“While the gendered politics of technology access and the creative ways in which children are able to work as embodied interfaces is interesting – and perhaps needs more space than is afforded here – what remains interesting to me is how this story disrupts the regular narratives of techno-euphoria. It cannot be explained away merely in terms of usage. It cannot be used to claim radical social change in community and gendered relationships. It is difficult to make a technology-empowerment argument though this. What is perhaps most interesting is that it shows how we need to start thinking about digital technologies as producing new ecosystems that reconfigure our understanding of who we are and the roles we play in developing social relationality. The digital natives in these stories are not merely the children – though their embodied interface produces startling insights into how personal relationships with technologies are produced. The men who have access to the phones and have mastered digital literacy in navigating through these phones, the women who become the last-mile consumers who have found creative ways of staying connected despite their lack of access, and the children who become the nodes in this technology-information infrastructure, are all digital natives of a certain kind. They might not have claimed that identity and indeed might never want to. And yet, the very conditions of everyday life, as they are mediated by the presence of digital technologies in Banni, help us understand the social structures and information relationships in ways which are more complex than theorized by our techno-euphoric attention to network visualizations which are heavily determined by usage and action.” via +Michael Chui Pam Griffith originally shared this post: “These children would not usually be recognized as digital natives because they are not particularly tech savvy and they do […]

“Salesforce.com won’t disclose exactly how the Influencer algorithm works. It’s more than just tabulating number of posts, though. In fact, workers could actually be penalized for sheer volume, if colleagues don’t consider their content useful. “We don’t want people being noisy,” Chatter general manager Kendall Collins tells Fast Company. Instead, the algorithm looks at things like how many Likes a post gets or how often it’s re-shared. “It surveys all the activities you’re involved in and weighs them differently,” King says. He adds that managers wanting to evaluate worker influence will probably want to combine the machine-generated score with the output of an explicit recognition system, like Salesforce.com’s newly acquired Rypple, which allows employees to give each other badges for great work. When you add a system like Rypple, King says, “you get a complete picture–not only what’s derived [from activity on the system] but also what’s declared by peers and managers.”” #attentioneconomy via +Rebecca Spizzirri Jeffrey J Davis originally shared this post: Interesting , companies begin to use internal Klout-like influence ranking systems to include influence in performance assessments. Measuring An Employee’s Worth? Consider Influence The performance review of the future will include services like Salesforce.com’s Chatter and its Influencers feature, which measures how much weight you carry among your peers. Measuring An Employee’s Worth? Consider Influence The performance review of the future will include services like Salesforce.com’s Chatter and its Influencers feature, which measures how much weight you carry among your peers.

Attention Economy Vignettes I recently posted a long excerpt from +Bruce Sterling‘s wonderful novel _The Caryatids_ as an example of a functioning #attentioneconomy in action. Sterling’s lucid prose highlights many of the functional aspects of an attention economy, including the central of role of experts and self-directed education, and the importance of Augmented Reality overlays for demonstrating the fruits of economic labor (through a visualization Sterling calls “Glory”). You can read the excerpt here: https://plus.google.com/117828903900236363024/posts/XjKhhHH8uJ9 Unfortunately, Sterling’s vision of the future takes place a few decades after the demise of the world’s governments and economic infrastructure, following devastating wholesale environmental collapse. I’d hope that we might start preparing for an Attention Economy in time to prevent such devastation, if at all possible. For this reason, I’ve been thinking about ways to visualize and present the Attention Economy in a more compelling way than my long, dense academic discussions. The easier it is to imagine alternative organizational structures, the faster people will start preparing for its eventuality. To that end, I’ve started compiling a series of science fiction shorts describing a not-so-distant future that operates on its basic principles. I’m pretty busy with my summer job at the moment, but I have a few of these shorts in the bag and I’ll be posting them over the next few weeks to get some feedback and maybe start some discussions. This is my first real attempt at fiction, and I’m not very comfortable with the medium, so any comments and suggestions are appreciated! ______________________ Chapter 1: Ma The light bulb is out. The blackened bulb in the lamp on my bedside dresser went unchanged for a week, and when I opened my eyes this morning it was the first thing that entered my field of vision. I witnessed it die a week […]

Declaration of Internet Freedom +Electronic Frontier Foundation PREAMBLE We believe that a free and open Internet can bring about a better world. To keep the Internet free and open, we call on communities, industries and countries to recognize these principles. We believe that they will help to bring about more creativity, more innovation and more open societies. We are joining an international movement to defend our freedoms because we believe that they are worth fighting for. Let’s discuss these principles — agree or disagree with them, debate them, translate them, make them your own and broaden the discussion with your community — as only the Internet can make possible. Join us in keeping the Internet free and open. http://www.internetdeclaration.org/freedom http://www.reddit.com/r/internetdeclaration via +Charlie Hoover via http://lifehacker.com/5923111/let-the-eff-convince-you-to-sign-the-declaration-of-internet-freedom #declaration of #internet #freedom #eff #digitalvalues

Attention Economy Vignettes Chapter 1 I recently posted a long excerpt from +Bruce Sterling‘s wonderful novel The Caryatids as an example of a functioning #attentioneconomy in action. Sterling’s lucid prose highlights many of the functional aspects of an attention economy, including the central of role of experts and self-directed education, and the importance of Augmented Reality overlays for demonstrating the fruits of economic labor (through a visualization Sterling calls “Glory”). You can read the excerpt here: https://plus.google.com/117828903900236363024/posts/XjKhhHH8uJ9 Unfortunately, Sterling’s vision of the future takes place a few decades after the demise of the world’s governments and economic infrastructure, following a devastating environmental collapse. I’d hope that we might start preparing for an Attention Economy in time to prevent such devastation, if at all possible. For this reason, I’ve been thinking about ways to visualize and present the Attention Economy in a more compelling way than my long, dense academic discussions. The easier it is to imagine alternative organizational structures, the faster people will start preparing for their eventuality. To that end, I’ve started compiling a series of science fiction shorts describing a not-so-distant future that operates on its basic principles. I’m pretty busy with my summer job at the moment, but I have a few of these shorts in the bag and I’ll be posting them over the next few weeks to get some feedback and maybe start some discussions. This is my first attempt at fiction, and I’m not very comfortable with the medium, so any comments and suggestions are appreciated! ____________________ Chapter 1: Ma The light bulb is out. The blackened bulb in the lamp on my bedside dresser went unchanged for a week, and when I opened my eyes this morning it was the first thing that entered my field of vision. I witnessed it die a […]

kyle broom originally shared this post: Short film inspired by the detention conditions of Bradley Manning.

Koen De Paus originally shared this post: The Sentineli, a living memory of our history Part 2 Random thoughts on tribes vs mobs and how machines relate to both. “It is in the long run essential to the growth of any new and high civilization that small groups of men can escape from their neighbors and from their government, to go and live as they please in the wilderness. A truly isolated, small, and creative society will never again be possible on this planet.” ~Freeman J. Dyson For us city dwellers it is hard to imagine just how different a life in isolation must be. A lifestyle completely independent from the outside world where you have to be one with nature if you hope to survive. When given the choice, most of us would not go back to such a life. Our tribe has grown to include millions of people and we no longer farm our own fields but instead count on others to provide us with the goods required for life. From water and food to jobs and justice, we depend on the web that society has built. We have outsourced many tasks of our early tribal lifestyle to the mob and the mob or system has offloaded many tasks onto technology. We are now at a point where an EMP blast would cause a mass extinction. In a small tribe you are directly connected with the consequences of your actions. You need to catch a fish and know how to make a fire because you want to feed your family tonight. No bosses, no money, action > reaction. Our system is so complex that it can be very hard to keep track of actions and consequences. If you work at a chemical plant that produces plastics, you might […]

via +Winchell Chung

A Complex Systems Science Approach to Healthcare Costs and Quality by Y. Bar-Yam at NECSI “There is a mounting crisis in delivering affordable healthcare in the US. For decades, key decision makers in the public and private sectors have considered cost-effectiveness in healthcare a top priority. Their actions have focused on putting a limit on fees, services, or care options. However, they have met with limited success as costs have increased rapidly while the quality isn’t commensurate with the high costs. A new approach is needed. Here we provide eight scientifically-based steps for improving the healthcare system. The core of the approach is promoting the best use of resources by matching the people and organization to the tasks they are good at, and providing the right incentive structure. Harnessing costs need not mean sacrificing quality. Quality service and low costs can be achieved by making sure the right people and the right organizations deliver services. As an example, the frequent use of emergency rooms for non-emergency care demonstrates the waste of resources of highly capable individuals and facilities resulting in high costs and ineffective care. Neither free markets nor managed care guarantees the best use of resources. A different oversight system is needed to promote the right incentives. Unlike managed care, effective oversight must not interfere with the performance of care. Otherwise, cost control only makes care more cumbersome. The eight steps we propose are designed to dramatically improve the effectiveness of the healthcare system, both for those who receive services and those who provide them.” More: http://necsi.edu/research/healthcare/healthcaresteps.html via +Kyle Crider #complexity #complexityscience #healthcare

Using Prezi as a Whiteboard In my classroom there is no easy way to both use the chalkboard and the LCD projector at the same time. Although I love chalkboards, today I decided to commit to the projector. I kept a Prezi editing window open, and took notes as I would on a whiteboard. I usually draw pictures and obsessively underline things and couldn’t do that as easily here. However, it resulted in a pretty neat document that worked really great for review at the end of the class day. You can dive into the Prezi here: http://prezi.com/ja-cumg1hhbd/philosophy-of-mind/ Any suggestions on other classroom whiteboard software that might work better?

#ants are #awesome via +Rebecca Spizzirri Chris Robinson originally shared this post: Although many ant species use chemical trails to organise themselves into food-collecting groups, the big-headed ant has an “extreme” chemical enlisting strategy, says the University of Sussex team. “When an ant finds something delicious,” he said, “she has to lay a trail really quickly, because competition is fierce. “The pheromone trail starts working immediately. Any ants caught in its net are funnelled towards the food item.” Make sure you check out the video. I could definitely use an “extreme” chemical enlisting strategy! How ants enlist emergency help Brazilian ants deploy emergency “chemical nets” to drag swarms of their nestmates into helping them carry large food items, a study shows.

Robot Hand Beats You at Rock, Paper, Scissors 100% Of The Time “It only takes a single millisecond for the robot to recognize what shape your hand is in, and just a few more for it to make the shape that beats you, but it all happens so fast that it’s more or less impossible to tell that the robot is waiting until you commit yourself before it makes its move, allowing it to win 100% of the time. You might be thinking that you could fool the system by changing your mind halfway through, but my guess is that the hand and vision system are faster than your reflexes could ever be, and that it would be trivial for the robot to adapt to any creative moves that happens on the human end.” More: http://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/artificial-intelligence/robot-hand-beats-you-at-rock-paper-scissors-100-of-the-time via +Chryle Elieff Janken (rock-paper-scissors) Robot with 100% winning rate