Welcome to J Town!
A gathering place to promote posts and projects, chat about the news, check on the weather (and brag about yours!) and waste spend a little time. Bring your music, your news stories, your life stories, word of your latest projects, a photo of your town, and, above all, your sense of humor.
Ancient Computers
Your Brain, give or take a synapse or two
Return to Antikythera: Divers revisit wreck where ancient computer found
In 1900, Greek sponge divers stumbled across "a pile of dead, naked women" on the seabed near the tiny island of Antikythera. It turned out the figures were not corpses but bronze and marble statues, part of a cargo of stolen Greek treasure that was lost when the Roman ship carrying them sank two thousand years ago on the island's treacherous rocks.
Between 1900 and 1901, the sponge divers retrieved a string of stunning antiquities, including weapons, jewellery, furniture and some exquisite statues. But their most famous find was a battered lump that sat unnoticed for months in the courtyard of Athens' National Archaeological Museum, before it cracked open to reveal a bundle of cogwheels, dials and inscriptions.
It has taken scientists over a hundred years to decode the inner workings of those corroded fragments, with x-ray and CT scans finally revealing a sophisticated clockwork machine used to calculate the workings of the heavens (video).
Philosophy will be the key that unlocks artificial intelligence
To state that the human brain has capabilities that are, in some respects, far superior to those of all other known objects in the cosmos would be uncontroversial. The brain is the only kind of object capable of understanding that the cosmos is even there, or why there are infinitely many prime numbers, or that apples fall because of the curvature of space-time, or that obeying its own inborn instincts can be morally wrong, or that it itself exists. Nor are its unique abilities confined to such cerebral matters. The cold, physical fact is that it is the only kind of object that can propel itself into space and back without harm, or predict and prevent a meteor strike on itself, or cool objects to a billionth of a degree above absolute zero, or detect others of its kind across galactic distances.
But no brain on Earth is yet close to knowing what brains do in order to achieve any of that functionality. The enterprise of achieving it artificially – the field of "artificial general intelligence" or AGI – has made no progress whatever during the entire six decades of its existence.
Rebekah Higgitt: Why whiggish won't do
Simplistic and heroic accounts of the history of science cannot be defended by the claim that the public like them.
Two anathemas of academic historians of science have been attracting a certain amount of interest in the history of science blogo-twittersphere lately. One is whiggishness and the other heroes, the two of which often come together in history writing and broadcasting aimed at a broad audience.
... whiggish narratives, strewn with heroes, only hinder understanding of how the world works. As Athene Donald has written, heroes and geniuses are unrealistic and unhelpful for those who might enter scientific careers in the future. They are equally so for those who are not and have no interest in becoming a scientist, but nevertheless live in a world in which understanding the real rather than ideal relationship between science, technology, people, power and politics is hugely important.
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How to Vote in Your State
Start Here: gottavote.com. It will bring you to a web page run by the Obama campaign with information on what you need to do to vote in your state including deadlines for registration and registration forms.
From npr.org: Election 2012: Early And Absentee Voting, By State
Don't assume that you know the rules for this year's election! Your Vote Matters.
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32 Days to Get Out The Vote!
And, yes, that donkey is braying at you, left-of-center peepuls!
(more under the Orange Entwined Js)
J Town Features Table of Contents:
● Click for
J Town Babbling Brook (Got Post?)
● Click for
Community Action Corner (Got Project?)
● Click for
Meta Spotlight and J Town Virtual Library
● Click for
J Town is for Healing
● Click for
You Are Here
Got Post?
In Case You Missed Them:
Your Diary Could Be Here Promote a diary in the comment threads and we will test it for "the right amount of cowbell".
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J Town is looking for
Readers ... people who read Daily Kos posts and want a place to share them. When you find a diary worth promoting, comment in the threads and we will send the
Judicious
J Town
Jolly
Jeniuses (ie Editors Armed With
Republishing Marks) to check it out and Republish here. The posts will show up in this list:
J Town Babbling Brook. And if you write a diary, you can promote it here also!
(Return to J Town Features Table of Contents)
Got Project?
The Community Action Corner is a place to organize, discuss and promote all of our DK projects, blogathons, take-action measures or advocacy projects, whether we are planning online activism or working on projects for offline activism in our home communities or other communities, such as community gardens. Take-action petitions can run for more than one day to reach a wider audience. It is a place to hook up with people when we need help, volunteers, advice, tips, or contributions and to see what other DKossacks are doing. We have so many people with experience covering such a wide range of issues and activism, and we can share our experiences here. In short, the CAC will grow and expand organically to cover all our needs for projects for communities online and offline!
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Patriot Daily News Clearinghouse on J Town's new feature:
A Community Action Corner is a much needed feature for DK. Whether working on blogathons, fundraisers, take action or other projects at DK or activism in our home communities, we now have a home base to help spread the word to reach a wider audience and provide all of us with a work room! |
Sara R:
I like the idea of a Community Corner as a go-to place to learn what creative good works are going on in the DKos community on any given day. The more people know about what is going on, the more they can get involved – and be inspired to come up with new ideas and projects, as well. |
citisven:
I totally love the idea of a community bulletin board type of space where people can post things they're organizing and action items, something that stays up for a few days, giving others a chance to share ideas, contribute, give advice. |
llbear:
CAC is great place for us to share tips from our experiences. I think any projects undertaken by Kossacks designed to help people forgotten by most of the country is a great thing. |
rb137:
This is a great idea -- herding kittens is harder than it looks, and this will be a great tool to ease our admin work and to spread word about our many excellent progressive projects at DK. |
Our projects promoted
"Activism is my rent for living on the planet."
~ Alice Walker
DK Quilt Guild: NN13 project, Palo Alto VA wheelchair quilts The DK Quilt Guild will be making wheelchair quilts for the veterans in the Spinal Cord Injury/Disability unit ("SCI/D") of the Palo Alto VA Medical Center (the VA hospital nearest San Jose) to be delivered at NN13.
Climate Change SOS Blogathon and 350.org Petition Sign the petition at 350.org to ask Mitt Romney two questions about his solutions for climate change that highlight how dangerous it would be if he were president. Romney has flipped flopped on whether climate change is real, and admitted he is climate change illiterate. His energy plan does not mention climate change. If president, he would approve a tar sands pipeline the first day that will move us closer to game over.
Community Quilt Projects The Community Quilt Project is run by Sara R and connects the community in a very unique way: "Community Quilts are a way of sharing care, compassion and support for community members who are facing illness or other hardships. "
The Inoculation Project - Sunday morning at 10am Eastern Solid science education is the best inoculation against ignorance. The objective of this weekly project is to combat the anti-science push in conservative America by providing direct funding each week to math and science projects in red state classrooms.
Your Project Here Promote your short term or long term project in the comment threads.
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(Return to J Town Features Table of Contents)
Meta Spotlight and J Town Virtual Library
Posting Statistics and Top Comment Submission
and Sneck!
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J Town is for Healing
People visit J Town to meditate on the California Poppy Field, grab some moon energy for healing and release, and to curse their bad luck at Nurse Kelley's Cursing Tree. Feel free to use the images provided here for reflection and to share your hardships, illnesses, and losses in the comment threads. We are at our best when we care about others.
Our California Poppy Field |
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Yesterday, today, and tomorrow
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Nurse Kelley Shares Her Cursing Tree with J Town
Because sometimes it feels good to simply curse the unfairness of it all.
Cursing Tree Instructions: "I stand very close to the trunk and, depending on my need, I might yell at it, kick it, heave curses at it, look up through the branches and curse the universe, or just stand there and cry. When it was obvious exmearden was suffering and would die soon, I even beat it with my fists." ~ Nurse Kelley
“Life. Optimism. The future of us. Smooth the waters of the past, so that we can push out into the waves a bit further, for a little longer. Pull who we love and what we love close to us, around us like a warm blanket, which gives us comfort and lends a strength we may not see inside ourselves. Underpin our days with caring and contact and not isolation and fear.”
~ Kris Froland (exmearden)
(Return to J Town Features Table of Contents)
J Town is a community diary series founded February 14, 2011 by JanF and Julie Gulden. It posts daily at 9 am Central* / 10 am Eastern / 8 am Mountain / 7 am Pacific. *Democracy in action (or inaction). (The fine print)
Note: J Town may be occasionally recast as "br town" (not the shivering kind of br but the "brilliant rendition" kind of br). Negotiations are underway for future guest bloggers. Watch this space!
You Are Here |
Stowe VT
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Each day in J Town starts as something new. It is, quite literally, what you make it.
Have fun and let the Towning begin!
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