Posts tagged as:

philosophy

Notes from an undergraduate

by Dirk September 14, 2010

While getting my B.A. I often spent little time in class listening and memorizing, generally grabbing just the shards I found interesting to synthesize my own ideas. I’m found a few old notebooks from those years. I’m going to throw them out for space considerations but want to capture where my head was at the [...]

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Dirk’s Notes, The Summer of 1787: The Men Who Invented the Constitution

by Dirk August 16, 2010

“Dirk’s Notes” captures and shares insights and interesting bits I draw from the books I read. Thanks to the magic of e-readers I am not only reading more but preserving my thoughts in the process. These segments will give you a summation of the book while sharing my personal explorations through and extrapolations of the [...]

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Searching for my space in the Overlap

by Dirk July 26, 2010

I’ve just returned from three days in New York City attending Overlap10. This is my second Overlap: I was one of the organizers of the original Overlap in 2006. That event so fell short of my hopes for and expectations of it that I avoided returning – at least, until this year. In the last [...]

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A simple take on global warming

by Dirk April 3, 2008

Disclaimer and background: I’m no expert. I pay attention, I listen, I think. I’m pretty well convinced that we’re headed toward a crash course with global warming in a highly deleterious way to our and other species, but I don’t know if that is 5 or 50 or 500 years away. I understand the idea [...]

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Do URL’s give corporations control of ideas?

by Dirk December 15, 2005

An ever-increasing trend with big companies is buying clever little marketing URLs that tie their initiatives and ideas into a short-and-clever “catch” that enables people to easily remember the URL while reinforcing their underlying marketing objectives. Just now, I saw an ad that urged me to visit “willyoujoinus.com”, with a very Green and environmentally-friendly message. [...]

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Clearing the idea box

by Dirk November 17, 2005

So rather than just saying “I’m too busy to write!” I’m going to empty my burgeoning idea box. Some of these go back 6 months. I’d love to develop each of them into a longer post if not an essay or article, but to get some traction here and clear my head, I’m just dumping [...]

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Musing on technology and society (an unformed and rambling exploration)

by Dirk September 17, 2005

Is it possible that, since we see SO many images of people thanks to modern technology and media, that our perception and value of humanity are being warped? I mean, for almost the entirety of human existence, we’ve been exposed to a fairly limited number of people during our lives. Prior to modern transportation like [...]

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Media Empires: the 21st century equivalent to a “military-industrial complex”

by Dirk August 21, 2005

This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence-economic, political, even spiritual-is felt in every city, every state house, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. [...]

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Rashomon

by Dirk January 19, 2005

“I’m the one who should be ashamed. I don’t understand my own soul.” – The Woodcutter, played by Takashi Shimaru, in Rashomon This is the best film I’ve seen in a really long time. Slowly, I’m making my way through watching the major, important films in cinematic history. Last night I saw Rashomon, directed by [...]

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Existence design

by Dirk November 14, 2004

We have devolved. Rather than move forward as a species, we’ve moved backwards. I first made these connections in a high school philosophy class; 1991-1992 school year. To keep it simple, I believe that we evolved to the point of achieving a viable and stable civilization, only to begin devolving as money, possessions and technologies [...]

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