My Youtube channel, youtube.com/vortexmaps, is about to surpass 100,000 views! Please take a look and subscribe (it's free!). Thank you.

BeyondEarth.org

Financing Space Settlement. I am building the website, & producing videos as part of my Ph.D. program. See videos from Yuri's night, including Buzz Aldrin, second man on the moon.

CHILDREN OF LIGHT MINISTRIES (CLM)

Shorko, Ethiopia Medical Clinic and School needs your help. I am working with Getachew, founder of the Shorko Clinic & School, re-building the website, producing videos, etc. Please help! Thank you.
http://theclm.org/

knitting with old hands

My hands are old

My eyesight is poor

My eyes see differently from any other eyes.

I am knitting as I sit

And talk with friends.

Each stitch is a prayer

I am knitting an afghan for someone I love.

As I knit

I ask my friends to help choose the colors.

Each person is a thread in the afghan of my life

I am knitting with old hands

New afghans.

I am beginning to see

Others can learn

Can see anew

By looking through these, my old eyes

==============

DanShaw.com

Beyond Earth

You always knew I was "far out", but... now look what I'm working on:
http://beyondearth.org/
the website, with the editor of the Beyond Earth book, Bob Krone, Ph.D., and the subject of Commercialization of Space for my own Ph.D.

InterNIC—Public Information Regarding Internet Domain Name Registration Services

http://www.internic.net/

There's only one good, official place to check to see if a domain name is available, and that is:
http://www.internic.net/whois.html

?Why?
Because, if you type a name directly into the address bar, and it comes back "404 --Not Found", that only tells you that it's not being hosted, it doesn't tell you whether someone already has the name, but NOT hosted.
AND, worse, I have heard instances (and unfortunately, this is all too common), when someone 'checks' a name at a third-party website, and then, before you know it, someone else has already snapped it up... apparently because the site is not secure, and unethical parties are watching it to see what names might be queried, and then buying and 'cyber-squatting', speculating that they can resell the names at a profit.
For more info on choosing a domain name, see the brief articles I wrote for my clients at :
http://danshaw.com/dan-shaw-writer.php
under "Website - Business Development", especially, "How To Make More Money on the Web."

Designing Websites: Web Browsers’ compatibility and incompatibility

You should be aware that the question of how things look in various browsers is a real minefield.
To wit: One must make certain choices which have certain consequences, there is no 'standard'. The strength of the web is that it's like wine that takes the shape of whatever 'glass' (platform: mac/pc & browser) into which it's poured. Always trade-offs. Certainly no point in trying to get them to look the same. Nobody really is looking at them both / all.
Not only that, but Internet Explorer by Microsoft doesn't really work quite right with the Microsoft Word 'save as html' function. AND, different versions of each browser behave differently.
So, aside from tearing out their hair, web designers generally shoot for a compromise between cost and 'agap' (as good as possible).
Chet is telling me that he's going to base his work on the version of Internet Explorer he's using, which is version 6. This is why you often will see websites that specify "Best viewed in xyz browser version #z".
May I suggest that either you keep using IE6, if that's what you're using, or, make sure you've updated your browser(s) to the latest version, AND please tell me-us:
? What browser versions are you using?
(Check your browser version under HELP...ABOUT.)

What To Do Now That Your Writing Has Been Proofread (& Possibly Edited)

If you are having you documents proofread you may find this set of instructions useful.

It is important to distinguish a “light” proofreading from a thorough editing and re-write. Generally I read a manuscript in at least 3 steps: first, I read “to receive”, uncritically, what the author is trying to say. Then I read to correct the obvious. Then I reread to look for “what’s missing,” and larger issues of structure and audience. In other words, I do the ‘easy’ work first.

Standard proofreader’s marks can be found here:

http://www.merriam-webster.com/mw/table/proofrea.htm

My marks fall into several categories. The majority will be obvious typos, spelling corrections, scanning artifacts, etc. Other marks will fall into the realm of ‘editorial license’, e.g., optional commas or inserting a period (.) or semicolon. Another type of mark will be a simple question mark (?) meaning that I don’t understand the sentence or the word.

You may want to make the edit inputs yourself; or you may mark the edits you approve, and allow me to make the edit inputs.

I suggest that you go thru the manuscript with three colors of high-lighters: use green for the edits you agree (or input); red for those you disagree (i.e., leave as-is), and yellow for the few you might want to discuss further.

Use “search and replace” in the correct sequence

If you want to make the edit inputs yourself, be sure to use search and replace. In MSWord (PC) these commands are available in the edit menu. Use search and replace for changes throughout the entire document, such as replacing two spaces with one space (repeat as necessary!), and changing a double-dash (--) into an em-dash (–) You can be sure to add leading and trailing spaces first, before replacing all double spaces with single spaces. Be sure to save a copy of your document especially before you do a global search-and-replace in case it has unexpected consequences (ctrl-Z “undo” works, too). You may type directly into the “search” and “replace with” boxes, but sometimes it’s easier to paste from the document. Some special characters are available, such as “^p” for “paragraph break” and “^s” for “space”. If the document has been improperly formatted to begin with, e.g., using spaces instead of indents or tabs, then you may need to proceed cautiously, and / or do reformatting.

In any case, ideally someone should then check to confirm the edits were done correctly and no new errors were introduced.

If you have any questions, please feel free to call me.

Aloha,

DanShaw.com

Prediction exchanges let traders buy and sell contracts on the likelihood of future events. Contracts are structured so the prices can be read as a percent likelihood of an event occurring. Studies of the prediction markets have shown they have an accuracy comparable to that of public opinion polls.
from an aticle titled:

Exchange bets favor Obama for Democratic nomination

Mon Mar 10, 2008 4:24pm EDT

http://www.reuters.com/article/bondsNews/idUSN1046846820080310

Service organizations

20-Feb-08

Lions SightFirst

http://www.lions-csfii.org/live/content/index.shtml

Lions have launched Campaign SightFirst II to raise at least US$150 million to continue and expand the extraordinary work of SightFirst, Lions' worldwide program to combat preventable blindness.

Lions

http://www.lionsclubs.org/EN/index.shtml

Lions Club Innternational

Lions Club of West Seattle
Jack Hanning, 932-6000

Kiwanis

http://kiwanis.org/

Kiwanians are revitalizing neighborhoods, organizing youth-sports programs, tutoring, building playgrounds, and performing countless other projects to help children and communities.

Kiwanis Club of West Seattle
http://www.westseattle.com/bus/KiwanisClubWestSeattle

4727 44th Ave SW
Seattle, WA • 98116

Warren Lawless, 938-8032

Masons

Alki Masonic Lodge
4736 40th Ave. S.W.

938-3554

VFW

3601 SW Alaska St • Seattle, Washington 98126

206) 935-4352

http://www.vfw.org

Moose Lodge

24506 SE 448th St
Enumclaw, WA 98022 map
district: Enumclaw
360.825.4873

Nile Shriners

(425) 774-9611

6601 24th Ave S, Seattle, WA 98108

West Seattle Eagles F.O.E. 2643

4426 California Ave SW, Seattle, WA 98126 (206) 938-4426

Eagles Fraternal Order of Seattle Aerie

206) 762-5214

http://www.foe.com

American Legion

206) 932-9696

Elks Lodge

206-282-9292 • 301 Queen Anne Ave N, Seattle,WA

West Seattle Rotary Salty's on Alki (1936 Harbor Ave. S.W.) We meet Tuesdays at noon. Interested new members and guests are always welcome. Please contact the club secretary Sattler91@comcast.net

Knights of Columbus

http://www.kofc-wa.org/

oddfellows

Ballard Alki Lodge No. 170
Ballard (Seattle)
http://www.ioofwa.org/

Meets: 2nd & 4th Thursday
At: 7:30 PM
Odd Fellows Hall
1706 N.W. Market Street

Noble Grand: Robert Duniway
Secretary: Nora Carria
1706 NW Market St
Seattle, WA 98107-5224

Rotary International

http://rotary.org/en/Pages/ridefault.aspx

Rotary International is the world's first service club organization. Its more than 1.2 million members volunteer their time and talent to further the Rotary motto, Service Above Self.

Ukraine Orphan Outreach

http://ukraineorphans.org/

Ukraine Orphan Outreach (UOO) is a non-profit organization in Northern Colorado formed by adoptive parents and others with concern for the future of orphaned Ukrainian children

General Federation of Women's Clubs - West Seattle
Pat Spence, 937-5333

Seva

http://www.seva.org/site/PageServer

For nearly 30 years, Seva has served people around the world who are struggling for health, cultural survival and sustainable communities.

Kiva

http://www.kiva.org/

Lend to a specific entrepreneur in the developing world. Kiva connects $25 donors together to provide micro-loans.

Gutla Dora Baboo:

Andra Pradesh, India

Orphans, elderly, needs bible, eye-glasses, slippers

heartolympics@gmail.com

Doug Bridges:

orphans in Ukraine

orphanpower@gmail.com

7502 56^th Av Court NW, Gig Harbor, WA 98335 USA

Subscribe to my blog with iTunes!
I used
http://feeds.feedburner.com/
(which Google just purchased; so it will likely continue to be better integrated with blogger.com, also a Google service) .
Click on the image in the previous post, or go to my feedburner site
http://feeds.feedburner.com/DanShaw
and I'll begin podcasting audio!
-Dan

Subscribe in a reader

Your Opinions?? Harvesting the Collective Wisdom of Vortex Researchers

How would I go about asking the right questions of vortex researchers? Where can I find an online, free, quick way of setting up a poll-survey for various purposes? I know I could use filemaker, but that will take a fair amount of programming, a steep learning curve for me.

? Please, tell me where can I go to put together simple online surveys?

Thank you!

-Dan

Map-Art Activities; & Lesson Plans for Students

Professor E.,

My map activities are more like games and puzzles, for example, the "Map Scavenger Hunt," where students-others look for specific items (symbols, etc.) on the collection of maps, and then may answer questions, fill in the blanks, unscramble the answer to a final question etc. I usually put them together according to a specific theme, e.g. rivers, Native Americans, Spanish language and culture, rivers, etc. I will post an example of those.

This is an old lesson plan that I did NOT prepare: I may have sent you a link to multiple webpages, but this is a 20-page Adobe .pdf document, maybe more convenient. Contact me for full-resolution images.

http://www.vortexmaps.com/pdfs/geometry-geography-lesson.pdf

-Dan

Pushkin Poetry, in Russian, in Engish & Audio! Yeah!

http://max.mmlc.northwestern.edu/~mdenner/Demo/poetpage/pushkin.html

• Website - Business Development

I wrote these articles to provide some 'homework' for my clients. I hope you'll find them useful:

• Top Ways to Make More Money on the Web / Comprehensive website analysis / How much will it cost? / Comprehensive website analysis and recommendations / Most Essential Computer Security: Do this first / Web Site Submissions / What kind of internet business are you? / How to Get Your Website Built for Cheap / Knowing what to ask for / Make changes to your site yourself / Website Development Strategy Before Marketing / Best Practices Agreement between Web Services Provider & Client 20 pages (Adobe .pdf)

• Comparing Potential Profitability (MSWord .doc)

iTunes U at iTunes Store for free University Lectures

Professor Arthur Ellis wrote:

if you connect with Apple’s I Tunes U, you can listen to some of my lectures on American education, titled, “American Education: Past and Present.”

Dan replies:

Thank you, Professor!

Now I can listen to you on my iPod!

For future reference:

Go to this address:

http://www.apple.com/education/itunesu/

scroll to “visit iTunes U at the iTunes store”

then navigate: Seattle Pacific University > Course Lectures > categories: American Education

1-01 Four Broadly Accepted Goals of 1.mp3

1-02 Eastern Educational Thought.mp3

1-03 The Emergence of Western Educat.mp3

1-04 Ideas in European Education.mp3

1-05 Horace Mann.mp3

1-06 Moral Education for the Young_.mp3

1-07 Basic Assumptions of Essentiali.mp3

1-08 What Knowledge is of Most Worth.mp3

1-09 Court Decisions that have Influ.mp3

1-10 Theory of Human Interest.mp3

looks like about 4 hours total.

Dear Roget,

Thank you for your profound contribution to human knowledge. Regrettably, too few people use the Thesaurus, and even fewer use it to the smallest fraction of its potential. The Thesaurus is as important an aide to learning a language as is a dictionary, especially learning a second language. For years, Robert J. Ross has been teaching English as a second language, and in 1995 he published Thinking in English (TIE)

http://ashlandcreativeoutlet.com/harmoniccode

an exercise book for Chinese speakers, based on Roget’s Thesaurus.

Using the Thesaurus and the TIE book, students learn subtleties of the English language that are impossible without the Thesaurus exercises. Students learn word relationships, such as synonyms, homonyms, and homophones; words that are unique in English and words unique in their native language; connotation, etymology and word forms (noun, verb, tense, and adjective forms) of single words; words for things and their attributes (e.g., sea, salt, water…); and tools and their actions-functions (e.g., saw, cut).

A relatively brief guide to word choice, and to Roget’s Thesaurus, would spur a new flurry of adjunct sales.

The Thesaurus Guide would be a product readily localizable for languages other than English, however, it would be supremely useful also to native speakers of English around the world. Reprinting and reformatting Robert J. Ross’ Teach in English would make English speakers want editions and Thesauri for the languages they are learning. I wish I had the equivalent book for Russian; I’ll have to write it myself.

Robert recommends these books, which I’ll review shortly:

Walk, Amble, Stroll: Vocabulary Building Through Domains (Level 1) by Kathryn Trump, Sherry Trechter, and Dee Ann Holisky (Paperback - Mar 8, 1995)

Spanish for Reading: A Self-Instructional Course by Fabiola Franco and Karl C. Sandberg (Paperback - Mar 1, 1998)

Amazon Kindle: The Astronauts’ and Cosmonauts Library on the ISS
27-Jan-08
© DanShaw.com

Abstract: Suggests promoting WNRF and spiritual fiction by instigating a Kindle (electronic book) be sent to the International Space Station, and other related parties.

I suggest that Amazon donate 4 (or 5) of the devices, all identically loaded up with the astronauts’ and cosmonauts’ favorite books.

? What are the astronauts’ and cosmonauts’ favorite books?
I could begin making a list, and contacting astronauts whose reading favorites are not already public record.

Two would go into space, one to stay, and one to return, autographed by the astronauts and cosmonauts, to be auctioned off, with the proceeds to benefit Space Academy.

One Kindle would reside at the Space Academy.

Another would be donated to the Smithsonian Institution, to be placed either in the Air and Science Museum, or in the Publishing Technology exhibit.

One of the Kindle’s would go to WNRF-us-me for publicity, to manage for public relations-events and marketing purposes, a kind of traveling exhibition.

IONS, astronaut Edgar Mitchell’s Institute of Noetic Sciences, is a publisher and he-they would doubtless be interested in such a project.

Amazon’s Jeff Bezos would get product placement that is literally ‘out of this world’.

NASA may be interested in publishing a book based on this idea.

Action Steps:
Research astronauts’ favorite books.

Keywords:
Space; science fiction; NASA

Length: Approximately # words

Author:
http://danshaw.com/
danshaw19@gmail.com

URL: http://earthgrid.blogspot.com

Additive Media Model

PhD-26jan08-7th

© DanShaw.com

Abstract: Explication each sensory stimulus of communication, singly and agglutinatively, gives several geometric impressions and avenues for further development of new models.

Starting from Storytelling

For some time I have been considering building up a model of media from the spoken word, story-telling around a fire, the primal form of communication. As we add on technologies, including actors, costumes, sets, sound effects, lighting, camera, etc., certain possibilities increase. I have often thought this “additive” process would make an interesting basis for a presentation, a sort of “Broadway show” beginning with a storyteller, then adding in elements singly.

? What would be the sequence of such an additive process?

The Five-fold Sensorial Model

Considering all the five senses in such a process, the chart become multivariate and highly complex. One could alternatively begin with a film, and reduce elements, creating a subtractive theory. This would give us one axis of a multidimensional concept,

silence – Sound

dark (shadow) - Light

Black & white – color

Stillness – motion

Actors – animation

Post-production

Metadata

Subtitles

Language tracks

Commentary

Along the other axis of the matrix we now have various media and “formats”:

Face to face silent & stillness

Face to face sound & still (or dark, no visual cues)

Face to face sound and motion

Etc.

In the intersections of the stimulus column with the media column, we see how different channels of communication and media compare relative to their synesthetic and full-kinesthetic content.

Like electricity, it may geometrically spawn many new innovations, but by definition, a new technology does just one new thing. That new thing may be telephone (voice only) or “movies” (light-motion only) until they converge, e.g. as “talkies”.

Now we can see that various technologies are highly constrained to just one channel of communication, e.g., vocal for phones, verbal for text messages, etc. In other words, communication technologies and technologies in general are naturally somewhat frustrating.

? What would be a multiplicative model of communication?

Another possible chart might start: [Stimulus – perception]

Action Steps:

Keywords:

Mathematics; linguistics; Additive;

Length: Approximately # words

Author:

http://danshaw.com/

danshaw19@gmail.com

URL: http://earthgrid.blogspot.com

Revised: