Kiva - Loans to the Third World

Some of you may find this website, Kiva of interest. It's a mico-lending site that works with microenterprise/microfinance groups through out the world to provide loans. Effectively it allows those who are relatively well of to contribute to loans for individuals or groups though out the world who are less well off/in poverty, but still trying to make a living.

In some ways I think this may be an improvement on traditional charities working in the micro-enterprise area. Seeing as the money is provided as a loan, it is expected the individual or group pay it back over a specified time period, effectively holding them accountable and encouraging them to make productive use of the money. Also the micro-finance groups that interact with the clients generally provide training to help support those they've made a loan to.

Finally because you choose which groups/individuals/projects to lend money to you can decease the chance that the money is used in a manner you wouldn't approve of (ie clearing rain forest for crops). The loans are generally contributed to by a number of people, so if the loan is defaulted you've not lost a large amount.

The site appears to work well, I contributed to a couple of loans in May and they've started pay that back now. Once they've paid my loans back I'll re-loan the money to someone else, though I could withdraw it if I needed to. In the mean time I've made a couple more loans.

If people are interested drop a comment here, it could be fun to create a exChch/Heresy group, as the site supports the usual range of web 2.0 social features such as teams, journals, profile pages and all that jazz.

From the website:

We Let You Loan to the Working Poor

Kiva's mission is to connect people through lending for the sake of alleviating poverty.

Kiva is the world's first person-to-person micro-lending website, empowering individuals to lend directly to unique entrepreneurs around the globe.

How it works:

How Kiva Works
Choose an Entrepreneur, Lend, Get Repaid
The below diagram shows briefly how money gets from you to an entrepreneur, and back.

1) Lenders like you browse profiles of entrepreneurs in need, and choose someone to lend to. When they lend, using PayPal or their credit cards, Kiva collects the funds and then passes them along to one of our microfinance partners worldwide.

2) Kiva's microfinance partners distribute the loan funds to the selected entrepreneur. Often, our partners also provide training and other assistance to maximize the entrepreneur's chances of success.

3) Over time, the entrepreneur repays their loan. Repayment and other updates are posted on Kiva and emailed to lenders who wish to receive them.

4) When lenders get their money back, they can re-lend to someone else in need, donate their funds to Kiva (to cover operational expenses), or withdraw their funds.

Science

Science is a sublimely human activity and a central part of the best of Western culture…and of every culture on earth that aspires to be something more than a collection of dirt-grubbing subsistence breeders, propagating for the sake of propagating. It's what gives us the potential to reach beyond making do, that gives us the leisure and freedom to flower in the arts and explore the diversity of human experience. Even institutionalized religion itself is an incidental byproduct of the first clever dicks who thought to reroute the flow of a river to irrigate fields and led to centralization, urbanization, hierarchies of leadership, accounting, writing, and the whole avalanche of change that followed. It's important.

Unscientific America and those awful atheists - Pharyngula

Excellent statement, it's well worth reading that article!

Interesting - Nocebo

The ultimate cause of the nocebo effect, however, is not neurochemistry but belief. According to Hahn, surgeons are often wary of operating on people who think they will die - because such patients often do. And the mere belief that one is susceptible to a heart attack is itself a risk factor. One study found that women who believed they are particularly prone to heart attack are nearly four times as likely to die from coronary conditions than other women with the same risk factors.

Interesting if some what scary, the link between the Brain and Body and how believe and thoughts affect the body is a rather interesting one. I think I'll have to keep an eye out for more information on this.

Any one else know of or have links to interesting research or posts related to this?

Addicted to Pixels

Addicted to pixels - digital photography takes over the world - Technology - NZ Herald News

Everything we do is captured on camera - and our memories are being superseded by pixels.

An interesting look at digital photograph, and how it is changing what photography is and how it relates to us.

An interesting little tool/form of Art

Found this tool today when I was looking something up Webpages as Graphs. Throw it your website address and it generates a rather pretty (if highly cpu intensive) graph of your site based on the html tags used to make it up!

Any way here is an example of what my site looks like!

What do your blogs/websites look like in it?

Please don't Vote

Please don't vote

An open letter to the American populace.

Election day is coming up. That means that for months, you've been bombarded by all manner of forces encouraging you to vote.

I, on the other hand, would like to encourage you to do nothing of the sort. Quite the opposite in fact.

I'm not being sarcastic here. I'm not trying reverse psychology. What I'm saying is that I would like you to consider, seriously, the possibility of not voting in the coming election.
...

An interesting if somewhat long post, it's primarily with regards to the US election but applies equally well to our own. Any way have a read of it, as it's certainly interesting and once you've read it what do you think of it?

Do you agree or disagree and why?

Anonymous - A RL Stand Alone Complex?

If you've been following the goings on on the interweb over the last few years you may have noticed the odd thing attributed to "Anonymous" an apparent online group. Which has supposedly been involved in such things as, online raids against websites, hacking peoples Myspace pages, tacking Internet Predators, Protests against Scientology, Assaulting Epilepsy forums with images that cause attacks (though some claim that it was Scientology trying to ruin the Anonymous Rep, certainly possible), defacing hiphop sites and now hacking Sarah Palin's Yahoo email account (yes the current VP on the Us Republican ticket).( for more info see links at bottom)

What is interesting about this so called group is whether or not it actually exists and what we would commonly consider to be a group or whether it is an example of a "emergent" social behavior such as the one Theorized about in the Ghost in the Shell anime serie, Stand alone complex.

The Standalone complex is a phenomenon where unrelated individuals act in a similar manner which creates an appearance of a concerted effort. As in someone mentions something or does something that attracts the attention of others. With out communicating specifically with each other, they each act in a manner consistent with that of the original suggestion or action. This creates the appearance of a concerted effort even though the individuals are unrelated, there is no leader as such and no overall plan. A better explanation can be found here Wikipedia on The Standalone Complex.


Looking at this so called group "Anonymous" with the standalone complex in mind one would seriously wonder if it is actually a group as it has been described. To a certain degree, it seems to have originated (according to wikipedia at least) in a number of online forums, imageboards and websites, where "Anonymous" is the default name assigned to any post, by a person not using a login for that website or messageboard. Thus "Anonymous" is effectively anyone and every one who can't be bothered with a login or does not use one for some reason, yet is interested enough in what ever topic that they want to contribute.
So at it's very beginning Anonymous is a "group" of completely unrelated people who share common interests, yet for the most part never meet and do not communicate on a personal level. Is this even a group as such?
So any way you eventually end up with a "group" of people who utilise "Anonymous" as an identify, and some people do some stuff and then leave a message stating that they the group "Anonymous" were responsible.

So effectively we have a defined group with no specific "membership", no real leaders (though sub groups with in the so called "Anonymous" metagroup may), and no particular plan, managing to do stuff and having other stuff attributed to them. The stuff they've done is quite varied though it can kind of be split up into a couple of areas, Hacking and Protest/vigilante stuff.

What is kind of cool I guess is we have an apparent group that does stuff, and has stuff attributed to it when for all intents and purposes it doesn't exist, and is likely to be a simply a variety of people acting with common goals, with out a leader and with out specific plans.
Yet it is capable, or at least people are willing to assign it blame or responsibility for a range of impressive actions, some with potentially far reaching effects. A group which may or may not exist yet has/is being investigated by TV journalists, by the FBI and Secret Service...

The protests that were affiliated with it against Scientology were it's most interesting action so far and were rather impressive, have a look at the links to images at the bottom of the post, and have a read of there statement (bottom of the page) or watch the video of it. The most recent accredited action hacking the emails of the Republican Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin (Wired on Anoynmous hacking Sarah Palins emails.) is very interesting and has potentially far reaching consequences, considering the election is soonish and it appears that she may have been using her personal email for government business. Some people seem to think this may have been an attempt to aviod the US information discolsure laws with regards to email, if so and should there be much of interest in the hacked data it could have a significant effect on the election.

Any way I'm rambling somewhat so here is a question:
What do you think of the "group" such as it is and it's apparent actions, and do you think it's an example of a standalone complex/emergent behavior?




Links

• Anonymous Video declaring war on Scientology
• Photos from Anoymous Scientology Protests
• Wikipedia page on Anoynmous
• Wikipedia on The Standalone Complex
• Wired on Anoynmous hacking Sarah Palins emails.
• Wikileaks on the Sarah Palin emails
  

Anoynmous Declaration against Scientology

Hello, Scientology. We are Anonymous.

Over the years, we have been watching you. Your campaigns of misinformation; suppression of dissent; your litigious nature, all of these things have caught our eye. With the leakage of your latest propaganda video into mainstream circulation, the extent of your malign influence over those who trust you, who call you leader, has been made clear to us. Anonymous has therefore decided that your organization should be destroyed. For the good of your followers, for the good of mankind--for the laughs--we shall expel you from the Internet and systematically dismantle the Church of Scientology in its present form. We acknowledge you as a serious opponent, and we are prepared for a long, long campaign. You will not prevail forever against the angry masses of the body politic. Your methods, hypocrisy, and the artlessness of your organization have sounded its death knell.

You cannot hide; we are everywhere.

We cannot die; we are forever. We're getting bigger every day--and solely by the force of our ideas, malicious and hostile as they often are. If you want another name for your opponent, then call us Legion, for we are many.

Yet for all that we are not as monstrous as you are; still our methods are a parallel to your own. Doubtless you will use the Anon's actions as an example of the persecution you have so long warned your followers would come; this is acceptable. In fact, it is encouraged. We are your SPs.

Gradually as we merge our pulse with that of your "Church", the suppression of your followers will become increasingly difficult to maintain. Believers will wake, and see that salvation has no price. They will know that the stress, the frustration that they feel is not something that may be blamed upon Anonymous. No--they will see that it stems from a source far closer to each. Yes, we are SPs. But the sum of suppression we could ever muster is eclipsed by that of the RTC.

Knowledge is free.

We are Anonymous.

We are Legion.

We do not forgive.

We do not forget.

Expect us.

Congrats if you made sense of this post...

Cooking == Intelligence?

For those of you interested in the Raw Food movement you may find these articles of interest.
Cooking and Cognition: How Humans Got So Smart

Metabolic changes in schizophrenia and human brain evolution

The Raw Food Diet: A Raw Deal

The first two (the Second is a paper I'll read properly late and likely comment on a bit more then) suggest that there may have been a link between the discovery of Cooking and the development of Human intelligence as it made more energy available for use by the brain.
The Second has a quick look at the Raw food diet and points out a couple of problems with it. When considered together it makes for an interesting look at human cognition and the possible effects that changes in diet can have.

Synaesthesia - Hearing music, seeing sounds,

Synaesthesia - Hearing music, seeing sounds, Justin Lassen continues to create digital musical art,
in collaboration with the community.

Rather cool!

Some Awesome Olympics Photos

A few awesome photos taken during the Olympics open ceremony! They're awesome! Overall I thought the ceremony was decent and had some bits of brilliance but didn't quite have the same overall impact as the Athens opening.

Olympics 2008 Opening Ceremony

'Virophage' suggests viruses are alive

Most of you who have ever studied Biology at any level are probably somewhat aware of the debate on with regards to whether viruses are living or not. In a tangentially related bit of news that provides some slight support for the "they are alive" argument scientists have recently discovered a virus which effectively infects another virus :-). For more details have a look at the link.

Virophage

Dragon Age!

BioWare : Dragon Age : Home

Dragon Age is looking awesome from the early screenshots and videos released, the website has some info as well these days so if you like RPG's have a look at it!

IT consumerization

Analysis: IT consumerization and the future of work

An interesting article hypothesizing that consumers are replacing Enterprise and Governments as the main driver for modern computer technology with a suggestion that this could eventually lead to BYO computer workplaces, as companies struggle to keep up with the rapidly changing and diversifying software and hardware ecosystem.

What do you people think? Or are you already there (Matt?)?

Quote: You do not exist!

A Quote from the God Delusion

Steve Grand points out that you and
I are more like waves than permanent 'things'. He invites his reader
to think . . .

. . . of an experience from your childhood. Something you
remember clearly, something you can see, feel, maybe even
smell, as if you were really there. After all, you really were
there at the time, weren't you? How else would you
remember it? But here is the bombshell: you weren't there.
Not a single atom that is in your body today was there
when that event took place . . . Matter flows from place
to place and momentarily comes together to be you.
Whatever you are, therefore, you are not the stuff of
which you are made. If that doesn't make the hair stand
up on the back of your neck, read it again until it does,
because it is important.

I've read some SF where stuff like this has been mentioned a little in passing but never as clearly put! A really fun idea to consider that to a certain degree is correct. While some parts of the body are still there many are no longer and have been swapped out to the environment. This means that to a certain degree your simply a traveling informational lifeform that has conveniently managed to piggy back it's self on to a clump of matter that it then rearranges according to a set of rules. :-) Like software in a certain manner you do not physically exist!

Mara Triangle Wildlife Park Africa Blog/Photos

Mara Triangle
A blog run by a Ranger in one of the African wildlife parks, some lovely photos and an interesting insight into the sorts of things that go own in the wildlife parks, and the animals that inhabit them.

The flickr photostream associated with the blog can be found here.
Kimojuno's Photostream A nice collection of animal photos.

An example of some of the photos!

Cheetah AND Hyaena face off
Originally uploaded by Kimojino

Cost of the Occupation of Iraq

Charlie's Diary: Alternative boondoggles

The direct cost to the US government of the war and occupation of Iraq — counting only funds appropriated by Congress — so far runs to roughly $523Bn.

A look at the money that's been spent on the occupation of Iraq and a look at alternative things that could have been done with such an insanely large amount of money!

Neurotech

A brief look at the growing Neurotechnology industry, more focused on the economic side than the science but still of interest. Worth reading if your interesting in drugs targeting the brain as both cures and boosters.

Analysis of Neurotech Industry - National Business News - Portfolio.com

The neurotech industry is engaged in a $2 trillion race to fix your brain. Many players will fail, but the payoff will be huge for those who succeed.

Snow Crash

If you've not read it you should, It's a cyberpunk novel by Neal Stephenson. It plays around with a lot of interesting ideas related to linguistics, informational and biological viruses, Sumerian mythology, the rise of civilization and Christianity or Religion. While it's a work of fiction the ideas utilised and the real world implications of some of the ideas are a fascinating alternate view of Civilisation and Religion.

Any way Snow Crash is well worth reading and I'd highly recommend it to those who find such ideas interesting!

Aging: Lifestyle or Genes?

An interesting article looking at the recent aging research, well worth a read if your interesting in Science, Biology, Aging etc.

Lifestyle or Genes? The Health Secrets of a 114-Year Old Man

Evolution Controversial?

Evolution: what's the real controversy?
An interesting article covering some of the topics that are supposed to be controversial in evolution. It's mainly focused on what the US Intelligent Design lobby has been trying to use in there effects to alter how biology is taught in US schools.

Worth a read if your interested in ID or Evolution.