceForge
Friday, February 12, 2010
Ground Control to Space Ship One
Well those days have changed and it's probably about time that my thinking changed with them. Although I was initially very disappointed, President Obama's new budget for NASA is apparently designed to encourage the private sector to take over the heavy lifting, while NASA continues working on more far reaching projects. Esther Dyson, one of the people whose work and thinking I most admire, has authored an article in next month's Foreign Policy magazine that agrees with this approach.
Tell me what you think.
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/02/08/prepare_for_liftoff
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Management is Dead
So many people enjoy bashing the Grateful Dead and their followers that they ignore any of the good that they have done. They have offered their support to organizations such as Seva, (a nonprofit that brings eye operations to impoverished people), Riverkeeper, the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Wharf Rats (a group that help fans become and stay sober), among others. The Dead have taken their social and community responsibilities very seriously.
Few also realize that for quite a while there has been serious academic study of the Dead, their business organization and their fans.
The March issue of the Atlantic offers an excellent article on the Grateful Dead Archive scheduled to open soon at UC Santa Cruz. One of the most interesting aspects, to me, will be the insights offered into the Dead's business philosophy. As the article states, the Dead were visionary" in the way that they created customer value, promoted social networking and did strategic business planning."
The Dead incorporated in the mid-70's, established a board of directors, founded a profitable merchandising wing (named Grateful Dead Merchandising, oddly enough) and even though they allowed taping at their concerts and encouraged tape trading, they did not hesitate to prosecute copyright violators. They weren't greedy and adapted well. Who can say that about many companies today? Wall Street could certainly take a lesson.
Not bad for a bunch of dirty, lazy hippies.
Few also realize that for quite a while there has been serious academic study of the Dead, their business organization and their fans.
The March issue of the Atlantic offers an excellent article on the Grateful Dead Archive scheduled to open soon at UC Santa Cruz. One of the most interesting aspects, to me, will be the insights offered into the Dead's business philosophy. As the article states, the Dead were visionary" in the way that they created customer value, promoted social networking and did strategic business planning."
The Dead incorporated in the mid-70's, established a board of directors, founded a profitable merchandising wing (named Grateful Dead Merchandising, oddly enough) and even though they allowed taping at their concerts and encouraged tape trading, they did not hesitate to prosecute copyright violators. They weren't greedy and adapted well. Who can say that about many companies today? Wall Street could certainly take a lesson.
Not bad for a bunch of dirty, lazy hippies.
Monday, February 8, 2010
What Did You Just Say?!?
And to round out my entries on language, I thought I'd just add one more useful link. There are many online translation sites on the web, but after you know what to say, just how do you say it?
Forvo is a site with over half a million words, almost as many pronunciations and 231 languages represented. The recordings are all pronounced by native speakers.
Want to know how to correctly greet visitors in Telugu? Toast someone from Wallonia in Walloon. Curse in Klingon? It's all here and so much more. Qapla'. *walks away*
http://www.forvo.com/
Forvo is a site with over half a million words, almost as many pronunciations and 231 languages represented. The recordings are all pronounced by native speakers.
Want to know how to correctly greet visitors in Telugu? Toast someone from Wallonia in Walloon. Curse in Klingon? It's all here and so much more. Qapla'. *walks away*
http://www.forvo.com/
Sunday, February 7, 2010
Your Brain On Language(s)
And while I'm thinking about language, did you know that speaking more than one language can make you smarter and more creative? I wish I'd known that back in high school. I probably would have learned more than a smattering of words in different languages.
Here's a link to a study that shows that mastering a second language makes your brain processes information in both languages. Oh and the study also shows that you are more flexible and adaptive in your thinking process.
http://www.psychologicalscience.org/media/releases/2009/vanassche.cfm
Here's a link to a study that shows that mastering a second language makes your brain processes information in both languages. Oh and the study also shows that you are more flexible and adaptive in your thinking process.
http://www.psychologicalscience.org/media/releases/2009/vanassche.cfm
Saturday, February 6, 2010
65,000 Year Old Language Silenced
The last member of the Bo tribe, Boa Sr, died last week making another ancient people extinct. When a people go, their language and culture go with them. With rapid globalization many would ask, "So what?" Estimates of future language loss range from half of more than 6000 currently spoken languages being lost in the next 200 years, to 90% by the year 2050. No matter how you count it, that's a lot of ideas and culture gone forever.
As author and anthropologist Wade Davis puts it, language extinction effectively reduces the "entire range of the human imagination... to a more narrow modality of thought" and thus privileges the ways of knowing in dominant (and overwhelmingly Western) languages such as English. Foucauldian ideas of power and knowledge, as both inseparable and symbiotic, are implicated in the universalizing of Western knowledge as truth, and the rendering of other forms as less valid or false: mere superstition, folklore, or mythology. In the case of language extinction, those "voices which are deemed to be inferior or secondary by colonizing, globalizing, or developing forces are literally silenced."
Davis also says, "Genocide, the physical extinction of a people is universally condemned, but ethnicide, the destruction of a people’s way of life is not only not condemned, it’s universally, in many quarters, celebrated as part of a development strategy."
Every time we lose a language we, as a world, are further impoverished. Below is a video of Boa Sr singing and speaking in the Bo language. Listen and weep for her and for us.
As author and anthropologist Wade Davis puts it, language extinction effectively reduces the "entire range of the human imagination... to a more narrow modality of thought" and thus privileges the ways of knowing in dominant (and overwhelmingly Western) languages such as English. Foucauldian ideas of power and knowledge, as both inseparable and symbiotic, are implicated in the universalizing of Western knowledge as truth, and the rendering of other forms as less valid or false: mere superstition, folklore, or mythology. In the case of language extinction, those "voices which are deemed to be inferior or secondary by colonizing, globalizing, or developing forces are literally silenced."
Davis also says, "Genocide, the physical extinction of a people is universally condemned, but ethnicide, the destruction of a people’s way of life is not only not condemned, it’s universally, in many quarters, celebrated as part of a development strategy."
Every time we lose a language we, as a world, are further impoverished. Below is a video of Boa Sr singing and speaking in the Bo language. Listen and weep for her and for us.
Friday, February 5, 2010
The 10,000 Year Clock
In my last two posts I've referenced The Long Now Foundation. I thought it was about time that I introduced you to it. Time is what the foundation is all about. They are dedicated to elongating the attention span of the human race.
Few would argue that many of the problems we face today do not stem from short term thinking to long term problems. Long Now is trying hard to fix that.
Below is a five minute video that was done for CBS's Sunday Morning program a while back. Blow that is a link to The Long Now Foundation's website.
http://www.longnow.org/
Few would argue that many of the problems we face today do not stem from short term thinking to long term problems. Long Now is trying hard to fix that.
Below is a five minute video that was done for CBS's Sunday Morning program a while back. Blow that is a link to The Long Now Foundation's website.
http://www.longnow.org/
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
Aluna
As a member of the The Long Now Foundation and supporter of the ten thousand year clock they are building, I have long been interested in any project that gives humans a greater sense of the scale of time.
Contemporary culture encourages us to think in ever smaller scales of time; a year, a quarter, a month, day, hour, minute, second. At this rate we'll soon have no sense of the future or the past. In fact I believe many of us have lost that ability already and it is evident in the way we frame our ideas of how things are going and how they proceed. We now want instant solutions; instant economic recoveries, instant health care and an instant end to our problems.
The Aluna project is another antidote to the irrational short term thinking of our time. Larger than Stonehenge, Aluna is will be the world’s first tidal powered moon clock. It will change the way we consider time and our understanding of our planet.
Things take time. Have a look at the video.
http:///www.alunatime.org/
Contemporary culture encourages us to think in ever smaller scales of time; a year, a quarter, a month, day, hour, minute, second. At this rate we'll soon have no sense of the future or the past. In fact I believe many of us have lost that ability already and it is evident in the way we frame our ideas of how things are going and how they proceed. We now want instant solutions; instant economic recoveries, instant health care and an instant end to our problems.
The Aluna project is another antidote to the irrational short term thinking of our time. Larger than Stonehenge, Aluna is will be the world’s first tidal powered moon clock. It will change the way we consider time and our understanding of our planet.
Things take time. Have a look at the video.
http:///www.alunatime.org/
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
Things Fall Apart or Entropy 101
I often tickle my students imaginations by asking them how we'd know if there had been an advanced civilization say, 50 thousand years or so ago. Their first answer is usually, "By the stuff they leave behind." I counter with, "Probably not."
Covering 500 years in your neighborhood, this two minute animated video from The Long Now Foundation, of which I am a member, illustrates the point well.
Covering 500 years in your neighborhood, this two minute animated video from The Long Now Foundation, of which I am a member, illustrates the point well.
Monday, February 1, 2010
New Album, Old Review
I just finished up producing a new album for classical guitarist Scott Schwertfeger. Eleven tracks of beautiful solo nylon string guitar music. It should be available in about two months.
Also my review of the Arturia Moog Modular V has been picked up by BoingBoing. If you want to read it again (and some dumb and some clever comments), here's the link.
http://www.boingboing.net/2010/01/29/moog-modular-a-synth.html
Also my review of the Arturia Moog Modular V has been picked up by BoingBoing. If you want to read it again (and some dumb and some clever comments), here's the link.
http://www.boingboing.net/2010/01/29/moog-modular-a-synth.html
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