Category: Topics (All Other)

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Journal: DARPA Tests Twitter

Civil Society, Government, Methods & Process, Military, Mobile, Real Time, Technologies
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DARPA to hold Internet competition

Challenge features 10 red balloons

By Doug Beizer Nov 04, 2009

A contest planned by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) will challenge contestants to use the Internet to locate the 10 large red weather balloons the agency will place across the continental United States, DARPA officials announced last week.   DARPA will put the balloons in publicly accessible locations and display them for one day during daylight hours. The first participant to identify the latitude and longitude of all the balloons will receive the $40,000 cash prize. The balloons will be positioned Dec. 5, DARPA officials said Oct. 29.

Phi Beta Iota:  This is a no-brainer for Twitter–Graphics: Twitter as an Intelligence Tool

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Worth A Look: Harold Wilensky

Collaboration Zones, Communities of Practice, Ethics, Methods & Process
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This interview is part of the Institute's “Conversations with History” series, and uses Internet technology to share with the public Berkeley's distinction as a global forum for ideas.

In this landmark work, the culmination of thirty years of systematic, comprehensive comparison of nineteen rich democracies, Wilensky answers two basic questions: What is distinctly modern about modern societies? In what ways are they becoming alike, and how do variations in types of political economy shape system performance? The book is being hailed as “a monumental work,” “an instant classic,” “a truly amazing accomplishment.”

  1. Background … influence of parents … impact of the Depression … importance of education … impact of World War II … interest in understanding society … education
  2. Working with Labor Unions … the labor movement … first research jobs
  3. Being a Social Scientist … graduate school at Chicago … skills … temperament … defining the problem so that it can be disconfirmed
  4. Research Methods … importance of interdisciplinary study … follow the problem … importance of comparative studies … qualitative versus quantitative research
  5. Comparing Rich Democracies: Theory … defining modernity and social change … convergence theory … mass society theory
  6. Comparing Rich Democracies: Examples … political economy structures … tax revolts … mayhem index
  7. Conclusion … advice for students
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Journal: Outsourcing Honor, Losing Common Sense

03 Economy, 04 Inter-State Conflict, 05 Civil War, 10 Security, Budgets & Funding, Communities of Practice, Ethics

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Amazon Page
Amazon Page

The Best Allies Money Can Buy

By Thomas L. Friedman

November 4, 2009

In 2008, notes Stanger, roughly 80 percent of the State Department’s requested budget went out the door in the form of contracts and grants. The Army’s primary support contractor in Iraq, KBR, reportedly has some 17,000 direct-hire employees there.

The U.S. military is now proposing a huge nation-building project for Afghanistan to replace its dysfunctional government with a state that can deliver for the Afghan people so they won’t side with the Taliban. I might be more open to that project if we had a true global alliance to share the burden of an effort that will take decades. But we don’t. European publics do not favor this war, and our allies will only pony up just enough troops to get their official “Frequent U.S. Ally Card” renewed. We’ll make up the difference by hiring private contractors.

Continue reading “Journal: Outsourcing Honor, Losing Common Sense”

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Journal: True Cost of War–Insanity & Murder at Home

07 Health, 08 Proliferation, 09 Justice, 10 Security, 11 Society, Reform, True Cost

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A Groundbreaking PTSD Court Decision

Week of November 02, 2009

A groundbreaking verdict for accused veterans with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) was decided recently in Canyon City, Ore. when former Soldier Jesse Bratcher, on trial for murder, was found guilty by reason of insanity.  It appears to be the first trial in the U.S. where a veteran's post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) was successfully considered to mitigate the circumstances of a crime.  For more information on the case, visit the National Veterans Foundation website.
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Worth a Look: Visual Language & Information Mapping

Collaboration Zones, Communities of Practice, Key Players, Methods & Process, Policies, Real Time, Technologies, Threats, Tools
Source Web Site
Source Web Site

Phi Beta Iota: Our most trusted alter ego flagged this for attention, and we love it.  We have ordered the book on Visual Language and hoping the author will soon publish on Information Mapping.  This is sheer genius, not least for its human sensitivity and its grasp of the brain-eye-hand-touch loop.  We are blown away by this, it buries the visual design phenoms of the past, while clearly being relevant to Collective Intelligence and Conscious Evolution.

Amazon Page
Amazon Page
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Journal: Airplane Wings from Soy…Soon

03 Economy, 03 Environmental Degradation, 05 Energy, 12 Water, Commercial Intelligence, Communities of Practice, Earth Intelligence, Ethics, Technologies
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Not New, But Improved

Allison Arieff

Meet Stella.

At first glance, this little yellow giraffe looks like a lot of other kids’ bath toys. But Stella is made from Renuva, a little-known material that could change for the better the way hundreds of things, from upholstery to airplane wings, are made.

The story of how Stella came to be made from this material, a soy-based alternative to polyurethane (which is typically petroleum-based), provides a model for how stuff can be better designed in the future.

Phi Beta Iota: While folks focus on the Al Gore show and the important but isolated challenge of reducing our carbon footprint, the avant guarde is way down the road with sustainable design, green chemistry, zero waste, and so on.  It's all connected, we need to get truth on the table, and we need to do the right things righter.  Stella is a poster child for a new paradigm of ecological economics, natural capitalism, and conscious evolution.  Learn more about Renuva from Dow below.

Learn More
Learn More
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Journal: True Cost–Cash for Clunkers

03 Economy, 11 Society, Analysis, Budgets & Funding, Policy, True Cost

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Cash for Clunkers Actual Cost: $24,000 per Car

By Chip Hanlon | 11/02/09

Auto industry research firm, Edmunds, says the program actually cost $24,000 per car!

In summary: the administration loves to tout the 690,000 vehicles sold in July and August, but the Edmunds report says that only 125,000 (18%) of those sales were incremental, meaning the remaining 82% of sales would have happened regardless of the program.

In other words, 565,000 people were given free money for no reason at all, just as critics of this program predicted would happen.

Continue reading “Journal: True Cost–Cash for Clunkers”

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