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Alphachimp Wednesday, February 2, 2005 at 4:22PM 
"Monkeys are willing to 'pay' to check out pictures of other macaques' asses. Researchers at Duke University gave male rhesus macaques the choice of juice of a half-second glimpse of a picture of a female's rear or an image of a socially-dominant monkey."
Alphachimp Tuesday, February 1, 2005 at 10:59AM 
At a recent gathering, a fellow mentioned the importance of the internet in allowing communities to work together. Another one contended that the internet encourages to draw apart ("Look at the terrorists; they use the internet!").
Yet another noted the success of Howard Dean in the Presidential election.
"Yeh," came the sardonic reply. "But it didn't get him elected."
No. But it may have put him in the position to guide the formation of the Democratic National Committee for the next election.
When I laid the news on them that he may become the next Chairman of the DNC, they were incredulous. "No way!" they spewed. (And, no, we were not in a Red State, but in England).
According to the Associated Press, Dean already has more than 50 endorsements of DNC members, including five chairs. He needs a majority of the 447 members to win the post. The election is scheduled Feb. 12.
In the end, it was th groundswell of support from normal folk - self-organizing the Dean campaign themselves all across the country - who brought this former governor of Vermont to this national level.
LISTEN to Joe Trippi, Dean's campaign manager, as he describes what it was like to ride the wave of dedicated citizens using the web to come together for change.
Yee-haw!
Alphachimp Monday, January 31, 2005 at 5:19PM 
Blogs grow from very personal text-based scribbles, to very personal vocal monologues. Now you can hear as well as read the angst, anxiety and antics!
Personal Radio Via Podcasting Grows More Popular
by Nathan Santamaria
LISTEN to NPR interview with the founder of iPodder.org, the inimitable Adam Curry, former DJ on MTV (see article on www.mtv.com).
Slate's Gizmos: The Future of Radio
Noah Adams
Day to Day, October 28, 2004
LISTEN as NPR talks to Paul Boutin of Slate about two new products for radio listeners: a portable satellite radio receiver, and a so-called "podcasting" system that allows iPod users to download radio programming.
PodCasting' to Music, Talk Fans Online
by Robert Smith
Day to Day, February 1, 2005
For a good time, visit the merry banter of married podcasters Dawn and Drew.
Via iPodder.org, we discovered Digital Strips : The Web Comics Blog
Description: "A blog of the web comics scene. Here you'll find reviews, links, and comments of our favorite digital comic strips. Space in newspapers for comics is shrinking, but the web is a wide open canvas."
However, for the best podcasts of the best content, nothing beats Doug Kaye's IT Conversations.
Want to become a broadcaster? Check out SHOUTcast, Nullsoft's Free Winamp-based distributed streaming audio system. It's Free! Check the online docs to get started! All you need is a player, for example Winamp, iTunes or RealPlayer.
Alphachimp Monday, January 31, 2005 at 3:02PM 
[SEE close-up.]
Even when immense fortunes are spent on vaulted, cathedral spires and overblown modern art, most corporate headquarters do not impress and much as boast
The offices of BP in Surrey, just outside of London, however, struck me viscerally – they seem to be putting their money where their mouth is.
Since merging with Amoco in 1998, and subsequently re-inventing their brand as "Beyond Petroleum", the British based multi-national oil company has promoted their research in alternative fuels, solar power and recycling. They define their brand values as such:
BP believes in being performance driven, innovative, progressive and green in everything we do and say.
However, closer inspection reveals these "razors" to be rows and rows of solar panels. The post-modern street lights are actually halogen spots with reflective panels to bounce light in gentle pools at night.Green - demonstrating environmental leadership
United around a vision of environmental leadership and recognition that the challenge to develop cleaner energy must be met, we are committed to the proactive and responsible treatment of our planet's natural resources and to the development of sources of lower carbon energy.
Alphachimp Saturday, January 29, 2005 at 8:45PM 
Alexander attempts to define and understand the essence of a "living" structure. He talks with NPR's Jennifer Ludden onAll Things Considered, January 29, 2005.
LISTEN to Alexander's interview.
In the late 1970s, Christopher Alexander became an icon in the architecture world with his book, A Pattern Language. In it, he argued for injecting personal, emotional and spiritual qualities into manmade structures, streets and cities. Alexander's book challenged the architectural establishment and derided much that's been built over the past century as "deadly."
We were first exposed to his work by Matt and Gail Taylor, masters in designing living, collaborative spaces that accelerate innovation through releasing group genius.
The Taylor's work is infused with Alexander's theories of pattern language; as well as Howard Gardner's Multiple Intelliegences and Buckminster Fuller's work with tensigrity.
Alphachimp Tuesday, January 25, 2005 at 10:39AM 
Look up the word "Zen" and you will find hundreds of references, definitions, poems, artworks and masters of consciousness. You shan't, dear reader, find the Department of Homeland Security. More specifically, the TSA may be used to illustrate the opposite of ZenDefining Zen
(noun)
1: school of Mahayana Buddhism asserting that enlightenment can come through meditation and intuition rather than faith; China and Japan [syn: Zen Buddhism]
2: a Buddhist doctrine that enlightenment can be attained through direct intuitive insight [syn: Zen Buddhism]
3: street name for the drug lysergic acid diethylamide
However, the founder of Chinese Zen, Bodhidharma, as depicted in a woodblock print by Yoshitoshi, looks like the ex-Hell's Angels baggage screener I ran across today in the Pittsburgh International Airport. (I swear that is a cigarette butt poking out of his Grizzly Adams beard!)
It must take a great deal of meditative self-awareness to stare out at the lines of weary, caffiene-addled travelers and their bulky carry-ons, each and every one a potential well-spring of mass destruction.
Remember: Remain calm, no matter what the threat level.
from wikipedia: Zen teachings often criticize textual study and the pursuit of worldly accomplishments, concentrating primarily on meditation in pursuit of an unmediated awareness of the processes of the world and the mind.
Zen, however, is no mere quietistic doctrine: the Chinese Zen master Baizhang (720-814 CE), (Japanese: Hyakujo), left behind a famous saying which had been the guiding principle of his life, "A day without work is a day of no eating."
When Baizhan was thought to be too old to work in the garden, his devotees hid his gardening tools. In response to this, the master then refused to eat, saying "No working, no living."
And perhaps detachment from worldly events is required to make it to one's lunch break, a topic one hears often loudly discussed amongst the TSA agents (ex. "Man! Yolanda sure has been gone a long time on lunch break! My break's coming up in one hour and thrity-seven minutes!")
Out of sincere curiosity, I conducted a straw poll of TSA agents asking if they had any opinion of the new nominee for Department of Homeland Security, Michael Chertoff, currently a judge for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.
The female agent screening me, responded that she thought it might be "The Admiral" who was replacing outgoing head Tom Ridge. I offered to her that it may be someone else. "You should find out; he'll be your boss."
She replied, "Well The Admiral spoke at the Inauguration; I assumed he was gonna be our next boss."
"So, you don't know for sure?"
"Nope," came the terse reply. "I don't know who signs my paycheck: I got direct deposit."
Whoa. Now there's a metaphor for Zen: "direct deposit for the soul."
I really hope that the vision of Ron Ruiz comes to fruition. His concept made the runner-up's circle for ID Fuel's Bonfire #3 organized around the theme of Hassle Free Travel. It may not mesh entirely with TSA's inspirational credo: "Through partnerships with industry, TSA has deployed the latest technology to detect weapons and explosives in a variety of transportation environments."
However, Ruiz's zenful vision for a security checkpoint re-design, dubbed Luf, involves streams, reeds, and ambient music.
Ahhhhhh. Just like heaven, except with x-ray machines.
Alphachimp Monday, January 24, 2005 at 12:07PM I have been talking with many of my clients and partners in the field about this here blog phenomenon (doo-DOO-doodoodoo-FEE-nom-eee-NON!--doo-doo-DEE-doo).
Most ask: [1] Why should I care about blogs? or [2] How the hell do they work?
I think most professionals should care because both the technology and the social networks formed online are redistributing power and decision-making in the fields of commerce and politics.
At Pop!Tech 8, a pre-election panel discussion on "Connected Politics". Panelists included Joe Trippi, former campaing manager for Howard Dean; Adrian Wooldridge, Washington correspondent for The Economist and Andrew Rasiej, founder and chairman of MOUSE.
They addressed tough questions about the future of US politics and the roll of the "blogosphere" in shaping discourse:
To hear these speakers online, visit IT Conversations' podcast of Pop!Tech.
To understand how straight-forward business processes are being redefined, I would start off by listening to The Gilmor Gang discuss how this technology is driving business process and social dialog.
I've posted a list of resources that will be rudimentary for experienced bloggers but keys to the kindom for newbies (and, by all means, please add resources to the comments field!).
Look, learn, graze, cogitate, peruse, ideate and have fun!
What is a blog?
A blog is a journal, a running log of thoughts and or commentary that an author (or “blogger”) makes available for reading on a website. Blogging software allows bloggers to update their weblogs whenever they want. People reading the blog can respond to individual entries of the blogger, sometimes creating extended discussions.
MORE: http://www.blogger.com/tour_start.g
Blog History
Visit: wikipedia's brief history.
Other blogs I frequent:
A master list of blogs and RSS search engines can be found through Fagan Finder.
Dan Gillmor's We the Media: Grassroots Journalism by the People, for the People
Gilmor's observation that the common man (with internet access) is now the media, able to conteract the mainstream, and take on networks and governments using social nets, cell phones, pages, SMS and blogs.
Alphachimp Tuesday, January 18, 2005 at 4:13PM In general, I agree with a favorite Canadian saying: There is no bad weather, only bad clothing.
However, even the best jacket from REI will only take you so far. 
Paleoclimatologist Richard Alley studies ice cores -- samples of ice that record Earth's past climate. His research focuses on abrupt climate change, glaciers, ice sheet collapse and sea level change. He has participated in ice core drilling projects in Antarctica and Greenland and has won many awards for teaching and research. We caught him at this the 2004 Pop!Tech as part of a panel discussion on "Big Weather". Listen at IT Conversations.
From Joho the Blog: "[Alley is] an animated speaker. He shows photos of his ice-drilling expedition to Greenland. Is there global warming? Yes. He runs through the evidence. The biggest cause is fossil guels: The typical US driver buys 100 pounds of gasoline per week. We're burning fossil fuels a million times faster than nature created them.
If you want to read what real, live, actual climatologists are discovering about our changing weather, check out the collaborative blog RealClimate, a commentary site on climate science by working climate scientists for the interested public and journalists. We aim to provide a quick response to developing stories and provide the context sometimes missing in mainstream commentary. The discussion here is restricted to scientific topics and will not get involved in any political or economic implications of the science.
Global warming is a natural trend but we're making it much worse. Most of the effects of global warming are negative for humans, he says. Some high-latitude economies will do better. But, it could dry up the grain-belt, kill off a whole bunch of species, raise sea-level and spread tropical diseases. [Ok, overall, I'm against global warming.] It's hard to make it better but easy to make it worse. Alley hypothesizes that the climate moves by staggering up and down. He shows a chart that shows that in the Ice Age, the temperature staggered but the CO2 level changed rather smoothly. Possible conclusion: Now that CO2 is rising again, we should perhaps expect big swings in temperature. Alley shows satellite photos of the ice sheets in Antarctica. They're melting. These are just small ones. But it's possible the large ones will melt. Goodbye Florida."
Travelling with the British Antarctic Survey (BAS), I will journey to the Falklands via Ascension Island, where I will join BAS scientists on board the ice-strengthened ship RSS Ernest Shackleton. On its way South the ship will visit several subantarctic islands, break through expanses of sea-ice and ultimately reach the ice cliffs of Antarctica. More than a month after leaving England, the sketches will record the final journey inland to the strange science-fiction-like Halley Research Station perched on stilts above the empty, white wilderness of Antarctica.
Using the extremely restricted means of the Palm-Pilot, the pixellated drawings might depict any number of things: a detail of the ship, a weather balloon disappearing, an abandoned whaling station, Shackleton's grave, a colony of penguins, a wandering Albatross or a drifting iceberg. The project will convey the extreme mechanics of the journey, the tedium of isolation and the awful beauty of a journey into the void. Ultimately the work will look at what it is that fascinates us still about this beautiful emptiness.
"…whiteness is not so much a color as the visible absence of color, and at the same time the concrete of all colors; is it for these reasons that there is such a dumb blankness, full of meaning, in a wide landscape of snows…" The Whiteness of The Whale. Moby Dick, Herman Melville
Alphachimp Tuesday, January 18, 2005 at 12:01AM 
All my friends are there, man, living life as a Gen X Daddy! Finally, some press.
Some great "daddyblogs" out there for those of us juggling family, work and late-night obsession with crafting on-line dispatches.
Daddytypes
The Weblog for New Dads
Being Daddy
tagline: "Like being Mommy. Only hairier."
Daddyzine
"Though I refer to it in public as 'a potty,' I still come off looking very masculine.
Luxury vacations, fast-track careers, and bigger houses used to be a priority for family men, but no longer. Today's young fathers are taking paternity leaves, rejecting overtime, and rushing home after work to do all the things many of their own fathers didn't...
Even at a time when men are working as hard as ever, much has been made of the emergence of the new nurturing father. Around the time that Dustin Hoffman asked in the 1979 movie Kramer vs. Kramer, "What law is it that says a woman is a better parent simply by virtue of her sex?" sociologists were hailing a new era. Study after study shows that today's men refuse to be stick figures in their children's lives. They recoil at the thought of acting like Distant Dad. When they see celebrities like Eminem and Will Smith embrace their children or Super Bowl winners cradle their babies, they see glamorous reflections of themselves.
No generation is more influenced by this vision of fatherhood than today's men between 26 and 40 - commonly called Generation X - and no male age group has been more scrutinized for its paternal behaviors. As research targets, men of this generation have been asked to keep daily diaries of time spent at work and home, to distinguish between reading bedtime stories (child care) and washing dishes (housework), and to know that being a "domestic manager" is not the same as being a "compliant helper."
Alphachimp Monday, January 17, 2005 at 4:54PM 
Award-winning journalist David Bornstein is coming to Southwestern PA on Thursday, January 20 to promote his highly acclaimed book, "How To Change the World: Social Entrepreneurs and the Power of New Ideas". In this book, Bornstein profiles nine remarkable social entrepreneurs, described as driven, creative people who question the status quo, exploit new opportunities, refuse to give up, and remake the world for the better. During his visit, Bornstein will discuss how social entrepreneurs bring about positive social change in our country and around the globe. There are two opportunities to meet David and hear him speak...
1. Thursday, January 20th, 9:00-10:30am at the Westmoreland Museum of American Art in Greensburg. This session is for all nonprofits in Westmoreland and surrounding counties. To register, please contact the Westmoreland Museum of American Art at (724) 837-1500, ext 29.
2. Thursday, January 20th, 1:30-3pm at the Pittsburgh Project (http://www.pittsburghproject.org/) on the Northside. The address will be followed by a panel moderated by Gregg Behr (Forbes Funds) and including Jeff Palmer (CEO of the Coordinated Care Network and an Ashoka Fellow), Tim Zak (President, Pittsburgh Social Enterprise Accelerator), Peggy Outon (Executive Director, Bayer Center for Nonprofit Management), and Terry Beggy (Executive Director, PSVP). Register by calling the Bayer Center for Nonprofit Management at 412-227-6814.
Sponsors of this visit include the Pittsburgh Social Enterprise Advisory Committee, The Forbes Funds, the Bayer Center for Nonprofit Management, the Nonprofit Leadership Institute, ProArts, the Westmoreland Museum of American Art, the United Way of Westmoreland County, and the Community Foundation of Westmoreland County.
Don't miss an opportunity to meet this renowned author and journalist and hear about his incredible global journeys to find individuals literally changing the world!
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