Things I Learned This Week – #19

A koan… is a fundamental part of the history and lore of Zen Buddhism. It consists of a story, dialogue, question, or statement; the meaning of which cannot be understood by rational thinking, yet it may be accessible by intuition. One widely known koan is “Two hands clap and there is a sound; what is the sound of one hand?”

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English-speaking non-Zen practitioners sometimes use k?an to refer to an unanswerable question or a meaningless statement. However, in Zen practice, a koan is not meaningless, and teachers often do expect students to present an appropriate response when asked about a koan. Even so, a koan is not a riddle or a puzzle. Appropriate responses to a koan vary, as different teachers may demand different responses to a given koan, and answers may vary by circumstance. One of the most common recorded comments by a teacher on a disciple’s answer is: “Even though that is true, if you do not know it yourself it does you no good.”[who?] The master is looking not for an answer in a specific form, but for evidence that the disciple has grasped the state of mind expressed by the koan itself.

• I’m going to be checking out flowr over the next few days/weeks. Looks like it could be a good productivity and workflow tool for organizations. And it’s got an iPhone app!
• Instapaper is a great service. I’m really glad I came across these 7 ways to make it rock even harder though!
• Finally! A blog for people who like Open Source stuff (especially Linux) but don’t find patching kernels every other day fun. Productivity using OSS FTW!
• There are many ways to be ‘rich’. This Dumb Little Man post reminds us of some of the others. I prefer being ‘Time Rich’. 😀

Under stigmergic organization, any individual can formulate any individual innovation he sees fit, and make it universally available, and any other individual or group of individuals can adopt it as they see fit. If there is disagreement within a group as to whether or not to adopt it, they can fork and replicate two different versions of the same project. Every single “collective” is the product of the unanimous agreement of the individuals making it up. And every single contribution is modular, to be adopted or not adopted by unanimous consent in every discrete grouping out there.

• The Pearson Foundation published a report this week entitled The Digital World of Young Children: Emergent Literacy. More fuel for the bonfire of definitions of digital literacy I’ll be making in my thesis… :-p
• A New York Times article entitled Antisocial Networking? actually comes to the conclusion that it’s too soon to tell “whether all that texting, instant messaging and online social networking allows children to become more connected and supportive of their friends — or whether the quality of their interactions is being diminished without the intimacy and emotional give and take of regular, extended face-to-face time.” Quelle surprise.

• Looking for a well-designed yet functional case to house your iPad? I reckon I’ll be going for a DODOcase when I get mine. Review here.

Misc.