Mark Zuckerberg, chief executive and a founder of FaceBook, has agreed to donate $100 million to improve the long-troubled Public Schools in Newark Nj, and Gov. Chris Christie will cede some control of the state-run system to Mayor Cory Booker in conjunction with the huge gift, officials said Wednesday... Less than a month ago, the governor informed the city’s schools superintendent, Clifford Janey, that he would not be rehired, and that the state was looking for a successor. There has been speculation in Trenton about the possibility of hiring Michelle Rhee, the hard-charging schools chief in Washington, whose political patron, Mayor Adrian Fenty, recently lost his bid for re-election. Officials said Mr. Christie planned to announce that he and Mr. Booker would jointly select a new superintendent, a decision the governor has the power to make on his own. And they said he would instruct the mayor to come up with a reform plan for the system: in effect, asking Mr. Booker to redesign it. (more)

RyanB: Book Review: Why Honor Matters. People who live in honor cultures have a sense of purpose and meaning. They dwell in solidarity with their fellows, are courageous in the face of danger, set great store in hospitality, and put the welfare of the group above their own. Mostly. (more)

Ian Alexander: Book Review: Donald Schon - The Reflective Practitioner. Readers of my reviews will know that I have been interested for some years in the dialogue between action (do something) and reflection, discussed admirably by John Heron and Peter Reason, and put into practice in their Co-operative Inquiry method. Donald Schön is one of the seemingly few people to have written about reflection and its role in professional life; it is a tricky subject, as it lies between the domains of academia and industry, and must be both theoretically accurate and practically useful to succeed fully. (more)

Heather Cox Richardson: June 28, 2025. Last night just before midnight, Republicans released their new version of the omnibus budget reconciliation bill. It is a sign of just how unpopular this bill is that they released the new version just before midnight on a Friday night, a time that is the graveyard of news stories. ("Big Beautiful Bill") (more)

Trump is Playing 4D Chess is an expression used by supporters of the 2016 Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump when speculating that his campaign is using advanced political strategies to manipulate and dominate the news media. On September 15th, 2015, Dilbert comic artist Scott Adams published a blog post as part of a series on Donald Trump's persuasion titled "2-D Chess Players Take on a 3-D Chess Master."[7] On March 24th, 2016, /r/The_Donald[6] user Fire-Keeper responded to a comment about Trump's image macro tweet mocking the wife of rival Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz with the statement "God Emperor plays 4D chess while the other candidates and the media play Tic Tac Toe in the sand." https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/trump-is-playing-4d-chess (more)

the part of your business strategy that's about what technology choices you're making

Matt Zeiger: Why I'm Building a Creative Cult. Individualism is still a new concept to humans. It doesn’t feel like it, but only because we can’t imagine our modern lives without it. The reality is, for most of human history, you were defined by your family first (more)

Nikhil Suresh: Contra Ptacek's Terrible Article On AI. A few days ago, I was presented with an article titled “My AI Skeptic Friends Are All Nuts” by Thomas Ptacek. I thought it was not very good, and didn't give it a second thought. To quote the formidable Baldur Bjarnason: “I don’t recommend reading it, but you can if you want. It is full of half-baked ideas and shoddy reasoning. (more)

Matt Zeigler: Punk-rock Economics (How To Start A Scene, Not Sell Out, And Save The World). A friend of mine was telling a story about a small business event where a sponsor chose to order food from a nearby chain instead of getting it from one of the local restaurants the sponsor had personally invited to attend(!). The sponsor proceeded to eat the takeout in front of the restaurant owners. In front of them. (more)

Mike Morris: What Wikid Wants To Become. Most of the notebook tools out there are focused on the writing. They use the expression "note-taking" and that's... telling. And why I've taken to speaking/writing about "note-making" — I don't want to be always in the position of a consumer, always just writing down (summarising or recasting in my own words) someone else's thinking (though there are times I do!) — I really want my notebook/slip-box to be a collection of my own thinking and observations (no matter how half-arsed, ill-formed or partial). (more)

Evan Armstrong: Slack.com Declares War. Sometimes though, when there are billions, maybe trillions on the line, there is no choice but to attack directly. The modus operandi is win at all costs. (more)

Mike Morris: WikidProject Musing. Wiki Notebooks. Was dreaming a bit about what wikid might be/do in that space. There's a long, long way for it to go to get there... (more)

Baldur Bjarnason: Trusting your own judgement on ‘AI’ is a huge risk. One of the major turning points in my life was reading my dad’s copy of Robert Cialdini’s Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion as a teenager. (more)

The Internet said today: While I would like to return the honor , I'm concerned that the Church has history of "demeaning human dignity", at least of young male humans. And while the Church has "adapted to discoveries through the ages", it took over 400 years to forgive Galileo. So I think I'll have to pass for now. And remember, I know all the bank account numbers, and I read all the email... (more)

book Rebels & Devils: The Psychology of Liberation - Christopher S. Hyatt & William S. Burroughs & Timothy Leary & Robert Anton Wilson & Aleister Crowley & Pete Carroll & Phil Hine & Antero Alli & Genesis P-Orridge & Joseph C. Lisiewski. ISBN:1935150340 (more)

I tend to think of his stuff as, not porn, but rather a political statement on the barbarism of the French royalty and other powerful people/institutions (the Church) (more)

cf Great Weirding (more)

Harambe (/həˈrɑːmbeɪ/ hə-RAHM-bay; May 27, 1999 – May 28, 2016) was a western lowland gorilla who lived at the Cincinnati Zoo. On May 28, 2016, a three-year-old boy visiting the zoo climbed under a fence into an outdoor gorilla enclosure where he was grabbed and violently dragged and thrown by Harambe.[3] Fearing for the boy's life, a zoo worker shot and killed Harambe. The incident was recorded on video and received broad international coverage and commentary, including controversy over the choice to use lethal force. Several primatologists and conservationists wrote later that the zoo had no other choice under the circumstances, and that it highlighted the danger of zoo animals near humans and the need for better standards of care. Harambe became the subject of Internet memes, a statue, songs, and other tributes and recognitions. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harambe#Memes (more)

Venkatesh Rao: The New Breaking Smart. The seasonal binge-able essay collection model though, didn’t work out. Partly because I could not find the time to work on ambitious essays in the interstices of consulting work, and partly because the global events shaping what I wanted to write about were simply moving too fast. The weirding, I freely admit, has been inside my OODA loop for the last 5 years. (more)

Dorian Taylor tool built on top of his Intertwingler. https://senseatlas.net/