Tom, Thanks for the clips, and sincere congrats on the opening of the 'Complex', but I wish you guys would think a little about the physical meaning of things. It's not only that the first link you offered, 'Free Rice' is well intended but ill-conceived. It's that that whole approach is also profoundly misguided. If ALL you do is provide rice to people who can't make rice, what you propagate on the earth is multiplying suffering, and we have just enough of that, thank you. I could go into detail, about how feeding people without making a whole system bargain with them, disserves the people you intend to serve. It also wastes the creative effort we so desperately need to salvage some scrap of self-respect for our species within the mess we're making of the earth. Too strong? Of course the truth is sometimes too strong for people. Then they go huddle in their caves. How the heck am I supposed to know why you're so negligent? I think the major hazard that nature as put in front of us, for us to fall into over and over, is that we are each just individuals, each 'one of a kind', independent beings alone in the universe each having their own independent design and behavior, just like yours, just like mine. We're ALL natural systems, reliant on what is self-consistent within in our minds, to lead us to connection with what is self-inconsistent around us. We need to explore to find what's happening in any other small world.
Phil Henshaw ¸¸¸¸.·´ ¯ `·.¸¸¸¸ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 680 Ft. Washington Ave NY NY 10040 tel: 212-795-4844 e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] explorations: www.synapse9.com <http://www.synapse9.com/> -- "it's not finding what people say interesting, but finding what's interesting in what they say" -- -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Tom Johnson Sent: Sunday, March 09, 2008 8:56 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] com Subject: [FRIAM] DIY, MAKE, etc. All: First, kudos to Steve Guerin, Don Bagley, Owen Densmore, Roy Worth, Shawn Barr, Simon, et al. for pulling off the first event at what we hope will become (this month), the Santa Fe Complex. The Bar Camp (http://barcamp.org/BarCampSantaFe) on Friday and Saturday attracted >35 bright and accomplishing folks discussing and demo-ing a variety of impressive tools and thinking. (We hope to get some pics and vids up any day now.) I came away with a couple strong impressions: * I can't recall anyone talking about how much money THEY were going to make with this or that "product." Everyone seemed engaged at an intellectual level, not a fiscal one. * A couple interesting and existing initiatives were mentioned involving how the synergy of the Digital Revolution can be used to improve health care and another I had never heard of, Freerice.com This morning's New York Times Magazine is devoted to philanthropy, and the issue points up these projects. Drill down into this link for some encouraging reading: http://www.nytimes.com/pages/magazine/index.html * Interesting do-it-yourself (DIY) topics and MAKE magazine (http://www.makezine.com/) appeared in different ways at different times. It just so happens that National Public Radio (in the USA) carried a related story this morning. See/hear http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=87815753 --tj ========================================== J. T. Johnson Institute for Analytic Journalism -- Santa Fe, NM USA www.analyticjournalism.com 505.577.6482(c) 505.473.9646(h) http://www.jtjohnson.com [EMAIL PROTECTED] "You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete." -- Buckminster Fuller ==========================================
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