From: Jeff Johnston

Date: June 28, 2001

To: Matt Fulvio

Subject: Conversational Links

Hey Matt,

Yes, indeed a nice wander through the city. Here are a few links and things related to our meandering conversations ...

David Brin's EON Foundation:

http://www.futurist.com/FuturistNews_EON_Brin.htm

http://www.futurist.com/EON_Brin_Interview.htm

The future of the car:

The Road Ahead

http://www.technologyreview.com/magazine/jul01/schmidt.asp

In Tomorrow's Car, Who's Driving?

http://www.technologyreview.com/web/leo/leo052301.asp

Commuter Computer

http://www.technologyreview.com/magazine/jun01/buderi.asp

Steve Fuller, commenting on Thomas Kuhn and his scientific revolutions:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0226268942/knowhere

http://chronicle.com/weekly/v47/i03/03a01801.htm (this may be restricted to subscribers).

What thread did I forget? You're right about Gardner. His columns have had quite an impact over the years.

Jeff

From: Jeff Johnston

Date: June 26, 2001

To: Lisa Piazza

Subject: Biofilms

Hi Lisa,

The July Scientific American has an interesting article on biofilms that could have come straight out of Bloom's Global Brain. Good living system material. Unfortunately, the article isn't on the www.sciam.com website.

jcj

From: Lisa Piazza

Date: June 24, 2001

To: Jeff Johnston

Subject: 50 Theories about Learning

Jeff - 50 theories about learning website

http://tip.psychology.org/

lp

From: Todd Johnston

Date: June 20, 2001

To: Jeff Johnston

Subject: The Web as Dictator of Scientific Fashion

Thought this article belongs in the iterations kbase...

http://www.nytimes.com/2001/06/19/science/19NET.html

Todd

From: Gail Taylor

Date: Thu, 14 Jun 2001 16:03:42 -0700

To: Peter Ponton , Matt Taylor

Cc: jeff johnston

Subject: Real estate data

http://www.bsr.org/

From: Jeff Johnston

Date: June 8, 2001

To: Jamie Kettle et al.

Subject: "Sacked over a map"

Pretty interesting story about the dangers of modern cartography.

http://www.peer.org/maps.html

jcj

From: Jeff Johnston

Date: June 7, 2001

To: Todd Johnston

Subject: Article (a long one) of interest ... (e-books)

The Battle to Define the Future of the Book in the Digital World by Clifford Lynch

http://firstmonday.org/issues/issue6_6/lynch/

From: Jeff Johnston

Date: June 7, 2001

To: Matt Taylor, Peter Ponton, Chris Allen, Russ White, Dave Johnson

Subject: Cutting Construction Chaos

A recent article from the NYTimes/The Standard addresses a number of issues that came up during our discussions at knOwhere on May 25th. Software facilitated processes are starting to make inroads in the Construction industry.

Jeff

http://www.nytimes.com/thestandard/standard_26800.html

From: Lisa Piazza

Date: June 2, 2001

To: Jeff and Todd Johnston

Subject: Mendoza Links

These come up under "21 Century Education" ... know PA was involed in the SV Joint Venture project ... don't know what sort of archive there is from it.

Department of Labor - FutureWork Program

http://www.dol.gov/dol/asp/public/futurework/report.htm

Silicon Valley Joint Venture - 21st Century Education Initiative

http://www.jointventure.org/initiatives/21st/21cntry.html

lp

From: Gail Taylor

Date: June 1, 2001

To: Knowledge Base

Subject: Good DesignShop® Link

http://thestandard.com/article/0,1902,24631,00.html

From: Lisa Piazza

Date: Thu, 31 May 2001 15:55:43 -0400

To: Matt Taylor , Jeff Johnston , Todd Johnston

Cc: Patsy Kahoe

Subject: CSPAN - Education Report

Just had CSPAN on ... some less that exciting stuff, me thinks ... but worth noting for possible research:

This report was released today: Condition of Education Report

http://www.ed.gov/PressReleases/05-2001/05312001.html

Department of Education

http://www.ed.gov/

Secretary Rod Page, Secretary of Education National Center for Education Statistics (NCES)

http://nces.ed.gov/

Andy Porter, President America Educational Research Association

http://www.aera.net

lp

From: Todd Johnston

Date: May 24, 2001

To: Matt Taylor et al.

Subject: Baltimore Article

http://www.nytimes.com/2001/05/24/technology/24BALT.html

"In one of the more unusual public housing adventures, an experiment in Baltimore is underway to provide poor people not just mastery of mouse and keyboard, but computers of their own." from today's NY Times.

Todd

From: Patsy Kahoe

Date: Thu, 24 May 2001

To: Matt Taylor

Cc:

Subject: Fwd: Nature's Bottom Line

Matt,

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1101010528-127256,00.html

is the URL for the article Guy mentioned in his email to us. Kaufmann, EY, Chris Meyers, ants, complexity...

In a message dated 5/23/01 1:15:53 PM, gdemoret@knology.net writes:

<< I read Eric Roston's piece in the May TIME issue on Nature's Bottom Line and thought of you guys. Maybe with the economy slowing down, companies will recognize the value added by your services. ... >>

Patsy Kahoe

From: Matthew Fulvio

Date: Thu, 17 May 2001 22:46:12 -0700

To: Jeffrey Johnston

Subject: FW: NYTimes.com Article: 90's Suburbs of West and South: Denser in One, Sprawling in Other

Jeff- I mentioned this article, think you all might be interested!

http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/17/national/17SUBU.html

-Matt

From: Matt Taylor

Date: Thu, 17 May 2001 07:21:26 -0700

To: jeff Johnston

Subject: FW: An Audio Spotlight Creates a Personal Wall of Sound (NYT)

Jeff...

Go after this. Very Important.

Matt

-----Original Message-----

From: Stuart Silverstone

Sent: Wednesday, May 16, 2001 1:30 AM

To: technology@graphics.org

Subject: An Audio Spotlight Creates a Personal Wall of Sound (NYT)

http://www.nytimes.com/2001/05/15/science/15AUDI.html

From: Todd Johnston

Date: May 4, 2001

To: Matt Taylor et al.

Subject: Jane Jacobs

I thought you'd be interested to know the NY Times Book Forum is currently reading/discussing The Death and Life of Great American Cities.

http://www.nytimes.com/books/forums/index.html

Todd

From: Jeff Johnston

Date: May 3, 2001

To: Russ White et al.

Subject: Personal router

Perhaps of interest ... MIT's "personal router" project promises you true freedom of wireless choice.

http://www.technologyreview.com/web/bender/bender042701.asp

From: Jeff Johnston

Date: May 3, 2001

To: Gail Taylor

Subject: Book of interest to Hopelink

Just saw this book which looks like it will of interest to Hopelink ... perhaps something to point out to your current contacts (don't know if that's Ann, Pete, Jim or somebody else).

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0738201820/knowhere/

Jeff

From: Todd Johnston

Date: Tue, 01 May 2001 08:36:56 -0700

To: Jeff Johnston

Cc: Lisa Piazza

Subject: Web Archive Opens a New Realm of Research

Hi

Thought you might be interested in this NY Times article about the Web-based archive centered at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. . . .

http://www.nytimes.com/2001/05/01/science/01ARCH.html

Todd

From: Jeff Johnston

Date: April 27, 2001

To: Lisa Piazza

Subject: Re: Semantic Web

Lisa,

Nature (the journal) has started an online forum on the future of scientific publishing.

http://www.nature.com/nature/debates/e-access/

A number of interesting things, including another Berners-Lee article on the Semantic Web.

jcj

From: Jeff Johnston

Date: April 27, 2001

To: Todd Johnston

Subject: Re: nytimes articles of interest 01/04/27

Along the lines of this article, check out an interesting article from Salon ...

http://www.salon.com/tech/log/2001/04/26/felten/index.html

> April 27, 2001

> CYBER LAW JOURNAL

> Does an Anti-Piracy Plan Quash the First Amendment?

> http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/27/technology/27CYBERLAW.html

jcj

From: Todd Johnston

Date: April 27, 2001

To: Jeff Johnston et al.

Subject: nytimes articles of interest 01/04/27

April 27, 2001 Scientists, Using New Material, Push Toward Tinier Computers

http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/27/technology/27CHIP.html

April 27, 2001 I.B.M. Project Seeks to Reduce Need for Human Action

http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/27/technology/27BLUE.html

April 27, 2001 CYBER LAW JOURNAL Does an Anti-Piracy Plan Quash the First Amendment?

http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/27/technology/27CYBERLAW.html

Todd

From: Jeff Johnston

Date: April 26, 2001

To: Armour and Pam Rice et al.

Subject: The future of marine transport?

Take a look at this story from WIRED News about hybrid ferries:

http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,37333,00.html

jcj

From:

Date: Tue, 24 Apr 2001 11:18:43 -0400 (EDT)

To:

Subject: Interesting

Are we ready to start mapping Group Genius?

-Apollo

SOCIETY

Ramesh Jain predicts in the Communications of the ACM: "Experience systems will create a network of real-life events experienced by users, much like Web users today immerse themselves in the network of documents. A user would b e able to access any event captured on the Web anywhere and might want to experience it while monitoring others and even reviewing similar older events. "In the coming years, we'll see tremendous progress in presentation techniques related to all our senses. In fact, we may also start thinking about simulating other senses, mapping them to our existing ones to enrich our experience. The idea of mapping one sense to others may be a commonplace opportunity, opening our minds to many interesting experiences. Imagine smelling pictures and tasting videos. "Many schools and engineers view Johannes Gutenberg's moveable type and printing press as the most important invention of the last millennium. Its influence has certainly been profound enough that each aspect of our society has been altered by it. "Digital experience is a major but natural next step in the evolution of technology affecting every aspect of human society, from education to sexual behavior, to business organization and operations, to health care. Today's digital experience will ultimately yield an experience society."

Ramesh Jain is a long-time subscriber to NewsScan Daily, Innovation, and other NewsScan publications. If you're interested in computer graphics, be sure to look at http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0819427527/newsscancom/ for his book "Storage and Retrieval for Image and Video Databases." (We donate all revenue from our book recommendations to adult literacy action programs.)

From: Bill Cockayne

Date: April 23, 2001

To: K-Base

Subject: SFMOMA:[*] A Twenty-Year Survey of Work by Allan Wexler

http://www.sfmoma.org/exhibitions/exhib_detail/01_exhib_wexler_custom.html

[We saw this exhibit on Saturday at the SFMOMA and spent more time in this one room than we often spend on one floor. We started off by randomly exploring Wexler's use of materials and shapes. This quickly devolved into our little group running around and pointing to design elements that we had seen in our dreams or that we had once used in a napkin sketch for a vacation house. I don't know if it was more fun finding cool features or ideas in all their variations or calling others from the group over to explain how we had thought about the same feature and how we had used it. - wrc]

From: Bill Cockayne

Date: April 20, 2001

To: K-Base

Subject:

Hey gang,

So I just finished up reading through the report released earlier this week that places the SF area as the leading new economy environment. The broad array of metrics that the report uses extends the conclusions beyond the Wired, dot-com, or bubble economy that is presently being reset. The audience of the report, business regions, also brings a tone to the conversation that is oftentimes lacking from the literature that we receive in SV. While the press ate up the SF fact, the report presents a million other interesting data points.

Please grab a copy at and peruse it yourself, seriously:

http://www.neweconomyindex.org/metro/metro_3mb.pdf

The report, in addition to being really intriguing, is easy to read, has nice graphics, is well lain out, and includes references AND weightings at the end. Tim points out that some of the numbers are a few years old, but they won't significantly change the overall rankings and discussions. A couple of notes on the data. Rochester leads in patent granting, based on Kodak and Xerox, yet is lags in every other metric. Maybe the metrics being used by the companies in Rochester to measure their output don't correlate in with modern the economic growth? While this seems obvious, the region doesn't seem to be changing, at least from my perception. A possible strong indicator of a region that isn't even trying to make the move to modern thinking. RTP's lead in innovation ability over SF is something to ponder. I agree with the report's base definition and measurement, which means that I do accept that they are measuring something and that I believe it correlates with innovation. What is draws out is the need to better differentiate what passes for innovation in the different regions. With this question in mind, the discussion of cultures, outcomes, metrics, rewards, and other related topics must all be revisited. It gets back to Saxenian's characterization of SV culture, which the report quotes. She stated that SV surpassed Route 128 because the culture supports a "more open, porous and risk-taking environment." She didn't find, or pin, SV's success on its being more advanced in knowledge creation, entrepreneurship, research, or innovation. Cultures everywhere support these traits and can take advantage of them. The Scandinavian countries have shocked us in the past few years, now is the time for the rest of the U.S. to take the lead and show us something new. Looking at the conclusions, the report reiterates the obvious (yet often ignored) and prescribes some good remedies. The main point is that new value creation must be driven by something other than cost cutting. This point is extremely critical and hard to remember in today's economic climate. To use one of their points, K12 education is critical to this focus on new value creation, as are their notes on supporting research universities, adoption of dynamism and a change-supporting culture. The K12 issue needs to be looked reviewed right now in every region and in every local and state government. California is going to be a leader, as it is in power usage, in crashing to the ground in terms of K12 education output. The SV's only saving grace is that most of us (us being SV workers) actually come from somewhere else at an age when we aren't yet ready to raise kids. The region will have to rely on a constant in-flow of already educated, young workers in order to maintain its status. What regions are willing to invest, seriously, in creating a solid cradle-to-employment (and possibly to grave) education system in order to develop its future AND steal breeders away from other regions? There is so much more to talk about in regards to this report, but they are more fun as conversations. Read it, give it to someone else, and then drag them to a cafe to ponder and discuss whatever seems interesting. Last notes. Weightings are included in the back along with the references. And doesn't it seem odd how only two companies are in the top quartile, eight in the top two quartiles, and where the lumping occurs?

Have a great weekend!

bill

From: Lisa Piazza

Date: Fri, 13 Apr 2001 01:06:53 -0400

To: Mike Bednarek , David Calverley , Jeff Johnston , Matt Taylor

Subject: Ted Nelson .. hypertext copyright

I was poking around Ted Nelson's home page. Never thought about "transcopyright" before. Makes sense. Seems obvious.

http://www.sfc.keio.ac.jp/~ted/transcopyright/transcopy.html

lp

From: Lisa Piazza

Date: Thu, 12 Apr 2001 23:34:52 -0400

To: Gail Taylor , Matt Taylor , Jeff Johnston , Todd Johnston , Patsy Kahoe , David Calverley

Subject: Knowledge Agents: Visions of the Future

Very useful and interesting knowledge agents !!!!!

http://www.kurzweilai.net/meme7/frame.html

lp

From: Lisa Piazza

Date: Thu, 12 Apr 2001 22:57:36 -0400

To: Jeff Johnston

Cc: Matt Taylor

Subject: Vannevar Bush to Avatars

Jeff this should be in the archives. It's the 1945 article from Atlantic Monthly by Vannevar Bush "As We May Think."

http://www.theatlantic.com/unbound/flashbks/computer/bushf.htm

The reference came from Bruce Damer. I know he's been in knOwhere. Matt has his book: Avatars: Exploring and Building Virtual Worlds on the Internet. I met him this week at the Rheingold/Kimball festival these last couple of weeks. Here's an informative article Damer wrote that's on Kurzweil's new website:

http://www.kurzweilai.net/meme6/frame.html?main=/articles/art0096.html

"After all, surfing web pages is hardly experiencing cyberspace. In the 2D Web there is truly no "there" there, just a bunch of linked documents. Highly practical, no doubt, and the dream of former generations of the readers of Vanevar Bush (see his As We May Think Atlantic Monthly article from July, 1945) and followers of Ted Nelson, but hardly appealing to your average 14 year old today."

lp

From: Lisa Piazza

Date: Thu, 12 Apr 2001 22:57:36 -0400

To: Jeff Johnston

Cc: Matt Taylor

Subject: Doug Englebart - KAgents

Newly published article on Doug Englebart

http://www.almanacnews.com/thisweek/2001_02_21.cover21.html

These are the digital videos of the mouse's 30th birthday party (Doug Engelbart's Unfinished Revolution) held at Stanford a couple of years ago.

http://stanford-online.stanford.edu/engelbart/

lp

From: Lisa Piazza

Date: Thu, 12 Apr 2001 22:57:36 -0400

To: Jeff Johnston

Subject: KurzweilAI.net

Hanging out in Principia Cybernetica Global Brain list serve: Business Wire - February 22, 2001 08:07

MONTEREY, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE) Feb. 22, 2001

Kurzweil Accelerating Intelligence Network (KurzweilAI.net), a Web showcase for the ideas of leading visionaries and breakthrough Web technologies, was unveiled here today at the TED11 conference by Kurzweil AI Network, Inc.

Intended for the educated lay public, KurzweilAI.net is a place to explore the ideas of leading visionaries on the future. It "focuses on the exponential growth of intelligence, both human and machine, and the merger of the two in the future," said KurzweilAI.net ceo and editor-in-chief Raymond Kurzweil, well-known author/inventor. The site is hosted by Ramona, a real-time virtual hostess, using natural language processing, real-time facial animation, and other technologies to answer visitors' questions vocally.

A major focus of the site is the exponential growth of technology, leading to the "Singularity," which Kurzweil described as "future accelerated technological change so rapid and profound that it represents a rupture in the fabric of human history." Site content includes a precis of Kurzweil's forthcoming book, "The Singularity is Near."

In addition, the site continues the debate started in Wired magazine last year between Sun Microsystems chief scientist Bill Joy and Raymond Kurzweil over relinquishing research in "dangerous futures" (such as nanobots, or tiny intelligent machines). It also explores current breakthroughs and future developments in "artificial brains" based on neural networks and cellular automata, immortality, virtual realities (including virtual worlds, synthetic personalities, bots, agents and teleimmersion), nanotechnology, and other far-reaching visions of the future.

First Lifelike, Photorealistic, Conversational Avatar On the Web

KurzweilAI.net is also a showcase for Web technology breakthroughs. Its virtual hostess, Ramona, is the first lifelike, photorealistic, conversational avatar (virtual personality) on the Web. She's a "chatterbot" (conversational robot) that uses natural language processing to hold conversations with visitors and respond to typed questions with lip-synched speech and appropriate facial expressions.

"This represents an important near-term trend," Kurzweil said. "Over the next several years, we will be engaging in spoken dialogues with virtual personalities on Web sites and over the phone. They'll act as personal information assistants and as virtual sales clerks, helping us to find information and to conduct a wide variety of transactions from making reservations to buying products. They will also represent an important new form of entertainment."

Ramona is programmed to verbally explain hundreds of "thoughts" (such as "artificial intelligence") to visitors as well as provide articles, glossary definitions, links, and other information. She also answers questions about herself and her life story, including a burgeoning career as a virtual rock star celebrity.

Also integrated with Ramona's responses is "TheBrain," a dynamic visual interface that shows how each thought, such as nanotechnology, relates to other thoughts on the site. Visitors can use it to intuitively navigate through the site's knowledge space.

Technology partners with KurzweilAI.net include LifeFX (lifelike "Stand-In" or avatar), eGain (chatterbot conversational engine), and TheBrain Technologies (dynamic visual knowledge map).

Ramona is Raymond Kurzweil's female alter ego. He also demonstrated another manifestation of Ramona at the TED11 conference today: the first live virtual musical recording and performing artist -- a real-time virtual reality transformation of Kurzweil.

lp

From: Lisa Piazza

Date: Thu, 12 Apr 2001 22:57:36 -0400

To: Jeff Johnston

Subject: article: Scientific American: Sematic Web, Berners-Lee

From Scientific American - The Semantic Web

A new form of Web content that is meaningful to computers will unleash a revolution of new possibilities by TIM BERNERS-LEE, JAMES HENDLER and ORA LASSILA

http://www.scientificamerican.com/2001/0501issue/0501berners-lee.html

From: Jeff Johnston

Date: April 12, 2001

To: Todd Johnston et al.

Subject: Boggs and e-money

An interesting article from a recent Darwin ...

http://www.darwinmag.com/read/040101/ecosystem.html

From: Lisa Piazza

Date: April 7, 2001

To: Patsy Kahoe et al.

Subject: RE: Baltimore ... Japan / Michael Porter

For the Kbase:

Chattanooga Chamber of Commerce - report on Porter's work.

http://www.chattanooga-chamber.com/porter/art/CRGI_RPT_intro.pdf

Historic East Baltimore Community Action Coalition

http://www.hebcac.org/

East Baltimore Oral History

http://www.ubalt.edu/archives/bnhp/site7.htm

- interview are published on the net but would be available from the University of Baltimore

lp

-----Original Message-----

From: Lisa Piazza [mailto:cyberlisa@cyberlisa.com]

Sent: Saturday, April 07, 2001 6:58 AM

To: Patsy Kahoe; Jeff Johnston; Matt Taylor

Subject: Baltimore ... Japan / Michael Porter

For whatever, I woke up thinking about Michael Porter's work on Competitive Advantage ... I guess in relation to the Baltimore project. I know we don't pay much attention to his work, but it's a useful classic.

I know that Porter has been doing some work in Chattanooga, Tennessee recently. That city has been recognized for reinventing itself. They got it started about a decade ago by doing a bunch of Open Space processes. That method is well-imbedded into the city's culture. The revitalization of the urban core has been a successful outcome as well as the new airport. Porter was brought in to help them figure out what industries they should attract/retain. I know it involved a historical look at the industries of that area. They had forgotten that they were good bakers, for one thing, and that was deemed an industry worth refocusing energies on.

So, whatever ... it probably would be interesting to look at East Baltimore from the perspective of historical industries trends of the area. Baltimore did a great job of revitalizing its harbor, building a great Aquarium - fish museum. Chattanooga did the same thing in its urban core to attract people there. In general, it would be good to know more about Baltimore's practice of revitalization and about it's historical industries.

The Competitive Advantage of the Inner City - this article by Porter was published in HBR in '95

http://www.hbsp.harvard.edu/hbsp/prod_detail.asp?95310

I also noticed recently that Porter had published a new book: Can Japan Compete?

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0465059899

A couple of reviews:

PriceWaterhouseCoopers

http://www.pricewaterhouse.com/extweb/newcoweb.nsf/DocID/48686D73E53BC2A3852569CB0056E20A

Darwin Mag

http://www2.darwinmag.com/connect/books/book.cfm?ID=183

Cover image: http://images.amazon.com/images/P/0465059899.01.LZZZZZZZ.jpg

From: William Cockayne

Date: April 6, 2001

To: K-Base

Subject: HBR: Future Space: A New Blueprint for Business Architecture

DIFFERENT VOICE Future Space: A New Blueprint for Business Architecture by Jeffrey Huang

Although the Internet is an essential conduit for many business activities, it isn't rendering the physical world any less important, as the failures of many Web merchants demonstrate. People need social and sensual contact. The companies that succeed will be those best able to integrate the physical and the virtual. But that requires a new kind of business architecture÷a new approach to designing stores, offices, factories, and other spaces where business is conducted.

http://www.hbsp.harvard.edu/products/hbr/apr01/R0104L.html

From: Jeff Johnston

Date: April 6, 2001

To: Gail Taylor et al.

Subject: Calculating your environmental impact

AirHead helps you track your impact on the environment. A nice resource ...

http://www.airhead.org/

From: Russ White

Date: April 3, 2001

To: Jeff Johnston et al.

Subject: Important New Stuff

"Extreme Programming" is a fairly new concept... it's starting to make press. Combined with open source, it could be VERY powerful. It seems to be very closely linked to our principles.

Matt/Mike/Jeff... see if there are any patent issues.

http://www.xprogramming.com

Russ

From:

Date: Mon, 02 Apr 2001

To:

Cc:

Subject: Tele-immersion

Folks,

I would like to recommend that you read the artical on Tele-immersion in the April 2001 issue of Scientific American. The artical begins on page 66. Then if you want to see where this concept can ultimately go rent the old MGM film Forbidden Planet. This is the story of a rescue mission to Altair-IV. Check out the little device developed by the acient Krel that Professor Morbius demonstrates to the rescue ship's crew.

take care,

BB