Following are some of the major environmental groups around the world.
日曜日, 11月 12, 2006
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金曜日, 11月 10, 2006
日曜日, 11月 05, 2006
IE Home Page: Part Two
The endangered primates in Brazil tropical rainforests 
One of the leading causes of rainforest destruction is logging. Research has found that the number of species found in logged rainforest is much lower than the number found in untouched primary rainforest. The destruction of the tropical rainforests is depriving many animals’ homes. Primates, humanity’s closest kindred, are also being endangered. Take Brazil rainforest for example, at least 7 primates are in danger of extinction。The post is made based on the information on Animal Info - Information on Endangered Mammals, <http://www.animalinfo.org/country/brazil.htm>.
One of the leading causes of rainforest destruction is logging. Research has found that the number of species found in logged rainforest is much lower than the number found in untouched primary rainforest. The destruction of the tropical rainforests is depriving many animals’ homes. Primates, humanity’s closest kindred, are also being endangered. Take Brazil rainforest for example, at least 7 primates are in danger of extinction。The post is made based on the information on Animal Info - Information on Endangered Mammals, <http://www.animalinfo.org/country/brazil.htm>.
How to be a Great Host
Having a motive, preparing a place, inviting a group of friends, sharing a good time, booking next getting together, and no troublemaker coming is the process of a successful party, which depends on work of host. The author, Gladding, smartly compared a community network as a party in his “how to be a great host” and gives advice for how to make a good community.
We should make our homepage decent that suit the context of our community and the registration to the community should not be intensive so that everyone can easily participate. After the preparation is done well, we start inviting guests. Once people are here, we should be a friendly host, make guests feel welcome and introduce guests to each other, and always provide fresh conversations. To make the community have a proper direction, we can make some rules and write the rules clearly and simply. To keep the guest interested, we must supply a great deal of unique content, update on a regular basis and respond to the comments of the guests. When the community grows, we can ask for some members to be co-moderators to draw their attention and to encourage them to exert their energy.
In conclusion, the community is a place to share information, to get acquainted with people, and to create deep friendship with each other. As the community network grows, three characteristics: complexity, challenges and attractions accompanies. We should make effort to activate and make the community enjoyable.
土曜日, 11月 04, 2006
Revised: Summary of Kahn and Kellner (p.183-185, p.190-198)
Summary
Authors introduced the background and present states of online communities and internet activism, and retheorized on “virtually democratic of internet” from a standpoint that is both critical and reconstructive. The occurrence and development of online communities are induced and supported by a variety of groups and movements, which can be mainstream and/or oppositional, reactionary and/or democratic, global and/or local. Especially different opinions and polices circling the Terror war in 2001 have encouraged the technopolitics. Internet has played a great role in “globalization-from-below.” Internet activism has a positive effect in propagating oppositional ideas, defending social justice, equality, civil liberties, universal human right, and a healthy planet, but it should not ignored that “hacking” can be utilized by terrorists and criminals in every area of politics, economy, military. Blogs and Wikis are two successful cases in online community. Blogs is relatively easy to create and maintain even for nontechnical web users. Wikipedia, a free, globally collaborative encyclopedia project has grown to include approximately 162000 always-evolving articles in English and the database grows with each passing day.
Authors introduced the background and present states of online communities and internet activism, and retheorized on “virtually democratic of internet” from a standpoint that is both critical and reconstructive. The occurrence and development of online communities are induced and supported by a variety of groups and movements, which can be mainstream and/or oppositional, reactionary and/or democratic, global and/or local. Especially different opinions and polices circling the Terror war in 2001 have encouraged the technopolitics. Internet has played a great role in “globalization-from-below.” Internet activism has a positive effect in propagating oppositional ideas, defending social justice, equality, civil liberties, universal human right, and a healthy planet, but it should not ignored that “hacking” can be utilized by terrorists and criminals in every area of politics, economy, military. Blogs and Wikis are two successful cases in online community. Blogs is relatively easy to create and maintain even for nontechnical web users. Wikipedia, a free, globally collaborative encyclopedia project has grown to include approximately 162000 always-evolving articles in English and the database grows with each passing day.
Reaction
Everything has two sides. For example, automobile is the most important traffic tool, but many people are killed in traffic accidents; atomic energy is a huge source of energy, but atomic bomb can extinct the whole earth. Similarly, internet, one of the biggest achievements in technology, has brought human great benefits, making communication faster, but misuse of the Internet can result in a fatal shock to the internet community.
Everything has two sides. For example, automobile is the most important traffic tool, but many people are killed in traffic accidents; atomic energy is a huge source of energy, but atomic bomb can extinct the whole earth. Similarly, internet, one of the biggest achievements in technology, has brought human great benefits, making communication faster, but misuse of the Internet can result in a fatal shock to the internet community.
Globalization-from-below is a new combined word, and was a new concept for me, which is contrary to the combined word: globalization-from-above. Globalization from below and above are two different powers. If the two powers are one direction, additional effects can occur, if the two powers are different direction, antagonism will occur. Therefore cooperating the two forces is a great challenge to human civilization and intelligence.
Revised: Summary and Personal Reaction to "Six Degrees of Separation" (Barabasi p 25-35)
Summary
Six degrees of separation is a theory that any two people on Earth are connected to each other through a chain of acquaintances with no more than five intermediaries. The hypothesis was first proposed in1929 by a Hungarian writer Karinthy Frigyes in a short story called “Chains”, and was first confirmed in 1967 by a Harvard professor Stanley Milgram. Milgram performed experiment by sending letters to randomly chosen people to find out the distance between any two people in US. The result was that the median number of intermediate person is 5.5. To find out how many links are between webs, Barabasi’s group conducted experiment to obtain the data that any two documents is on average nineteen clicks away from each other. Barabasi emphasized that small separations are common in almost every network, by giving the examples that species in food web are separated by 2 links; molecules in the cell are separated on average by 3 chemical reactions; scientists in different fields of science are separated by 4 - 6 co-authorship links; neurons in the brain are separated by 14 synapses. Barabasi also used mathematical formula to verify the small separation in networks.
Six degrees of separation is a theory that any two people on Earth are connected to each other through a chain of acquaintances with no more than five intermediaries. The hypothesis was first proposed in1929 by a Hungarian writer Karinthy Frigyes in a short story called “Chains”, and was first confirmed in 1967 by a Harvard professor Stanley Milgram. Milgram performed experiment by sending letters to randomly chosen people to find out the distance between any two people in US. The result was that the median number of intermediate person is 5.5. To find out how many links are between webs, Barabasi’s group conducted experiment to obtain the data that any two documents is on average nineteen clicks away from each other. Barabasi emphasized that small separations are common in almost every network, by giving the examples that species in food web are separated by 2 links; molecules in the cell are separated on average by 3 chemical reactions; scientists in different fields of science are separated by 4 - 6 co-authorship links; neurons in the brain are separated by 14 synapses. Barabasi also used mathematical formula to verify the small separation in networks.
Reaction
It is surprising to know that the medium between any two persons is only six people. This is a very important idea or theory. The positive side of the "small world" is that “every person is a new door opening up into other worlds”. The negative side of it is that confidential information could easily be spread and misused. Making friends as many as possible is broadening a person’s view and possibility. However, we should also be aware to protect ourselves from damage of losing privacy in the modern network times.
My issue in the Theme Writing class is about HIV. AIDS is one of the most serious health and social problems in the world today. The latest statistics on the world epidemic of AIDS and HIV shows that 38.6 million people are living with HIV, 4.1 million became newly infected with HIV and 2.8 million people died of AIDS in 2005. I think that the theory of “six degrees of separation” can partly explain the rapid spread of the infection. Moreover this theory reminds people that the spread of epidemics is much faster than we think.
Also we are trying to send our sticky message now. Based on the theory, if I send message to 10 people and assume that they send it to 10 other people, repeating this for 6 times, we get 10^7 (10 million) people. Therefore I got confident in the IE project. My sticky message is to protect the environment, which is very important for everybody. So I think it can be understood and accepted by many people and be spread widely.
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