Juan Downey: Energy anthropologist and artist

ShabanoYanomami.jpg
ShabanoYanomami.jpg (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I really like this guy’s stuff. A self proclaimed “energy anthropologist” this video artist travelled deep into South America to find a primal, invisible forms of energy which he documented. Juan Downey, like all the best avant-gardists going right back to the 19th century, had a utopian streak.  He spent seven years traveling back and forth between the United States and South America, where he visited isolated communities in Mexico, Guatemala, Peru, Bolivia, and Chile, recording aspects of daily life with a video camera, then playing his recordings back to other communities. In 1976 and ’77, Downey took his wife, Marilys, and his stepdaughter, Elizabeth (Titi), deep into the Amazon. From the Guahibos in Central Orinoco, they canoed upriver to Mavaca and Tayari ,where for half a year they lived among the Yanomami people. Downey documented their lives. He became fascinated in particular by a structure, the “shabono,’’ made from thatched palm leaves or wood and with a hole in the middle, that could shelter several hundred people.

A trailblazer with a utopian streak – Boston.com.

Johns Hopkins researchers identify health benefits in hallucinogenic mushrooms

Psilocybe tampanensis
Psilocybe tampanensis (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Anthropology has long documented that most traditional medical systems use indigenous plants often with psychoactive, spiritual effects. Recently researchers at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine have been studying the effects of psilocybin, a chemical found in some psychedelic mushrooms, that’s credited with inducing transcendental states. Now, they say, they’ve zeroed in on the perfect dosage level to produce transformative mystical and spiritual experiences that offer long-lasting life-changing benefits, while carrying little risk of negative reactions.

The breakthrough could speed the day when doctors use psilocybin–long viewed skeptically for its association with 1960s countercultural thrill-seekers–for a range of valuable clinical functions, like easing the anxiety of terminally ill patients, treating depression and post-traumatic stress disorder, and helping smokers quit. Already, studies in which depressed cancer patients were given the drug have reported positive results. “I’m not afraid to die anymore” one participant explained. Looking back more than a year later, 94 percent of participants rated it as one of the top five most spiritually significant experiences of their lifetimes. More important, 89 percent reported lasting, positive changes in their behavior–better relationships with others, for instance, or increased care for their own mental and physical well-being. Those assessments were corroborated by family members and others.
“I think my heart is more open to all interactions with other people,” one volunteer reported in a questionnaire given to participants 14-months after their session.
“I feel that I relate better in my marriage,” wrote another. “There is more empathy — a greater understanding of people, and understanding their difficulties, and less judgment.”

Far out: Magic mushrooms could have medical benefits, researchers say | The Lookout –

Intelligence agencies, mired in inefficiencies, begin to adopt social science and crowd sourcing methods

US Director of National Intelligence seal
US Director of National Intelligence seal (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

As with other fields such as medicine, after years of massive costs and sometimes ineffective methods, resulting in catastrophic failures such as 9/11, new leadership at our intelligence agencies such as Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper are adopting digital and social science methods such as crowd sourcing, data science, knowledge management.  Social scientists have found that combining many people’s predictions — even if they are not experts — usually yields better results than any single person’s judgment. With 200,000 people in its direct employ, and nearly 1 million outsiders holding security clearances, the US intelligence network would seem to be a perfect place to take advantage of the wisdom of the herd — except that so many of these people work in compartmentalized and secretive units. To solve this problem, IARPA is awarding grants to teams of social scientists to craft the best approaches to pooling multiple sources of intelligence analysis, generating more accurate predictions than individual departments might manage on their own.

The examined spy – Boston.com.

Dan Zarrella: Social media science and Twitter linguistic analysis

This UML diagram describes the domain of Linke...
This UML diagram describes the domain of LinkedIn social networking system. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Dan is an interesting guy with a strong web and social networking background. He is a social media scientist and has designed a number of linguistic tools to analyze online behavior.

My Bio | Dan Zarrella.

Walk Score City Rankings: figuring out where you can live (and walk around)

Urban Sprawl Repair Kit: Repairing The Urban F...
Urban Sprawl Repair Kit: Repairing The Urban Fabric (Photo credit: Inhabitat)

This is a great way to assess places you might want to live by how friendly they are for walking about. Boston, DC, NYC and San Fran are all tops which is encouraging but a little surprising given the crazy drivers I have encountered. Still, this probably refers to the downtown areas which feature older architecture that these cities preserve against shopping mall suburban sprawl which encourages auto travel.

Walk Score City Rankings.

Robochrist Industries: a robotic performance art troupe

Survival Research Laboratories
Survival Research Laboratories (Photo credit: jasoneppink)

Robochrist Industries is a robotic performance art troupe and direct offshoot of Survival Research Laboratories  

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robochrist_Industries

If you’re going to do good science, release the code

Source Code
Source Code (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

If you’re going to do good science, release the computer code too | Technology | guardian.co.uk.

 

 

 

Alibaba.com: The world’s largest online B2B marketplace

2006 exports/imports
2006 exports/imports (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Manufacturers, Suppliers, Exporters & Importers from the world’s largest online B2B marketplace-Alibaba.com.

As cited in the 4hour work week

Digital Anthropology becomes a science

Museum of Anthropology
Museum of Anthropology (Photo credit: masabu)

Using new online data sources and massive scale intelligence on social activities, this article argues that anthropology is being reinvented as a hard science.

Digital Anthropology becomes a Science – broadstuff.

Finding a good deal on a house in the Boston area with online databases

Boston Skyline
Boston Skyline (Photo credit: brentdanley)

More bang for your buck – The Boston Globe.

Great comparison of Boston area towns. Some of the best deals are Stoughton which ranks in top 10 for overall ratio of cost and quality of school  (MCAS score and home cost)

To improve drug safety, FDA should check its mixed-up files

English: Logo of the U.S. Food and Drug Admini...
English: Logo of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (2006) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

This is really kind of sad…To improve drug safety, FDA should check its mixed-up files – The Boston Globe.

Mac OSX Spotlight as a file management tool

Apple OS X Mountain Lion
Apple OS X Mountain Lion (Photo credit: Kansir)

Spotlight (software) – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

a great search tool. The new emphasis on text mining of unstructured files means you can just put all your files into one large folder and then with good tagging and search find them more quickly than if they are meticulously categorized