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Paul Hawken Commencement Address
"Basically, the earth needs a new operating system, you are the programmers, and we need it within a few decades.
This planet came with a set of operating instructions, but we seem to have misplaced them. Important rules like don’t poison the water, soil, or air, and don’t let the earth get overcrowded, and don’t touch the thermostat have been broken. Buckminster Fuller said that spaceship earth was so ingeniously designed that no one has a clue that we are on one, flying through the universe at a million miles per hour, with no need for seatbelts, lots of room in coach, and really good food – but all that is changing."
How Iran's Hackers Killed Big Brother - The Daily Beast
But I think it's also too easy to underestimate the real power of the Internet to provide more than information. On the Internet, content is not king - it never was. The value of Tweets right now is less the information they contain than the solidarity they promote. Like civil rights protesters who sang rousing hymns as they were carried off to jail, Twitterers are bearing witness to what's happening around them, and calling out into the darkness of cyberspace for confirmation. I'm here. You're here, too. We are present.
Twitter, for all its faults, and the Internet, for all its insubstantiality, nonetheless serve as the strands of an existential telegraph. By resisting those who would censor history in real time, those flinging messages into the ether are demonstrating their freedom of speech—or, rather, their freedom to speak in spite of all efforts to the contrary. This mere gesture of freedom— the ability to connect to others and confirm one's experience of the world — is what social networking is all about. While this may or may not be enough right now to topple an unjust government, the opposition, in demonstrating that this freedom is now a permanent right, has already claimed victory.
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But I think it's also too easy to underestimate the real power of the Internet to provide more than information. On the Internet, content is not king - it never was. The value of Tweets right now is less the information they contain than the solidarity they promote. Like civil rights protesters who sang rousing hymns as they were carried off to jail, Twitterers are bearing witness to what's happening around them, and calling out into the darkness of cyberspace for confirmation. I'm here. You're here, too. We are present.
Twitter, for all its faults, and the Internet, for all its insubstantiality, nonetheless serve as the strands of an existential telegraph. By resisting those who would censor history in real time, those flinging messages into the ether are demonstrating their freedom of speech—or, rather, their freedom to speak in spite of all efforts to the contrary. This mere gesture of freedom— the ability to connect to others and confirm one's experience of the world — is what social networking is all about. While this may or may not be enough right now to topple an unjust government, the opposition, in demonstrating that this freedom is now a permanent right, has already claimed victory.
AdLit.org: Adolescent Literacy - U.S. Students Rank Among World's Best and Worst Readers
"The best students in the U.S. do as well as anyone in the world," said Barry McGaw, the deputy director for education for the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the Paris-based group that conducted the survey of 15-year-olds' achievem
No Education Silver Bullet | The American Prospect
Yet if there's one factor that seems to explain Finland's excellent education system, it is teacher training. Only 10 percent to 12 percent of college students who apply to Finnish teacher-education programs are accepted, and unlike in the United States,
The Freedoms That Technologies Help Bring - NYTimes.com
Story about the Egyptian governement trying to reign in technology: But thus far, each time technology has promised to help introduce democracy to the country, the young peoples’ hopes have been dashed. A movement for political reform that used Facebook t
'The world is moving past' USA in higher ed - USATODAY.com
The USA has made modest gains since the early 1990s in preparing students for college and providing access, a report says today. But other countries are advancing more quickly, and if trends continue, the picture is only going to get worse, the authors wa
Wireless Broadband and Future Education
How much [bandwidth] does one student need? Do they want to watch movies? Of course! Well, that’s about 1.5 Mbps. Does the teacher want them to be able to watch the same movies as the other children in the class? Of course! How many kids in the room, mayb
In Praise of Spikes
Richard Florida
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Today's global economy is spiky. What's more, the tallest spikes, the cities and regions that drive the world economy, are growing ever higher while the valleys, with little economic activity, recede still further.
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Geographic concentration encourages innovation because ideas flow more freely, are honed more sharply, and can be put into practice more quickly when innovators, implementers, and financial backers are in constant contact. Creative people cluster not simply because they like to be around one another or prefer cosmopolitan centers with lots of amenities (though both things tend to be true). They cluster because density brings such powerful productivity advantages, economies of scale, and knowledge spillovers.
- 2 more annotations...
19.20.21.
Interesting resource on how the world is changing in terms of population and what it might mean.
http://www.miniature-earth.com/
- This video puts life in the US in perspective. - willrich on 2006-10-25
RRW Statistics
- # Blogging: Ten percent of consumers read blogs once a week or more, compared with 5 percent in 2004. # Real Simple Syndication (RSS): Six percent of consumers use RSS feeds once a week or more, compared with 2 percent in 2004. # Social networking: Six pe - willrich on 2006-08-06
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