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Galaxies of “Fundamental Questions”

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Buddhist science[1] spends a lot of time on why external reality[2] is in essence a delusion. And modern physics, psychology and brain science also struggles with questions such as whether the brain creates consciousness (or rather, whether consciousness is the activity or even just a side-effect of the brain’s activity). And self-consciousness may or may not be separable from perception.

Edge dot orgI spent some time this morning reading edge.org – where, once a year, a whole lot of thoughtful people, each of whom is also well-known in their field of practice, are asked to give their answers to some fundamental question. I was reading the 2005 question, which I found had sparked a bunch of interesting reactions.

Dropping Knowledge logoAnd yesterday I spent some time discussing DroppingKnowledge.org with a friend. The premise of Dropping Knowledge is to have brought together 112 individuals from around the world, with diverse backgrounds, to answer 100 important questions. Most of the questions were about the future of the world, the individual and society. All 11,200 “answers,” at three minutes each, were captured on video and are searchable and playable online. It’s a fascinating experiment.

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“If You Liked This, You’ll Like That…”

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Google Analytics search engine reportIf you got to my blog via a Google, Yahoo, or (Microsoft) Live search, then you’re actually in the minority, but these days that’s how zillions of people find absolutely everything when they’re online. It’s what I call the I-forgot-the-name-of-that-site-but-I‘ll-just-bring-up-Google-and-search strategy. Over the past couple of years, specialized search engines that are focused solely on blogs have risen in prominence — and the one I pay most attention to is Technorati. Google also “knows about” blogs and your blog “places higher” in Google searches if it has lots of connections from other blogs. But, there are other such blog-search nexuses as well.

Here’s what I want to point out. The conventional wisdom from 1995 to maybe 2003, was that a web site had to keep its visitors “on the site” and never give them a chance to leave. A visitor who went off to another site was equivalent to a lost sale. So web sites jealously guarded their links and seldom contained “offsite” links (those whose targets are outside the web site). The sites that did contain “links pages” (meaning pages of reciprocal links with other web sites) were primarily those of individuals — and search engines like Yahoo.

Now today, in the blogosphere, it’s become an accepted belief that people who search for information about “X” would be interested in reading about “X” no matter whose blog it’s in. So if you’ve searched for “Dalai Lama” and gotten to my blog, the assumption is that you’d like to read other blogs that mention the “Dalai Lama.” How is that accomplished? And is it even good for me, as a blog-writer, to facilitate your going off to read other blogs?

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Future Leaders for Peace – Jonathan Kathrein

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Jonathan KathreinI sat down in a coffee shop in Berkeley (CA USA) a week ago with Jonathan Kathrein, the founder of Future Leaders for Peace.

FLFP conducts workshops in schools – from grade-school thru college – their workshop lasts 90 minutes, including a video, to capture attention and inspire; it starts with interviews of people the kids can relate to, from sports figures to real people, and continues to Jonathan sharing his stories, including the shark attack he survived at Stinson Beach in 1998; proceeding to then get the kids to share their own stories in small groups of 8 or so – their challenges and conflicts and experiences. To paraphrase Jonathan – It’s amazing how similar their challenges are and yet each one thinks they’re unique – by sharing, they learn how to better approach and overcome adversity in their lives.

Audio player:

Don't Fear the Shark - a book

Jonathan has also written a children’s book Don’t Fear the Shark – a story of his shark attack, but one in which the shark is a bully mistreating humans because it has been mistreated itself – the story looks at how the cycle of violence arises and can be prevented. As he says, the story ends abruptly and the reader has to figure out how it would or could end.

Jonathan is also a hard-working member of the organizing committee for Educators For NonViolence.

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Microsoft’s counter-offer to “free software”

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Microsoft is countering the free software movement with “nearly free” software (announced by Bill Gates in April 2007). This in addition to their many other efforts to stymie the free software providers. The New York Times has a good article “Software by Microsoft Is Nearly Free for the Needy.” The writer suggests, and fairly, as you might suspect, that once a young user gets used to Microsoft software, they’ll become a lifetime user. So at $3 per installation, that’s a tiny “marketing” expense to Microsoft, which will eventually reap much more from these potential MS customers.

It’s called the Microsoft Student Innovation Suite.

C|Net news also reports on Bill Gates’ speech in Beijing, entitled “Microsoft aims to reach next billion PC users.” The software bundle includes Windows (XP Starter Edition), Office Home and Student 2007, Windows Live Mail Desktop and several educational products. To be eligible, a government must pay for at least 50% of the cost of the PC involved.

BBC News reported (19 April 2007) “Microsoft aims to double PC base.” They report “Governments will be required to provide free computers to schools, capable of running Windows, to be eligible for the discounted software.”

You know that these efforts were given additional impetus by (or according to some were direct ripoffs of) the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) program. Nick Negroponte talked about OLPC at TED (video) in February 2006.

AMD 50x15 programAMD and Intel have been aggressively-competitive for years, and both companies have announced initiatives to put inexpensive computers in the hands of students in developing nations. Intel’s Classmate is their entry (at $400) and AMD has announced its 50×15 program (50% of schools by 2015).

Now, the trick is to get the cost of the computer itself down with reach. At $50, a reconditioned computer might be affordable many places, if reconditioned computers can be made available. At $400 the Intel Classmate is pricier, but can run Windows and its associates gizmos.

“The Other” $100 Laptops

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Intel's Classmate laptopTechmeme tracks news all over the web, and a link on Techmeme today to a BBC article brought to my attention yet another inexpensive laptop computer for kids. Intel has a $200+ laptop (the “$100 laptop” is now close to $175) that could also be in the running.

The SimputerAnd let’s not ignore other efforts to create inexpensive computers, like Simputer and the recent announcement that India seeks to create a $10 laptop computer. (That’s, of course, going to be extremely difficult, but it does show that $100 may still be too high a price to achieve “everywhere” penetration.)

60-Minutes talks to Nick NegroponteOn CBS News, Lesley Stahl interviewed Nick Negroponte about the computer. There’s video there to be viewed. This is the CBS-OLPC institutional view, of course, but the discussion about OLPC in the blogosphere has gotten so negative lately that some positivity is welcome!

One Laptop Per Child

The Intel Classmate

The Simputer (Simple Computer)

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