Social networking tool - NutshellMail

NutshellMail is a social network management tool. It takes a point in time snapshot of the update of your contact accounts and sends it to your primary email account. The point in time can be weekly, daily, or multi times a day.

NutshellMail supports Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, LinkedIn and other major social network sites.  The tool is catered to casual social networkers. It is for reading and responding to updates. The best part of it is that it is free.

Results on consciousness

TechCast – Results on consciousness – The new Frontier

Halal believes that advanced technologies have automated human thought routines and thus, moving the world into higher realms of consciousness. TechCast over the past year has focused on evaluating “Technologies of Consciousness” (ToC), the mehods that shape awareness, emotions, values, beliefs, ideologies, choices and the general state of mind. TechCast looked at the following 7 fields of technologies and forecasted when they are likely to enter mainstream use:

The one TOC that surprises me is the ‘Global Moral Code (Synthesis of major religions). I will have to do more research in order to understand the basis for religious synthesis and what are the pathways. From the historical perspectives, sciences and religions have always been at odd with one another and religious teachings are full of contradictions.
Other TOCs are interesting and the likely arrival date seem realistic.
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http://www.techcast.org/featuredarticledetails.aspx?id=260
Halal and Marien, “The Global MegaCrisis” The Futurist ( May-June 2011)

Structured Design Dialog Process (SDDP)

Structured Design Dialog Process (SDDP), as defined by Schreibman and Christakis, is the new geometry of languaging and new technology of democracy, “designed to overcome the propensity toward Spreadthink, Groupthink, and the ‘Erroneous Priorities Effect’ and to facilitate meaningful group dialogue that enhances the pursuit of community wisdom and power” (Schreibman & Christakis).

The term ‘Spreadthink’, as coined by Dr. John N. Warfield, is to describe the outcome of group dialogue that is infected with inherent human constraints:  1) The lack of a common language that facilitates members ‘s engaging in genuine dialogue, thus as a result, members talk in parallel or talk past each other instead of conversing. 2) The limited short-term ability to process information upon the multiple dimensions of reality affecting any complex issue, thus as a result, lead to information overload and 3) Different value systems which are deeply socialized during childhood or in the place they live and work.  With Spreadthink situation, the views of individual members are literally all over the map.  ‘Groupthink’, another term coined by Dr. Warfield, is a majority view of a group consensus that is arrived under pressure from a strong minority. Groupthink is the result of the deterioration of mental efficiency, quality of reality testing, and quality of moral judgment that results from in-group pressures. It lacks individual support and, usually lacks substance.  ‘Erroneous Priorities Effect’ problem is the outcome where discrepancies between words and actions are found.

For the Aquaculture project SDDP is used to facilitate true, meaningful dialog that guides decision making process.  Researchers and community organizers will get together and each will generate a list of intentions.  The team then will choose a set of 12 intentions that received the most votes. A strategic method such as Delphi method can be utilized in order to explore the influences among the 12 chosen intentions.  The influences then will be arranged with the most influential ones at the base. This influence tree pattern is called a ‘tree of meaning’ by Dr. Christakis. The tree of meaning is the result of the co-laboratory of Democracy process. While working in the democracy process, always keep in mind the following 6 dialogue laws are used to promote meaning and wisdom in dialogue:

1. Appreciation of the diversity of perspectives of observers is essential to embrace the many dimensions of a complex situation.

2. Disciplined dialogue is required so that observers are not subjected to information overloaded.

3. The relative importance of an observer's ideas can be understood only when they are compared with others in the group.

4. Meaning and wisdom of an observer's ideas are produced in a dialogue only when they begin to understand the relationships such as similarity, priority, influence, etc., of different people's ideas.

5. Every person matters, so it is necessary to protect the autonomy and authenticity of each observer in drawing distinctions.

6. Evolutionary learning occurs in a dialogue as the observers learn how their ideas relate to one another.

http://sunsite.utk.edu/FINS/loversofdemocracy/NewAgora.htm

http://www.harnessingcollectivewisdom.com/sdp_process.html

Dr.  Warfield (1925 – November 17, 2009) was an Americansystems scientist, who was professor and director of the Institute for Advanced Study in the Integrative Sciences (IASIS) at George Mason University.

http://www.jnwarfield.com/

Dr. Christakis is the founder of the international non-profit Institute for 21^st Century Agoras (GLOBAL AGORAS) and past-president of the International Society of Systems Sciences. You can find one of the newest interviews with him here:

http://www.europesworld.org/NewEnglish/Home_old/CommunityPosts/tabid/809/PostID/2711/ThePredicamentoftheIndividualCommunitiesandHumankindinthe21stCentury.aspx

Kevin Kelly on the next 5,000 days of the Web - Ted Talk

http://www.ted.com/talks/kevin_kelly_on_the_next_5_000_days_of_the_web.html

The World Wide Web as we know is only 5000 days old. What’s happening in the next 5000 days?  Kevin Kelly’s Ted Talk focuses on areas such as social media, the Internet Cloud and other forces such as personalization, transparency and transferring culture that are transforming the current internet into the ONE machine. The current internet, interconnecting into ONE single global machine is the most reliable machine anyone can ever imagine, with zero downtime, serving 100 billion clicks a day, 8 terrabytes per second traffic, 55 trillion internet links  and using up 5% of energy of the planet.

Kelly thinks we need to get better at believing in the impossible. Well, I think the advanced technologies are there – but I don’t have the same imagination of a global utopia.  And I am afraid that the high personal cost for the illusion of transparency and global culture is too high. Once I read about a lady who rented some movies at Block Buster and later found the details of her transactions on her Facebook wall. (Apparently, Facebook and Block Buster exchanged this information against the Video Privacy Protection Act). This scared me so I have made efforts to not expose myself too much on the Internet. However, googling my name, and I can find past and current addresses, complete with satellite pictures and map from google, home price and other stuff. Not that I think these info are particularly interesting, but the idea of having my personal information on the Internet always makes me feel uncomfortable.

The 8PM news today informs us about how US big brothers are planning to scan Facebook and monitor Twitter in a bid to thwart any sign of social disorder within the United States and to predict global events such as the current Arab Springs. It reminds us that the ONE machine is not really ours but it belongs to the governments. When the Chinese Communists can dictate what information Google search engine can serve up to Chinese, and when British Prime Minister advocates the power of the government to shut down Internet access during the times of public riots, we are also reminded that within the ONE machine, are many sub machines, and they are not owned by us. 
Perhaps it is possible that, as the world citizens are more educated and technologies are more advance,  the gap of digital divide will no longer be visible, resources will be plentiful, world peace will be achievable and people will be 'let go'. Until then, the governmental control of the Internet and the individual lost of control though personalization will remain the two biggest negative forces. 

Animoto

Delphi Research Method - just a thought on Curing World Hunger with Aquaculture

Curing World Hunger with Aquaculture 2025
Aquaculture is defined as the rearing of aquatic organisms under controlled or semi-controlled conditions. Aquaculture is not new. Many ancient civilizations had used some form of aquaculture. In China, the aquaculture can be traced back to around 3500 B.C. with the culture of the common carp. In 475 B.C. The oldest document on fish culture was written by Fan Li, a politician and administrator, dated back to 475 B.C. His document described methods for pond construction, brood stock selection, stocking, managing ponds and fish harvesting. In ancient Egypt, aquaculture seems to have evolved in parallel with the development of irrigation. Even though there is no document exists, drawings in tombs, dated back to about 2000 B.C. showed the aquaculture of tilapia. Other cultures such as the ancient Rome, English and European all had some types of aquaculture dating back many thousand years.
One aspect of aquaculture is called aquaponics, or the combination of aquaculture and hydroponics. Many scientists and researchers believe aquaponics could be a key component to a more sustainable, resilient food system. I believe aquaponics is the solution to world hunger. Culturally speaking, it is something humans have done for thousands of years but in much smaller scales. With advance in science and technology, new approaches to aquaponics can be developed and taught to tribes, villages, towns, cities all over the world.

Let’s say that the goal for the project is “to solicit expert opinion for a set of standard turnkey aquaponic systems catering to different topographies, weathers and cultures”, I think the Delphi method of research is probably best suit for this project. The participants will be from different parts of the world. They can conduct their own onsite research including pilot studies; refine their views as they learn from their experiences and as they receive feedback from the research team.
In addition to the ‘cultural readiness’ for the project, the need for inland communities to have sea and fresh water products, the need to decrease pressure on wild fisheries, and the need to have products from green and clean sources are all positive environmental forces. Government grants and private donation will make the project possible, however, until the technology become cheaper, some of the systems are still too expensive to implement, one example is the RAS (Recirculating Aquaculture System). Local and international rules, regulations and restrictions may also impact the project. These governmental forces will need to be studied up front in the feasibility study.

Watching TED – Dr. Quyen Nguyen – Color coded surgery

http://www.ted.com/talks/quyen_nguyen_color_coded_surgery.html
In this presentation, Dr. Quyen Nguyen demonstrated and discussed how a molecular marker can make tumors light up in neon green, showing surgeons exactly where to cut.
In this fascinating conversation, Dr. Nguyen talked about the surgeons’ special relationship with light: They need lights in order to perform operations. In ancient time, skylight was important. In modern time, operating rooms have specialized lights which mimic natural lights.
This ‘relationship’ with lights brought the surgeons to other kinds of lights – lights that can allow them to see what they currently don’t see. Dr. Nguyen is talking about the magic of fluorescence light and how it can be used to color code organs, nerves and rumors in order to assist in surgery.
She has demonstrated several cases, from cancer tumors that turn florescent green, to nerves that turn florescent white. The tool for identifying cancer tumors is a protein molecule, developed by Dr. Roger Chen (who went on to win the Nobel Prize for chemistry in 2008) and his team, that when injected into the veins of someone who has cancer, the cancer parts will be lit up with green fluorescent color. With the help of Dr. Chen and his team, Dr. Nguyen discovered another protein molecule that turns nerves to florescent white. These molecules help guide surgeons in what to destroy and what to preserve.
The Cancer Journal for Clinicans statistics for 2011 put Cancer as one of the most major public health problems in the United States and many other parts of the world with one in 4 deaths in the United States is due to cancer. Many of us are either cancer patients or have family members or friends with cancer and we know how difficult or impossible it is to get rid of it even with multiple surgeries. This is because the surgeons never know what they have to remove and whether they have removed enough. In addition, the cost for chemotherapy, drugs and cosmetic surgeries post cancer surgeries can be horrendous. According to the U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention, one in five patients is not able to get necessary cancer treatment in time or at all because of the high cost. Imagine with this technology, the surgery will be so précised and much more affordable that more lives will be saved. Imagine with this technology, molecules can be used as a vehicle to deliver drugs directly to the cancer cells. That's even better than surgery! Imagine with improvement, they can invent different colors for different types of cancer so that treatment can be done even more precisely and more effectively!

In the final note, Dr. Nguyen leaves us with the following final thought:
“Successful Innovation is not a single break through. It’s not a sprint. It’s not an event for a solo performer. It’s a team sport, it’s a relay race. It requires one team for the breakthrough and another team to get the breakthrough accepted and adopted. And this takes the long term steady courage of the day in day out struggle to educate, to persuade and to win acceptance.”
In the comments section, one has left his final thought:
“This is presented in a very humble way.
But to me this is ground breaking.
It made me physically shake.”
And I concur!