Indra’s Catch
Indra’s Net Catch
The Very Best Pisces of the Virtual Sea! Compiled by Demogoras the Navigator.
The venerable WorldWatch Institute has issued this year’s assessment of our planet and its people, devoted to Transforming Cultures with articles on preserving traditional wisdom, teaching young children about sustainability and other topics centered on transforming the culture of consumerism into one of sustainability. Individual chapters can be downloaded free: State of the World 2010
Concerned about copyright? Check out the on-line books by Larry Lessig (below) and James Boyle (Duke Law). Boyles web page features (among other books) “Bound By Law” a copyright Comic!
A new conservation initiative in the western U.S. is one of the sponsors of National Landscape Conservation System Act, already passed by the Senate. Check out the Conservation System Alliance!
Just finished reading Founding Faith by Steven Waldman. An excellent review of the birth of religious freedom in our country. Steve has posted many of the key documents at: www.beliefnet.com and provide additional links to the papers of the founding fathers, including:
Documents from the Continental Congress and the Constitutional Convention, 1774-1789
The Thomas Jefferson Papers
Texts by or to Thomas Jefferson
The James Madison Papers
Journals of the Continental Congress
Letters of Delegates to Congress 1774-1789
The Papers of George Washington
The Papers of Benjamin Franklin
Adams Family Papers
Founders’ Constitution
Avalon Project – 18th Century Documents : 1700 – 1799
A Must Read for Everyone!
I recently discovered the Alliance for Wild Ethics website, founded by (among others) David Abram who wrote The Spell of the Sensuous, a book which profoundly influenced my perspective on place, the past, and aboriginal cultures. The AWE site hosts a dozen of Dave’s newer essays on deep ecology, the importance of oral tradition and storytelling, magical nature, and the lessons we must learn from the squirrel, the blackbird and the rainstorm. Read the essays at The Alliance for Wild Ethics
Khufu Revealed!
Explore Jean-Pierre Houdin’s new theory of how the Great Pyramid was build—from the inside-out!
This site requires a high-end graphics computer and download of a new 3D viewer – all free. Stunning 3D graphics of the pyramid and its context, even workers hauling blocks of granite.
Virtual Heritage Links
The growing popularity of Web 2.0 and Virtual Worlds like Second Life are just a part of the presence of virtual reality on the Net. Many museums and preservation agencies, especially in Europe and Australia are developing sophisticated heritage interpretation web sites to present, among other things, their cultural and architectural heritage. The magazine Archaeology recently profiled the field. Check their on-line article:
Why do Virtual Heritage? Archaeology, March 2008
Some of the best and most successful virtual heritage projects include:
Institute for Advanced Technology in the Humanities, University of Virginia
Rome Reborn 1.0
(see Resources > Links for more examples)
Virtual Theater District of Pompeii
Center for Virtual Reality and Visualization
Hawara Labyrinth Pyramid Complex and The Roman Period Cemeteries
Chaco Canyon’s Chetro Ketl Kiva
Preceramic Society in the Central Andean Highlands
Virtual Stonehenge or at English Heritage
The Cave of Chauvet-Pont-d’Arc
Virtual Worlds in Archaeology Initiative
Stone Pages • Web guide to Megalithic Europe
Akrotiri — The Thera Foundation
GIS and Remote Sensing for Archaeology: Burgundy, France
Clickable Map of the Roman Forum
WebMuseum: Les très riches heures du Duc de Berry
The farmer-knights’ history in year 1000, Excavations at Colletière
Sagalassos Archaeological Research Project
Peru – Virtual Tours of Machu Picchu – Peru Tours – Inca Trail
Virtual Gettysburg-The Ultimate Battlefield Tour
Mashantucket Museum and Research Center
SDNHM: Dead Sea Scrolls 2007 Exhibition – Qumran Visualization Project
Museums: Virtual Library museums pages
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visit Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet & Society to learn about the future of the internet.
“The Berkman Center’s mission is to explore and understand cyberspace; to study its development, dynamics, norms, and standards; and to assess the need or lack thereof for laws and sanctions.”
check out their recommended reading section for free online pubs, including the works of Lawrence Lessig
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American History Buffs!
a wealth of free on-line National Park Service reports, many in PDF format:
http://www.nps.gov/history/history/books-title.htm
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Reprise: Updated Selections From The First Indras (originally in the NMSU-A Today)
Chemistry Humor
Tired of the same old dry, dull, third-hand history textbooks? Get Real! Go to the primary sources at:
The Avalon Project at the Yale Law School
ibiblio.org. One of the largest “collections of collections” on the Internet, a collaboration of the Center for the Public Domain and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, includes software, music, literature, art, history, science, politics, and cultural studies.
American Journeys of Exploration
Documenting the American South
Texts and Documents Hanover College
Electronic History Text Collections
National Center for Public Policy Research Archive
New Info
The Internet Archive, a non-profit project, emulates the ancient library at Alexandria and hopes to collect and build links to all the free text, video, audio, and graphic archives now and in the future. For example, I found a link to the first 30+ volumes of New Mexico Historical Review spanning 1926 to 1964, an essential reference in southwestern history.
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Last year marks the 30th anniversary of the launch of two Voyager spacecraft. Both are still functioning and transmitting data home to us. Voyager also is the first serious attempt to communicate with extraterrestial intelligence through a gold record attached that contains pictures, greetings, earth sounds and music: Jack Evans High Rolls house and Chuck Berry’s Johnnie B Good. The mission golden record homepage at NASA:http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/spacecraft/goldenrec.html.
The Planetary Society has a wealth of info on our stellar neighborhood and an excellent historical article on Voyager: http://www.planetary.org/news/2007/0821_Voyager_Celebrates_Thirty_Years_in.html.
Several other sites provide the Voyager record images and music:
Voyager Golden Record
The Voyager Spacecraft Interstellar Record
Voyager’s Greetings to the Universe
The NMSUA Library also has the book on Voyager and the golden record: Murmers of Earth, Sagan, et al.: TL789.8.U6 V685 1979
