User Is Content

DifficultDebate.com

John — Sun, 21 Sep 2008 01:31:22 +0000

It’s great to see people taking the issues and statements the candidates have made seriously. Andrew Allemann of DomainNameWire.com took the time to track down the Obama and McCain policy statements and put together some hard questions for each of them.

From DifficultDebate.com

The 2008 election for President of the United States has nothing to do with who’s wearing a flagpin and lipstick on a pig, but that’s what the media is focusing on. Sadly, that’s what the campaigns seem to focus on too.

This web site is dedicated to asking the difficult questions of our candidates. They’re specific. They can’t be dodged. And they aren’t based on heresay.

The basis for these questions are the candidates’ own plans. Not rumors. I read through the plans on each site and had questions about many of the candidates’ stances and how they specifically plan to accomplish them.

Some of these may be easy to answer, but they certainly aren’t explained well on the candidates’ web sites.

I’m an independent and undecided voter who likes some of what each candidate has to say. But I’m not getting the answers I need from the mainstream press.

> See Difficult Questions for Barack Obama

> See Difficult Questions for John McCain

Google Mapping Public Transit (And Giving Directions!)

John — Sat, 20 Sep 2008 20:24:39 +0000

From WorldChanging.com

this article was written by Jeremy Faludi in June 2007. We’re republishing it here as part of our month-long editorial retrospective.

Google Transit was already the best thing that ever happened to online public transit trip planning, and now it’s grown to a whole new level. Even better, it’s starting to be incorporated into the default Google Maps and Google Earth. The new features and the integration into normal map queries will make public transit more accessible and easier for everyone to understand; and in doing so, it will certainly increase transit ridership and reduce driving.

One of the big barriers to public transit use is the knowledge required to use the system: where to wait, when to wait, where to transfer, how much to pay, etc. Some readers may remember that two years ago we helped cause Google Transit to happen, but it’s taken off far beyond what we had suggested, and they keep getting better. What’s more, they’re doing it at no charge to the transit agencies (a perpetually under-funded sector of local governments). More cities are coming on board, as well; if you live in one of the eleven cities now participating, enjoy! If you live elsewhere, consider writing to your local transit agency and telling them to join the 21st century. (ahem… San Francisco, right in Google’s back yard, no excuse… ahem.)

What are these tools? In addition to being able to type in your route and get comprehensive directions (including walking to stations, showing the bus or train route, walking directions between stations, how much it costs, etc.), you can plan trips by departure or arrival time and see when the next couple buses come if you miss the one you’re aiming for. Now, if you zoom in enough on any Google map in the right city, all the transit stops appear, with different icons for bus, light rail, etc.; click on a bus stop and up pops a list of the buses or trains that stop there; click on the bus number, and up pops the timetable for the next several buses stopping there.

Here’s a summary of the new features, with screenshots, right from the horse’s mouth–Thomas Sly, a business development manager on the project. (Note the screenshots are small for bandwidth reasons; for real-size ones, give it a spin yourself on the real site.)

Read the rest of the article.

MAPLight.org $$$>Legislators>How They Voted

John — Sat, 20 Sep 2008 20:16:35 +0000

From WorldChanging.com

This article was written by Micki Krimmel in June 2007. We’re republishing it here as part of our month-long editorial retrospective.

I first learned about MAPLight.org at the recent NetSquared Conference. As I wrote last week, the conference attendees chose MAPLight as the winner of the first prize NetSquared Innovation Award. In a crowd of extremely well-deserving projects, MAPLight stood out as an organization applying the best of Web 2.0 technology and standards to create a vital tool for transparency in democracy.

MAPLight.org brings together campaign contributions and how legislators vote, providing an unprecedented window into the connections between money and politics. We currently cover the California Legislature and U.S. Congress.

Maplight has been receiving a fair amount of attention lately and the $25k prize will help them take their project to the next level, providing the funds for them to create customized widgets for bloggers and nonprofit organizations to share up to date information on their websites automatically. MAPLight is also working to expand their service to other states, with New York next on the list.

I chatted with Sean Tanner, Maplight’s Research Manager via email to get a little more insight into Maplight’s mission and future particularly as America turns its attention to the next Presidential election. As Research Manager, Sean coordinates the MAPLight.org database and research internship program. He is also the chair of the Young Advocates, a group of young professionals who support the work of Human Rights Watch.

Micki Krimmel: Can you tell me a little bit about the mission of MAPLight and its origins?
Read the rest of the article.

Attention Economy - Google Insights For Search

John — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 21:57:15 +0000

This from Berkman Center For Internet & Society New Media analyst, Hal Roberts. Fascinating blog post on using Google’s new Insights For Search tool to extract, well… insights.

Digital Cameras v. Nigeria

One of my guiding theories of the modern media / advertising landscape is that the extensive real time surveillance of consumers by online advertisers and content providers encourages the growth of content about digital cameras (the content about which is easily monetized) at the expense of hard news, especially international news about developing countries like Nigeria.

The following google insights chart of digital camera v. Nigeria searches over time strikes a blow against that theory:

Read the rest of the post here
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Who Wants What? Google Insight on Spam, Pirated Software and Other Fun Stuff

From WorldChanging’s Ethan Zuckerman
I’m wondering what other pockets of “undesirable” behavior are mappable via this technique. For instance, searches for “keygen”, a popular site that offers serial numbers and software keys to enable pirated software shows a heavy concentration the former Warsaw Pact nations, with some strength in Southeast Asia as well.

Early adopters vs the Mainstream: Google Insights points out websites only used by Silicon Valley nerds.

From Andrew Chen’s blog.
Netvibes is California only - perhaps this is a good candidate for an early-adopter-only crowd?

Here’s a couple of my own.
American Idol (red) vs. Global Warming (blue).

Batman (red) vs. Darfur (blue).

Media Maven Robert Logan’s new $45 book out The Extended Mind!

synthum molyart — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 19:26:35 +0000

Logan’s jammed web site for all the free stuff

new media aggregator site with amazing network graphs of tags

synthum molyart — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 17:58:53 +0000

Silo Breaker uses tags from this story

News You Might Have Missed: Court Confirms President’s Dictatorial Powers

to generate

Amazing networking news animated 6 degrees effects!

One Step Beyond, 1960s Magic Mushrooms Doc.

John — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 10:03:25 +0000

From ScienceBlogs.com

1960s documentary: Self-experimenting with magic mushrooms

Originally Posted on: July 17, 2008 10:11 AM, by Mo

In the January 4th, 1961 episode of One Step Beyond, director and presenter John Newland ingests psilocybin under laboratory conditions, to investigate whether or not the hallucinogenic mushroom can enhance his abilities of extra-sensory perception.

The programme was apparently inspired by a 1959 book called The Sacred Mushroom, by parapsychologist Andrija Puharich, who is known for taking the spoon-bending fraudster Uri Geller to the United States for investigation.

In the first part of the programme (embedded below), Newland, Puharich and others travel to Mexico to collect mushroom samples. They then return to Puharich’s lab in Palo Alto, where Newland’s ESP abilities are tested before and after ingestion of several mushroom stems.

The programme is of historical interest, as it was made some years before the widespread use of LSD led researchers to stop conducting psychedelic research. It therefore includes a brief mention of the potential therapeutic effects of psilocybin for psychiatric patients.

Parts 2 and 3 of the episode are also available on YouTube.

———————-
“And then, oddly enough, the first sound we hear as the chemical in the mushroom takes effect is… laughter.”
This video is a lot of fun and introduced me to Andrija Puharich, who wrote The Sacred Mushroom: Key to the Door of Eternity (1959). UCLA research psychologist Barbara Brown (who invented biofeedback), also makes the trip down to Mexico. But it is most fascinating to see the show’s host, John Newland in an on-camera lab setting, have his extrasensory perception skills tested under the influence of mushrooms. Really makes me wonder where we might be now if science had continued to have access to these substances.

And then down the rabbit hole! I’m a big fan of a book called ‘Myself and I’(1962) by Constance Newland, which is the pen-name of Thelma Moss, who was a parapsychology researcher at UCLA. ‘Myself and I’ tells the story of her LSD-assisted psychotherapy. She had specific symptoms she was trying to address, and years of traditional psychotherapy had gotten her nowhere. Under LSD she makes profound connections to long-lost childhood experiences which open the way to her cure. I learned a lot about my own mind from reading about her insights. I would highly recommend this book.

But I wonder if Thelma Moss ever met John Newland through Barbara Brown who was also at UCLA. I found one clip on the net that connects Moss and Brown… “In Prague I was warmly and hospitably received by Dr. Rejdak, who is perhaps the most active parapsychologist in Czechoslovakia. In the company of two other Americans, Dr. Thelma Moss and Dr. Barbara Brown, we were shown films of recent experiments in the telepathic transmission of taste impression on a hypnotic subject. I’m not sure why I’m even curious but somehow it’s interesting. Another connection to this whole cast of characters is Uri Geller. As mentioned above, Andrija Puharich was responsible for bringing Uri Geller to the US for experiments. You can easily find Uri connections to Thelma Moss and Barbara Brown.

A free biography of Andrija Puharich by his ex wife H.G.M. Herman, found on Uri Geller’s site offers up such gems as… In 1955 he had heard from a Mr. Wasson that a ritualistic mushroom cult had existed in Mexico for hundreds of years, and was still practiced in some remote parts of the country. (Mr. and Mrs. Gordon Wasson wrote a book entitled Mushrooms, Russia and History. It was published in 1957).Anxious to find out for himself, Andrija set out for the village of Juquila in the state of Oaxaca, 200 miles south of Mexico City in June of 1960. The original expedition was made up of nine people, including Paul Jones. When Paul returned after about four weeks saying that all members of the team had become ill, and that Andrija had been crazy to go on alone with an even crazier missionary, I became not only greatly concerned, but furious as well. How the hell did Andrija dare risk his life, being the father of four children and a fifth on the way? I hadn’t even known that he was off to a dangerous remote place in Mexico. Besides, he had left me with barely enough money to buy food, and with unpaid bills. We no longer lived in Carmel Valley, but had moved to the chic part of Carmel, called Carmel Meadows. How Andrija had been able to buy the beautiful, spacious patio house, had been “none of my business.” This from Chapter 6.
While browsing Uri Geller’s site I noticed this in his sidebar: are your eyes attracted to 11.11? But we’ll save that for another day.

Al Gore Speech on next 10 years! Too Much! 100% sustainability of Electric Production

synthum molyart — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 18:02:00 +0000

Mind blowing talk by Al Gore on our 10 year Project to get off Fossil Fuels and get 100% sustainable on electric use!

WeCanSolveIt.Org

check out Facebook site for WeCanSolveIt

Nuclear Power Plants finally over by Amory Lovins of the RMI

synthum molyart — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 06:16:04 +0000

This is amazing! Lovins was on the Charlie Rose Show saying this too. This is in complete contradiction to supposed “Greens” like Stewart Brand, James Lovelock (Mr Gaia , himself!), and others, saying we have to go Nuclear Power Plants to save ourselves!? WTF?! And a 4th media hit! Neil Young on Letterman mentions Lovins!

from Democracy Now

Amory Lovins: Expanding Nuclear Power Makes Climate Change Worse

There’s one issue that President Bush and presidential hopefuls John McCain and Barack Obama all agree on: expanding the use of nuclear power. We speak with Amory Lovins, the co-founder, chairman and chief scientist of Rocky Mountain Institute in Colorado, who has been described as “one of the Western world’s most influential energy thinkers.” [includes rush transcript]

Also see RMI site Rocky Mountain Institute with Amory Lovins

Immortality, Life Extension, Life_X, anti-aging, ongoing conference UCLA

synthum molyart — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 21:04:25 +0000

Check out some of these topics and links to more clues. Immortality, Neurologic, Space Migration emerged in the early 1970’s and morphed into Life Extension ( life_X) , intelligence increase, and local Space Stations. We still need back-up mini biospheres of the biosphere! Gaia! Gaea! Later these morphed into

SMI2LE. Early Bible stories of communicating with God, traveling UP to Heaven, living for 500 years! So this is the latest update!

9:00 AM	Session 3A: accumulation of damaged molecules (9:00) Christiaan Leeuwenburgh, University of Florida “Mitochondrial iron accumulation with age and functional consequences” (9:30) Marisol Corral-Debrinski, Universite Pierre et Marie Curie “Optimized allotopic expression of mitochondrial genes: a strategy for treating mitochondrial DNA diseases” (10:00) Bruce Ames, Children’s Hospital Oakland Research Institute “Delaying the Degenerative Diseases of Aging” http://www.mfoundation.org/UABBA/agenda/

9:00 AM

Session 3A: accumulation of damaged molecules

(9:00) Christiaan Leeuwenburgh, University of Florida
“Mitochondrial iron accumulation with age and functional consequences”
(9:30) Marisol Corral-Debrinski, Universite Pierre et Marie Curie
“Optimized allotopic expression of mitochondrial genes: a strategy for treating mitochondrial DNA diseases”
(10:00) Bruce Ames, Children’s Hospital Oakland Research Institute
“Delaying the Degenerative Diseases of Aging”

http://www.mfoundation.org/UABBA/agenda/