21 NOV 2017 by ideonexus

 Urban Communities as Post-Apocalyptic Settings

As far as Brown is concerned, many abandoned urban communities are postapocalyptic in nature. Such places are rife for community-born transformation. "If you look at cities in the US right now, there are cities or communities in apocalyptic situations," says Brown. She references challenged areas in New York City, New Orleans in the aftermath of Katrina, Cincinnati, and her new home, Detroit. "Detroit used to be this booming industry town. This used to be a big, booming factory town. You coul...
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25 OCT 2017 by ideonexus

 Knowledge Replaced with Social Media

When it emerged towards the end of the 80s as a purely text-based medium, [the internet] was seen as a tool to pursue knowledge, not pleasure. Reason and thought were most valued in this garden—all derived from the project of Enlightenment. Universities around the world were among the first to connect to this new medium, which hosted discussion groups, informative personal or group blogs, electronic magazines, and academic mailing lists and forums. It was an intellectual project, not about ...
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10 MAR 2017 by ideonexus

 Intelligent Plant Life

On certain small planets, drenched with light and heat from a near or a great sun, evolution took a very different course from that with which we are familiar. The vegetable and animal functions were not separated into distinct organic types. Every organism was at once animal and vegetable. Many species, of course, developed predatory habits, and special organs of offense, such as muscular boughs as strong as pythons for constriction, or talons, horns, and formidable serrated pincers. In the...
Folksonomies: otherness alien other
Folksonomies: otherness alien other
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29 NOV 2016 by ideonexus

 Earthseed 46-50

46. Do not worship God Do not worship God Inexorable GodNeither needs nor wantsYour worship.Instead,Acknowledge and attend God,Learn from God,With forethought and intelligence,Imagination and industry,Shape God.When you must,Yield to God.Adapt and endure.For you are Earthseed,And God is Change. ∞ = Δ 47. Unenlightened Self-Interest Beware:At warOr at peace,More people dieOf unenlightened self-interestThan of any other disease. ∞ = Δ 48. Hidden within Change God is ChangeAnd hidden with...
Folksonomies: religion earthseed
Folksonomies: religion earthseed
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22 JUN 2016 by ideonexus

 The Importance of Old, Well-Written Articles

...we overvalue new writing, almost absurdly so, and we undervalue older writing. I feel this market failure keenly each day when I recommend a fine piece of writing that deserves to be read for years to come and yet will have at most two days in the sun. You never hear anybody say, “I’m not going to listen to that record because it was released last year,” or, “I’m not going to watch that film because it came out last month.” Why are we so much less interested in journalism that...
Folksonomies: writing reading pertinence new
Folksonomies: writing reading pertinence new
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If 99% of new content on the Web is worthless, how do we surface the old content for new eyes?

09 JUN 2015 by ideonexus

 Kindergarden: Garden of Children

Kindergarten means a garden of children, and Froebel, the inventor of it, or rather, as he would prefer to express it, the discoverer of the method of Nature, meant to symbolize by the name the spirit and plan of treatment. How does the gardener treat his plants? He studies their individual natures, and puts them into such circumstances of soil and atmosphere as enable them to grow, flower, and bring forth fruit,-- also to renew their manifestation year after year. 
Folksonomies: education
Folksonomies: education
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30 MAY 2015 by ideonexus

 States Reduce Violence

So did Hobbes get it right? In part, he did. In the nature of man we find three principal causes of quarrel: gain (predatory raids), safety (preemptive raids), and reputation (retaliatory raids). And the numbers confirm that relatively speaking, “during the time men live without a common power to keep them all in awe, they are in that condition which is called war,” and that in such condition they live in “continual fear, and danger of violent death.” But from his armchair in 17th-ce...
Folksonomies: society governance violence
Folksonomies: society governance violence
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02 MAR 2015 by ideonexus

 Embrace the Cosmic Perspective

At least once a week, if not once a day, we might each ponder what cosmic truths lie undiscovered before us, perhaps awaiting the arrival of a clever thinker, an ingenious experiment, or an innovative space mission to reveal them. We might further ponder how those discoveries may one day transform life on Earth. Absent such curiosity, we are no different from the provincial farmer who expresses no need to venture beyond the county line, because his forty acres meet all his needs. Yet if all ...
Folksonomies: purpose perspective
Folksonomies: purpose perspective
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19 FEB 2015 by ideonexus

 Growing a Forest Rapidly

1. First, you start with soil. We identify what nutrition the soil lacks. 2. Then we identify what species we should be growing in this soil, depending on climate. 3. We then identify locally abundant biomass available in that region to give the soil whatever nourishment it needs. This is typically an agricultural or industrial byproduct — like chicken manure or press mud, a byproduct of sugar production — but it can be almost anything. We’ve made a rule that it must come from...
Folksonomies: forestry gardening
Folksonomies: forestry gardening
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19 FEB 2015 by ideonexus

 Gardener Metaphor of Teaching

...like curriculum, the garden is primarily a social construct that reflects the intent of the maker and the prevailing cultural ideologies of the time. The lived experiences of the person within both curriculum and garden are a synthesis of orchestrated and phenomenological experiences. The garden and the curriculum employ a common interpretive stance by referencing the artistry of creation within an aesthetic of experience. Within this hermeneutic relationship lies the potential for moving ...
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