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Friday, August 20, 2004 |
[Quantum Gardener]: This very interesting paper
[196k PDF] applies the concepts of Linguistic Action to the problem of Project
Management. It is a great example of the practical use the basic
linguistic acts can be put to.
From the paper: Lean Construction,
inspired by the Toyota Production System, has applied principles
drawn from production management to the design of project-based
production systems. The theory of linguistic action describes the
very human processes, the purposeful ways people communicate, by
which projects are conceived and delivered.
4:35:19 PM 
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[ReasonOnline]: John Perry Barlow 2.0; The Thomas Jefferson of cyberspace reinvents his body -- and his politics.
Rancher, Grateful Dead lyricist, Electronic Frontier Foundation co-founder and general roustabout weighs in on health,
I've been systematically mistreating myself for so long it was going to take something this heroic to turn things around.... The
interventions are all behavioral, not surgical or biotechnical. It
turns out you can do a hell of a lot simply by changing the way you eat
and exercise. They are feeding me drugs, and drug-like foods, and
food-like drugs, and hypervitamins. So now I'm not smoking, not
drinking, going to the gym, not eating refined carbohydrates. I'm much
happier about the sight of leafy green vegetables than I used to be.
intellectual property,
I personally think intellectual
property is an oxymoron. Physical objects have a completely different
natural economy than intellectual goods. It's a tricky thing to try to
own something that remains in your possession even after you give it to
many others.
and lots more
But to just plead out would be
abdicating my citizen's responsibility to defend the Constitution. You
have to fight for your freedom individually and not say, "Oh well, it's
not worth the trouble."
I'm already being a lot pricklier
than they expected. They asked for a continuation at the last hearing
because they said that the Department of Homeland Security had been
unable to come up with a set of guidelines regarding the release of the
subpoenaed materials for national security reasons. So our national
security depends on whether or not they can get me for carrying
marijuana on that airplane.
The ideal thing would be to have
charges dismissed with prejudice, and then I sue the shit out of them.
I'm merely defending myself right now.
in this long and interesting dialog.
Another long and interesting dialog with another fascinating player here: Business Week talks with Howard Reingold, who's starting
to take the leap beyond smart mobs, trying to weave some threads out of
such seemingly disparate developments as Web logs, open-source software
development, and Google.
3:10:44 PM
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Language may shape human thought [New Scientist]
Hunter-gatherers from the Pirahã tribe, whose language only contains
words for the numbers one and two, were unable to reliably tell the
difference between four objects placed in a row and five in the same
configuration, revealed the study.
'In the beginning was the word,' of course. Ancient Jewish sages have
long said and modern quantum physicists more recently confirm that
creation is renewed in every moment.
This resonates too with the world of linguistic action, as invented by Austin & Searle
(who noted that certain verbs -- like 'request' and 'promise' -- are in
themselves the very actions they describe, in contrast to most verbs --
like 'walk' and 'run' -- which are only descriptions) and developed by Fernando Flores, Chauncey Bell and others -- working in very concrete, not at all mystical terms, with how we bring worlds into being through our speech acts.
11:42:10 AM
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Sewage
waters a tenth of world's irrigated crops [New Scientist]
Nothing wrong with that in principle, of course. Closing the farm to
city to farm nutrient cycle makes good sense. (Recalls to me my masters
thesis, back in the long ago, looking at the potential nutrient balance
of Washington DC's sewage stream and the ag region that supports the
city, which in turn lead to my current work with business and regional metabolism and 'material flow analysis' and key performance indicators.)
But good 'in principle' can be bad in application. The story talks of
raw sewage applied to crops like lettuces and greens that are eaten
without cooking, when it should be limited to crops that won't get
irrigation splash -- or better yet, on feed crops that will transit any
human sewage through an animal gut. Meanwhile, wash your vegetables, folks,
especially the imported ones.
The other problem: sewage from cities with heavy industry, or combined
storm and sanitary sewers that flow automobile emission and brake ware
particulates into the flow, will feed heavy metals into the crops, and
into you.
So, as is so often the case, the solution isn't just a technology or
material swap, but a system-level change. Organic agriculture isn't
just about organic waste; it's about an 'organic' as in 'integral'
approach to agriculture and food systems.
8:02:37 AM
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© Copyright 2006 Gil Friend.
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