Big proponent of UnSchooling/Home-Schooling. Died in 1985. (more)

A Wiki is a web-based writing space based on the original Wiki Wiki Web. It is typically collaborative, but doesn't have to be. Why do it? To make the WikiWeb, Webs Of Thinkers And Thoughts. (more)

Meta wiki discussion (more)

applying Pattern Language format to help refine the key aspects of a Wiki. (more)

Seth Stephens-Davidowitz: Maybe the Internet Isn’t Tearing Us Apart After All (more)

Austin Kleon: Further notes on scenius. “Scenius” is a term coined by musician and producer Brian Eno to counter “The Lone Genius Myth,” or the idea that innovation in art and culture comes from a few Great Chosen Ones. (more)

The Meaning of Mendacity. In Tennessee Williams’ drama Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Big Daddy confronts his son with the root of his problems. “What’s that smell in this room? Didn’t you notice it? Didn’t you notice a powerful and obnoxious odor of mendacity? (more)

aka Ecstasy; probably mostly harmless - see 2003-09-28-EcstasyStudiesRetracted (more)

In the course of a book review, Alan Cabal says: Frank Owen writes with a certain nostalgia, and repeatedly implies that there was something innately noble in the origins of the club scene. Again and again he refers to the idea that MDMA was some kind of unique Social Glue bringing together the different races and genders in some blissninny orgy of serotonin-fueled agape. I've taken Ecstasy a few times. It's a remarkably stupid drug. It induces a state best described as the opposite of paranoia. A better street name for it would be "chump," because only a chump would take it in a public venue. Trust is a valuable commodity and shouldn't be given lightly. Any drug that induces trust is a drug to be avoided.

Inside Donald Trump’s anger and impatience — and his sudden decision to fire James Comey. Every time FBI Director James B. Comey appeared in public, an ever-watchful President Trump grew increasingly agitated that the topic was the one that he was most desperate to avoid: Russia. Trump had long questioned Comey’s loyalty and judgment, and was infuriated by what he viewed as the director’s lack of action in recent weeks on leaks from within the federal government (more)

Behind James Comey’s firing: An enraged Donald Trump, fuming about Russia. He had grown enraged by the Russia investigation, two advisers said, frustrated by his inability to control the mushrooming narrative around Russia. He repeatedly asked aides why the Russia investigation wouldn’t disappear and demanded they speak out for him. (more)

Antigonish 2.0: A Way for Higher Ed to Help Save the Web (OpenWeb) (more)

Silicon Valley hires most graduates from this college (and it’s NOT an Ivy League school) (more)

Richard Florida: The Real Roots of Populism. Political theorist Cas Mudde in defining populists has sharing three key characteristics. They are anti-establishment, having faith in “plain talkers” and “ordinary people” as opposed to the “corrupt establishment” of business, government, academia, and media. They are authoritarian, favoring strong leaders over democratic institutions and traditions. They are nativist, putting their nation first. (more)

I haven't updated the WikiGraph db at least since migrating to WikiFlux, and probably long before then. (I wasn't doing much blogging for the prev couple years, because of shifting my reading to InstaPaper. But still...) (more)

User Experience (more)

Noah Kagan gives Time Management Tips of Insanely Busy People (more)

Longtime Etsy CEO Chad Dickerson is out. The Etsy board is replacing him with board director Josh Silverman starting May 3. (more)

In political and social sciences, communism (from Latin communis – common, universal)[1][2] is a social, political, and economic ideology and movement whose ultimate goal is the establishment of the Communist society, which is a socioeconomic order structured upon the common ownership of the means of production and the absence of social classes, money,[3][4] and the state.[5][6] Communism includes a variety of schools of thought, which broadly include Marxism, Anarchism (anarchist communism) and the political ideologies grouped around both. All these hold in common the analysis that the current order of society stems from its economic system, capitalism, that in this system, there are two major social classes: the Working Class – who must work to survive, and who make up a majority of society – and the Capitalist class – a minority who derive profit from employing the proletariat, through private ownership of the means of production (the physical and institutional means with which commodities are produced and distributed), and that political, social and economic conflict between these two classes will trigger a fundamental change in the economic system, and by extension a wide-ranging transformation of society. The primary element which will enable this transformation, according to this analysis, is the social ownership of the Means Of Production. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communism

Valkyrie Ice believes the New Economy is an Information Economy and thus will run by the Economics Of Abundance, destroying any Old Guard and New Guard (ahem Twitter) companies that depend on the Economics Of Scarcity. In addition, as “software workers” and 3d printers (Desktop Fab) increase in capability while decreasing in price, more and more of the “disenfranchised” from the “Knowledge Worker” tiers that are being replaced by automation will be able to acquire the “Means Of Production” and enter the market as competitors instead of as Consumer-s.