With the ability to connect prims to reality, to create a flow of data in and out to both physical location and other information spaces, we can start to picture how the atomic, real-time, and expressive rendering of Second Life can actually start to capture more than the forms of content that we typically think of as a “3D world”.

In Farmville, you’re learning how to feed an algorithm, to play a game with rules and mechanics and requirements.

In Second Life, you’ve been toying with a multi-dimensional information space created on the fly in real time, that has shown itself to be a powerful entry into story, emotion, insight, collaboration, creation, and prototyping.

In other words, you’ve been using tools that will, with luck, be extended to include the capture of forms of knowledge and wisdom which are beyond the reach of all of the type of content that simply, well, stares back.

As we work or play in Second Life, we are contributing to a larger project: the creation of wisdom and of the new narratives that articulate that wisdom. This is a form of artificial intelligence that shifts us past formulas and social graphs into something that has more profound implications than the fact that someone busted a hole in the back wall: in this case, there’s the potential to blow the roof off.

via Dusan Writer’s Metaverse » Path Finders: On the Road to Meaning in Virtual Worlds.

Oxygen isotopes in clamshells may provide the most detailed record yet of global climate change, according to a team of scientists who studied a haul of ancient Icelandic molluscs.

Most measures of palaeoclimate provide data on only average annual temperatures, says William Patterson, an isotope chemist at the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon, Canada, and lead author of the study1. But molluscs grow continually, and the levels of different oxygen isotopes in their shells vary with the temperature of the water in which they live. The colder the water, the higher the proportion of the heavy oxygen isotope, oxygen-18.

via Shellfish could supplant tree-ring climate data : Nature News.

Very old artworks provide a fascinating glimpse of ancient life, but not without limitations: They typically portray the lifestyles of the rich and famous (rulers, royals, generals, and priests), abandoning the masses to the mists of history.

That’s why the recent discovery of a 1,300-year-old mural at Calakmul, Mexico, is so significant. It is the only known pre-Columbian artwork depicting ordinary Maya engaged in everyday activities, rather than serving the wealthy.

Archaeologists first unearthed the pyramid bearing the painted exterior walls in 2004 and are still in the process of restoring it. The murals show Maya of both sexes preparing and dispensing food, or carrying baskets, sacks, and large vessels. (Previously discovered images mainly show men.) The women wear face paint, and both sexes sport broad-brimmed hats, earrings, necklaces, and pendants. Hieroglyphic captions identify some people by their trades: salt person, tobacco person, and maize-gruel person, for example.

via Ancient Mural Portrays Ordinary Mayans | LiveScience.

The wealthy countries repeatedly find new ways to screw Africa. They're purchasing the fishing rights and denying locals the rights to fish the sea or selling more guns or owning profitable enterprises that ought to be owned locally. In this case, buying fertile land and denying it to locals is sick. The local governments aren't much better for allowing it but the countries to the north appear to have forgotten about their disastrous colonial legacy.

This is another example of the new wave of colonialism that is blocking Africa from making progress. Even worse, part of what is driving the effort is fuel. How many more examples like this do we need to see before people stop using food growing land to generate fuel? Instead of encouraging this, it's time to tax the hell out of these plans that are taking food away from people.

via AMERICAblog News: Rich buying farm land and water rights in Africa while locals go hungry.

Econned is the story of how our financial system has become a mass ruse, allowing Wall Street and the largest banks to become predatory, treating their clients as lambs to be fleeced and fatted calves to be slaughtered. It is the story of how a very small group of people gained complete control over the American, and much of the global economy, driving it into the ground, then walking away with trillions of more dollars, while the economy remains on life-support.

via Archein: Econned.

In recent days, conservative media figures have been sounding the alarm, attacking President Obama and the Department of Justice DOJ for employing lawyers who previously represented terrorism suspects or supported their legal arguments in their private practices. It really is just the latest case of Bush-nesia, in which media conservatives block all memory of the Bush administration in an attempt to tar the Obama administration with politically motivated, half-baked smears.The fact that President Bush's DOJ also hired lawyers who represented terror suspects hasn't fazed right-wing media shills.

via Media Matters: Bush-nesia strikes again in smear against Obama, DOJ | Media Matters for America.

The Vatican was today rocked by a sex scandal reaching into Pope Benedict's household after a chorister was sacked for allegedly procuring male prostitutes for a papal gentleman-in-waiting.

Angelo Balducci, a Gentleman of His Holiness, was caught by police on a wiretap allegedly negotiating with Thomas Chinedu Ehiem, a 29-year-old Vatican chorister, over the specific physical details of men he wanted brought to him. Transcripts in the possession of the Guardian suggest that numerous men may have been procured for Balducci, at least one of whom was studying for the priesthood.

The explosive claims about Balducci's private life have caused grave embarrassment to the Vatican, which has yet to publicly comment on the affair.

via Vatican hit by gay sex scandal | World news | guardian.co.uk.

LOL – gotta love it. Ah, the irony!

Climate scientists have delivered a powerful riposte to their sceptical critics with a study that strengthens the case for saying global warming is largely the result of man-made emissions of greenhouse gases.

The researchers found that no other possible natural phenomenon, such as volcanic eruptions or variations in the activity of the Sun, could explain the significant warming of the planet over the past half century as recorded on every continent including Antarctica.

It is only when the warming effect of emitting millions of tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere from human activity is considered that it is possible to explain why global average temperatures have risen so significantly since the middle of the 20th century.

via Humans must be to blame for climate change, say scientists – Climate Change, Environment – The Independent.

The story from blogger Monica Bergamo at Folha Online connects readers to the Brazilian office of the globalist Kabbalah Centre, the same Kaballah Centre whose Rabbi Eliyahu Yardeni told a BBC reporter that the 6 million Jews killed in the Holocaust brought their downfall upon themselves because they didn't use the Kabbalah. Apparently in his studies, Rabbi Yardeni had some difficulties sorting out the differences between Arbeit Macht Frei and Kabbalah Macht Frei.

Failure of the Success for Kids program to fulfill requests for substantive details for their “pilot project” involving a radical educational methodology called Social Emotional Learning (SEL) comes at a bad time for Madonna, who has raised about $8 million dollars for the scheme and has a high dollar concert series set for Rio later this year. The Brazilian media is on an anti-corruption crusade linked to the start of the presidential election campaign.

via Eric Ehrmann: Brazil’s Bloggers Follow The Money: Madonna’s ‘Favela Fund’ Linked to Kabbalah Centre.

Wouldn’t it be great if American government could finally operate in a more bipartisan fashion?

No, as a matter of fact, it wouldn’t.

Bipartisanship is all the rage now, for three reasons, each of which is as abysmal as it is absurd.

The first is that the Republicans, having given the country a wee taste of their politics these last years and decades, were shown to the exit door by the American electorate in two election cycles in a row. Now, completely bereft of power except by means of every reprehensible delaying and blocking tactic imaginable, the Great Obstructionist Party is whining at every opportunity about the need for bipartisanship. But this is an almost entirely foreign concept for them, since, when they had control of the government, they simply rammed their agenda down the throats of everyone on the horizon, including historic allies of the United States, and even – as with Bush’s prescription drug bill – members of their own party in Congress. If they were running over the French and Germans and even Congressional Republicans, needless to say they didn’t hesitate to make frequent road-kill of Democrats, without so much as a fleeting glance in their rearview mirrors.

Thus, all the newfangled talk about bipartisanship is simply another in a series of ploys which seek to cripple the Democrats from doing what one would normally expect a party to do once it had won control of the government. Namely, govern.

via The Regressive Antidote – Bipartisan Is Just Another Word For Nothing Left To Win.