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  • 2007
  • 2006
    • December
      • Extensions of usenet I
        12/30/06
        Remember the first phone call? The first movie? The first night in camp?
        Now think recent extensions: the first chat room, the first posting, the first webpage, first meeting of an online buddy. And so on.
        Harder is predicting: the first prosthesis is memory. The first senses are webcams,

      • Towards bio-electronic co-evolution
        12/29/06
        The expanding brain is co-evolving with off-site memory and improving retrieval.

        Will personality follow? ?US president skills
        Implants of autocue and hud
        Remote surgery options
        Energy stores like wrap-around stents
        Radio communication
        Other resonance effects like

      • The function of government is security
        12/29/06
        Which in UK is growing to include lots like:
        Health
        Social service including education and prisons
        Land use
        Photodatabase of all esp baddies
        Money flow – cherchez le cash
        Borders
        DNA of troubled families
        Tendencies by region, character and schooling assessment

      • A great work in progress
        12/29/06
        Book of the decade award
        To David Peters and team for New Medicine
        And DK for the £5 price and illustrations that put it in range of every family.
        May they sell millions.
        Outlines the body, dis-eases, and therapies
        Illustrations and four-page spreads say it bitesize for eas

      • Towards a cure for asbo breakers, DandD, and cannon fodder.
        12/29/06
        So if the US can do three strikes and out, we Brits can do two asbos and conscript?

        Then in Afghanistan we watch out for those surviving squaddies who set up drug running industries. And promote them to where they see it better to go straight than the other.

      • How far from Saddam to Mugabe and one or two others?
        12/29/06
        The links made by the Beeb this year suggest that any citizen with an International Court level complaint against their ruler could seek redress.

        Like genocide.

        So far so good. But freakonomics and Soros’ Unpredictability suggest we can’t foresee which way it will blow.
        <

      • A first venture in Gibbon
        12/27/06
        Quotations from the opening chapters of Gibbon’s
        Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

        selected from http://www.his.com/~z/gibbon.html#20Patrimony
        to whom thanks


        Curious to know how many of these wisdoms were apposite then, and have now shifted. Only the wise kn

      • Can we turn our media?
        12/26/06
        Media at turning point, a pointer for the rest of business

        One joy of capitalism is seeing realism triumph.

        In this case the paper papers who have contrived for us to pay good money so they can harm us. Until now, we have. But the electronic news is so much nicer – tailored to

      • Sorting the disability spectra
        12/26/06
        Hard to know which overlap and which just cross:
        Autistic, asbergers, diet overload, sleep underload, dyslexias, spoilt child, tired child, growing child, abused child, rebel, triggered resentment, bullied and bullying child (and teacher &#61514;), guilty child – often parental strife, unlo

      • Copyright, copy rite
        12/26/06
        Probably late to the party, but what is the effect of copy right on the artiste?

        If she’s financially comfortable, and earning livably from her art, not a lot. The egoboo outweighs the niggle, I would guess. Unless she’s neurotic about it. That way lies disaster, for mistrusting up to dis

      • Issues for ethical debate
        12/26/06
        Issues for ethical debate -
        lightly edited from Jimmy Carter’s book Faith and Freedom

        1. Western beliefs and differences
        2. Religious fundamentalism
        3. Conflicts among religious people
        4. Entwining church and state
        5. Divorce and homosexuality
        6. Abortion and

      • Freedom from driven faith.
        12/26/06
        Just reading Jimmy Carter’s Faith and Freedom.

        Interesting he remembers being asked by Deng of China to explain his Christian ethos, then suggest what he Deng et al might do. Three suggestions were made, (churches, bibles, mission) only the third not done. We are seeing China open up to

      • So what’s beyond searching?
        12/26/06
        In 50 years Computer Science moved from mainframe to desktop to laptop to hand held to network to knowledge mining. Combining for synergy seems in, as ever in capital growth, but will the little chap squeezed out by democracy get a better look in than by blogging? Yes is likely. Our need for adventu

      • The space in the server room
        12/26/06
        Spent a little time alone in a server room with fifty cabinets recently, and shuddered with déjà vu. Slightly from the noise, more so from the cavities. Comparing with the voids in the PC case we all love for its impressive size. Designed to market, to impress, to hold cards at right angles to the

      • Will we be Morlock*, Eloi, both or neither?
        12/26/06
        No hardship realising we have both in us: thrusting when young, risk-averse when old. With agents to do the business for us when rich enough and incapacitated. Our Morlocks live aboveground in tall towers, palace or Twin. And sometimes the friends of the Eloi take a pop at them, as in the French rev

      • On our blindness
        12/26/06
        We are traditionally blind to things we do not wish to see. For good evolutionary reasons.

        Hence hubris of course, but also national incompetence. Wouldbe truthtellers need to clothe their saws in acceptable capsules. The wisdom of Solomon in Delphic patter. M&Ms – smarties in UK - at

      • Unix daemons
        12/26/06
        Unix daemons as basis for pretty well every aspect of behaviour seems an increasingly adequate hypothesis. Linking the layers of evolving mind (plant-wide to crocodile to mammal to us) with the daemons in each layer would be a survival enhancer as each new kind of thinking was being added to the fun

      • Carter in NYT before the Iraq invasion
        12/26/06
        Carter in NYT before the Iraq invasion, a year after the decision.
        Based on Augustine c 400AD and Aquinas 13th C. Pah!


        “The pre-eminent criterion for a just war is that it can only be waged as a last resort, with all non-violent options exhausted. ..


        Weapons us

      • Requiescat in pacem, and may his friends reform while still around
        12/26/06
        Not many people die that I am happy to see go. But sadly, the passage of a destructive force in my book did so recently, and I was happy to see the influence removed. No names. But the tribe of moral people who have drunk the milk of the wealthy, and support their ongoing foolishnesses, worry me. Ou

      • Self therapists
        12/26/06
        Why do we in the West not teach some of the wisdoms of the East to ourselves?

        We were great at DIY until the advent of the electronic age.

        Perhaps we are: the here and now philosophy of western buddhism, a soundbite at a time, is a nice contrast and loads easier than trawling f

      • Young doctors to be
        12/26/06
        Young doctors to be, once launched fully into their studies, are amongst the most inspired and inspiring of people.

        They have just realised the joys of therapy and the surging growth of ability that knowledge and competence bring. They are escaping from the humdrum lessons and radiate del

      • Motivising, the international challenge
        12/26/06
        The best holiday is indeed a people holiday working at a children’s home in the third world, and then going on to meet the parents and share skills and problems and challenges and opportunities.

        Giving meaning to an otherwise closed lifestyle.

        When will families and firms and g

      • Sudoko the reasons
        12/26/06
        The tools are the ability to use long pins, and check nine cells for difference.
        The strengths are persistence, care and tenacity.
        The skills are ability to sophisticate methods of checking, and speed the process by slicing corners.
        The motivator is pleasure in improving a process.
      • The new neocons
        12/26/06
        For power, any UK opposition needs to catch the national mood so that influential local people will want to work for them. Mrs Nice Guy is already working for Labour of course, so until she gets fed up with pork barrel politics, only donors of magnitude and surface probity will be sought. Roll out t

      • Battle of Britain 2
        12/26/06
        Nice or not nice sums it up. (Yes, the pun is intended.) Can we keep the level of support for all our population, or will we lapse into neo-eugenics? Currently we use many universities as pre-jail, BUPA as proper medicine for the rich, and quality schools as breeding grounds for people of destiny. C

      • So half the ASBO’s have worked! For the rest we could ..
        12/11/06
        So half the ASBO’s have worked! Yippee!
        For the others, boot camp with skills looms.
        And if that doesn’t work, family boot camp with skills for the failing parents/supporters. With pay as you earn central heating.
        Until the rewards of paid work in the community outweigh those of yobbe

      • Media at turning point, a pointer for the rest of business
        12/11/06
        One joy of capitalism is seeing realism triumph.

        In this case the paper papers who have contrived for us to pay good money so they can harm us. Until now, we have. But the electronic news is so much nicer – tailored to what Mrs Average wants who is basically nice – that we are abandoning

      • Sorting the disability spectra
        12/11/06
        Hard to know which overlap and which just cross:
        Autistic, asbergers, diet overload, sleep underload, dyslexias, spoilt child, tired child, growing child, abused child, rebel, triggered resentment, bullied and bullying child (and teacher!), guilty child – often parental strife, unloved child wh

      • Some uses and their abuses for and-held technology in schooling
        12/11/06
        Make news reports
        Make news digests
        Summarise debates
        Publish issues
        Celebrate triumphs
        Show problems
        Analyse causes of failures
        Situation rehearsals, good and bad
        Teach skills
        Safety videos
        Practise drama ideas
        Summarise opinions of school conc

      • Three of the ages of teenage
        12/10/06
        A first draft trial look at how learning styles can change in a boy’s school life.



        Rough division:
        Early 13- Boy
        Middle 14-16 Older boy
        Late 17+ Young man


        Some fields that will change for individuals and groups:
        1. Reaction to new stu

      • Why successful schools have to be precious most of the time
        12/10/06
        We cannot allow a single child, able or less so, to slip through the caring net.

        In a mere 25% oxygen, trees ignite and blaze almost spontaneously. No surprise then that disaffection in schools breeds frighteningly fast in a likewise highly charged environment.

        So the teachin

      • Mechanics in upper school age 16-17 UK physics is like a two-legged tripod – but could be fixed
        12/10/06
        The three legs are statics, linear dynamics and rotational dynamics.
        With time and intellectual fire power short, the decision to reduce the third leg to moments of force, torque definition, and circular motion is inevitable. Sadly this blocks off moment of inertia, rotational energy storage an

      • Towards an inspiring ethic for our schools
        12/09/06
        The future of the species, beloved of humanists, is not an enduring inspiration.
        We have too far lost faith in corporates, capitalism, and flower power whether in rifles or from poppies. The dreams of a working nash, a caring school system, and a reaching-every-corner church are no more. (But w

      • The death and putative rebirth of morality
        12/05/06
        The second Judao-Christian commandment was always double edged, a people selector not unlike Joshua’s method for selecting assault troops. Under Chicago economics it became another tool in the tax box, stating that trickle-down would work wonders where the state chose not to go. This gave the market

      • Little for thy comfort, but glimmers can just be made out ..
        12/05/06
        So the beeb is in the frame for the dumbing down of the nation. It cannot be we the nation, of course. The scapegoat principle is too deeply rooted. At the same time we are realising, those who follow Lovelock, that we will be down to one billion tops sooner than we think, and those able to see ove

      • Towards using the new coursework system in physics fully
        12/04/06
        The new system is much better than the old: fairer, easier to mark and therefore set more often, more diverse, no longer one gosh-awful exercise dragged out over yonks to improve each wretched mark till all are screaming. Phew, its gone! Rejoice.

        And the new one has a bonus. It’s dumbed d

      • Some aims for physics
        12/04/06
        To make models
        To improve models
        To solve problems
        To teach and use math to solve problems
        To make physicists rich enough to keep doing what they want

      • A small step for teacherkind towards real education
        12/02/06
        The much improved light-touch inspection system requires permanent inspection of all kids books. This is regrettably as it needs to be in any system especially those that involve children’s lives.
        But I think I have found a way around much of the busywork (work set for child occupation in class

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