Public Intelligence Blog – Page 2030 – The truth at any cost lowers all other costs — curated by former US spy Robert David Steele.

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Yes, I’m Writing a Book (on Digital Humanitarians)

I recently signed a book deal with Taylor & Francis Press. The book, which is tentatively titled “Digital Humanitarians: How Big Data is Changing the Face of Disaster Response,” is slated to be published next year. The book will chart the rise of digital humanitarian response from the Haiti Earthquake to 2015, highlighting critical lessons learned and best practices. To this end, the book will draw on real-world examples of digital humanitarians in action to explain how they use new technologies and crowdsourcing to make sense of “Big (Crisis) Data”. In sum, the book will describe how digital humanitarians & humanitarian technologies are together reshaping the humanitarian space and what this means for the future of disaster response. The purpose of this book is to inspire and inform the next generation of (digital) humanitarians while serving as a guide for established humanitarian organizations & emergency management professionals who wish to take advantage of this transformation in humanitarian response.

Continue reading “Patrick Meier: Book Forthcoming on Digital Humanitarians”

2014/01/13

Stephen E. Arnold: Branded Content (Info-mercials) at the New York Times

Commerce, Corruption, Media

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Branded Content at the New York Times

I did not think I would see the day. Bloomberg Businessweek informs us that the “New York Times Grudgingly Embraces Branded Content.” Though other news outfits have adopted the controversial money-making trend, it somehow seemed like the Times would prefer to shutter its doors before blurring the line between articles and ads. I guess not.

Reporter Felix Gillette describes the sneaky marketing trend:

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2014/01/132014/01/13

David Swanson: Building a Global Movement to End All War

Cultural Intelligence, Peace Intelligence

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Building a Global Movement to End All War

I've been involved in starting enough activist campaigns and coalitions to know when one has more potential than any other I've seen. When hundreds of people and organizations are signing up on the website before you've announced it anywhere, and nine months before you plan to officially launch, and when a large percentage of the people signing on ask how they can donate funding, and when people from other countries volunteer to translate your declaration into other languages, and when committees form of volunteer women and men to work on a dozen different aspects of the planning — and they actually get to work in a serious way, and when none of this is due to anything in the news or any statement from anyone in government or any contrast between one political party and another, then it's time to start thinking about what you're going to help build as a movement.

In this case I'm talking about a movement to end, not this war or that war, but the institution of war as an acceptable enterprise for the human species. The declaration of peace that people and groups are signing reads, in its entirety:

“I understand that wars and militarism make us less safe rather than protect us, that they kill, injure and traumatize adults, children and infants, severely damage the natural environment, erode civil liberties, and drain our economies, siphoning resources from life-affirming activities. I commit to engage in and support nonviolent efforts to end all war and preparations for war and to create a sustainable and just peace.”

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2014/01/13

SchwartzReport: Truths … Supreme Court to Rule Lies are Legal?

Cultural Intelligence

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This is a perceptive essay that challenges orthodoxy, redefining who are the real villians. Another example of the point the essay makes is the comparison between Edward Snowden and the Bush Cheney necons. The one, who has killed no one, nor caused any deaths is considered a traitor, and the others whose actions led to the killing of hundreds of thousands are… what?

The Al Qaeda Switchboard
LAWRENCE WRIGHT – The New Yorker

Here is the clearest example I have yet seen at the Theocratic Right's complete disdain for facts. Now the Supreme Court is going to decide whether deliberate lying is legal in public political statements about others. The decision ought to be obvious but, given the nature of the Roberts Court the outcome is not clear.

Supreme Court to Rule on Anti-choice Group’s Right to Lie In Ads
DAVID FERGUSON, Editor – The Raw Story

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2014/01/122014/01/12

Yoda: Human-Centric Computing — One Example

IO Impotency

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Dumb, computers are.

A Busy Doctor’s Right Hand, Ever Ready to Type

Amid the controlled chaos that defines an average afternoon in an urban emergency department, Dr. Marian Bednar, an emergency room physician in Dallas, entered the exam room of an older woman who had fallen while walking her dog. Like any doctor, she asked questions, conducted an exam and gave a diagnosis — in this case, a fractured hand — while also doing something many physicians in today’s computerized world are no longer free to do: She gave the patient her full attention.

Standing a few feet away, tapping quickly and quietly at a laptop computer cradled in the crook of her left arm, was Amanda Nieto, 27, Dr. Bednar’s scribe and constant shadow. While Ms. Nieto updated the patient’s electronic chart, Dr. Bednar spoke to the woman, losing eye contact only to focus on the injured hand.

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2014/01/122014/01/12

Anthony Judge: Flowering of Civilization — Deflowering of Culture Flow as a necessarily complex experiential dynamic

Cultural Intelligence

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Flowering of Civilization — Deflowering of Culture

Flow as a necessarily complex experiential dynamic

Introduction
Flowering and deflowering
Cutting flowers as a questionable strategic metaphor
Seeds of change and regeneration
Virtualization of nature and disconnection from roots
Healthy engagement with decay and corruption
Recognizing viable pathways of diminishing competence
Dynamic of inspiration and expiration
Flow: plant regeneration through flowers
Navigating the seasons of the adaptive cycle: natural alchemy?
Dynamics of confidence: a “conbustion engine”?
Arranging the flowers to engender an ecosystem?
Conclusion
References

2014/01/122014/01/12

Berto Jongman: Bits, Bytes, & Stuff 1.3

Cultural Intelligence, Earth Intelligence, Peace Intelligence

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AL-QAIDA: Fallujah – a Backlash?

CULTURE: French “Quenelle” the Jews

CULTURE: Lone Survivor and the Lack of Truth

Simply put, we have become an incredibly lazy society. We want to be spoon-fed historical facts in a movie or 30-second news clip. There is little, if any, time spent doing independent research. If a website posts absurd article about Obama taking away our guns half a dozen of my friends share it on their Facebook feed without checking into it at all. Our ignorance is a cancer and it is spreading.

CYBER: Anonymous Caucasus, Electronic Army of the Caucasus Emirate

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