Soup.GroundPlane.org (without imported items)

""Democracy is the Rule of the Unwise over the Wise" Strauss again: "It would..."

Sat, 03 Jul 2010 16:57:57 GMT

""Democracy is the Rule of the Unwise over the Wise"

Strauss again: "It would be absurd to hamper the free flow of wisdom by any regulations; hence the rule of the wise must be absolute rule. It would be equally absurd to hamper the free flow of wisdom by consideration of the unwise wishes of the unwise; hence the wise rulers ought not to be responsible to the unwise subjects." Strauss interprets Plato to mean that ". . . true democracy is an act against nature and must be prevented at all costs.""

–Swans Commentary: Leo Strauss

""I don't have a problem with the existence of the right, but the right has a ..."

Wed, 30 Jun 2010 19:39:13 GMT

"I don't have a problem with the existence of the right, but the right has a problem with my existence."

-- Steve Earle, quoted in Editor and Publisher

–IraqTimeLine - Rationale: Why This Site?: This Far and No Further

"As is the inner, so is the outer; as is the great, so is the small; as it is ..."

Sun, 27 Jun 2010 17:22:46 GMT

"As is the inner, so is the outer; as is the great, so is the small; as it is above, so it is below; there is but One Life and Law; and He, that is worth it, is One. Nothing is inner, nothing is outer; nothing is great, nothing is small; nothing is high, nothing is low; in the Divine Economy."

–DK Matai: Butterfly Effect, Oil Gusher & Edge of Chaos: World Wide Summit?

"Descartes, writing to Picot, who translated the Principia Philosophiae into F..."

Mon, 21 Jun 2010 20:10:37 GMT

"Descartes, writing to Picot, who translated the Principia Philosophiae into French, observed: "Thus the whole of philosophy is like a tree: the roots are metaphysics, the trunk is physics, and the branches that issue from the trunk are all the other sciences . . .""

–Existence and Being by Martin Heidegger (1949)

""The greatest enemy of truth is very often not the lie - deliberate, contrive..."

Sun, 20 Jun 2010 04:23:07 GMT

"The greatest enemy of truth is very often not the lie - deliberate, contrived, and dishonest - but the myth - persistent, pervasive, and unrealistic."

- John F. Kennedy

"None of us is as smart as all of us."

- Japanese proverb

–TOOL: The Open Opinion Layer

"This is the best that professionals can come up with? Really lame! --bdt Why ..."

Sat, 19 Jun 2010 21:33:55 GMT

This is the best that professionals can come up with? Really lame! --bdt

Why is Information Valuable to us?

We all recognise that information is valuable – if you’ve ever paid for a newspaper or magazine, you have demonstrated this. But why – specifically – is information valuable, and why is one piece of information more valuable than another?

There are three ways information can be valuable to us….

It entertains us
It helps us make better decisions
It helps someone else make better decisions, and we can exchange this information for something else

–Why is Information Valuable to us? :: Infogineering - Master Your Information

"Garry Tan and Sachin Agarwal excitedly told me about their master plan in the..."

Fri, 18 Jun 2010 00:50:04 GMT

Garry Tan and Sachin Agarwal excitedly told me about their master plan in the summer of 2008. They were going to build a new blogging service where users would send posts by email instead of by using a web interface. It was to be called Posterous, and I don’t think they had written single a line of code at that point. I laughed at them. “Another blogging service? Don’t we have enough of those,” I asked. “And by email? That’s just a feature any other service can add. You’re crazy.”

Tan and Agarwal hunkered down in a tiny one-bedroom apartment in Cambridge, MA and wrote thousands of lines of code. They launched Posterous on June 28th, 2008. Within weeks, thousands of people were actively using the service. It has now been about two years since they launched, and Posterous is visited by millions of people every month. I use it almost every day. You’re reading this on a Posterous blog.

Posterous took an idea and executed it extremely well. They launched early, with the minimum viable number of features, and then tested their theory that email was a better interface for posting — and of course it is, because everyone has an email account. Then they rapidly iterated. They added features one-by-one until finding themselves with a complete product that really is the dead simple way to post anything anywhere. They found a missing market in the blogging industry.

–I laughed at Posterous, but they proved me wrong

"Why Media Sift? Web search, website evaluation, issues of privacy, authorship..."

Thu, 17 Jun 2010 23:59:24 GMT

"Why Media Sift? Web search, website evaluation, issues of privacy, authorship and identity are known as 21st Century skills, necessary for today’s students and difficult for teachers to teach. Either teachers do not have the skills or dont have tools to teach students in an engaging way. Students often complain that they already have these abilities, in which case Media Sift is a way for them to demonstrate that knowledge and put it into practice. In addition to learning web skills, students also come in contact with a full range of topics, with the best work regarding those topics easily accessible."

–Media Sift at DMediaProject.com

"I'm not sure it's in the best interest of this country to be spending hours, ..."

Mon, 14 Jun 2010 18:56:18 GMT

"I'm not sure it's in the best interest of this country to be spending hours, days, weeks, and months discussing some of the most controversial issues in this country as to whether they should be part of our constitution. Regardless of whether it is a red state or a blue state ... this is not how legislatures in the 50 states should be debating very controversial issues."

–Steve Brown, executive director of the Rhode Island ACLU
quoted in Lawrence Lessig: Rhode Island's David Segal's Call for a Constitutional Convention

"“ . . . in promoting the good of this whole aggregate, the good of individual..."

Sun, 30 May 2010 23:49:28 GMT

“ . . . in promoting the good of this whole aggregate, the good of individuals is contained and promoted.”

"Treatise of the Laws of Nature"
Richard Cumberland
Philosopher and Bishop of Peterborough
1691–1718

–RSA - Citizen Power Peterborough

I would very much have like to follow your Soup (mine is on my GroundPlane si...

Sun, 30 May 2010 20:33:48 GMT

[Reposted from yoomoot]

I would very much have like to follow your Soup (mine is on my GroundPlane site) but ... you're only ReTweeting. That's too bad. (I RT on a dormant blog,) Soup is a great way to aggregate material. And your project is quite close to what I've been working on. HeyHo, opportunity lost.

"[I]f you listen to mainstream media, our education system, politicians, and ..."

Fri, 28 May 2010 22:21:33 GMT

[I]f you listen to mainstream media, our education system, politicians, and even college textbooks, everything else is the “asset” and human knowledge is treated like some expendable line item that is unworthy of economic development – or equality for that mattter.

Knowledge is invisible because there is no inventory. Why are we unable to see things like this? This is the most stunning cognitive deficit imaginable for the World’s most developed country. Why is this such an impossible philosophical chasm that we cannot seem to cross with our modern accounting system?

Now, what would happen if we did? Perhaps we would find find a cognitive surplus.

Social Surplus vs. Demand

–Social Surplus vs. Demand | The Relationship Economy...... - Business Exchange

""...New social networking technologies can be used to solve down-to-earth hum..."

Mon, 24 May 2010 15:39:32 GMT

"...New social networking technologies can be used to solve down-to-earth human needs, by enlisting millions of [citizens] in service to the country."

–Craig Newmark

"In 1931, Alfred R Lindesmith developed [it as] a methodology to refute existi..."

Mon, 24 May 2010 01:34:40 GMT

In 1931, Alfred R Lindesmith developed [it as] a methodology to refute existing hypotheses

Harold Lasswell formulated the core questions of content analysis: "Who says what, to whom, why, to what extent and with what effect?." Ole Holsti (1969) offers a broad definition of content analysis as "any technique for making inferences by objectively and systematically identifying specified characteristics of messages." Kimberly A. Neuendorf (2002, p. 10) offers a six-part definition of content analysis:

"Content analysis is a summarizing, quantitative analysis of messages that relies on the scientific method (including attention to objectivity, intersubjectivity, a priori design, reliability, validity, generalizability, replicability, and hypothesis testing) and is not limited as to the types of variables that may be measured or the context in which the messages are created or presented."

–Content analysis - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

""When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men living together in soc..."

Sun, 23 May 2010 17:10:54 GMT

"When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men living together in society, they create for themselves, in the course of time, a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it."

Frederic Bastiat (1801-1850), French economist

"The single most important quality needed to resist evil is moral autonomy. Moral autonomy is possible only through reflection, self-determination and the courage not to cooperate."

Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) German philosopher

–By Rodrigue Tremblay, "The Moral Dimension of Things" Monday, March 8, 2010

"Bohm Dialogue (also known as Bohmian Dialogue) is a freely-flowing group conv..."

Sat, 22 May 2010 18:31:46 GMT

"Bohm Dialogue (also known as Bohmian Dialogue) is a freely-flowing group conversation that makes an attempt, utilizing a theoretical understanding of the way thoughts relate to universal reality, to more effectively investigate the crises that face society, and indeed the whole of human nature and consciousness.

see also ""Dialogue - A proposal" By David Bohm, Donald Factor and Peter Garrett

–Bohm Dialogue - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"File under "Doing the Obvious" "In June, 2009, San Francisco CIO Chris Vein l..."

Sat, 22 May 2010 16:48:53 GMT

File under "Doing the Obvious"

"In June, 2009, San Francisco CIO Chris Vein launched an application that allows citizens to access the City’s 311 Call Center through Twitter. Instead of making a phone call, members of the public can send a tweet to alert the city about a pothole, or to find out about the City’s green initiatives. This led to the Open311 API, which provides access to government data by third-party applications. Entrepreneurs have already built some useful apps with this, such as CitySourced, MyCityWay, SeeClickFix and TweetMy311. Buoyed by this success, the city is going one step further – to open up all non-private data. The City’s director of innovation, Jay Nath, is building DataSF.org – what he calls “the city’s one stop web site for government data”.""

–The Open Gov Initiative: Enabling Techies to Solve Government Problems

""

Sat, 22 May 2010 02:30:19 GMT

–xkcd: Secret Worlds

"“Among the modern societies, only those that are able to introduce into the s..."

Thu, 20 May 2010 21:37:13 GMT

"“Among the modern societies, only those that are able to introduce into the secular domain the essential contents of their religious traditions which point beyond the merely human realm will also be able to rescue the substance of the human.”"

–Jurgen Habermas quoted in Does Reason Know What It Is Missing? - Opinionator Blog - NYTimes.com

"“Instead of writing history, we are always beating our brains to discover how..."

Sun, 16 May 2010 15:58:10 GMT

“Instead of writing history, we are always beating our brains to discover how history ought to be written.”

“[As] Hegel lamented in The Philosophy of History”

–Not So Natural Selection on "What Darwin Got Wrong" | The New York Review of Books

"“He who joyfully marches to music in rank and file has already earned my cont..."

Sun, 16 May 2010 10:34:35 GMT

“He who joyfully marches to music in rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would suffice.”

–--Albert Einstein

"For Hegel, freedom was not just a psychological phenomenon, but the essence o..."

Wed, 12 May 2010 17:57:16 GMT

For Hegel, freedom was not just a psychological phenomenon, but the essence of what was distinctively human. In this sense, freedom and nature are diametrically opposed. Freedom does not mean the freedom to live in nature or according to nature; rather, freedom begins only where nature ends. Human freedom emerges only when man is able to transcend his natural, animal existence, and to create a new self for himself. The emblematic starting point for this process of self-creation is the struggle to the death for pure prestige." Chapter 13; p. 512 [emph added --bdt]

–The End of History. Francis Fukuyama (1992) - at Amazon.com; see also Fukuyama's "Introduction", at Marxists.org

(Image)

Tue, 11 May 2010 00:27:25 GMT

[Reposted from roothausen via potatoe]

"In order for public data to benefit from the same innovation and dynamism tha..."

Tue, 11 May 2010 00:25:11 GMT

"In order for public data to benefit from the same innovation and dynamism that characterize private parties’ use of the Internet, the federal government must reimagine its role as an information provider. Rather than struggling, as it currently does, to design
sites that meet each end-user need, it should focus on creating a simple, reliable and publicly accessible infrastructure that “exposes” the underlying data."

[NB:I suggest that an important confound is masked by the phrase "underlying data" i.e. the specifics that make a datum salient. --bdt]

–"Government Data and the Invisible Hand" cited as footnote #14 in Chapter 1 of Tim O'Reilly's "Government As a Platform"

""You're coming of age in a 24/7 media environment that bombards us with all k..."

Mon, 10 May 2010 18:30:28 GMT

""You're coming of age in a 24/7 media environment that bombards us with all kinds of content and exposes us to all kinds of arguments, some of which don't always rank all that high on the truth meter."

"With iPods and iPads and Xboxes and PlayStations, -- none of which I know how to work -- information becomes a distraction, a diversion, a form of entertainment, rather than a tool of empowerment, rather than the means of emancipation."

Obama bemoaned the fact that "some of the craziest claims can quickly claim traction," in the clamor of certain blogs and talk radio outlets.

"What Jefferson recognized... that in the long run, their improbable experiment -- called America -- wouldn't work if its citizens were uninformed, if its citizens were apathetic, if its citizens checked out, and left democracy to those who didn't have the best interests of all the people at heart.

"It could only work if each of us stayed informed and engaged, if we held our government accountable, if we fulfilled the obligations of citizenship."

–Obama: With iPods and iPads, information becomes a distraction; imposes new pressures on democracy --MacDailyNews

"(re)tension and the (pro)tension: proportion By: Maria Odete Madeira “Qui..."

Wed, 31 Mar 2010 19:59:20 GMT

(re)tension and the (pro)tension: proportion

By: Maria Odete Madeira

“Quidquid recipitur ad modum recipientis recipitur”

Medieval adage that synthesizes an eidos of proportion: Whatever is received is received according to the mode of receiving of the receiver

The (re)tension and the (pro)tension (from the Latin tensio) can consistently be synthesized in an abstract language, as primitive notions to the gathering and utilization of information, in the assumption that the patterns that configure the systems incorporate, in their formative nature, mechanisms of potential rotative projective resonance, linked to the reflexibility of the systems, with appetence and capability to place in relation that which in the systems is the act made proportionately available as presence to the potency (semper quod ens) and that, because of that, determines it.

–Philosophy, Systems Theory and Risk Science: (re)tension and the (pro)tension: proportion

" “We have facts for those who think, arguments for those who reason; bu..."

Fri, 26 Mar 2010 23:40:06 GMT

“We have facts for those who think, arguments for those who reason; but he who cannot be reasoned out of his prejudices must be laughed out of them; he who cannot be argued out of his selfishness must be shamed out of it by the mirror of his hateful self held up relentlessly before his eyes.”

— Wendell Phillips, American abolitionist, 1853

–Guerrilla Hacks

"What we needed was a method of creating Action Frameworks that would be diffe..."

Tue, 16 Mar 2010 04:24:31 GMT

What we needed was a method of creating Action Frameworks that would be different for every organization; that could capture data from pretty much any data source from across the enterprise and present insights in new and useful ways without the traditional overheads and burdens of IT projects.

It was with this fragment of common sense that we embarked on the production of such a system. Initially we went to all of the major suspects to see if we could use an existing tool but it didn't take long for us to realize that our vision was at odds with what the IT industry believed to be possible.

–Why Enterprise mashups aren't just nice to have for business leaders - Ian Tomlin 's Agilization

"elaboration elab·o·rate Pronunciation: \i-'la-b(?-)r?t\Etymology: Latin elab..."

Sun, 14 Mar 2010 21:17:45 GMT

elaboration

elab·o·rate Pronunciation: \i-'la-b(?-)r?t\

Etymology: Latin elaboratus, from past participle of elaborare to work out, acquire by labor, from e- + laborare to work - Date: 1592

1. : planned or carried out with great care

2. : marked by complexity, fullness of detail, or ornateness

adj.

1. Planned or executed with painstaking attention to numerous parts or details.

2. Intricate and rich in detail.

v.tr.

1. To work out with care and detail; develop thoroughly.

2. To produce by effort; create.

1. To express at greater length or in greater detail

–definition of elaboration

"The Allophilia Project - a new framework for understanding effective intergro..."

Wed, 10 Mar 2010 17:42:31 GMT

The Allophilia Project - a new framework for understanding effective intergroup leadership

"The very things a leader does to promote strong identification and cohesion within a group can exacerbate conflicts with other groups. This creates one of the most painful dilemmas of leadership: the tradeoff between ingroup and outgroup effects."

Todd L. Pittinsky

–The Allophilia Project

"“As we communicate with people around the world, we must move beyond messagin..."

Wed, 10 Mar 2010 16:51:05 GMT

“As we communicate with people around the world, we must move beyond messaging. We need to listen more and lecture less. We have to learn how people listen to us, how our words and deeds are actually heard and seen.”

—Judith McHale,
U.S. Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs
June 11, 2009

–Ash Institute for Democratic Governance and Innovation | Public Diplomacy Collaborative

"The sort of thing boosterism doesn't account for: increased Balkanization of ..."

Sun, 07 Mar 2010 18:51:06 GMT

The sort of thing boosterism doesn't account for: increased Balkanization of individuals.

[I]ncreasing access now has the sole effect of giving agents more potential partners to select from. Since agents prefer similar partners, increasing access allows them to find more and more partners of the same type to form connections to. Thus, the number of affiliations per agent will decrease and Balkanization increases. For our particular society, with universal access, all agents connect only to those of the same type, so the Index of Balkanized Affiliation reaches a maximum of one."

–A Simple Model of Increasing Access

""[T]o flourish, humans need to develop virtues of independent thought and ack..."

Sun, 07 Mar 2010 18:41:22 GMT

"[T]o flourish, humans need to develop virtues of independent thought and acknowledged social dependence"

In "Dependent Rational Animals: Why Human Beings Need the Virtues" under "the conditions for human flourishing", Alasdair MacIntyre notes that, "The virtues of rational agency need for their adequate exercise to be accompanied by what I shall call thethe virtues of acknowledged dependency" including, as Carol Taylor points out in her "Health and Human Flourishing", includes "the attentive and affectionate regard for others".

–Dependent Rational Animals: Why Human Beings Need the Virtues" By Alasdair MacIntyre at Google Books

"Disputatio: (Scholastic) Out of the quaestiones disputatae developed graduall..."

Thu, 04 Mar 2010 20:55:30 GMT

"Disputatio: (Scholastic) Out of the quaestiones disputatae developed gradually a rigid form of scholastic disputation. The defensor theseos proposed his thesis and explained or proved it in syllogistic form. The opponentes argued against the thesis and its demonstration by repeating first the proposition and the syllogism proving it, then either by denying the validity of one or the other premises (nego maiorem, minorem) or by making distinctions restricting the proposition (distinguo maiorem, minorem). In the disputations of students under the direction of a magister the latter used to summarize the disputation and to "determine the question". --Rudolf Allers"

–Dictionary of Philosophy

"7:37AM 1MAR2010 @timoreilly tweeted: "Apps for the Army is live! http://bit...."

Thu, 04 Mar 2010 02:35:43 GMT

"7:37AM 1MAR2010 @timoreilly tweeted: "Apps for the Army is live! http://bit.ly/cOjSkn Many thanks to @ArmyCIOG6 and @corbett3000 for carrying this idea forward #gov20 #apps4army""

–Twitter / Tim O'Reilly: Apps for the Army is live! ...

"Archon Fung begins his "Creating Deliberative Publics: Governance After Devol..."

Thu, 04 Mar 2010 02:17:56 GMT

Archon Fung begins his "Creating Deliberative Publics: Governance After Devolution and Democratic Centralism" with the following: "In the Public and Its Problems, John Dewey lamented the stagnancy of democratic political forms in the face of a rapidly changing economy and society."

I can depict my long-historied pre-occupation with a variation of that: in the face of a rapidly changing society and economy I lament the ineffectiveness of democratic political forums!

–Archon Fung - Creating Deliberative Publics: Governance After Devolution and Democratic Centralism - The Good Society 11:1

LOL, so familiar.

Wed, 03 Mar 2010 20:42:29 GMT

LOL, so familiar.

[Reposted from robi42]

"What's the right approach to new products? Pick three key attributes or featu..."

Wed, 03 Mar 2010 20:41:36 GMT

"What's the right approach to new products? Pick three key attributes or features, get those things very, very right, and then forget about everything else."

–Paul Buchheit: If your product is Great, it doesn't need to be Good.

[Reposted from robi42]

"It's not that I'm so smart, it's just that I stay with problems longer."

Wed, 03 Mar 2010 20:41:05 GMT

"It's not that I'm so smart, it's just that I stay with problems longer."

–Albert Einstein

[Reposted from robi42]

Re: Facebook integration

Wed, 03 Mar 2010 20:23:02 GMT

To activate cross-posting to Facebook, open your Soup's options panel (cogwheel icon) and go to "Automatic exports".

For an existing user, switching to FB Connect as login method is not entirely straightforward and doesn't make a whole lot of sense, so we're not particularly encouraging that. If you want to give it a shot: Log out, go to the front page and click the Facebook Connect button, then provide your existing login data instead of choosing a new username.

Does that answer your questions?

[Reposted from kitchen]