Freedom's just another word ......

[Nick Thompson]

"I am not sure I have ever understood the word freedom.  "My freedom to
wave my arms around stops at the end of your nose" was defined as the
fundamental social contract in my education, but even that is ambiguous.
To threaten with mere words to breach that boundary can be a felony, if one
does it persistently and convincingly enough.  And indeed part of what is
most annoying about modern political correctness seems to be the manner in
which the noses of politically and economically disadvantaged groups seem
to be getting longer and more sensitive with every passing day.  So to talk
about freedom in the absence of talk about tolerance and sense of humor is
to talk about not very much, I am afraid.  The best wolves take into
account the needs of sheep and the best sheep learn to live with the moral
foibles of their local wolves.  What we take to be our freedom arises
dialectically from the interaction of the two."

Calvin Simonds
2006

Nicholas Thompson
nickthompson at earthlink.net
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson

> [Original Message]
> From: <Friam-request at redfish.com>
> To: <Friam at redfish.com>
> Date: 4/1/2006 7:28:55 PM
> Subject: Friam Digest, Vol 34, Issue 2
>
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>
> Today's Topics:
>
>    1. Re: nifty: startup models human neocortex for memory
>       management (Steve Smith)
>    2. Social goals (Douglass Carmichael)
>    3. Re: Social goals (Jim Rutt)
>    4. And in the category of unintended consequences.... (Tom Johnson)
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Sat, 1 Apr 2006 11:33:55 -0700
> From: Steve Smith <sasmyth at swcp.com>
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] nifty: startup models human neocortex for memory
> management
> To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
> <Friam at redfish.com>
> Message-ID: <83029f279113f8f558f918b2aab5ed26 at swcp.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed
>
> I was on "sabbatical" at Lawrence Berkeley Lab last year and did some
> work with Don Glaser (Nobel Laureate for invention of the Bubble
> Chamber) on his own neural models...  his team is working specifically
> on the visual cortex which was partly how I got interested.
>
> This lead me to become aware of Hawkins' work, Numenta and the Redwood
> Institute.  I went to their open house and discovered that just like
> his book, there are not a lot a of technical details left to the
> reader's imagination.   Some of this is natural... intellectual
> property and all.
>
> I could not honestly evaluate what they were up to, but the optimist in
> me is hopeful...
>
> There is a local (Los Alamos) startup that roughly parallel's Numenta
> but w/o the funding... but everything there is still hush-hush (I
> think).  Anyone else here have wind of this effort?  Associative memory
> model...
>
> - Steve
>
> On Mar 29, 2006, at 3:08 PM, Jim Rutt wrote:
>
> > turns out the MATLAB program is still arpund on the author's web site.
> >
> > Here is a link to the paper
> > ...http://www.stanford.edu/~dil/RNI/TechReport1/DilJeffNips2004.html
> >
> > and here to various versions of the code:
> > http://www.stanford.edu/~dil/invariance/
> >
> > At 02:35 PM 3/29/2006, you wrote:
> >> It might have been cached by Google, you never know. Unfortunately the
> >> podcast was basically all about business so there's zero scientific
> >> content in it. (There is a little bit of stuff about why he set up the
> >> institute which is kind of interesting.)
> >>
> >> On 3/29/06, Jim Rutt <jim at jimrutt.com> wrote:
> >>> I went out and spent an afternoon with Hawkins at his Redwood
> >>> Nuerological
> >>> Institute not long after the publication of _On Intelligence_ which
> >>> I had
> >>> found intriguing but frustrating in its lack of specificity.   At
> >>> the time
> >>> Hawkins was quite enamored of  (from Numenta web site)
> >>>
> >>> "Dileep George implemented a mathematical formalism of Hawkins'
> >>> theory,
> >>> demonstrating it is possible to express this new type of memory
> >>> system in
> >>> software"
> >>>
> >>> Indeed the MATLAB code was posted on the RNI website.  Alas, I got
> >>> distracted on another project and by the time I got back to look at
> >>> the
> >>> code, it had been taken down and Hawkins had spun up Numenta.
> >>>
> >>> I wonder if the code is still available on one of the web archives?
> >>>
> >>> =jim rutt
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> At 03:08 PM 3/22/2006, you wrote:
> >>>> http://www.numenta.com/index.php
> >>>>
> >>>> Founder Jeff Hawkins also founded Palm, Handspring, and a
> >>>> neuroscience
> >>>> institute which generated the research for this company. There's a
> >>>> podcast of a speech he made on entrepreneurialism in general at
> >>>> Stanford here:
> >>>>
> >>>> http://edcorner.stanford.edu/podcasting.shtml
> >>>>
> >>>> And somewhere a Real Audio thingy of an interview about his new
> >>>> company which he did on/for NPR. (I have this idiosyncratic aversion
> >>>> to RA so I haven't heard it, but the podcast is interesting.)
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>> Giles
> >>>>
> >>>> ============================================================
> >>>> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> >>>> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
> >>>> lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
> >>>
> >>> ===================================
> >>> Jim Rutt
> >>> voice:  505-989-1115
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> ============================================================
> >>> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> >>> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
> >>> lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
> >>>
> >>
> >> ============================================================
> >> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> >> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
> >> lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
> >
> > ===================================
> > Jim Rutt
> > voice:  505-989-1115
> >
> >
> >
> > ============================================================
> > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
> > lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 2
> Date: Sat, 1 Apr 2006 11:47:20 -0800
> From: "Douglass Carmichael" <doug at dougcarmichael.com>
> Subject: [FRIAM] Social goals
> To: "'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group'"
> <Friam at redfish.com>
> Message-ID: <000f01c655c5$17063980$0100a8c0 at sony510>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
>
> Overheard elsewhere.
>
> In 1899 Thorstein Veblen described predation as a phase in the evolution

of
> culture, "attained only when the predatory attitude has become the
habitual
> and accredited spiritual attitude...when the fight has become the dominant
> note in the current theory of life." After an entire century's struggle to
> escape from this phase, we've suffered a relapse. The predators are
> everywhere unleashed; and the institutions built to contain them, from the
> United Nations to the AFL-CIO to the SEC, are everywhere under siege.
> Predation has again become the defining feature of economic life. Our
first

> problem is to grasp this reality in full.
> ----
> There should be a place for biz and tech that is socially progressive. A
> predator culture in a crowded complex world can only lead to fragmentation
> and provoke armed struggle led by willing thugs..
>
> Douglass Carmichael
> doug at dougcarmichael.com
> www.dougcarmichael.com
> blog at http://carmichael.wordpress.com
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 3
> Date: Sat, 1 Apr 2006 15:11:18 -0700
> From: "Jim Rutt" <jim at jimrutt.com>
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Social goals
> To: "The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group"
> <Friam at redfish.com>
> Message-ID:
> <719288c20604011411o2b715b88t7ee5ccf2066e6d76 at mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
>
> Isn't "predation" as used here just another, rather pejorative, word for
> "freedom"?
>
> Maybe freedom is bad, and I'm happy to listen to such arguments, but let's
> not needlessly inflame folks by equating "freedom" and "predation".
>
> =jim rutt
>
>
>
> On 4/1/06, Douglass Carmichael <doug at dougcarmichael.com> wrote:
> >
> > Overheard elsewhere.
> >
> > In 1899 Thorstein Veblen described predation as a phase in the evolution
> > of
> > culture, "attained only when the predatory attitude has become the
> > habitual
> > and accredited spiritual attitude...when the fight has become the

dominant
> > note in the current theory of life." After an entire century's struggle
to
> > escape from this phase, we've suffered a relapse. The predators are
> > everywhere unleashed; and the institutions built to contain them, from
the
> > United Nations to the AFL-CIO to the SEC, are everywhere under siege.
> > Predation has again become the defining feature of economic life. Our
> > first
> > problem is to grasp this reality in full.
> > ----
> > There should be a place for biz and tech that is socially progressive. A
> > predator culture in a crowded complex world can only lead to
fragmentation

> > and provoke armed struggle led by willing thugs..
> >
> > Douglass Carmichael
> > doug at dougcarmichael.com
> > www.dougcarmichael.com
> > blog at http://carmichael.wordpress.com
> >
> >
> > ============================================================
> > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
> > lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
> >
> >
>
>
> --
> ===========================
> Jim Rutt
> JPR Ventures
> 505-989-1115
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> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 4
> Date: Sat, 1 Apr 2006 16:28:44 -0700
> From: "Tom Johnson" <tom at jtjohnson.com>
> Subject: [FRIAM] And in the category of unintended consequences....
> To: "Friam at redfish. com" <friam at redfish.com>
> Message-ID:
> <e04090490604011528q4096241blba4a785c5bc3ab30 at mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
>
> -----Original Message-----
> *Subject:* Oops
>
> Who didn't see this coming?  The end of user-created content?  Or maybe

just
> better agency oversight....
>  *Chevy's 'Make Your Own Tahoe Commercial' idea not exactly going as
>
planned<http://www.autoblog.com/2006/03/31/chevys-make-your-own-tahoe-commer
cial-not-exactly-going-as-pl/>
> *
>
>   <http://www.chevyapprentice.com/?seo=ov>As part of a creative new ad
> campaign for the new Tahoe, General Motors has teamed up with Donald
> Trump's 'The Apprentice' franchise to create a website that allows
> prospectives to make their own commercials online. The website allows
> readers to select backgrounds, video shots, and input text in an attempt
to
> win prizes ranging from a Jackson Hole Getaway to a trip to the Major
League
> Baseball All-Star Game.
>
> Rather predictably, however, certain surfers have been using the
> spot-building website for purposes that don't exactly put Chevrolet's
newest
> in the best light. Unfortunately, GM's webmeisters appear to be asleep at
> the wheel, as we can't imagine these derogatory ads staying up on purpose.
>
> *Check out these for a few examples:
>
One<http://www.chevyapprentice.com/view.php?country=us&uniqueid=42019b68-10a
c-1029-98eb-0013724ff5a7>
>  
Two<http://www.chevyapprentice.com/view.php?country=us&uniqueid=40a895fc-10e
b-1029-98eb-0013724ff5a7>
>  
Three<http://www.chevyapprentice.com/view.php?country=us&uniqueid=ed9acefc-1
185-1029-98eb-0013724ff5a7>
>  
Four<http://www.chevyapprentice.com/view.php?country=us&uniqueid=2f96c6f2-10
b5-1029-98eb-0013724ff5a7>
>  
Five<http://www.chevyapprentice.com/view.php?country=us&uniqueid=8cb46084-11
a4-1029-98eb-0013724ff5a7>
>
Six<http://www.chevyapprentice.com/view.php?country=us&uniqueid=238ee5de-122
b-1029-98eb-0013724ff5a7>

>
> [Source: ChevyApprentice.com via
> MetaFilter<http://www.metafilter.com/mefi/50539>
> ]
>
> - tj
> ==============================================
> J. T. Johnson
> Institute for Analytic Journalism
> www.analyticjournalism.com
> 505.577.6482(c)                                 505.473.9646(h)
> http://www.jtjohnson.com               tom at jtjohnson.com
>
> "You never change things by fighting the existing reality.
> To change something, build a new model that makes the
> existing model obsolete."
>                                                    -- Buckminster Fuller
> ==============================================
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> End of Friam Digest, Vol 34, Issue 2
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