Limited Fork Academic Split Tine

Secret Editors — Do You Trust Wikipedia?

2007-10-09T09:06:28-07:00

Do you trust Wikipedia? How did this trust or lack of trust develop?
What might be useful criteria for determining appropriate levels of trust?
Who edits Wikipedia?
...and so forth....

Read all about secret editors of Wikipedia.

Do you trust this article?

FIRST WORLD MAP of HAPPINESS: GET ON THE MAP!

2007-10-09T04:42:24-07:00

Check out first world Map of Happiness. Here's another article about the mapping of the quality of life, and here's a link to the questionnaire itself, in case you're interested.

Take the unhappy planet index survey

From Men's Health where there's tons of useful stuff comes this article and survey (the last page) about global happiness.

You might want to compare these surveys and their results with this data from the Material World research. This data is part of Nova's WORLD in the BALANCE ongoing investigation.

By the way, I took the unhappy planet index survey, and these were my results:

Happy Planet Index
Your personal Happy Planet Index (HPI) is 61.5, which is similar to that of countries such as El Salvador, Guatemala or Saudi Arabia. This is above the world average of 46, but well below the target value of 83, so you can still do more to improve your health and well-being, or reduce your environmental impact. Your score is above that of your country, 28.8.

Below is a breakdown of the various components that make up your HPI score.

You:
61.5
Average:
43.3
[Average is of all online responses to this survey - not the average for your country]

Life Expectancy
Hurray! Your life expectancy is well above average for your gender and country. Probably, you're doing all the major things right - eating well, not smoking, getting regular exercise, and you're lucky enough to have the right genes. Are there any more ways you could make a difference? Some factors that improve your life expectancy are more surprising than others. For example, giving up your car, avoiding living alone, moving out of the city and shrugging off stress.

You:
99
Average:
80.6
[Average is of all online responses to this survey - not the average for your country]

Ecological Footprint
Your ecological footprint is 5.65 global hectares, or 3.14 planets. This is equivalent to the average in Brunei Darussalam.

Your ecological footprint is below average for the country you live in.

Oh dear! You are using between three and five times your share of the planet's resources, even assuming no resources are set aside for other species. That's well above the world average, and even above the average for most industrialised countries. Perhaps it's time to start taking action. Here are some of the most effective steps that everyone can make to reduce their footprint:

Leave your car in the garage. Car use has a huge impact on ecological footprint. Obviously it's more difficult for people in certain circumstances, but where possible, try to use public transport more. Or, even better, get on a bike!
It's obvious, but we have to say it. Conserve energy. Turn off the lights when you leave a room, buy energy-efficient bulbs and appliances, turn off your TV completely, rather than leave it on standby.
Reduce your waste. If there are ways to recycle where you live, try and do so. If you have a garden, start a compost heap. Re-use plastic bags. Give away clothes you don't use, rather than throwing them away. There are hundreds of little things you can do.
You don't have to become vegetarian, but cutting down on meat, particularly beef, and particularly from animals fed by imported soya feed, is an effective step to reducing your footprint.
It has to be said that air travel is one of the biggest contributors to many people's footprints. For example, flying direct from London to Sydney and back would add 5.44 g ha to your footprint - that's the average Briton's footprint for an entire year. Flights with a connection add even more polluting air miles.
You:
5.65
Average:
5.37
[Average is of all online responses to this survey - not the average for your country]

Carbon Footprint
Your carbon footprint is 3.68 global hectares, or 2.04 planets. This is below the average for your country (5.84 gHa).

You:
3.68
Average:
3.12
[Average is of all online responses to this survey - not the average for your country]

Life Satisfaction
Brilliant! You reported a life satisfaction of 9, which is above the national averages for all the countries of the world. At the individual level, in the World Values Survey, only a quarter of respondents worldwide, and 29% of British respondents reported a life satisfaction of 9 or higher.

You:
9
Average:
6.76
[Average is of all online responses to this survey - not the average for your country]

Well-being
The new economics foundation (nef) recognises that there's more to life than feeling good, which is why our model for well-being is based on four domains – personal feelings, personal functionings, social feelings and social functionings. 'Feelings' refers to your attitude to the way you, your future and society are. 'Functionings' looks at whether you have the opportunities to do the things that bring you well-being. Like with life satisfaction, a score of 5 is theoretically the middle score, but, given the way most people respond to surveys, is below average.

Personal Feelings
In this online questionnaire, personal feelings are assessed with two questions – one testing your optimism and one testing your self-esteem.

You are very secure about yourself and about your future.

You:
8.06
Average:
6.05
[Average is of all online responses to this survey - not the average for your country]

Personal Functionings
In this online questionnaire personal functionings are assessed with five questions – two evaluating your subjective opinion on your health and how activity you are, the other three testing you for feelings of autonomy, purpose and worth.

You are healthy, active and full of strong feelings of worth, autonomy and purpose.

You:
7.73
Average:
6.16
[Average is of all online responses to this survey - not the average for your country]

Social Feelings
In this online questionnaire social feelings are assessed with four questions – three assessing your opinion of your community, whilst the last looks at personal relationships.

You have a very strong sense of trust and belonging in your community, combined with an excellent personal life.

You:
6.74
Average:
5.69
[Average is of all online responses to this survey - not the average for your country]

Social Functionings
In this online questionnaire social functionings are assessed with four questions – two assessing your job / studies, one your free time, and one your community participation. If you did not respond to the work / study questions, your score is judged purely on the other two aspects.

You are very satisfied with your job / course - it is very interesting, rarely stressful, and leaves you plenty of time to do the things you want to do, such as participating in community activities.

You:
7.75
Average:
5.6
[Average is of all online responses to this survey - not the average for your country]

_____________________________

[I'll be using some of this data in various poams]

EMPOWERMENT OF SELF

2007-10-02T15:12:37-07:00

within the parameters of the tools of empowerment, as set by those who make the tools within parameters, some of thich are also protocols of expectation: codes of behavior themselves shapoed by desired outcomes which are likely shaped by some n number of variables

(feel free to play John Conways Game of Life again right now).

So how about taking advantage of some this proliferation of power possibilities yourself?
To start, why don't you SCRATCH
and then, proceed to SketchUp

Make it, and publish it please, right in your blog, as a comment in this blog, on the Scratch site, etc., etc.

Then play the Darfur Is Dying game.

Then play STOP DISASTERS!.

Then play FOOD FORCE

just before you swing by Vrindavan (a virtual introduction to this sacred location, a region that is the borthplace of Kriskna

—Ah: Vrindavan where, because FAZAL SHEIKH has a (so far) less common understanding of community and his responsibilities to communities, the entire —in high resolution!—
text of Moksha, his book of his images of women exiled in temples of Vrindavan is available to you here.

Did you see Water? A movie about women confronting protocols of expectations in a sacred city?

Plot outline from Amazon.com:

Plot Outline: The film examines the plight of a group of widows forced into poverty at a temple in the holy city of Varanasi. It focuses on a relationship between one of the widows, who wants to escape the social restrictions imposed on widows, and a man who is from the highest caste and a follower of Mahatma Gandhi.

COMMENT ON and RATE THE GAMES please; COMMENT ON and RATE THE GAMES please;COMMENT ON and RATE THE GAMES please;COMMENT ON and RATE THE GAMES please;COMMENT ON and RATE THE GAMES please;COMMENT ON and RATE THE GAMES please;COMMENT ON and RATE THE GAMES please

Long for the thrill of by-gone toys? This video might knock you out with nostalgia:

How I miss the pre-Terminator "worlds's only boxing robots." Surely on the right track, in the right ring, and so forth; perhaps some of the creators of the film and/or some of the film crew played Rockem Sockem Robots. Somehow, the protocols of robot behavior became known (to them); that is to say, the Terminators do not behave outside of what is easy to either imagine or accept about robots.

According to THIS online article, the world's first working robot joined the GM Assembly line in 1961. The fighting robots appeared five years later.

The next time you're at Universal Studios (Orlando, Hollywood and Japan), don't forget to experience T2 3-D: Battle Across Time. Here's the trailer:

________________________________

This talk of terminators and termination is a great seque to politicians in a coming post that I hope you will enjoy.

AGENDA and mblog (don't worry: no saga intended here)

2007-09-26T00:22:19-07:00

So I'm thinking about what could be an implied usefulness of providing technical architecture to an academic community. A determination has been made that this architecture is desirable or in some way compatible with an academic experience.

Within the stated desirability and/or compatibility (not the only relationship(s) possible or active between the (offering of) technical architecture and an academic experience), I approach considerations of the configurations of an acaemic experience, fixating (for now) on academic decorum and academic rigor

(maybe another time I'll get to investigating what I've [not without help] tangled up
in academic)

What/how does blogging as (required) part
as (adjunct) part
of the academic experience

add to/detract from (the shape of) an academic experience?

As a (shaped) part of an academic experience that I in part shape as it continues to shape me
I do seek environments that support learning;

shapes of these environments and shapes of these supports do interest me.

mblog does offer some protections (consistent with various [appropriate protocols of operation and goverance). These protections might help clear a space in which stresses that might be able to strain an academic experience are reduced. Students and professors might be protected in such gestures and so might the university (larger than just the sum of its elements; the structure that emerges through the merger of the members into a[n academic body).

Do-si-do and benefit all!

**Not that agenda is monstrous.
Agenda can provide that architecture. It has structure, framework, offers platform,
location, context, acts as or is host for activities that are possible

(possibility in part shaped/determined by the shape of the agenda itself shaped by other agendas, platforms, hosts)

**Not that (my [hey; I'm advertising it so as to openly claim possession] and/or a) fondness for the monstrous is excluded by definitions of academic experience, academic rigor, academic decorum

Some of the protection takes the form of censorship
(in accordance with or acknowledgment of various protocols of expectation)

Of particular note is:

Can I create a blog for the course I teach?
While mBlog allows for group discussions, it is not designed specifically for courses. You cannot restrict the blog to course members only for viewing. We recommend the Discussion tool in CTools [emphasis added] be used for course discussions.

While part of an academic experience, the mblog probably is not meant to be considered a core vehicle of academic rigor and academic decorum within an academic experience;
other protocols fuel and and are those vehicles.

—even though blog content may not defame an academic experience in which protocol locates blog content in a periphery of academic experience.

**— —And while occupying iterations of the periphery, the content may also occupy other, multiple locations (subject to protocols and intentions).

Let's keep dancing!

with and dancing around (getting at multiple angles of fondness for the monstrous within and just outside academic experience.

DISCLAIMER TIME
The musical structures of these terms of protocols form and reform inside my head as it seeks and considers mblog agenda. All those italics occur in this mblog post, not on the offcicial mblog FAQ Service & Policy page.

—Just singing my own song in the mblog reins!—

The FORCE of Agenda (what's up with mblog intentions?)

2007-09-25T18:04:55-07:00

Click HERE and read!

John Conway's GAME OF LIFE!

2007-09-25T17:17:49-07:00

Click HERE and play!
How did you know what to do?
Where/why did you choose (shape) opening strategies?

Define the parameters of starting,/b> in play when you started to play.

Source?

Did you start at a complexity of beginning?
A system of beginning?

How to determine the endings of the game?

After responding to these questions, please watch this:

What's Your Blog?

2007-09-25T16:17:15-07:00

Please post your blog URL in the comments to this post.
Thanks!
Need help making your blog URL clickable in your comment?
Click here

computer use + depression + isolation: visiting matters of (too much) access

2007-09-18T16:26:43-07:00

Many technology researchers are fast forwarding to the time of singularity, the merger of the human and machine in startling ways that could mean the reconfiguration of laws of goverance in many modes of human endeavor and human understanding of what it means to exist. This video explores some of the possible consequences of such convergenses.

The following video takes advantage of more visual and sonic imagination, bypassing rhetoric and commentary, to offer a pictorial and sonic study of the biological + technological singularity; this video permits more use of dream factors on the part of the film maker and the viewer/responder:

Perhaps such mergers can render the depression and isolation some computer users experience moot once the mergers occur, but until that moment, certain modes of computer use demephasize the importance of direct human interface, an emotional interaction that perhaps partially defines humanity. Relegating direct human interaction to insignificance, eliminating the possibility of tactile or actual intimate encounter, compromising opportunities to read and respond to human gestures that accompany speech and social encounters, can logically be expected to have the abilityt to rob the computer user of some of a sense of and purpose of being human. As the video asks: what am I? What are we?

Not that such depression and isolation are inevitable outcomes, but possible outcomes.

The essay Computer usage and Depression explores some of the negative outcomes of the substitution of computer contact for direct human interaction. Internet usage and Stress is explored in the 1998 article.
a Technique news article posits the isolation and despression caused by compuer usage as disease: computer addition, a condition defined in a Psychiatric Times article.

Conversely, another study reports that "senior citizens who master the comouter have less depression."

A more recent article, from 2007, concludes that there is a correlation between depression and internet addiction in adolescents.

I urge those who are interested to monitor internet usage of some specified group(s) —do define the parameters of group membership and selection. Monitor your own usage as well, identifying where/when/how digital device usage connects and disconnects you/the identified group from meaningful (define parameters) of human expression/interaction.

Please use your imagination to think about ways in ways digital (and other) technologies may already be addressing issues related to direct human interface disconnect.

What is the manner of future that you can imagine that includes (or possibly excludes) biomechanical convergenses?

Ah yes; some Frankenstein revisited/continuing
As for communities that offer alternatives to fixed existence in non-cyber 3D realities, take a look at the growing popularity of sites like Secon Life.com and Zwinky.com, and the numerous Sims communities.

Do also visit John Conway's Game of Life where you can try your hand at building a healthy cyber community.

Digital media also has implications for communities for whom sign language is a primary mode of interaction and dissemination of ideas and information. The following videos offer two takes on the historic and continuing isolation/marginalization (more about the possible delights, especially in other circumstances, the joys of marginalization, later) of signing communities, one emphasing the aesthetic potential of the visual movement, something digital media is well equipped to sponsor and exploit.

Living Large in a Fair Use Economy: matters of benefit

2007-09-18T06:23:59-07:00

Or perhaps I should say that I can actually hope to live large in a fair use economy considering that, in a article by David Kravets in which he quotes the following from a report by the Computer & Communications Industry Association: "one-sixth of the United States' gross domestic product was spawned because of fair use exceptions recognized in copyright law.
The report says the so-called 'fair use economy' in 2006 accounted for $4.5 trillion in revenues and $2.2 trillion in associated value, 'roughly one-sixth of total U.S. GDP.'
The fair use economy, according to the report, 'employed more than 17 million people and supported a payroll of $1.2 trillion and generated $194 billion in exports,'" Kravets reveals.

Sounds impressive.

As an educator and a student of my own educational offerings, I certainly can/do benefit from restricted access to, and, in my case, use without profit of (portions of) copyrighted material.
Increasingly, information and resources I need in order to offer meaningful (sorry; I didn't meanto say that!learning experiences are online, and in a culture in which a cyber experience has become increasingly vital and/or preferred, perhaps to the detriment of direct form of human social interaction, it has become important to my educational and life ideologies to utilize online structures to organize the learning environment and to extend invitation to those not enrolled in the class to participate through commenting in class blog and other web locations, including youtube channels, and perhaps linking to blogs and websites of their own.

These are events and interactions occurring within various boundaries of course.
These are not structureless cyber environments. To veer too far across various boundaries can run the risk of site shutdown, data filtering or removal, tracking by agencies with an interest in the site activities.

Is this inevitable? Does this offer desirable benefits? Undesirable benefits?

Some fraction of a copyrighted work may be used for academic purposes, and this restriction to partiality is quite compatible with principles of Limited Fork Poetics and Limited Fork Science in which only partialiaties are generated and considered; even partialities of partialities as Limited Fork is suspicious of, and enjoys finding reasons (whenever possible to do so) to reject totalities —I think out of my association of totality with "gravitational singularity, a hell of a stretching collapse as gravity becomes infinite—I am less fearful of the singularity that may occur when machine intelligence expnds beyond biological intelligence, and the rules biological intelligence has developed all fail, as explored in this video:

Another take on the combined biology and technology is explored in this video:

The following video takes advantage of more visual and sonic imagination, bypassing rhetoric and commentary, to offer a pictorial and sonic study of the biological + technological singularity; this video permits more use of dream factors on the part of the film maker and the viewer/responder:

Limited Fork has trouble identifying a totality, but that is one of its limitations (and one of my favorites; the ideally flawed design of space between the tines or prongs allows for the loss of some or much of whatever the fork attempts to access, residue from previous attempts to access something perhaps collecting —and transforming through repeated access attempts— and through the buildup, interacting with —enhancing? contaminating? influencing —oops—did that syllable, did that musical phrase come from something snagged on the fork? —an honest carry-over of something stuck for some reason in the forking storage and retrieval systems of the brain —there are many twists and turns in the structure of the brain, and redundant storage placements of bits and pieces of storage items, so that little if anything is stored in a single location, so more and more can stick to, shape and influence what is stored; encounter can tend to be cumulative, yadda, yadda, yadda —not a phrase that I invented).

I prefer placing greater emphasis on (versions of) material placed in online locations for the purpose of sharing, often with the expectation that users will also share the outcomes of having used the material. YouTube offers registered users the opportunity to post video responses to videos viewed (a tally of videos watched is maintained and publically posted for each registered user, the only ones who can rate videos, but anyone can capture the code to embed a video in a blog or on a website. Users also can make playlists, make a list of favorites, and subscribe to video channels in this user-generated material community and sub-communities.

The popularity of user-maintained sites such as YouTube has led to profit opportunities for the most popular (number of views) users, some effects of which may trickle down to all users in the form of advertising revenues. The most popular category has also led to more more mainstream opportunities as commercial broadcast networks have partnered in both formal and informal ways with this popularity, attracting an audience already attracted to the user-generated site.

What is the benefit of such generosity?
Sharing as strategy to generate interest that eventualy plays out as a big break
that can, in that bigness, benefit better from copyright protection? Leading to more occasional free bonuses offered to fans?

Anyway, read the Wired article and learn about the CCIA's Fair Use report that makes a strong ecenomic case in favor of Fair Use policies.

To counter the Fair Use campaign is the MPA (Motion Picture Association) and companion MPAA (Motion Pictice Association of America. DO EXPLORE THE SITE FULLY, espcially the Hyperlink FAQs and the DVD FAQs. Keep reading for more links inside the MPA site...and some videos addressing copyright issues...
...Am important text that advocates copyright protection is Intellectual Porperty for the Tecvhnological Age by Richard Epstein. It might also be useful to take a look at some Libertarian theories of Laws. From the wikipedia entry, you'll find links to Epstein's U of Chicago home page and to some of Epstein's podcasts.

Please use imagination to help you navigate possibilities of ownership that leap from issues raised by Lessig, Epstein, and your own gut. Who/what benefits in which ways for how long depending on the ownership policies that prevail in a variety of situations/locations, many of which may exist simultaneously?

What exists and may continue to exist outside whatever policies of ownership prevail in some location for some period of time for some reason?

What are the limits to benifit as you are defining benefit?

How important is control of (your) intellectual property, and can you imagine forms of control that cannot be circumvented in some way for some period of time?

The following videos offer considerations of copyright:

What's your take?

280 impact: limited forkers & Frankenstein

2007-09-10T00:14:15-07:00

In thinking about how technology challenges my ideas about authorship and ownership, and perhaps because Halloween ocurs next month, I'm considering how useful it might be for us to read Mary Shelley's FRANKENSTEIN. Some of the questions that arise in the interface of FRANKENSTEIN and Eng 280 are: Who owns the body? Who authors the body? Who authors life? Who owns life? Are the protocols and ethics of developing and using technology different from the protocols and ethics of human interaction? Once death has occurred, who should own the corpse? For how long should that ownership endure?

In sparking life in the creature, is Dr. Frankenstein concerned with the quality of the creature's life? Should quality of life be a concern?

Once we've all read/reread the book (full text is available online here), more questions/comments will follow.

Mary shelley's FRANKENSTEIN may be viewed as a precursor of genetic engineering and (re)building a body through human donor parts (including eggs and sperm) and synthetic prosthetics.

Some films to consider, in addition to various versions of "Franenstein" (I favor the 1931 version, directed by James Whale, "Bride of Frankenstein, also directed by Whale, and "The Spirit of the Beehive" directed by Victor Erice): are AI, The Fly, Body Parts, The Eye, Silence of the Lambs, Species, Mansquito, Homunculus, The Island of Doctor Moreau, The Unborn, In the Light of the Moon, and the documentaries: Offspring, Genius Sperm Bank.

Visit a genius sperm bank site
or a site investigating the the Nobel Prize sperm bank.

Watch a genius sperm bank video here or here:

Also of interest are recent proceedings in Canada concerning the rights of persons produced through human reproductive technologies where Barry Stevens, founding member of the Alliance of People Produced by Assisted Reproductive Technology, addressed the committee.
Will "maternity" need redefining?
What prospects might (advances in) cloning offer to gay, lesbian, and transgendered couples?

—Just kidding; right? in a presently/momentarily impossible sort-of-way—

For a take on some feminist concerns about the female patient and emerging reproductive technologies, please visit this site.