Ami G's Blogspot

Where have all the flowers gone?

2011-09-11T19:09:00.000-04:00

Yep, this site has been mothballed but while you're here, the feed which lives on in real-time is worth bookmarking the site for. At least I think so. There are some interesting pickings in the archives too.

I am now posting my miscellaneous musings on my Blogversity Blog. Perhaps I'll see you there.

In the meantime, for your enjoyment...

Thank you for visiting. Have a nice day.

Scientists warn of Twitter dangers | CNN Technology

2011-02-19T21:47:00.000-05:00

New findings show that the streams of information provided by social networking sites are too fast for the brain's "moral compass" to process and could harm young people's emotional development. Before the brain can fully digest the anguish and suffering of a story, it is being bombarded by the next news bulletin or the latest Twitter update, according to a University of Southern California study.

In the Future, Robots Will Surf Their Own Internet | Ariel Schwartz: Fast Company

2011-02-11T12:07:00.000-05:00

If robots are to become our overlords, they will need their own Internet to communicate with each other. RoboEarth, a just-launched robot information sharing network, gets them that much closer to world domination.

The EU-funded RoboEarth project is bringing together European scientists to build a network and database repository for robots to share information about the world. They will, if all goes as planned, use the network to store and retrieve information about objects, locations (including maps), and instructions about completing activities. Robots will be both the contributors and the editors of the repository.

Computerized Gods - J. Weizenbaum Ph.D. | Rational Vedanta

2011-01-02T22:52:00.000-05:00

As many have observed, modern science has become a religion, at least for Western man. Like other religions, it has a priesthood, roughly organized on hierarchical lines. It has temples, shrines, and rituals and it has a body of canons. And. like other religions, it has its own mythology. One myth in particular states that if, say, by experiment a scientific theory is confronted in reality with a single contradiction, one piece of discontinuing evidence, then that theory is automatically set aside and a new theory that takes the contradiction into account is adopted. This is not the way science actually works.

In fact, some people have the same type of very deep faith in modern science that others do in their respective religions. This faith in science, grounded in its own dogma, leads to a defense of scientific theories far beyond the time any disconfirming evidence is unearthed. Moreover, disconfirming evidence is generally not incorporated into the body of science in an open-minded way but by an elaboration of the already existing edifice (as, for example, by adding epicycles) and generally in a way in which the resulting structure of science and its procedures excludes the possibility of putting the enterprise itself in jeopardy. In other words, modem science has made itself immune to falsification in any terms the true believer will admit into argument.

Perhaps modern science's most devastating effect is that it leads its believers to think it to be the only legitimate source of knowledge about the world. Being a high priest, if not a bishop, in the cathedral of modern science— my university, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology —I can testify that a great many of what we sometimes like to call "the MIT family," faculty and students, believe that there is indeed no legitimate source of knowledge about the world other than modern science. This is as mistaken a belief as the belief that one cannot gain legitimate knowledge from anything other than religion. Both are equally false.

Printing Social Currency; Influence vs. Intentions - Dan Robles - The Relationship Economy

2011-01-01T11:50:00.001-05:00

The reason why people must trade dollars is that there is no other alternative, and the computer algorithms that control the value of the currency have yet to tell us otherwise. That’s it, really. The questions remain, how, why, and when will people stop working for it and what will they work for which can replace it?

This will not be as simple as living in yurts, trading cheese cultures and tweeting about it. Complex infrastructure like a judicial system, transportation, medical care, clean water, energy and food production rely on a financial system that can capitalize and securitize whatever the replacement currency may be.

Influence vs. intention

The latest twist in the new currency movement is the idea that on-line influence can be used to support a currency. There is no shortage of noble leaders aspiring to “define the standard” in their own image as a service to the lesser masses who seek their respective place in the great new economic void. PeerIndex and Klout are the two main players that promote a social score based on influence, obstensibly to mimic the credit score upon which all currency depends.

THE CREATIVE PROCESS IN THE INDIVIDUAL BY T. TROWARD

2010-12-31T23:20:00.000-05:00

All-creating Spirit from which the Soul of Nature flows, then through the medium of the individual's sub-conscious mind such specialized effects can be produced in his body as to transcend our past experiences without in any way violating the order of the universe. The Old Law was the manifestation of the Principle of Life working under constricted conditions: the New Law is the manifestation of the same Principle working under expanding conditions. Thus it is that though God never changes we are said to "increase with the increase of God."

Sade - Soldier Of Love

2010-12-31T14:18:00.002-05:00

2010 Ethics & Workplace Survey \ Deloitte

2010-12-31T14:15:00.000-05:00

During challenging economic times, the relationship between employees and employers is often tested. Frequently, executives are forced to make decisions that broadly affect their workforces and alter what matters in the workplace. Today’s business environment is no exception; it appears that the recession has diminished two important forms of business currency: trust and ethics.

Trotsky with Hitchens and Service - Hoover Institution

2010-12-27T15:12:00.000-05:00

Facebook Marketing: How To Balance Personal and Professional - Mari Smith

2010-12-27T14:45:00.001-05:00

I see my Facebook personal Profile as a place to nurture key relationships with specific friends + reach a wider audience of acquaintances + keep up to date with close personal friends and family members. I stay just under the 5,000 max friends and I publish a mix of personal and professional content.

I tend to leave my privacy settings fairly wide open with just about everything viewable by everyone. That way, I don’t have to think/worry about who’s seeing what. However, for most people, I highly recommend you adjust your own Privacy Settings using Friend Lists to select who sees what.

Wikileaks and the Long Haul - Clay Shirky

2010-12-22T12:17:00.003-05:00

Like a lot of people, I am conflicted about Wikileaks.

Citizens of a functioning democracy must be able to know what the state is saying and doing in our name, to engage in what Pierre Rosanvallon calls “counter-democracy”*, the democracy of citizens distrusting rather than legitimizing the actions of the state. Wikileaks plainly improves those abilities.

On the other hand, human systems can’t stand pure transparency. For negotiation to work, people’s stated positions have to change, but change is seen, almost universally, as weakness. People trying to come to consensus must be able to privately voice opinions they would publicly abjure, and may later abandon. Wikileaks plainly damages those abilities. (If Aaron Bady’s analysis is correct, it is the damage and not the oversight that Wikileaks is designed to create.*)

And so we have a tension between two requirements for democratic statecraft, one that can’t be resolved, but can be brought to an acceptable equilibrium. Indeed, like the virtues of equality vs. liberty, or popular will vs. fundamental rights, it has to be brought into such an equilibrium for democratic statecraft not to be wrecked either by too much secrecy or too much transparency.

Kenya's ambitions for an outsourced future | BBC News

2010-12-20T11:27:00.000-05:00

Stare out of the office windows at Park Towers and - if you are lucky - you may spot a zebra or a giraffe.

The sleek, glass building on the edge of Nairobi National park belongs to Horizon Contact Centers, one of a handful of emerging Kenyan firms that hope to grab a large slice of the global outsourcing market and establish the country as a leading provider of the call centres and back offices of the world.

Video Games Modifying Behavior Towards Good | Adam Penenberg: Fast Company

2010-12-20T09:15:00.000-05:00

If anything qualifies as Twitter bait, it would be my latest feature on neuroeconomist Dr. Paul Zak in the July issue of Fast Company. By ginning up a special experiment for me, Zak learned that social networking (like what you do on Twitter) triggers the release of a generosity-trust chemical in our brains called oxytocin (A.K.A. "the cuddle hormone"). After the story's publication, I wondered if any companies were purposely designing products to modify users behavior and heard about Ayogo, a Vancouver-based games maker. As Ayogo's founder, Michael Fergusson, put it, the company "develops casual social games that are deployed on the web (in various locations) and on smartphones. We build games that are purely for entertainment, working with some of the biggest and most successful gaming companies in the world, and build what you might call 'serious' games that are intended to have a positive social impact." Fergusson was gracious enough to answer some questions.

New Rules for Online Living | Robert Strohmeyer, PCWorld

2010-12-20T07:34:00.000-05:00

The technologies that drive our world have become increasingly social, calling for a new set of rules and customs to govern everyday interactions. Here are 25 essential guidelines for life in the social media age.

Charlie Rose: The Brain Series

2010-12-19T10:35:00.000-05:00

The Charlie Rose Brain Series explores one of sciences final frontiers, the study of the human brain. Over the next year Charlie will interview the most knowledgeable scientists and researchers in hopes of illuminating a new topic of study.

Each monthly episode will examine different subjects of the brain, including perception, social interaction, aging and creativity.

Social Engineering Fundamentals, Part I: Hacker Tactics - Symantec

2010-12-18T10:34:00.001-05:00

Most articles I’ve read on the topic of social engineering begin with some sort of definition like “the art and science of getting people to comply to your wishes” (Bernz 2), “an outside hacker’s use of psychological tricks on legitimate users of a computer system, in order to obtain information he needs to gain access to the system” (Palumbo), or “getting needed information (for example, a password) from a person rather than breaking into a system” (Berg). In reality, social engineering can be any and all of these things, depending upon where you sit. The one thing that everyone seems to agree upon is that social engineering is generally a hacker’s clever manipulation of the natural human tendency to trust. The hacker’s goal is to obtain information that will allow him/her to gain unauthorized access to a valued system and the information that resides on that system.

Security is all about trust. Trust in protection and authenticity. Generally agreed upon as the weakest link in the security chain, the natural human willingness to accept someone at his or her word leaves many of us vulnerable to attack. Many experienced security experts emphasize this fact. No matter how many articles are published about network holes, patches, and firewalls, we can only reduce the threat so much... and then it’s up to Maggie in accounting or her friend, Will, dialing in from a remote site, to keep the corporate network secured.

Knowledge Brokers: Tomorrow's Quality Candidates? - Gerry Crispin - The CareerXroads Annex

2010-12-17T11:32:00.000-05:00

Should candidates be assessed on their competency to use social media? Eventually, it may redefine our thinking about a person's 'potential' to make a difference.

Leadership Derailers vs. Weaknesses | Dan McCarthy | Great Leadership Blog

2010-12-16T12:15:00.004-05:00

The Center for Creative leadership’s research on executive success and failure identified the significance of "derailers", and how they differ than just mere weaknesses. They studied leaders who made it to at least the G.M. level, but then their careers had involuntarily stalled, or had been demoted, fired, or asked to take early retirement.

A derailer is not just a weakness. We all have many weaknesses that we may never choose to improve or need to master. A derailer is a weakness that requires improvement if we are to realize our potential.

Why Do Leaders Fail?

The Anatomy of Trust in Social Media > Brendon Hughes

2010-12-15T12:28:00.000-05:00

Trust in other people is established on the basis of promises kept. Either explicitly or implicitly we judge that a particular person is reliable, based on our own experiences or those of others. We don’t trust everyone we encounter of course, but a small number of those people we trust and who we happen to like will become friends; especially if the trust and attraction is reciprocated.

Facebook: 7 Highly Effective Habits | PsyBlog

2010-12-14T06:58:00.001-05:00

Love it or loathe it, Facebook is everywhere, and will continue to be everywhere as the film describing its genesis—The Social Network—is released worldwide over coming months. To help you cope, here are 7 research-based tips for total Facebook domination. If you don't use it, these should at least help you pepper Facebook-related conversations with compelling observations from the psychological research.

Flock Refresh Trumps RockMelt - InformationWeek

2010-12-13T09:31:00.003-05:00

The RockMelt social browser launch got tons of attention, but the Flock Web browser has been integrating with social networks for years and the latest version showcases several advantages over RockMelt.

HOW TO: Define a Social Media Strategy for Enterprise | Mashable.com

2010-12-13T08:48:00.001-05:00

"Much has been written about social media strategy and Facebook can be a natural extension of a small biz web presence.

But things can get complicated when you extrapolate engagement over the multiple departments, offices, and countries of a large corporation. Do you centralize your social message with a few managed accounts, or do you empower every employee to be a social representative of your brand? How do you manage the hundreds, if not thousands of daily mentions and messages directed at a global company while still keeping it conversational? We spoke with the architects of some leading social media enterprise strategies for their takes on this evolving field."

Uncommon Descent -- If you are a Darwinist, can you be a Christian if people just say so … ?

2010-12-12T10:04:00.000-05:00

A friend mentioned that a certain Christian Darwinist Web log removed a post in which he intimated that Theodosius Dobzhansky (1900-1975) was only doubtfully a Christian. We are advised by the mod that Dobzhansky, who was certainly a loyal foot soldier for Darwin, was also a “firmly committed Christian.”

Indeed? Those who might be expected to know report...

Baroness Susan Greenfield: Is Online Networking Harmful?

2010-12-11T21:30:00.003-05:00

Is Web 2.0 a manifesto for anarchism? - DJALCHEMI

2010-12-11T15:30:00.002-05:00

Anarchy in Action is no call to guerilla direct action to undermine the state apparatus. But it was both radical for its time, and prescient. "Anarchists are people who make a social and political philosophy out of the natural and spontaneous tendency of humans to associate together for their mutual benefit," writes Ward near the start of the book. He goes on: "we have to build networks instead of pyramids." So are we all anarchists now, and what does it mean to be an anarchist in the era of Web 2.0? I read this book because I had a hunch that there was a common thread running through old theories and current practice, and I wanted to see how strong this thread might be.

The Geopolitics of Scarcity / The Futurist

2010-12-11T10:11:00.001-05:00

As we start to look at the onset of scarcity, all sorts of second and third order consequences start to emerge. One such consequence is how the impact of food scarcity could undermine the authority of the Chinese Government.

The model is quite simple. A combination of globalisation and a fixed exchange rate have allowed China to develop into a manufacturing powerhouse on a global scale. This has raised millions of Chinese families out of poverty (60 million families a year – that’s a huge number). As incomes have risen, so have dietary expectations. Chinese families expect to eat more regularly, with more food, and with a higher protein content than they have in the past. All of this puts pressure on global food markets.

Navigating Past Nihilism By SEAN D. KELLY | Opinionator - NYT

2010-12-11T09:58:00.000-05:00

“Nihilism stands at the door,” wrote Nietzsche. “Whence comes this uncanniest of all guests?” The year was 1885 or 1886, and Nietzsche was writing in a notebook whose contents were not intended for publication. The discussion of nihilism ─ the sense that it is no longer obvious what our most fundamental commitments are, or what matters in a life of distinction and worth, the sense that the world is an abyss of meaning rather than its God-given preserve ─ finds no sustained treatment in the works that Nietzsche prepared for publication during his lifetime. But a few years earlier, in 1882, the German philosopher had already published a possible answer to the question of nihilism’s ultimate source. “God is dead,” Nietzsche wrote in a famous passage from “The Gay Science.” “God remains dead. And we have killed him.”

Via Julian's Notebook

5 Enterprise 2.0 Myth Mantras that Must Die »Thomas Vander Wal

2010-12-10T07:24:00.002-05:00

One of the frustrating things at Enterprise 2.0 Conference this go around was there are still myth mantras that echo the podiums and halls. They really need to stop as they have never been proven to be right and are often proven to be incorrect (many times shown to be wildly incorrect). The last two years at Enterprise 2.0 Conferences (as well as other conferences) I was presenting these myths and getting the whole room giving giant nods in agreement and standing up after in Q&A why people still make these statements. Part of the problem is the statements have been said so often they must be true (mantra), but as presenters we really must check these things not just repeat. Quite often this leads to disgruntled customers who make up, what Stewart Mader calls the "one year club", which are organizations that hit the 6 month to one year mark and have giant lessons learned from their tools and services, but wish somebody let them know this stuff up front.

So here are the mantra myths that bug me the most that have no foundation and when presented with any real world examples or research they are quickly (and always) disproven...

Keith Jarrett - Summertime

2010-12-09T20:02:00.003-05:00

Disrupting Class: How Disruptive Innovation Will Change the Way the World Learns | Michael Horn | MIT

2010-12-09T16:30:00.001-05:00

Can a theory that explains why successful organizations fail and newcomers prevail help turn around America’s public schools? Michael B. Horn describes how the idea of disruptive innovation, developed by management researcher and author Clayton M. Christensen, can provide a fresh perspective on struggling education systems, and perhaps offer some solutions.

For a Sharp Brain, Stimulation By RONI CARYN RABIN | NYTimes.com

2010-09-08T08:21:00.000-04:00

AMERICANS may worry about heart disease, stroke and diabetes, but they downright dread Alzheimer’s disease.

For good reason. One in eight adults over 65 is affected by the disease. Those who are spared know they may end up with the burden of caring for a parent or a spouse who is affected. Even though the number of older adults with dementias is rising rapidly, only a few drugs that have been approved to treat symptoms are on the market, and they slow down the disease but do not cure it.

Researchers, however, are more optimistic than ever about the potential of the aging brain, because recent evidence has challenged long-held beliefs by demonstrating that the brain can grow new nerve cells.

Women in Art by Philip Scott Johnson

2010-09-03T18:27:00.002-04:00

Women In Art from Philip Scott Johnson on Vimeo.

The neurobiology of psychedelic drugs: implications for the treatment of mood disorders | Nature Reviews | Franz X. Vollenweider and Michael Kometer

2010-08-30T14:30:00.001-04:00

After a pause of nearly 40 years in research into the effects of psychedelic drugs, recent advances in our understanding of the neurobiology of psychedelics, such as lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), psilocybin and ketamine have led to renewed interest in the clinical potential of psychedelics in the treatment of various psychiatric disorders. Recent behavioural and neuroimaging data show that psychedelics modulate neural circuits that have been implicated in mood and affective disorders, and can reduce the clinical symptoms of these disorders. These findings raise the possibility that research into psychedelics might identify novel therapeutic mechanisms and approaches that are based on glutamate-driven neuroplasticity.

Via Mindhacks

Managing with the Brain in Mind | strategy+business | David Rock

2010-08-23T08:33:00.000-04:00

Naomi Eisenberger, a leading social neuroscience researcher at the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA), wanted to understand what goes on in the brain when people feel rejected by others. She designed an experiment in which volunteers played a computer game called Cyberball while having their brains scanned by a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) machine. Cyberball hearkens back to the nastiness of the school playground. “People thought they were playing a ball-tossing game over the Internet with two other people,” Eisenberger explains. “They could see an avatar that represented themselves, and avatars [ostensibly] for two other people. Then, about halfway through this game of catch among the three of them, the subjects stopped receiving the ball and the two other supposed players threw the ball only to each other.” Even after they learned that no other human players were involved, the game players spoke of feeling angry, snubbed, or judged, as if the other avatars excluded them because they didn’t like something about them.

Theory of Constraints - Wikipedia

2010-08-07T12:26:00.002-04:00

Theory of Constraints (TOC) is an overall management philosophy introduced by Dr. Eliyahu M. Goldratt in his 1984 book titled The Goal, that is geared to help organizations continually achieve their goal.[1] The title comes from the contention that any manageable system is limited in achieving more of its goal by a very small number of constraints, and that there is always at least one constraint. The TOC process seeks to identify the constraint and restructure the rest of the organization around it, through the use of the Five Focusing Steps.

Next Generation Search: Social Bookmarking and Tagging

2010-08-07T12:15:00.002-04:00

Next Generation Search: Social Bookmarking and Tagging

View more presentations from Thomas Vander Wal.

RSA Animate - The Secret Powers of Time

2010-08-03T21:46:00.004-04:00

Val Bennett- Russians Are Coming

2010-06-29T20:11:00.002-04:00

How Freelancers are Using Social Media for Real Results | Matt Silverman | Mashable

2010-05-02T20:53:00.001-04:00

"Networking is the bread and butter of a freelance career. Because competition is so fierce, landing consistent gigs isn’t just about talent. It relies heavily on who you know, and how connected you are.

Social media can expand your freelance network exponentially and yield opportunities that you’d never find elsewhere. But just like pounding the physical pavement, it takes investment, hard work, and time.

We spoke to some freelancers in a variety of fields who find that channeling efforts into social media can really pay dividends. Here are some examples of their success."

Seven Essential Skills of a Sales Trainer | SalesManage Solutions Blog

2010-04-28T01:32:00.001-04:00

“What essential skills do you evaluate when hiring an external sales trainer?”

A great question. Just as there are sales reps who are misplaced in their professions - so there are misfitted sales trainers as well. I know many of you have experienced boring training sessions, prideful speakers, irrelevant materials, and a lack of follow up in important improvement areas. The result? Ineffective coaching, a lack of results, and bad atmospheres actually hampered performance and doing things better. After thirty years of watching trainers, I’ve arranged seven essential skills for consideration when hiring a sales trainer.