Remember the Seekers? Mike over at lightcycle has a similar sketch in 3D. I recommend checking out his other sketches as well as his blog. (I@Squublog, check out his Gridbugs!)

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The more I Spurl the less I post. To rectify this problem, here are some of my favourite Spurls from the past month:

From those who are he
             to those who are she.

The complexity of language hides the circular nature of our truths.

Standing right here waiting for two dollar shared memories from a booth.

Eyes Wander

Over Yonder

Pretty colours, rhythmic flashes across the reflection of your stare.

An indoor wind caught in the corners of your skirt and in the tips of your hair.


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Welcome to the Noosphere - The Chef tackles a subject that is very close to my heart: The emergence of a global consciousness. It's worth the read.

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Growth within the Noosphere:

I know as much as I know. (I must trust this knowledge.)
I attempt to refine what I know. (I must accept these refinements.)
This refined knowledge is only as good as the company I keep. (I must seek out high quality connections.)

repeat.

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The remainder of this post began it's life as a comment on this post. It's a near stream-of-consciousness thought-journey on the Canadian Political spectrum. The information provided is up for debate.

Political ideologies carry the same names worldwide, but are often very distinct entities. The conservatism and liberalism in the US are quite different from the same-named 'movements' here in Canada.

Our Liberal party sits in the middle of our nation's political spectrum. On the left we have our socialist voice, the NDP from English Canada, Bloc Quebecois from French Canada, and a large base of grassroots/student political organizations. On the right we have the newly (re)formed Conservative party. (Another 'right' voice being the economy/business community.)

It's a balance. (Side note: Think for a moment of the political balance that exists/existed in Europe. Diverse!)

"The left is here to point out that all are not equal in the competitive pursuit of individual happiness." -Gad Horowitz

The right exists to maintain both the economy and the status quo.

Pluralism at work.

It is interesting to note that our Conservative party, (even with the addition of the Reform party), carries with it something that doesn't exist in US Conservatism: A Tory influence. To this day, a Canadian Conservative is called a 'Tory'. This Tory side comes from our forefathers, who were loyalists and who developed (under the guidance of Britain and with their 'feudalist' partners from French Canada) the model of our Federal State. The US made it very clear, (from the get go), that they were founding a new Nation, separate and distinct from the clash of ideologies that existed in Europe.

(I won't really get into this, but this is why the US has almost no socialist voice; the US severed ties with the UK and founded a political nation based on a focused ideology. Socialism wasn't included in the building process and was in fact vilified to the edge of nuclear war. But I digress.)

The addition of the Reform voice to our Conservative party will no doubt revive the bizarre tradition of the Red and Blue Tory. (This is another very un-American aspect of Canadian Conservatism.):

A Red Tory is basically, a Conservative who often prefers the Socialist voice over that of the Liberals, (without really knowing why.) (The Yin to this Yang is the Canadian socialist who finds himself mysteriously agreeing with the Conservative voice.)

Whereas, a Red Tory represents the Left wing of the conservative party, the Blue Tory is the right wing. The Blue Tory / Liberal political alignment is evident.

Some diehard Progressive Conservatives (from the old skool) see this Red Tory, "at the very highest level, [...] as a philosopher who combines elements of socialism and toryism so thoroughly [...] this it is impossible to say that he is a proponent of either one as against the other;" a balanced politician.

(The quote was again from Gad Horowitz, who inspired this post with his writings on Canadian *-isms.)

Well I don't really know where I'm going here.

Just sorta following thought patterns. Let's continue:

Our socialist voice isn't really a Marxist voice is it? It's more old skool British socialist in flavour. Marxism never found it's voice in the Americas, although I often wonder why it didn't take off in Mexico. Must have been the influence of the US; they never seem to understand why Marxism (or even socialism for that matter) is attractive to poor/3rd world nations. This is because the understanding of Marxism *comes from class struggle*. The US purports to be 'classless'; their poor are ignored or marginalized and given no political voice. Maybe the republicans (and the democrats for that matter) will start to slack with their negative pressure on socialist countries now that they have a new enemy. Or even better, perhaps a socialist movement will emerge from below the US poverty line.

Socialism emerges from class struggle because a growing percentage the population is asking for equality of condition rather than merely equality of opportunity. A growing voice is asking for "a society that does more than provide a context within which [the individual] can pursue happiness in a purely self-regarding way."

One last note: Does our Liberal party often project political ambivalence because they do not want to upset their place between the Left and Right?

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(Click on thumbnails to view photographs.)

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The first set of images were taken at the Manitoba legislative building. The final image from that set shows a statue of local historical figure Louis Riel. In 1995 this statue replaced an older Riel monument which (much like the history of Riel himself) was shrouded in controversy. (Related: Controversy in the Commemoration of Louis Riel.)

Manitoba has a proud history of radical politics, including Louis Riel and the Winnipeg General Strike of 1919, (considered by many to be Canada's most influencial general strike.) (Related: Radical Politics in Winnipeg: 1899-1915.)

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A new processing sketch: The Seekers V2.0

As always, you will need to install Java For The Desktop to view the sketch. Versions 1.0 and 1.5 can be viewed here (dead link).

The Seekers are the result of my fascination with collective and swarm intelligence in the animal/insect world. The goal of each seeker is to locate an active gold mine (represented by yellow circles) and begin transporting the gold home (represented by the green square.) The goldmines shrink in size as they are depleted by the seekers. Depleted mines are replaced by new active mines which are spawned at a random location within the seekerspace.

There are three types of seekers:

Our move is complete. It's official, we own too much stuff. However, an early summer garage-sale followed by some donations to the local Sally Ann should solve this problem.

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As I mentioned in my last post, I've been using Spurl to catalog and syndicate my web surfing. Since then, I've discovered some similar services. These tools provide a new framework for net-based exploration, classification and value assignment; a proto-noosphere.

The tools: