Archive for the 'berkmania' Category

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poker

Published by nesson on May 1, 2007 in berkmania, General, harvard, poker, rhetorical space and trust. Closed

poker is quintescentially an american game, american invention, universal in its appeal, open as the frontier to anyone to learn the skill of bid and call and bluff and raise and fold. no better game to learn how to win and lose and how to feel about it. no finer way to come to terms with your personal relationship to risk and resource, finding balance in the flow of signals in the brain for defense, for aggression, for neutrality, women, men, old, young, every race, every religion, a moment to learn a lifetime to master, understanding that the ante and the blinds buy you the privilege of neutrality in the choice you have to fold, but every time you fold you pay a little. you need a little aggression to offset this leak in the assets you have to live with. you start to feel and see that this is how you play not just this game but the game of life.

here’s email from amwoods at hlcentral

“Andrew M. Woods”
to me

show details
7:25 pm (7 hours ago)

Professor-

I happened upon this the other day, and have been meaning to forward it to you:

http://media.www.hlrecord.org/media/storage/paper609/news/2006/03/16/News/FirstTimer.Wins.Charity.Poker.Tournament-1688977.shtml

While the article isn’t exactly a stirring defense of the importance of skill in poker – a first time player won the tournament, you may be interested to notice at the bottom of paragraph 2 the article describes the faculty participation in the public interest charity tournament. That faculty included one Professor Charles Nesson, “who hung in for several rounds before being knocked out by 1L Andrew Woods”. 🙂

(While I may have put you out, you do look better in the photo – they only got the side of me…)

-Andrew

——————————–

Andrew M. Woods
Director of Events
HL Central
(310) 254-5218
amwoods@law.harvard.edu

as we spoke last night poker university took shape
enquiry into the genius of the game top down
professor and professor with sister annie
andy bloch producer
full tilt on a table of ten
avatars driven by students of all ages in classrooms round the globe
global classrooms to engage our poker curriculum in which the culmination course is tournaments
open to developing nations as an expression of american democracy

eon here
the crazy guy of lessig’s dedication
let poker be the message that goes out through libraries and classrooms
it’s the spirit of america we are fighting for

assume you are playing poker with a fundamentalist
schelling’s madman at the door
are you bargaining with him or is he bargaining with you

this is a better game than the game with bombs and guns
people who make bombs and guns are the enemy
why prefer their game to ours

we make the bombs and guns and the markets into which to sell them
we are on a road to blowing ourselves apart if we can’t figure out how to find our norms

one thing you can say about a fundamentalist
their action is grounded in deep spirit
twisted we may think to evil ends yet spirit nonetheless

suppose a poker game between the avatar of our spirit and the avatar of his
what would be our conversation
what have i got that he wants that i can give him
what is he looking for
he says he’s looking for one thing but you know he is looking for another

suppose the chips in the game are the minds of people
the question in each individual mind which spirit speaks truth in its understanding of the world
quick
the stick
fight
youre right

so okay let’s get to it
teresa and librarians of the world
eIFL.net consortium of consortia of libraries
communia thematic network
where better to assemble to play a global online poker game than is community libraries and schools starting with solar power electricity, hardware to structure and control the flow of electric bits, connection to the net and thus to UNIVERSITY

the berkman center has a grant from the state department of the united states of america to teach democracy. american democracy is spirit in US to express.

as i type into this blog i am listening to the recording of our poker meeting before the formal meeting began, low murmers and talk of separate conversations with lovely jokes. annie tells the story of a man addicted to water, was drinking eight gallons a day, he died, and me telling the story of last year’s public service poker tournament pictured above in which andrew m woods knocked me out, how we couldn’t do it this year because of government regulation.

uploading it to z share
hope it works
i’ll bet there are some folks out there deep enough into the game to listen to poker pros talking poker to each other
yes it does! here it is: http://www.zshare.net/audio/poker1-mp3.html

last night another berkman book party, david weinberger, everything is miscellaneous, a gift to all librarians as we come to see internet as library. david, a poker question. i have written to game theorists asking them how they classify texas hold’em poker in the taxonomy of their rigorous systematic way of understanding our reality. in answer to the conceptual question of relationship of one think to another miscellaneous doesn’t tell us much. are you speaking to scientists as well as to librarians?

off to a2k today

Published by nesson on April 29, 2007 in berkmania, family, harvard and poker. Closed

salubrious recording with fern this morning after soliloquy about fear in my heart, then clippinger telling me of a study comparing ability to detect deceit among harvard undergraduates and the shiwiar, an isolated amazonian tribe of hunter-horticulturalists. the shiwiar were just as adept at identifying a con as the harvard grads.

yesterday at northeastern after merley evars spoke i bought a book by bob moses urging algebra as answer to race transcendence. in the night i woke fern with a vision of classrooms of kids deciding on the move its avatar would make in a game of online poker and felt bob moses idea up a dimension.

we are here to teach

through the net we can teach kids to transcend

i teach law students. many law students come to harvard law school risk averse. they have thrived in sheltered institutions. they are not yet ready for the world. learn to play poker i tell them, starting with one-card war.

i am proposing a collaboration among all of us who gathered and all who would have liked to be there at our poker meeting to create poker university with its classrooms linked on line.

think of a massive multiplayer game of games in which the software of the game is architecture for gatherings of people who learn the game together and play for fun and moderate money within an environment of understanding for addiction.

imagine an online poker table with each avatar a classroom in a different school, let’s try law schools out to start, maybe each in a different state, maybe each in a different country. may we do this? from whom do we seek a declaratory judgment?

we say poker is a more genuine expression of the AMERICA we want to be than slavery and white supremacy. together we can mobilize to make our future.

a pain within me calls

Published by nesson on April 23, 2007 in berkmania, harvard, jamaica, Kevin Wallen, poker and rhetorical space. Closed

to rise with many targets of attention yet to be drawn ineluctably to pain. do you soothe it do you stretch it do you work it out. first i pee then i shit then i take care of sammy. win or lose you pay your dues. do you give in to pain do you surrender.

attached see pics of the black law students association black and white ball sponsored by aiken gump for the benefit of children. i look at the image as i compose this picture for you to see . alex diane antonia fern and me.

whose dress is more beautiful? vote all. how can we?
aiken gump gets a double thump from me.
time for stretch and cup of tea
in the spirit of universality
life as we sometimes live it seems great to me
moment by moment one by one
all of them one present
stretch and behold

suppose there is one spirit above the rest
a spirit in us embracing
let mind go with recursion

last night in second life saw mandelbrot
after the verdict in josh wolf trial came in
beer around the table later
thanks ken and aaron, giselle and joel, mathew and becca
bits in the can with chris
waiting to come out

missed seeing tree throw out the first pitch
at the red sox yankees game
please send a link to the video

hello wiki/wikia – hello clippinger – hello fern

Published by nesson on April 20, 2007 in berkmania, family, General, rhetorical space and trust. Closed

first fern
read up from the bottom
which way does mind flow go
i & i
want to know

pteridologist

A fern is any one of a group of about 20,000 species of plants classified in the phylum or division Pteridophyta, also known as Filicophyta. The group is also referred to as polypodiophyta, or polypodiopsida when treated as a subdivision of tracheophyta (vascular plants). The study of ferns is called pteridology; one who studies ferns is called a pteridologist.

a fern sleeps upstairs dreaming of a man: is it me?
is she complement to me with all my waking energy
going somewhere else.

i rise now to fly down the mountain having told myself the story i am changing
charge out to meet and play with men
how many times have i left her this way only to get high and come rushing back to her
no good
she does not love me when i’m high
she loves that other guy

she wants straight love
i am crooked
she wants attention
i place it else where
she has a grievance
i can see
she wants me
needs me
where am i
here with you ready to rush to her again
while she is with another guy

how high is high
where does it go
how do i get down

don’t rush back
signal welcome
let her come to you
here i am
talking to myself

clippinger
thank you for a lovely party
thank you for a crowd of one
thank you to a lovely group
please invite them to my party
is2k7

i want everyone to come
i want the world to see
university
a smoother cooler version of reality
in real virtuality

john starts his lovely book
way in north new hampshire
follows his thought
all the way to war
feel this man
he is a man of peace

listen to this man
feel peace in him
feel peace in where he comes from
trust you can approach

pteridologist
what does it mean?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fern

i have just requested a wikia in the name of eon
http://requests.wikia.com/wiki/Eon
in the cause of university
wikia university
we come in peace
we are firm and friendly
well, some times maybe knot

admire the process by which the process is made
click here

win or lose you pay your dues

Published by nesson on April 16, 2007 in berkmania, General and rhetorical space. Closed

civil rights conference here at harvard april 26. open knowledge conference at yale on the 27th. mobilization is the theme. pat will send our invitation out to those who atteneded the user generated content conference in dc. all invited to is2k7 to mobilize university to see and reach for its mission in cyberspace to educate the children of the world. teach them from the age of three to come to university. teach teachers how to offer threads to follow scratched in code they can unravel. points of departure for young minds to go that lead them to the land of open knowledge.

last night i sat with becca and dean to plan our open channel. amanda congdon email here dropped in later as flow rolls on to mitch, email dropped in here, flows on to the pee-da-HAN, the culture that everett writes about in contest with chomsky with input from pinker and tecumsah fitch. fern fascinated by it led me in to conversation with rebecca about recursion. is it the fundamental element of thought. is it the fundamental element of language. is it what enables our minds to be conscious.

makes sense to me.

what then in the culture of the peedaHAN makes their minds so strong that they can resist the delight of thinking past and future? everett says their focus is the present on it so strong they have no interest in anything back or beyond. one would think a trait so strong must be trained into a baby’s mind very young and very strong to so sharply curtail its natural curiosity and delight in learning. drop in email chomsky.

marc hauser, of hauser fitch chomsky 1994, will be at our poker meeting april 24. i’ve asked steve pinker to attend, have not heard back. noam turned me down. he hasn’t played poker in years. drop in email here. greg raymer, annie duke, andy bloch, howard lederer, and still hoping for chris jesus furguson, have you a model lurking in your minds of how recursion explains poker skill.

Recursion refers to a procedure that calls itself, or to a constituent that contains a constituent of the same kind, set within set. Recursion enables infinite complexity from finite input. the complexity we see. can we see simplicity.

e п i

Theoretical computer scientists often distinguish between tail recursion and true recursion. Roughly, in tail recursion, a procedure invokes another instance of itself as a final step (or, in the context of language, a constituent contains an identical kind of constituent at its periphery). In true recursion, a procedure invokes an instance of itself in mid-computation and then must resume the original procedure from where it left off (or a constituent contains an identical kind of constituent embedded inside it). True recursion requires a computational device with a stack of pointers (or an equivalent mechanism) to keep track of where to return after an embedded procedure has been executed. Tail recursion can be mimicked (at least in input-output behavior or “weak generative capacity”) by a computational device that implements simple iteration, where one instance of a procedure can be completed and forgotten by the time the next instance has begun. drop in mandelbrot . Tail recursion, however, cannot be mimicked by iteration when it comes to computations that require more than duplicating input-output behavior (“strong generative capacity”), such as inferences that depend on the grouping and labeling of constituents.

what is different about the peedaHAN

how are they not thinking like us

how are we knot thinking like they

eon

sj will lead a working group at is2k7

Published by nesson on April 15, 2007 in berkmania, harvard, rhetorical space and trust. Closed

a pixie of a man, guiding the steam of bits into xo and from there out to children in developing nations. what can we do to help? i visit him at one laptop per child. i sit in a room with a tree of xo’s strung along the ceiling like green and white flowers along a garden path. sj stands at a whiteboard describing a taxonomy of knowledge and a plan for rendering it in bits. open invitation to the derek bok center and to the charles hamilton institute for race and justice and to the pitf program– let us join together in this enterprise. here is the audio recording – sj’s workgroup is2k7.

i went last night to a free culture meeting at the offices of one laptop per child, olpc. dean jansen presented the democracy player. the democracy player is like tivo for the net. elizabeth stark led us in working on the wiki for how to make internet tv – how to be your own channel. i opened an xo, hit the button, started it up, just like a kid in a developing nation. i could find the camera. i could take a picture. i could make music. i could open a text environment and type. i could open a file and read. i could see the tree connecting xo’s in a mesh any link of which connecting to the net would connect them all to me. i am a teacher. i teach law. i teach evidence. i teach dispute resolution through civil discourse. i teach empathic argument. i teach programming from scratch. i teach poker. i teach teaching and thinking and feeling and doing and being a student of it all with reverence for life.

joho the blog

Published by nesson on April 15, 2007 in berkmania, harvard, rhetorical space and trust. Closed

at berkman yesterday ran into david weinberger in the kitchen and happened to have my recorder still on. we talked about a range of subjects including the teaching of norms. he told me the story of kathy sierra and his being quoted in a story in the new york times about cyberbullying. i told him about a panel autoadmit/xoxohth.

we deny ourselves useful space because we cannot handle ourselves well enough in the space to preserve it. this is ethics of the net.

imagine yourself to be a young woman in a first-year harvard law school class. imagine that you have been named and pictured and ridiculed and projected as a sexual object on an open internet discussion board by multiple anonymous contributors. you know that the people who are doing this to you are among your classmates, and that all your classmates are aware of it, some sympathetic, some tittering, some who may themselves be your slanders offering you plastic smiles. you are embarrassed, mortified. your law school experience has become a torture. your present is ruined. your future is google stained. you will never get away.

get a thick skin is not an empathic response. instead it gives evidence of callousness in the person offering it. nor are crocodile tears.

i am a law teacher. both victim and victimizer are my students. i teach ethics. are we capable of governing ourselves. am i capable of doing my part to be a citizen of the net. am i able to teach to young users of the net the fragility of its open spaces. can i teach young boys respect who feel adolescent joy in would-be manly incivility?

ethics describes what guides you in the domain of behavior between what you know to be true and what can be proved against you, a domain in which you have no need to answer to anyone but yourself, a domain in which, for better or worse, you are free, a domain in which you express your true identity even if only you can see it and know it’s you. ethics is the bedrock of the essence of the privilege of the legal profession which our students have come to law school to learn and join.

i read the ugly autoadmit/xoxohth threads. i see locker room talk by adolescent boys seeking affirmation from others like them that they are male and strong. you are my students. i want to teach you that you are wrong. in being wrong you will spoil open internet anonymous discourse space and deny it to us all. yet i know that to talk down to you from a position of authority may well only drive you deeper into self-doubting wise-guy bravado. constraint imposed on your freedom to abuse will challenge you to get out from under the constraint to find and reform again in another unconstrained space in which you can be funny and laugh at the expense of others and leave yourselves the feeling of time well spent in a community of friends and peers, rebels all.

true ethics grounded in the sense of the individual about what is right is undermined when articulated by rule and enforced by sanction. true ethical behavior is not a calculated fear response.

we are challenged in cyberspace to guide our behavior with norms and code. within formed cyber communities rule and saction can be made to work. bad actors can be banned. but that will not stop, indeed it will stimulate the excluded bad actors to form again a freer space they think beyond the jurisdiction of the rule.

at the panel discussion i moderated addressing the issue of hurtful anonymous speech i called a suggestion by michael fertig, ceo of reputation defender inc., “stupid” that we solve the problem by adopting a rule against lawyers and law students behaving badly and have bar associations enforce it. stupid because it misunderstands the problem, converting it to one of authority, be it school or bar association or “law”, doing something, anything, even something stupid in response to the problem so as not to be faulted for not trying; stupid because it deflects from the real challenge of teaching and modeling genuine respect.

still, “stupid” is a harsh word for a moderator to speak to a panelist. i shouldn’t have used it. sorry michael. but then i’d been informed just moments before the panel bagan that fertig had objected to the guys who run autoadmit/xoxohth being on the panel, which had resulted in them being disinvited!. (michael contests this.) moderating an unbalanced panel was the problem i was talking with weinberger about at berkman. got that? so anyway, i had my recorder still running from an earlier session because i forgot i had the hold button on when i hit the stop button to turn the recorder off. the result is like a blog, just what happens to come out. who knows. maybe it’s a format. alas you cannot hear.

please, help me with this question

Published by nesson on April 12, 2007 in berkmania and harvard. Closed

How are universities similar to and different from for-profit businesses and what are the implications for their rights as owners and users of intellectual property?

This question, asked to me by Jeremy Williams, S.V.P. and Deputy General Counsel Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. Jeremy has agreed to host a gathering in Los Angeles to discuss this question with me when I visit May 4, 2007.

Somewhere at the heart of this question are the core identities of university and for-profit corporation. what is the core identity of university? what of for-profit corporation?

start from the premise perhaps contestable that profit is at the core of for-profit corporate identity. staft from the premise that at the core of university identity is knowledge creation and dissemination.

reasoning from these premises who can explain to me why university should bear the burden of proof of fair use? do you see implications from this bearing on the request of RIAA for university acquiescence and cooperation in enabling settlement of copyright infringement claims against our students?

please, help me with these questions, and if not me than Jeremy.

:eon

hospital visit, thankfully brief, all ok

Published by nesson on February 27, 2007 in berkmania and Kevin Wallen. 2 Comments

hey berkman center, thanks for the singing telegram for Al the Alien

Kevin Wallen
to me

I feel as the though the creator is always talking to me. I woke up this morning feeling like I had to come into the office early and I did, as I turned on my computer I saw that Charley was online and I said hi, he said hay and I proceeded to tell him like I always do what was on my mind. He allowed me to pour my guts out and as usual I could feel the care in his words as they came back through the screen at me. Charley doesn’t believe in fixing a situation he believes in solving a problem and that is what I like about him his ability to come up with real solutions. After speaking about me he asked me if I could take some bad news from him I then replied that I was here to share with him the good and otherwise. It was then that he told me he was in the hospital and right away all my troubles seem so far away and all I can see now is my need to support him. He says his blood pressure is through the roof and also that he needs to run a series of test, ekg that kind of thing.

And as I am sitting here I feel a renewed sense of purpose, I feel as thought Charley and I are the only two who understands this thing we are trying to do. He sees me as his partner to make it happen and I see him as my partnere to make it happen.

Charley I want you to forget about all I said to you this morning and hear what I am sayin to you now. Destiny will remain as it is needed to strenghten and support SET. We have some projects on the table that will put us exactly where we want to be, the conference, the concert, and the tour in April are exactly what we need and we are going to make them happen. I will write a letter to richard requesting a larger sum of the money they have for me and that will loosen the noose a little. I want you to know that you need not worry about the Jamaica project we are going to make it happen. And come april 16, 17, 18 we will show the caribbean the power of SET. Think thoughts of seeing everything you have ever envisioned for the Jamaica project coming alive and know that it is going to happen.

You and I will take the massage of rehabilitation, restorative justice, and a country re constuting itself to the next level that’s our mission. Lets accomplish it.

I’ll be talking to you soon

SAVE the DATE !!!! – please

Published by nesson on February 22, 2007 in berkmania and harvard. Closed

Dear Dean Faust, President Designate of Harvard Law School

We ask you please to save the date on your calendar May 31-June 1, 2007 for Harvard’s Internet & Society Conference, IS2k7: What is the place of University in Cyberspace?

University and the Net are mutually foundational. The future of each depends upon the other. University’s role in the Net is to develop, propagate and perpetuate into the future its capacity for generating knowledge. University will then embody our fundamental norms and mission. By itself in the Net, University becomes the Net. University is Net. Net is University.

Honorary Chairman of our conference is Derek Curtis Bok. My co-chair is Charles Ogletree, founder of the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice. We will celebrate Sid Verba for leading our university into the digital age. Substantively, we will put University at the table with other lords of the cyber domain — lords of search, lords of content, scholarly and otherwise, the question on the table, how shall we relate? Who will run the store of knowledge? How, and to what end? Our thrust is toward open access. Our mode is balance and moderation of concern.

We would be entirely fulfilled to have your presence at our conference if only to meet and listen and add your welcome to our guests. We feel this to be an auspicious time for our university and for UNIVERSITY writ large. New president to choose new librarian. If the conference dates requested are for some reason not possible for you, we will move the date.

eon d of c
charles ogletree charles nesson
creative commons
charles & charles
cc
Internet & Society

🙂