36 replies to this topic

[Hugo Holbling]

What sites are you browsing lately? Share any interesting or odd links here and add them to the Resource Directory if you think others would find them useful.

[Oneiromancy]

I haven't really found anything relevant to that place...

Some sites I go to, regularly or rarely (all safe for work):

www.studystack.com <<< good for flashcards for foreign languages and other study tools for pretty much any subject

http://www.hickorytech.net/~nic111/ <<< stuff for learning japanese

http://www.timwerx.net/home/index.htm <<< Tim Takamatsu's site for learning Japanese, and other Japanese information. Really thorough...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/a-z/ <<< lots of random information... found this while looking up information on world religions

http://www.splingual.com/ <<< spanish lessons I found helpful plus an unfortunately dead spanish chat

http://market-ticker.denninger.net/ <<< Blog by Karl Denninger. Lots of financial jargon , especially in the forum.

http://www.investopedia.com/ <<< Personal finance education. Hang out for investors. Place for people who want to educate themselves about the financial system.

http://www.freemathh...forum/index.php <<< Very active math forum. Get help in math. Help others in math.

http://www.fastweb.com/ <<< Scholarships and financial aid search for students.

http://www.globalsec.../war/index.html <<< Read about current international conflicts.

http://wakachan.org/ <<< Another *chan board. Hang out for white people who wish they were Japanese.

The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy and the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy are really good, but those have already been mentioned.

http://www.biblio.com/ <<< Your source for used and new books. Massive.

Also, I idle in #japanese on IRC on the Rizon network.

That's about it...

Edited by Oneiromancy, 19 December 2008 - 10:56 PM.

[Parody of Language]

http://www.bbc.co.uk...wcapitalism.pdf

[AllBlue]

Remember bookplates? I don't think I know anyone who still uses them, but there are people who collect old ones and design new ones and they have a website!

I sometimes visit a carving forum. The person who started it, Janel Jacobson, has a great website of her own work. She is an accomplished and successful carver who most often does small carvings called netsuke, a form developed in Japan in the 17th century, according to wikipedia. There are antique netsuke carvings that people collect, and there are also artists like Janel who are carving the form today.  Her website has many pictures of her beautiful work.

Here's a good website for looking at more traditional netsuke, and also modern ones.

Another odd type of carving I found a while ago while wandering the web is the carving of misericords that you can find in medieval churches. The interesting thing about these carvings is that that although they're in churches, they were hidden and so the subject matter carved was often not something you'd normally associate with churches. It can be racy or bizarre. Here's a site I like with lots of pictures of these strange and wonderful carvings.

Edited by AllBlue, 20 December 2008 - 02:55 AM.
added another website link

[Parody of Language]

"Space Solar Power" (The Economist)

A proposal to research solar power satellites has also been submitted to the Obama transition team and is being discussed on change.gov: "Space Solar Power (SSP) - A Solution for Energy Independence & Climate Change"

This is the idea I'm most excited about as far a plausible response to the energy crisis that has been discussed elsewhere on this forum.  But The Economist article is a sobering, though not completely pessimistic, look at the economics of this technology.

[Oneiromancy]

Thanks for the netsuke stuff, I didn't know those were worn.

www.sciencedaily.com <<< Research news for the masses.

[Bitter Crank]

AllBlue - the traditional netsuke site was interesting.  I liked the carving of the raven camped on the ivory skull.

[AllBlue]

I'm glad you liked it, Bitter Crank. Another site is the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. There are more images to view and they have a good online viewer. The pictures are very clear and you can zoom in a bit.

[AllBlue]

The BBC World newcast had a story about photos of the polar regions including ones from the doomed Scott expedition to the South Pole. Here's the link:

http://www.freezeframe.ac.uk/home/home

Some very cool photos!

[AllBlue]

I added these to Resources and thought I would highlight them by putting the links here too.

Confederate spy Belle Boyd
http://www.belleboydinfo.com/index.htm

Vincent Price
http://www.angelfire...film/rdsquires/

[AllBlue]

The Astronomy Picture of the Day has this linktoday to a live webcast from Philadelphia, PA, that kicks off 100 hours of Astronomy in honor of Galileo.

[Parody of Language]

The online peirce dictionary is interesting reading on it's own.  Here's one of the entries for "philosophy":

"Among the theoretical sciences [of discovery], I distinguish three classes, all resting upon observation, but being observational in very different senses.
[---]
      Class II is philosophy, which deals with positive truth, indeed, yet contents itself with observations such as come within the range of every man's normal experience, and for the most part in every waking hour of his life. Hence Bentham calls this class, coenoscopic. [CP 1.241n1: "Coenoscopic . . . from two Greek words, one of which signifies common -- things belonging to others in common; the other looking to. By coenoscopic ontology, then, is designated that part of the science which takes for its subject those properties which are considered as possessed in common by all the individuals belonging to the class which the name ontology is employed to designate, i.e. by all individuals." The Works of Jeremy Bentham, Edinburgh, 1843, viii, 83, footnote.] These observations escape the untrained eye precisely because they permeate our whole lives, just as a man who never takes off his blue spectacles soon ceases to see the blue tinge. Evidently, therefore, no microscope or sensitive film would be of the least use in this class. The observation is observation in a peculiar, yet perfectly legitimate, sense. If philosophy glances now and then at the results of special sciences, it is only as a sort of condiment to excite its own proper observation.
[---]

---

I think a lot of us have wondered what distinguishes science from philosophy.  The above is interesting in that I haven't heard this one before.

[Mathsteach2]

I am really thanking most posters in this thread, I have just found it and it is very interesting. I will add my bit eventually, but I am also using my post to let others know I have been out of action for a while. There was a family bereavement, resulting in an internal family dispute, (e.g. where should the body be buried!) and then I lost the computer I was using.

I have now found our local pubic library in Barbados gives free access to computers - its a great place to retire. Should I give some websites?  No, that would be advertising, perhaps!!

[Parody of Language]

http://www.landartge...equired1000.jpg
Thought this was interesting.

[Parody of Language]

http://www.spinningl...ainstschool.htm

Kind of makes you mad, doesn't it?  I'm only now beginning to undo some of the psychological damage inflicted by school.

[Hugo Holbling]

I'm glad you discovered that book, PoL. Next you need to read Illich's Deschooling Society, the basis of this site and the project to come.

[mosaic]

Indeed, that was a nice read. I've thought of this issue for a long and if I do become a parent, I intend to try an "alternative" school or home-school, or...something else for my children. We shall see.

[Paulus]

I got some articles of Gatto and Holt somewhere in the millions  paper I have printed. I am planning to read Illich first though, and hopefuly understand why I cannot remember anything i was supposed to learn in those 12 years of school.

---------

There is a fine website I found, not very long ago, called Astronomy Cast.

Is a collection of weekly podcast (with transcripts) about everything related to astronomy (the name says it); from theory of relativity to dark energy, etc.
The basic idea of the site is to introduce the reader/listener to the most important ideas in contemporary cosmology on layman terms.

I reccomend it.

http://www.astronomycast.com/

[Parody of Language]

Interesting talk about international relations.  This is with the so-called "Next Nostradomous" who says he can predict political events with game theory and rational choice theory.  I think it's highly interesting, and I think I might looking into this in more depth.

[Paulus]

Understanding Media

http://www.understan...m/articles.html

I found that site while reading an article on wikipedia about McLuhan.

It is a fine site, with an introduction to Media (its concepts, purposes, methods and the rest) and it gives examples of how to analyze and create media.
The web site is allegedly influenced by McLuhan.

P.d: I still have to read Understanding Media, Society of the Spectacle and Simulacra and Simulation (this one seems hard to my present knowledge and philosophical ability:mrgreen:)... which others books are influential and related to Media Theory?

[Parody of Language]

Interesting link, Paulus.  Media literacy seems to be a sound concept.  I just get tired of when critique of the media becomes just part of the agenda of people who are anti-corporate.  Media literacy, at least as it sounds, just means that media shouldn't be taken at face value.  A day in a class in high school they had some people come in and we analyzed advertising.  I think the people were trying to prevent kids from smoking, but that one day had a profound effect on how I look at advertising.  Now I'm always analyzing it.  But I no longer see advertising as a bad thing, that's overreacting.  Rather, I think I just acknowledge that if I don't see any overt motive for the media I realize that I don't see the whole picture.  I have the sense that without understanding the ulterior motive for media, there's something missing and I don't understand it.  I think that's similar to what it means to be media literate.

[Parody of Language]

You know, just as a thought, to encourage media literacy on this site, it would be good if, when someone refers to some article or essay on the web, to answer the sorts of questions that are asked here about the article.  This could be done in this thread, or anywhere else on the site.

For instance, if you want to draw attention to an article about how more teens are being pulled over for drunk driving, it would be appreciated if you add to your link that the article is distributed by MADD, an advocacy group who wants to increase the penalties for drunk drivers (I don't actually know if this is true, I'm just demonstrating a point).  Then the immediate questions that comes to mind to me, or anyone else, why is the author of this article telling me this? is answered.

[Parody of Language]

Here's an email that I agree with about Web 2.0.  I think this explains much of my reluctance of joining a lot of the social networking sites.  I see another, largely successful, attempt to proprietize the web.

[John Castillo]

To be honest, I see Facebook as providing a service, even if it's free to me (via advertising). I don't expect Wal-Mart to have a listing of the local Target's inventory, and in a similar way I don't expect Facebook to let me find people on Myspace.

Additionally, I have another point: Yes, these social networking sites are attempting to privatize their data on specific users.  But notice I do not want those sites to share my data with anyone. If I put I'm friends with X on Facebook, that should only ever (commercially, anyway) show up on Facebook. If I want to spread the info around, then I can. If I don't, then it doesn't get spread. I personally see the privatizing of information on these social sites as enabling me more control over the information and where it is being published. Not all information "wants to be free".

[Parody of Language]

John Castillo, I think you missed the point of that email.  The comparison is between, for instance, email and twitter.  Twitter is a centralized service, there is only one twitter service, and to connect to other people on that service you have to use their service.  This is what AOL, for instance, tried to do early on.  But with email, on the contrary, you can choose your provider, and thus there is competition.  You can send email to people who use any provider.

This Web 2.0 is beginning to look more and more like a bad thing, overall, for the internet.  There is no contradiction between this sort of thing being a bad thing for the internet, while people enjoy the service.  This should produce conflict among people who use the service if they see the big picture.

I think maybe the principle that should be followed is that the provider should be distinguished from the service.  Anything else creates the possibility of lock-in, if not now then down the road.