Psybertron Asks

Struck by this quote from last week’s BBC news story on the Iran nuclear programme resumption – referred to the security council this week. I still see this whole world-energy / economy / consumption story tangled up in the same web as the mid-east / Israel story, whether we’re talking Chinese energy needs, Iranian nuclear [...]

I’ve been avoiding this, at least partly because it’s a misappropriation of the concept of a meme, but partly cos I can never think what to say … anyway, Sam tagged me so here goes … Four jobs I’ve had: 1. Waiter / Barman 2. Labourer (Market garden / Construction site) 3. Aircraft dynamics analyst [...]

Talking of “offers you can’t refuse” as I was earlier … Mark Federman’s McLuhan Blog has some interesting items … This story about US Telco’s considering charging the likes of Google a premium for “expedited” comms service. Interesting thoughts, though I’m guessing Google’s muscle and distributed content will give ‘em flexibility of channels ? And [...]

Thanks to David Morey over at MoQ-Discuss for picking up these links to papers mentioning Pirsig‘s work. (I’m guessing partly prompted by the observations from Sam and Ant about the Ram-Prasad “Great Divide” article decrying the dearth of links between Eastern and Western philosophy – lets’ not overlook Pirsig and Northrop.) A Hubert Dreyfus paper [...]

… perhaps Israel and the “west” could ask themselves why a party of violence is popular with its citizens ? “No negotiation with terrorists until they denounce violence ?” Yeah, right, we understand the PR rhetoric, but one hopes realistic questions are being asked by skilled diplomats and negotiators.

Dave Pollard picks up on The Edge 2006 Question response from Kai Krause, and adds quite a detailed take of his own. The original Krause analogy is a good one. If you take a memetic view of cultural ideas, that drive our day to day decision making, the crises that occur (those that don’t arise [...]

A couple of great pieces (speeches) by James Kunstler, one on US/Iraq and the concept of installing democracy, the other on Peak-Oil US-style. Peace-Project Petro-Collapse [both via Matt Bartlett, who seems to have slipped off my blogroll somewhere down the line - Sorry Matt I'll be adding you back.]

Oh well, as a fan and user of Google products I guess I too must comment on their Chinese censorship deal, given the other progressive Chinese news recently. Look, even the BBC are completely blocked in China, so I think Google are probably right to bow to the pressure, as they said “The company argues [...]

Here are a couple of older background articles about the story blogged earlier. The Chinergy CEO Frank Wu, interviewed in Wired. [via Net127] A speech by a South African Government Minister. Quote from the Chinergy article “Let a Thousand Reactors Bloom – China’s nuclear renaissance could feed the hydrogen revolution, enabling the country to leapfrog [...]

Some of these are excellent. This is a great collection of images too. [via Rivets]

China (a big factor in overall global economic growth and fossil fuel supply and demand issues) has been involved in development (and safety proving tests) of a new generation of High Temperature Nuclear Reactors (HTR Technology) and the first production power plant project has just started. The technology is inherently safer and more compact than [...]

Sam has a great link to a short video summary of Jeremy Leggett’s story on the looming oil crisis. A good powerful documentary. Notice that the difference between the late (optimistic) and early (pessimistic) toppers may be 2:1 in terms of effective reserves, but the net result isn’t a lot different – given the lead [...]

… that Intelligent Design (ID) Creationism is not a scientific alternative to anything, and religion is quite distinct from science. They even refer to supporting the Pennsylvanian court ruling that upheld parents objections to IDC being taught as alternative science in their schools.[ via Sam at Elizaphanian]

The Jeremy Leggett oil-crisis article is I guess no great surprise, in terms of the discovery, reserves, production, security and consumption of oil & gas supplies. It’s only ever been a matter of when, though as he points out even intelligent public guesswork would be way off the mark on many of the key dates. [...]

Recently read Pauline Graham’s compilation of the works of Mary Parker Follett “The Prophet of Management”. Generally considered by a host of modern management gurus to have written the final word on many important management subjects, back in the 1920′s, when she became well known through her writing, lecturing and consulting. She is often cited [...]

Thanks to Alex for pointing out this long and detailed Independent Article by Jeremy Leggett, adapted from his “Half Gone: Oil, Gas, Hot Air and the Global Energy Crisis”. All adding to the “Peak-Oil” relevance, and the significance of “The Middle East Situation” – Iran, Israel, Security, etc …

One in a long line of holding posts for a link to the subject of psychedelics (Peyote, Mescaline, LSD, etc.) and their role in enlightenment and the study of consciousness. [Link via Ant at robertpirsig.org] [See also Timeline 1960, and Peyote, and Funghi.] This is a review of Albert Hofmann, who as creator of LSD [...]

Julian Baggini, editor of TPM – “The Philosopher Magazine” and general British media darling of philosophy, has interviewed Robert Pirsig about his Metaphysics of Quality (MoQ), via e-mail rather than face-to-face, and placed the entire transcript as well as his own article “Zen and the Art of Dialogue” on-line. [Post Note : Pre-2010 TPM pages have [...]

Been discussing the merits of alternatives to simple ontologies based on hierarchical classification taxonomies with Leon, off line. Folksonomies is the latest buzzword, mentioned here and earlier, for heterarchical taxonomies that emerge when users tag objects in the course of using them (for whatever it is they use them). Dave Weinberger has some interesting recent [...]

Don’t normally do politics if I can help it. Here goes. There is a long “have your say” thread on the BBC site, of public opinions on Iran re-opening its nuclear plants. There is a preponderance of opinion attacking US & Western “hypocrisy and arrogance” in expressing opinion and raising the subject on EU and [...]

Just a holding post for an issue that keeps cropping up in Dennett (see previous post). Who is me ? In the sections on will and quasi-altruistic (long term enlightened) self-interest, he mentions something I’ve raised before – often in nationalism / political debates – is the me / we distinction. In considering what is [...]