Social scientists have a name for this sort of incessant online contact. They call it “ambient awareness.” It is, they say, very much like being physically near someone and picking up on his mood through the little things he does — body language, sighs, stray comments — out of the corner of your eye
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Amazon Kindle: Most Highlighted Books of All Time 1 - 25 - 2 views
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The FP Twitterati 100 - 1 views
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These days, everyone from the Dalai Lama to Bill Gates is on Twitter, the microblogging platform founded in 2006. During breaking news events like the death of Osama bin Laden or for following the Arab uprisings, it's become an invaluable tool for keeping up to speed. But for many, it's still just another place to promote their own work, rather than engaging in a more natural give-and-take. So how do you tell who's really worth following? FP's got you covered. Here are 100 Twitter users from around the world who will make you smarter, infuriate you, and delight you -- 140 characters at a time.
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shared by Gideon Burton on 05 Sep 12
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I'm So Totally, Digitally Close to You - Clive Thompson - NYTimes.com - 0 views
www.nytimes.com/...07awareness-t.html
social media friendship relationships Facebook nytimes weak ties
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This is the paradox of ambient awareness. Each little update — each individual bit of social information — is insignificant on its own, even supremely mundane. But taken together, over time, the little snippets coalesce into a surprisingly sophisticated portrait of your friends’ and family members’ lives, like thousands of dots making a pointillist painting
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Francis Bacon - Novum Organum - Explained - 0 views
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Niccolo Machiavelli - Biography and Works - 0 views
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Rene Descartes perceptions of philosophy - 0 views
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As Descartes said, “Those who set about giving precepts must esteem themselves more skilful than those to whom they advance them”
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In other words, someone might alter the truth solely so they could come up with something to say, while the real truth might not be capable of being expressed so easily, it can only be observed. Some things in life are too complicated to express, but however there are going to be people who believe they can express those things, even though they cannot accurately do so.
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I have read scientific journals wherein the author reports on complex interactions or relationships on the molecular level. Often I believe that they really cannot accurately do so. Perhaps scientific journals would be better if they were accompanied by videos. That would make them more like blog posts.
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are the emotions which are based off of your opinions even real, since they are based off of opinions?
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Your perception is going to determine what it is that you feel, that is, your conscious and unconscious perception of what is going on is
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For it seemed to me that I might meet with much more truth in the reasonings that each man makes on the matters that specially concern him, and the issue of which would very soon punish him if he made a wrong judgment, than in the case of those made by a man of letters in his study touching speculations that lead to no result, and that bring about no other consequences to himself excepting that he will be all the more vain the more they are removed from common sense, since in this case proves to him to have employed so much more ingenuity and skill trying to make them seem probable.
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More especially did I reflect in each matter that came before me as to anything that could make it subject to suspicion of doubt, and give occasion for mistake, and I rooted out of my mind all the errors that might have formerly crept in. Not that indeed I imitated the skeptics, who only doubt for the sake of doubting, and pretend to by always uncertain; for, on the contrary, my design was only to provide myself with good ground for assurance, and to reject the quicksand and mud in order to find the rock or clay.”
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Accordingly I shall now suppose, not that a true God, who as such must be supremely good and the fountain of truth, but that some malignant genius exceedingly powerful and cunning has devoted all his powers in the deceiving of me; I shall suppose that the sky, the earth, colors, shapes, sounds and all external things are illusions and impostures of which this evil genius has availed himself for the abuse of my credulity…”
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I am, I exist. This is certain. How often? As often as I think. For it might indeed be that if I entirely ceased to think, I should thereupon altogether cease to exist. I am not at present admitting anything which is not necessarily true; and, accurately speaking, I am therefore [taking myself to be] only a thinking thing, that is to say, a mind, an understanding or reason-terms the significance of which has hitherto been unknown to me. I am, then a real thing, and really existent. What thing? I have said it, a thinking thing
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So it really is thought that makes him who he is, since he is thinking about himself all of the time, in addition to thinking about and in regular life.
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Thought determines who someone is because your thoughts are controlled, and all your thoughts over your lifetime caused your emotional development, which causes you to be who you are.
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So it is easy to say that your thoughts understand and/or control who you are, but it is much harder to say that your emotions understand and/or control who you are.
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I recognize it is impossible that He should ever deceive me, since in all fraud and deception there is some element of imperfection. The power of deception may indeed seem to be evidence of subtlety or power; yet unquestionably the will to deceive testifies to malice and feebleness, and accordingly cannot be found in God.
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“To laugh often and much; To win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; To earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; To appreciate beauty, to find the best in others; To leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch, or a redeemed social condition; To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded”
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conclusive as to whether or not pleasing other people infinitely is going to be self-beneficial, it could be considered a perfect thing to do since it is positively contributing to life.
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BBC News - How good software makes us stupid - 2 views
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Interesting article about how technology is making it easier for people to get by with less knowledge
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Great article! It brings up some interesting points. This is something that I have thought about a lot lately, because with a lot of technology options today we don't even have to remember information, we can simply save it and have easy access to it later...just not in our brains but on our phones, computers, etc. Also, a really great reference to some interesting research that has been done with taxi drivers.
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Preliminary Discourse - 0 views
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If one reflects somewhat upon the connection that discoveries have with one another, it is readily apparent that the sciences and the arts are mutually supporting, and that consequently there is a chain that binds them together. But, if it is often difficult to reduce each particular science or art to a small number of rules or general notions, it is no less difficult to encompass the infinitely varied branches of human knowledge in a truly unified system
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We can divide all our knowledge into direct and reflective knowledge. We receive direct knowledge immediately, without any operation of our will; it is the knowledge which finds all the doors of our souls open, so to speak, and enters without resistance and without effort. The mind acquires reflective knowledge by making use of direct knowledge, unifying and combining it.
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p here a moment and glance over the journey we have just made. We will note two limits within which almost all of the certain knowledge that is accorded to our natural intelligence is concentrated, so to speak. [34] One of those limits, our point of departure, is the idea of ourselves, which leads to that of the Omnipotent Being, and of our principal duties. The other is that part of mathematics whose object is the general properties of bodies, of extension and magnitude. Between these two boundaries is an immense gap where the Supreme Intelligence seems to have tried to tantalize the human curiosity, as much by the innumerable clouds it has spread there as by the rays of light that seem to break out at intervals to attract us. One can compare the universe to certain works of a sublime obscurity whose authors occasionally bend down within reach of their reader, seeking to persuade him that he understands nearly all. We are indeed fortunate if we do not lose the true route when we enter this labyrinth! Otherwise the flashes of light which should direct us along the way would often serve only to lead us further from it. The limited quantity of certain knowledge upon which we can rely, relegated (if one can express oneself this way) to the two extremities of space to which we refer, is far indeed from being sufficient to satisfy all our needs. The nature of man, the study of which is so necessary and so highly recommended by Socrates, is an impenetrable mystery for man himself when he is enlightened by reason alone; and the greatest geniuses, after considerable reflection upon this most important matter, too often succeed merely in knowing a little less about it than the rest of men. The same may be said of our existence, present and future, of the essence of the Being to whom we owe it, and of the kind of worship he requires of us. Thus, nothing is more necessary than a revealed Religion, which may instruct us concerning so many diverse objects. Designed to serve as a supplement to natural knowledge, it shows us part of what was hidden, but it restricts itself to the things which are absolutely necessary for us to know. The rest is closed for us and apparently will be forever. A few truths to be believed, a small number of precepts to be practiced: such are the essentials to which revealed Religion is reduced. Nevertheless, thanks to the enlightenment it has communicated to the world, the common people themselves are more solidly grounded and confident on a large number of questions of interest than the sects [35] of the philosophers have been.
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found in enlarging the sphere of their ideas, whether by their own efforts or by the aid of their fellows, made them think that it would be useful to reduce to an art the very manner of acquiring information and of reciprocally communicating their own ideas. This art was found and named Logic. It teaches how to arrange ideas in the most natural order, how to link them together in the most direct sequence, how to break up those which include too large a number of simple ideas, how to view ideas in all their facets, and finally how to present them to others in a form that makes them easy to grasp. This is what constitutes this science of reasoning, which is rightly considered the key to all our knowledge. However, it should not be thought that it [the formal discipline of Logic] belongs among the first in the order of discovery. The art of reasoning is a gift which Nature bestows of her own accord upon men of intelligence, and it can be said that the books which treat this subject are hardly useful except to those who can get along without them. People reasoned validly long before Logic, reduced to principles, taught how to recognize false reasonings, and sometimes even how to cloak them in a subtle and deceiving form. [38]
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The last couple sentences are interesting because they talk about the human perspective timeline, how we seem to think that simply because something was recently discovered doesn't mean it didn't exist before then. Atom for examplke have always existed but we only recently have begun to discover their true nature.
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Too much communication can sometimes benumb the mind and prejudice the efforts of which it is capable. If one observes the prodigies of some of those born blind, or deaf and mute, one will see what the faculties of the mind can perform if they are lively and called into action by difficulties which must be overcome.
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The science of communication of ideas is not confined to putting order in ideas themselves. In addition it should teach how to express each idea in the clearest way possible, and consequently how to perfect the signs that are designed to convey it; and indeed this is what men have gradually done.
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The general system of the sciences and the arts is a sort of labyrinth, a tortuous road which the intellect enters without quite knowing what direction to take. Impelled, first of all, by its needs and by those of the body to which it is united, the intelligence studies the first objects that present themselves to it. It delves as far as it can into the knowledge of these objects, soon meets difficulties that obstruct it, and whether through hope or even through despair of surmounting them, plunges on to a new route; now it retraces its footsteps, sometimes crosses the first barriers only to meet new ones; and passing rapidly from one object to another, it carries through a sequence of operations on each of them at different intervals, as if by jumps. The discontinuity of these operations is a necessary effect of the very generation of ideas. However philosophic this disorder may be on the part of the soul, [57] an encyclopedic tree which attempted to portray it would be disfigured, indeed utterly destroyed.
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It is only after having considered their particular and palpable properties that we envisaged their general and common properties and created Metaphysics and Geometry by intellectual abstraction. Only after the long usage of the first signs have we perfected the art of these signs to the point of making a science of them. And it is only after a long sequence of operations on the objects of our ideas that, through reflection, we have at length given rules to these operations themselves.
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Choosing a smart password - Official Gmail Blog - 3 views
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shared by Megan Stern on 01 Oct 10
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Pepe Escobar: Don't Mess With My Burqa, Monsieur - 0 views
www.huffingtonpost.com/...-with-my-burqa-m_b_719605.html
Pepe Escobar digiciv French Revolution human rights burqa
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California (Geography) - 1 views
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Encyclopedia entry on "California". The entry on America said that more specific information was given under the different regions. I decided to look up California, since that was one of the regions the entry listed. This is quite an entertainging description of California and it makes me wonder what their sources were.
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We Are Visible - SIGN UP SPEAK OUT BE SEEN - helping you connect to the social world - 0 views
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This site is a diving board for people who are homeless to begin using social media. It advocates the use of social media to give these people a voice in a community that is more apt to ignore them. People don't often listen to people who "look" homeless, but because with social media they can blog/tweet/status update from their hearts and be judged only on the basis of what they say without being preempted by something else, people listen.
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Calls for longer school years face budget reality - Yahoo! News - 0 views
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Education reformers have long called for U.S. kids to log more time in the classroom so they can catch up with their peers elsewhere in the world, but resistance from leisure-loving teenagers isn't the only reason there is no mass movement to keep schoolchildren in their seats. Such a change could cost cash-strapped state governments and local school districts billions of dollars, strip teachers of a time-honored perk of their profession, and irk officials in states that already bridle at federal intrusion into their traditional control over education.
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Texas already forbids school from starting before the fourth Monday of August, a provision designed to save money on utility bills and increase business for tourist destinations and other summer attractions. "Ultimately the states, not the federal government, should have the final word on this and other public school decisions," said Lucy Nashed, a spokeswoman for Gov. Rick Perry. In Kansas, sporadic efforts by local districts to extend the school year at even a few schools have been met by parental resistance, said state education commissioner Diane DeBacker.
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The Social Contract - The Open-Borders Network - Philanthropic foundations fund immigra... - 0 views
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When it comes to advancing goals, objectives, and agendas, groups that are well organized, and consequently well funded, will eventually triumph over the unorganized, underrepresented, and underfunded.
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these groups network across the social, cultural, and political divide in shoring up mutual interests (business, corporate, and labor) to advance their agenda of a world without borders.
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Communist Manifesto (Chapter 3) - 0 views
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disastrous effects of machinery and division of labour
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It proclaimed the German nation to be the model nation
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The Socialistic bourgeois want all the advantages of modern social conditions without the struggles and dangers necessarily resulting therefrom. They desire the existing state of society, minus its revolutionary and disintegrating elements. They wish for a bourgeoisie without a proletariat.
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the concentration of capital and land in a few hands; overproduction and crises; it pointed out the inevitable ruin of the petty bourgeois and peasant, the misery of the proletariat, the anarchy in production, the crying inequalities in the distribution of wealth, the industrial war of extermination between nations, the dissolution of old moral bonds, of the old family relations, of the old nationalities.
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Communist Manifesto (Chapter 2) - 0 views
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The Communists do not form a separate party opposed to the other working-class parties. They have no interests separate and apart from those of the proletariat as a whole. They do not set up any sectarian principles of their own, by which to shape and mould the proletarian movement.
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1. In the national struggles of the proletarians of the different countries, they point out and bring to the front the common interests of the entire proletariat, independently of all nationality. 2. In the various stages of development which the struggle of the working class against the bourgeoisie has to pass through, they always and everywhere represent the interests of the movement as a whole.
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formation of the proletariat into a class, overthrow of the bourgeois supremacy, conquest of political power by the proletariat.
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The theoretical conclusions of the Communists are in no way based on ideas or principles that have been invented, or discovered, by this or that would-be universal reformer.
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but the abolition of bourgeois property.
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We Communists have been reproached with the desire of abolishing the right of personally acquiring property as the fruit of a man’s own labour, which property is alleged to be the groundwork of all personal freedom, activity and independence.
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, that quantum of the means of subsistence which is absolutely requisite to keep the labourer in bare existence as a labourer.
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allowed to live only in so far as the interest of the ruling class requires it.
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By freedom is meant, under the present bourgeois conditions of production, free trade, free selling and buying.
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It has been objected that upon the abolition of private property, all work will cease, and universal laziness will overtake us.
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bourgeois society ought long ago to have gone to the dogs through sheer idleness;
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Do you charge us with wanting to stop the exploitation of children by their parents? To this crime we plead guilty
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But, you say, we destroy the most hallowed of relations, when we replace home education by social. And your education! Is not that also social, and determined by the social conditions under which you educate, by the intervention direct or indirect, of society, by means of schools, &c.?
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Our bourgeois, not content with having wives and daughters of their proletarians at their disposal, not to speak of common prostitutes, take the greatest pleasure in seducing each other’s wives.
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to freedom of commerce, to the world market,
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In proportion as the exploitation of one individual by another will also be put an end to, the exploitation of one nation by another will also be put an end to. In proportion as the antagonism between classes within the nation vanishes, the hostility of one nation to another will come to an end.
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The charges against Communism made from a religious, a philosophical and, generally, from an ideological standpoint, are not deserving of serious examination.
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The ruling ideas of each age have ever been the ideas of its ruling class.
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traditional property relations
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to centralise all instruments of production in the hands of the State
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Nevertheless, in most advanced countries, the following will be pretty generally applicable.