Atheist Empire: God and the Brain

"Findings seem to point to a region of the brain commonly referred to as the 'God Spot' or 'God Module', that when stimulated creates hallucinations that are interpreted as mystical or spiritual experiences. This 'spot' is stimulated during meditation and prayer and is affected by electromagnetic fields and epilepsy. The resulting hallucinations may be the cause of mystical, spiritual and paranormal experiences as they can give feelings such as a presence in the room or an out of body experience. In the case of epileptics, this may be the reason for many of them becoming obsessed with religion. For those who experience the stimulation it is explained related to their own personal beliefs; a visit from an angel or lost loved one, an extraterrestrial encounter, a higher plane of consciousness or a visit from God."

Surrealist Women

"'Knock hard. Life is deaf.' — Mimi Parent"

Fighting a Bad Online Reputation & Keeping a Good One | WebProNews

"In this age of fast-moving information and technologies, it is extremely important for businesses to protect online reputations. Currently, that means getting involved with social media and real-time search."

That was the week that was...Week ending March 27, 2009 - RecruitingBlogs.com

"The week in repose...

Morning mumbling: Vandals and graffiti artists among the poets and philosophers - is nothing sacred?

PM musing: People come and go but at least there's still something to wrap your fish and chips in!"

Hunchback of Notre Dame, The - Trailer (1939)

Sanctuary!

LAWS OF WISDOM: holistic synthesis of science and religion

"Laws of Wisdom applies the thinking skills and tools of a lawyer to understand key laws from religion, psychology, and science. The author, an experienced lawyer and researcher in these areas, applies the insights of legal analysis and clear thinking. He presents his case on these laws, and how you can use them to find inner peace, joy and wisdom, to awaken full potential, expand consciousness, and unite with the Universe. The multicultural Laws of Wisdom are tied together concisely, with originality and creativity, and, considering he's a lawyer, with a minimum of technicalities.

To better understand the law, personal cases are presented of some of the key scientists, philosophers and spiritual leaders of the Twentieth Century who have been involved with them, including Carl Jung, Sigmund Freud, Richard Wilhelm, Jean Houston, Charles Tart, Arnold Keyserling, Black Elk, Benoit Mandelbrot, and others. These laws are not presented as ends in themselves, or as something new to believe in, but as tools. The reader is encouraged to apply this knowledge to think for themself, to find their own answers to life's ultimate questions. In this way you can fashion your own path to Enlightenment, and not simply follow others."

Social Media and Authenticity | Mutual Attraction | Fast Company

"I was listening to a radio segment on the subject of Twitter and one of the guests on the show mentioned receiving a Tweet from John Edwards at the exact second he was standing at a podium delivering a speech. Needless to say, that created quite a stir in the Twitterverse. The former presidential candidate now includes a disclaimer indicating when a post was created or submitted by a member of his staff.

Lucky or unlucky for me, I don’t have a staff. I will, on occasion, ask my good friend John to proof some of my blog posts but that’s mainly for two purposes: 1) I hate (hate) editing; and 2) I want to make sure my content adds value. Other than that, everything I share on the social media circuit is authentic or, as defined on dictionary.com--not false or copied; genuine; real; unfiltered."

History of the Internet

Redemption and Utopia | Elective affinity | The Spunk Library

The following is an essay based upon Redemption and Utopia of Michael Lowy published originally under the title Redemption et Utopie in 1988 by Presses Universitaires de France...

Lowy and elective affinity

Lowy's book deals with the interaction of two trends of thought in the work of the writers with whom he is concerned: 19th century libertarian Romantic anarchism and the Jewish messianic tradition. The concept he chooses in order to illumine the nature of this interaction is that of "elective affinity," the attraction and merging of distinct forces or phenomena. Lowy traces this idea back to Hippocrates, describes its relevance to medieval alchemy,its importance in the work of writers such as Swedenborg, and ascribes its first modern explicit formulation to Swedish chemist Tarbem Olof Bergman (1775). In Lowy's exposition there are four phases involved in the elective affinity relationship between two forces or objects:

1) a passive or potential correspondence;
2) election - the beginning of the interaction;
3) coming together,partial or total fusion (or symbiotic relationship);
4) the emergence of a new form that is greater than the sum of the parts.

Lowy relates that sociologist Max Weber consciously used the concept of elective affinity, but that he neglected the fourth and vital aspect, the emergence of a new form.

Loser Generated Content: From Participation to Exploitation - Petersen

"Abstract
In this article [1] some of the critical aspects of Web 2.0 are mapped in relation to labor and the production of user generated content. For many years the Internet was considered an apt technology for subversion of capitalism by the Italian post–Marxists. What we have witnessed, however, is that the Internet functions as a double–edged sword; the infrastructure does foster democracy, participation, joy, creativity and sometimes creates zones of piracy. But, at the same time, it has become evident how this same infrastructure also enables companies easily to piggyback on user generated content. Different historical and contemporary examples are provided to map how the architecture of participation sometimes turns into an architecture of exploitation."

Mike Rowe Talks TED:

Hat tip: Neural Dump

Leveraging Cognitive Bias in Social Design

Leveraging Cognitive Bias in Social Design

View more presentations from Joshua Porter.

The Ethics of Selling - David Silverman - HarvardBusiness.org

"What do you think? Have you seen a someone duped by a well-spoken huckster? Is it right for a vegetarian waiter to push the steak special? Or is it more about getting the customer what they want, regardless of the passions of the sales person?"

FRACTAL CHAOS: the Philosophy of Freedom and Self Determination

"New discoveries in the science and mathematics of Chaos research are revolutionizing our world view. They reveal a hidden fractal order underlying all seemingly chaotic events. The fractals are intricate and beautiful. They repeat basic patterns, but with an infinity of variations and forms. The world-view emerging from this scientific research is new, and yet at the same time ancient. With a little thought, and the help of this web, you can better understand the significance of Chaos and Fractals. You can see how to use these insights in your life to create a bridge between Science and Spirituality.

It is possible to apply this new knowledge to better understand your life, to live autonomously, based on freedom, and your own contact with the Source of the Universe, the Infinite. The revolutionary new Fractal mind-set discovered by scientists and mathematicians can help you to see the beauty and meaning that borders all chaos. These fractals are in space, as shown by the graphics on these webs, and in time, as shown in all life, including your own. We are born and die, we wake up and fall asleep, the sun rises and sets, we breathe in and out. There are basic patterns and structure to time and space that provide a unifying coherence. As the mystic sages of long ago put it, 'as above, so below.'

This web will explain some of the science and math of Chaos. It will also suggest how you can apply this new knowledge to fashion your own philosophy of life. A philosophy that will help you to cope with and understand disorder, to realize the underlying fractal structure behind the near infinite, and often baffling variety of life experiences."

How Much Time Do You Waste Searching for Information? | Profy | Internet news and commentary

"I have just completed quite a lengthy presentation for a local event next week and have realized that even though the vast majority of the text I wrote for it was taken from the top of my head because my head already accumulates more information on the subject any single presentation could accommodate, I still spent the last 2 days mostly researching things like figures and images.

For example, I had to demonstrate some of my words with graphs and illustrations and the overall knowledge of the subject matter simply could not help here. And while I knew more or less well where I could find this or that particular piece of information (as I tend to remember the surveys I read even though I may not bookmark the link) and despite of the fact that I believe I know how to handle a web search right, I have just realized that I spent most of the time hunting for images and figures instead of doing actual writing."

DNA cages guide nanoparticle self-assembly - New Scientist

"TRAPPING nanoparticles in cages made of DNA could finally allow them to self-assemble into transistors, metamaterials and even tiny robots. The technique should prevent the nanoparticles clumping together at random, one of the biggest problems with nanoscale self-assembly.

One idea for making nanoscale building kits is to coat gold nanoparticles with short sequences of single-stranded DNA. The idea is to design the DNA strands in such a way that they will bond with other strands and join the nanoparticles together in a 3D structure. But the technique has never worked well because the random position of the DNA strands on the nanoparticles makes them tend to stick together in clumps."

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi: Creativity, fulfillment and flow

Hat tip: rorschach

More stuff on video...

Is It Worth It? An ROI Calculator for Social Network Campaigns - - frogloop

"You can use this tool to calculate an estimate of cost and return on investment for the recruitment and fundraising efforts of your staff in social networking sites like Facebook or MySpace. It works sort of like an online mortgage calculator. Just enter the starting assumptions in the yellow boxes below and the tool calculates results automatically."

Newspapers and Thinking the Unthinkable « Clay Shirky

"The problem newspapers face isn’t that they didn’t see the internet coming. They not only saw it miles off, they figured out early on that they needed a plan to deal with it, and during the early 90s they came up with not just one plan but several. One was to partner with companies like America Online, a fast-growing subscription service that was less chaotic than the open internet. Another plan was to educate the public about the behaviors required of them by copyright law. Alternatively, they could pursue the profit margins enjoyed by radio and TV, if they became purely ad-supported. New payment models such as micropayments were proposed. Still another plan was to convince tech firms to make their hardware and software less capable of sharing, or to partner with the businesses running data networks to achieve the same goal. Then there was the nuclear option: sue copyright infringers directly, making an example of them."

Salesmanship Without the Sucker Punch | High Probability Selling.

"NEW YORK — Michael Stock, a salesman at Jennifer Leather Furniture in Manhattan, is trying to convince us that an armchair is worth every penny of the $1,799 on its price tag. He caresses the soft hide, describes the exotic oils massaged into its grain and suggests that I recline on its plump cushions. Fiddling nervously with his gold tie, he ramps up his sales pitch every time I prepare to move on.

He has no idea what he is up against."

Lying: The Ultimate Manipulation Tactic > By Dr George Simon, PhD

I’ve been posting a series of articles on certain relatively automatic behaviors that disturbed characters commonly engage in to manipulate others and resist accountability. Some of the tactics I’ve posted on include rationalization, minimization, and blaming or scapegoating:

• “Understanding Rationalization: Making Excuses as an Effective Manipulation Tactic”
• “Minimization: Trivializing Behavior as a Manipulation Tactic”
• “Playing the Blame Game as a Manipulation Tactic”

By far, however, the most effective manipulation and responsibility-avoidance behavior is lying.

Disordered characters not only lie frequently, but they sometimes lie even when there appears no obvious or useful purpose for the lying. They are also expert at lying in a wide variety of ways, some of which are quite subtle.

Twine: Social Bookmarking Meets the Semantic Web - Rev2.org

"Twine calls itself a social bookmarking, research, and discovery tool — although there are many other obvious applications. The idea behind the service is that users create a ‘Twine’ based on a particular subject/topic/category/hierarchy, and add things such as bookmarks, documents, notes, products, photos, and videos to it using the web interface, e-mail, or the bookmarklet."

Charlie Rose interviews Reid Hoffman on PBS

The 5 best online bookmarking services - Pandia.com

"You probably browse the web from home, at work and possibly on your smartphone. If you do, storing bookmarks in the browser can be annoying and counterproductive. You need an online bookmarking tool to have easy access to all your favorite web sites regardless of which device you use to get online. Here are Pandia’s top 5 social bookmarking services."

Harnessing creativity to power up the economy | INSEAD

"Creativity is underrated – at least that is what Fredrik Härén, author of The Idea Book believes.

“We want to be thought of as being creative people, but, by and large, companies are not fostering creativity, but practically killing it … through bureaucracy, through process-driven organisations,” Härén told INSEAD MBAs at the school’s Asia campus in Singapore.

The irony, however, is that almost all companies have innovation and creativity in their mission statements or their slogans, he says. But these are all just a marketing exercise, or the mission statement doesn’t trickle down to the rest of the organisation.

But why the emphasis on creativity? According to Härén, harnessing creative energy can generate new ideas, which can, in turn, lead to greater economic and social progress."

Lessing on "corruption"

Tutorial Tuesday: The Unknown Cybersleuth - RecruitingBlogs.com

"I imagine in years to come when the names of those "sourcing luminaries" have been long forgotten there will still be those recruiters who would like to know how to find leads and resumes online. Poor souls, who will teach them?

Seth's Blog: The panhandler's secret

"When there were old-school parking meters in New York, quarters were precious.

One day, I'm walking down the street and a guy comes up to me and says, 'Do you have a dollar for four quarters?' He held out his hand with four quarters in it.

Curious, I engaged with him. I took out a dollar bill and took the four quarters...Read on"

Change without migraines open source

"This free e-book will give you a thorough overview of my approach to leading change. I've been developing and using these ideas ever since I wrote Beyond the Wall of Resistance in 1996. If you'd like to know more about me you can click here."

The Sirens of Search | Amitai Givertz's Recruitomatic Blog

"I have been on a quest to find a search engine that will know what I’m looking for without me ever having to input a search term, let alone search strings, symbols or syntax. No, not natural language but something even less tiresome…brain waves perhaps."

Mobile Recruiting: Unleash the 3rd Screen (Ready?)

That was the week that was...Week ending March 6, 2009 - RecruitingBlogs.com

"John Sumser takes the dubious honor of having RBC's most commented on forum discussion. All I can say is...No comment!"