Month: August 2010

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Google Watch: Google is the only source, “Do Not Track Me” List, WSJ “What They Know” Series

Civil Society, Commerce, Counter-Oppression/Counter-Dictatorship Practices, Government, Mobile, Power Behind-the-Scenes/Special Interests, Privacy, Technologies

The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) has a requirement to provide a secured, hosted environment that provides web-based access to geospatial visualization services and Open Geospatial Consortium complaint web service interfaces. The Schedule of Supplies/Services provides for the period of performance from 20 September 2010 through 19 September 2011 and two 12-month option years.

This acquisition is for Commercial Geospatial Visualization Services for NGA. Google is the only source that can meet the Government's requirement for worldwide access, unlimited processing, and Open Geospatial Consortium complaint web service interfaces. See Full National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency Release
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“Do Not Track Me” gains traction in Washington

by John M. Simpson (Aug 15, 2010)
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"What They Know" Series

“What They Know” Series by the Wall Street Journal

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A comment on the Google wi-fi/wi-spy issue:

“Most of my sources say that Google and Facebook have been bankrolled by the NSA and CIA vendors and they are in complete collusion with each other. I believe Americans will live to regret their participation with Facebook and Google.”  –Glen Woodfin (source)

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Related:
+ 2009 Arnold Google: The Digital Gutenberg (also: The Google Legacy, Google 2.0: The Calculating Predator)
+ Inside Google
+ Google = King of Malware
+ Journal: Google, CIA Invest in ‘Future’ of Web Monitoring
+ Street views privacy issue
+ Time For Google to Grow Up: Open Wi-Fi Privacy Mistake Must Be The Last (EFF.org)
+ Seriously? Eric Schmidt Thinks There Should Be No Anonymity Online? (Forbes – Aug 11, 2010)
+ EFF Warns of Untrustworthy SSL, Undetectable Surveillance (Aug 16, 2010)
+ Google CEO: Young web users will need to escape online posts (Aug 20, 2010)

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Review: Mapping Sustainability–Knowledge e-Networking and the Value Chain

3 Star, Environment (Problems), Environment (Solutions), Geography & Mapping, Intelligence (Public), Survival & Sustainment
Amazon Page

3.0 out of 5 stars 5 for Potential Value, ZERO for Greed Pricing

August 21, 2010

Nazli Choucri (Author, Editor), Dinsha Mistree (Editor), Farnaz Haghseta (Editor), Toufic Mezher (Editor), Wallace R. Baker (Editor), Carlos I. Ortiz (Editor)

I was about to buy this book when I noticed the price–$189. This is, once again, a situation where the authors have to think clearly when arranging for publication. News flash: you can still publish and be listed on Amazon, get the publication credit, and NOT be a prisoner to a greedy publisher out of touch with the information society. It is not enough to be published–one must be published in a manner that makes the knowledge accessible to all others, not “locked down” by publisher over-pricing.

Springer is offering it for $139, and Barnes & Noble is offering it for $103.

An online version is offered but Springer site is not at all friendly and there is no obvious price-checkout option for guests.

This book should be selling for no more than $49.00. I am adding it to my Amazon list of outrageously priced books antithetical to the needs of society.

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NIGHTWATCH Extract: Israel-Palestine

Uncategorized

Israel-Palestinian Authority: US Secretary of State Clinton said on 20 August that Israel and the Palestinians agreed to resume direct negotiations for the first time in 20 months. A senior PLO official said the Palestinians accepted the U.S. invitation to begin direct peace negotiations between Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on 2 September in Washington. He also said that the talks would be threatened if Israel fails to stop settlement building in the West Bank and east Jerusalem. Clinton said the goal is to reach a peace agreement within one year. No news service has reported a promise by Netanyahu to stop settlement construction in the West Bank and east Jerusalem.

NIGHTWATCH Comment: During President Clinton's administration, the US pursued process over substance in the conviction that repeated process would produce substance. In this policy theory, talking was considered a result. That approach failed everywhere it was tried. Apparently, Ms Clinton has brought the same view to the Obama State Department, namely, that form is substance. The talks today are not likely to ease the tension, produce a durable peace or create a philosopher's stone. One reason is that HAMAS and the Gaza Strip Palestinian groups are not parties to today's agreement.

NIGHTWATCH KGS Home

Phi Beta Iota: The Middle East is the epicenter of future world management by informed consensus.  As Howard Bloom points out in Global Brain–The Evolution of Mass Mind from the Big Bang to the 21st Century education (or lack of it) is at the heart of the matter.  Children on both sides “learn” by the age of five that the “other” is a pig or monkey. We also have centuries of colonial imposition of artificial boundaries, and colonial deceit, as well as decades of Israeli water theft and Arab corruption–the circle of dictatorships.  The Middle East is a 50 year problem that requires holistic decision support and a global commitment to fund the side by side education of all parties in the context of an imposed peace that includes a five year buy-out of each dictatorship as proposed by Ambassador Mark Palmer in his book, Breaking the Real Axix of Evil. HOWEVER, before we can help heal others we must heal ourselves and stop Shooting the Truth in America while being a Dishonest Broker abroad.

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Review: The World Is Open–How Web Technology Is Revolutionizing Education

6 Star Top 10%, Best Practices in Management, Change & Innovation, Civil Society, Complexity & Resilience, Culture, Research, Democracy, Economics, Education (General), Education (Universities), Environment (Solutions), Future, Games, Models, & Simulations, Information Operations, Information Society, Information Technology, Intelligence (Collective & Quantum), Intelligence (Commercial), Intelligence (Public), Intelligence (Wealth of Networks), Nature, Diet, Memetics, Design, Peace, Poverty, & Middle Class, Public Administration, Science & Politics of Science, Secrecy & Politics of Secrecy, Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution, Voices Lost (Indigenous, Gender, Poor, Marginalized)
Amazon Page

5.0 out of 5 stars 6 STAR Wake Up Call for All Educators

August 19, 2010

Curtis J. Bonk

UPDATE 21 Aug 2010 to add two graphics.

I've seen educators struggle to herd their faculty cats, hire staff under industrial-era rules, and strive to accommodate students that know more than their professors about anything outside the “teach to test” topic. This is one of three books that I have digested these past ten days, along with Making Learning Whole: How Seven Principles of Teaching Can Transform Education and (in galley form) Reflexive Practice: Professional Thinking for a Turbulent World. All three are 6 STAR books, and since I have only given this grade to 99 books out of the 1636, so at 6% of the total, this is saying a lot IMHO. These three books together, along with Don't Bother Me Mom–I'm Learning!, The Emerging Worldwide Electronic University: Information Age Global Higher Education (Praeger Studi) and my favorite deep books, Philosophy and the Social Problem: The Annotated Edition and Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge, comprise a basic library for anyone wishing to develop global strategies for taking any university into the future. Of course there are other great books, but in my limited experience, these are a foundation.

DO NOT READ THIS BOOK without first looking at the web site WorldIsOpen.com, and more specifically, the only part of the website that I found to be essential, the sixteen pages of links to every online resource mentioned in the book. Had I done this first, I could have cut my note-taking time in half. As it is, I have created a sixteen page alphabetized list of all the references, and include that in my more robust review of this book at Phi Beta Iota, the Public Intelligence Blog, where I can do things (such as link to my other 80+ education book reviews and include non-Amazon links) that Amazon simply will not allow.

BUY THIS BOOK. It is in my view an essential foundation for any university as well as any lower school or continuing education and training program that desires to increase its effectiveness by a thousand fold while also increasing its global reach by a million fold.

Continue reading “Review: The World Is Open–How Web Technology Is Revolutionizing Education”

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Worth a Look: Singularity Summit & Building a Brain

Worth A Look

Berto Jongman Recommends...

UPDATE of 20 August 2010.

While most of PZ Myers’ comments (in his blog post entitled “Ray Kurzweil does not understand the brain” posted on Pharyngula on August 17, 2010) do not deserve a response, I do want to set the record straight, as he completely mischaracterizes my thesis.

For starters, I said that we would be able to reverse-engineer the brain sufficiently to understand its basic principles of operation within two decades, not one decade, as Myers reports.

Phi Beta Iota: We remain skeptical but also appreciative of the endeavor proposed by Ray Kurzweil.  His rant, and the critique that inspired it, both merit reflection.  For now, we stick with Jim Bamford's take on Technology versus the Human Brain.

The Mind and How To Build One

August 12, 2010 by Ray Kurzweil

Continue reading “Worth a Look: Singularity Summit & Building a Brain”

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