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I read posts online that interest, infuriate, stimulate, inspire, or otherwise move me. I'll share short snippets. Mastodon Shuffle

Such draconian seed laws have paved the way for a neo-colonial capitalistic culture of exploiting farmers to thrive – by encouraging corporate control on seeds and the food system in Kenya. These punitive laws will limit the farmers’ ability to grow their desired, nutrient dense, locally available crops leading to a loss in the food diversity from farm to plate,” continued Nasike. Studies have shown that 90% of the seeds planted in Kenya are from informal seed systems. 80% of smallholder farmers in Kenya depend on informal seed systems which include sharing seeds with other farmers, selling and buying at local markets. Denying these farmers the right to use their indigenous seeds is a theft of the biological resources which will translate to low food production leading to food insecurity.

Hellen Dena at GreenPeace. Punitive Seed Laws Protect Big Corporations Over Kenya’s Farmers

#food #enclosure #extraction #oppression #law #corporations #seeds #information

“Marina Ovsyannikova is a hero for reporting the truth in a nation that doesn’t allow press freedom. Here in the United States where press freedom is the bedrock of our democracy because you can’t have a democracy without a free and independent press, we have cowards zombifying their viewers with Kremlin propaganda. We have cowards like Tucker Carlson.”

Clay Jones at Claytoonz. Russian Heroes

#ukraine #marina ovsyannikova #press #information #democracy

By viewing the brain as a computer that passively responds to inputs and processes data, we forget that it is an active organ, part of a body that is intervening in the world, and which has an evolutionary past that has shaped its structure and function. This view of the brain has been outlined by the Hungarian neuroscientist György Buzsáki in his recent book The Brain from Inside Out. According to Buzsáki, the brain is not simply passively absorbing stimuli and representing them through a neural code, but rather is actively searching through alternative possibilities to test various options. His conclusion – following scientists going back to the 19th century – is that the brain does not represent information: it constructs it.

Matthew Cobb in The Guardian. Why your brain is not a computer

For decades it has been the dominant metaphor in neuroscience. But could this idea have been leading us astray all along?

#brain #patterns #information #embodiment

At a moment when research is forbidden, it is incredibly important that we find ways to be creatively and prosocially disobedient.

Ethan Zuckerman introducing a 2016 conference Forbidden Research in Open Transcripts. Forbidden Research Welcome and Introduction: Ethan Zuckerman

January 11 is the death anniversary of Aaron Swartz

Aaron Hillel Swartz (November 8, 1986 – January 11, 2013) was an American computer programmer, entrepreneur, writer, political organizer, and Internet hacktivist.

#aaron swartz #RIP #information #research #public knowledge #ethics #Internet

An essay by Yonatan Zunger entitled “Trial Balloon for a Coup?”* is making the rounds. Such essays are frightening to many. And yet they must be read critically. I am equally taken by the argument that everything that Zunger identifies is evidence not of a deliberate planning by an aspiring authoritarian, but of the exact opposite: the weakness and incoherence of administration by a narcissist.

Tom Pepinsky. Weak and Incompetent Leaders act like Strong Leaders

*Trial Balloon for a Coup?

Pepinsky is saying “read critically,” not “Zunger is wrong.” Most of us are trying to make sense of the patterns of events, as Pepinsky and Zunger are.

#criticism #conspiracy theory #networks #information

The first story finds coauthor Paul Duguid in an ancient archive, hacking and wheezing from the dust and longing for digitized documents. In walks a medical historian who, to Duguid's utter astonishment and disgust, starts sticking letters under his nose and inhaling deeply. It turns out that when cholera struck in the 1700s, a town's outgoing mail was disinfected with vinegar to prevent spreading the disease. By sniffing for faint traces of vinegar and noting the date and source of the letters, the researcher was able to chart the progress of cholera outbreaks.

Joel Garreau at Whole Earth (Spring 2001). The Social Life of Information by John Seely Brown and Paul Duguid

The Social Life of Information

#Internet #book #information

The issue is not about hats. It is about hats as a metaphor for units of information,” declares the frontispiece of this issue guest-edited by Richard Saul Wurman, founder of Access Press, a publisher of maps, guides, atlases, and comparative charts. Wurman lays out his sage advice to aspiring information architects, describing the five ultimate “hat racks” for organizing or hanging information: alphabet, time, location, continuum or magnitude, and category. Through copious examples and typologies, Wurman hints at his future fame as the creator of the TED conference and its pithy, memorable presentations: “This issue of Design Quarterly is about a singular passion: making things of personal interest understandable to others.

Andrew Blauvelt at The Walker Art Center. Design Quarterly 145, “Hats,” 1989

A Timeline of Design History Andrew Blauvelt Highlights the Best of Five Decades of Design Quarterly

As part of the Walker’s 75th anniversary celebration, 15 issues of Design Quarterly have been made available for free download.

Design Quarterly

Richard Saul Wurman

#design #information #richard saul wurman #TED #Walker #design quarterly

These findings uncover a property of biological systems even deeper than the evolutionary processes that shape them. They reveal the landscape on which that shaping took place, and they show that it was only possible at all because the landscape has a very specific topology, in which functionally similar combinations of the component parts—genes, metabolites, protein or nucleic-acid sequences—are connected into vast webs that stretch throughout the whole of the multidimensional space, each intricately woven amidst countless others.

Philip Ball at Nautilus. The Strange Inevitability of Evolution Good solutions to biology’s problems are astonishingly plentiful.

#biology #networks #gene expression #information

If we stop seeing information as chunks of stuff, as items fixed in size, then we may reach some understanding that differences that make a difference are relative matters. Differences that make a difference, i.e., significant differences, are relative to the people (and the sentient beings around) to whom they are significant. They change between one person and another, as they do in one person over time, etc. If information is a constant movement between background and foreground, then information appears fluid, not static.

simsa0 at simsa0's Wordpress. Information Culture

#information #relationships #flows

We typically think of stress as being a risk factor for disease,” said Cole. “And it is, somewhat. But if you actually measure stress, using our best available instruments, it can’t hold a candle to social isolation. Social isolation is the best-established, most robust social or psychological risk factor for disease out there. Nothing can compete.

Steve Cole quoted in an article by David Dobbs at Pacific Standard Magazine.The Social Life of Genes

Your DNA is not a blueprint. Day by day, week by week, your genes are in a conversation with your surroundings. Your neighbors, your family, your feelings of loneliness: They don't just get under your skin, they get into the control rooms of your cells. Inside the new social science of genetics

#genetics #epigentics #information

One of the biggest problems with compelling the [private key] is it gives you access to not just the target's communications, but all communications flowing through the system, which is exceedingly dangerous.

Jennifer Granick quoted in an article by Declan McCullagh at C|Net. Feds put heat on Web firms for master encryption keys

Whether the FBI and NSA have the legal authority to obtain the master keys that companies use for Web encryption remains an open question, but it hasn't stopped the U.S. government from trying.

#NSA #information #security

SOCA hid this information from the Metropolitan Police force, effectively insulating these top firms and toffs from any consequence for their criminality.

Cory Doctorow at Boing Boing. UK Serious Crimes Agency buried evidence of massive criminality by major corporations, rich people -- wouldn't even tell the cops

When Google Reader shut down, I moved to The Old Reader. That site was down for a couple of days, enough time down for me to feel a serious news Jones.

Our relationship with information nowadays is complex.

I just posted a post mentioning Shrinkrants, a favorite blogger I follow here. I know he follows 1 Boring Old Man. That blogger came back from vacation or took a break from vacation to post about Chinese allegations of bribery against pharmaceutical giant Glaxo. The names on the SOCA list mentioned in the article have not been released to the public. However pharmaceutical companies are among those SOCA discovered using private investigators using criminal means. It's easy to presume Galxo is on the list.

1 Boring Old Man is relentless in investigating corruption in medicine and how pharmaceutical contribute to it. A lot boils down to information; what's withheld and what's exploited.

As a psychiatrist 1 Boring Old Man has a particular interest, but the problem is so much larger than medicine alone. The politics of our complex relationships with information is one that should matter to us all.

#netocracy #information #big pharma #corruption

Neuroscience has advanced to the point where it’s now possible to map in some detail the neural foundations of thought, but a thought can no more be reduced to the firing of neurons than can a word be reduced to the illumination of a configuration of pixels. Ideas do not have an atomic structure and are not bound by time or space. The cartography of the mind cannot be charted by any kind of imaging technology. Not only is such technology ineffective; it is also redundant, since mind is by its very nature (along with a certain amount of discipline and practice) open to self scrutiny.

Paul Woodward at War in Context. How not to circumscribe the mind

#science #information #ideas

Agriculture in the 21st century must be practised differently. Land and water resources are becoming scarcer, of poorer quality, or less reliable. Climatic conditions are in many places more adverse. SRI offers millions of disadvantaged households far better opportunities. Nobody is benefiting from this except the farmers; there are no patents, royalties or licensing fees.

Norman Uphoff quoted in an article bu John Vidal at The Guardian.

India's rice revolution

In a village in India's poorest state, Bihar, farmers are growing world record amounts of rice – with no GM, and no herbicide. Is this one solution to world food shortages?

#food #agriculture #information

But the release may be strategic: if you are an Occupy activist and see how your information is being sent to terrorism task forces and fusion centers, not to mention the "longterm plans" of some redacted group to shoot you, this document is quite the deterrent.

Naomi Wolfe in The Guardian. Revealed: how the FBI coordinated the crackdown on Occupy

New documents prove what was once dismissed as paranoid fantasy: totally integrated corporate-state repression of dissent

#architectures of control #surveillance #state #banks #corporations #information

Among the Essential Literacies he cites are: • Attention • Participation • Collaboration • Critical consumption (which includes “crap detection” — we live in an age when you can get the answer to anything out of the air, but how do you know what and whom to trust?) He also talks about focused attention vs. multitasking and the importance of being able to handle an array of tasks simultaneously.

JD Lasica in Socialmedia.biz Howard Rheingold on essential media literacies

#media #information #online tools

Money follows attention. Wherever attention goes, money will follow. I don’t know the exact revenue model, but I know money will come. The real key is getting people to pay attention.

Kevin Kelly interviewed by Sonia Sariya on Findings. HOW WE WILL READ: KEVIN KELLY

#future #imagination #imagine #information #attention

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