links for 2009-03-09

"This is God telling us: Mortal Capitalism doesn’t work."

"Because in this country, the press is protected by an enumerated right enshrined in a 'socialist' document written by radical progressives, since defended at enormous cost in the lives and limbs of countless members in the socialist Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines, and beginning with a preamble that would stir the collectivist heart of any Marxist: 'We the People …'"

"While their may once have been a time when Wall Street could have been considered the engine of American finance, it has become in actual practice little but a high-fashion casino."

"It seems that in order to avoid a true Depression, we must more than anything else simply believe in investing in our own nation, as collective action. We may not even get that much."

"I am referring to the fact that the world in which we live is very nearly incomprehensible to most of us. There is almost no fact — whether actual or imagined — that will surprise us for very long, since we have no comprehensive and consistent picture of the world which would make the fact appear as an unacceptable contradiction. We believe because there is no reason not to believe. No social, political, historical, metaphysical, logical or spiritual reason. We live in a world that, for the most part, makes no sense to us. Not even technical sense."

"The point is that, in a world without spiritual or intellectual order, nothing is unbelievable; nothing is predictable, and therefore, nothing comes as a particular surprise."

"The designer of the format, David Penrose, insists that in online education 'tiny bursts can teach just as well as traditional lectures when paired with assignments and discussions.' The microlecture format begins with a podcast that introduces a few key terms or a critical concept, then immediately turns the learning environment over to the students."

"The Spunk Library collects and distributes literature in electronic format, with an emphasis on anarchism and related issues."

"'I succeeded, a long time ago, in presenting the basics of [war] on a rather simple board game,' he wrote in 1989. 'The surprises of this kriegspiel seem inexhaustible; and I fear that this may well be the only one of my works that anyone will dare acknowledge as having some value.' Debord invented the Game of War, as he called it, in his early twenties—he had no military background—and patented it ten years later."

"In January 1977, the French Situationist Guy Debord founded the company "Strategic and Historical Games." This company had an immediate goal: to produce the "Kriegspiel," a "game of war" that Debord had already designed in his head years before. Inspired by the military theory of Carl von Clausewitz and the European campaigns of Napoleon, Debord's game is a chess-variant played by two opposing players on a game board of 500 squares arranged in rows of 20 by 25 squares."

"A game studies blog (mostly tabletop) by Matthew Kirschenbaum"

"They'd closed off the space between some caravans with planks and petrol cans, they'd made an enclosure, a 'Gypsy Town.'

That was the day I conceived the scheme for a permanent encampment for the gypsies of Alba and that project is the origin of the series of maquettes of New Babylon. Of a New Babylon where, under one roof, with the aid of moveable elements, a shared residence is built; a temporary, constantly remodeled living area; a camp for nomads on a planetary scale."

"Stripgenerator is free of charge project created to embrace the internet blogging and strip creation culture, helping the people with no drawing abilities to express their opinions via strips."

"a Kansas State University working group led by Dr. Michael Wesch dedicated to exploring and extending the possibilities of digital ethnography."

"Cursebird is a real-time feed of people swearing on Twitter"

"Recently Dr. Wesch spoke at the University of Manitoba where he explained the the basis of this video in a talk entitled, "Michael Wesch and the Future of Education." I found it fascinating! He describes how he so naturally incorporates emerging technologies into his courses from the smallest seminar type class to the largest lecture theatre filled class.

More importantly he not only talks about the technologies but how he encourages extraordinary participation and collaboration from his students by engaging them in meaningful learning activities."

"Progressive and conservative politics were invented two hundred years ago, when modernization and progress were sweeping away privilege and challenging the status quo. They are no longer relevant now that modernization and progress are the status quo.

The Preservation Institute is dedicated to developing a new politics that recognizes the limits of technology and growth."

"Progressive politics was invented at the time of the French revolution, when modernization was challenging traditional forms of power. Socialists and other modernist radicals hoped that progress would overturn the status quo.

But today, progress is the status quo. Rather than attacking tradition, the most interesting political theorists now attack progress.

This site includes links to the writings on the web by the most important of these new political theorists. "

"DESCHOOLING

SOCIETY

IVAN ILLICH"

"The following is an annotated version of the fairy tale. I recommend reading the entire story before exploring the annotations, especially if you have not read the tale recently."

"The Snow Queen
A translation of Hans Christian Andersen's "Sneedronningen" by Jean Hersholt."

"It was one of those splinters of glass from the magic mirror. You remember that goblin's mirror-the one which made everything great and good that was reflected in it appear small and ugly, but which magnified all evil things until each blemish loomed large. Poor Kay! A fragment had pierced his heart as well, and soon it would turn into a lump of ice. The pain had stopped, but the glass was still there." (Gonadarche?)

"I'll put on my new red shoes, the ones Kay has never seen, and I'll go down by the river to ask about him." (Menstruation sign)

"In the middle of the vast, empty hall of snow was a frozen lake. It was cracked into a thousand pieces …The Snow Queen sat in the exact center … she spoke of this as sitting on her 'Mirror of Reason.' She said this mirror was the only one of its kind, and the best thing in all the world."

"Newly published research by University of Toronto and York University professors points to reduced stress and anxiety among test subjects who consider themselves to be religious, compared with non-believers, when completing a task under pressure. As a result, the believers performed better on cognitive tests."

"[Religious people] were much less anxious and stressed when they made an error. I don't think this has to do with fundamentalism, it's something deeper – religion provides meaning in peoples' lives."

But Prof. Inzlicht said that while a low level of anxiety can boost performance, it also functions as a sort of "alarm bell," and too little activity in that part of the brain can hurt the ability to correct mistakes.

"The more they believe, the less brain activity we see in response to their own errors, that's a good thing. But on the other side, we need to know when we're making a mistake. If we don't, we may make the same mistake again."

"Find out which of your Twitter updates made people follow or leave you. Simply enter your Twitter ID in the following form."