Friday, September 15, 2006
Systemic Business : This is the website of the Systemic Business Community - this particular page listing - Publications by Date, including such pieces as:
'Networking Your Knowledge Workers: Collaborative Communities of Mobile Business Professionals'
'Enabling Collective Knowledge Work through the Design of Mediating Spaces'
and "Transformation of Corporations: Towards Appreciative Service Systems"
'Networking Your Knowledge Workers: Collaborative Communities of Mobile Business Professionals'
'Enabling Collective Knowledge Work through the Design of Mediating Spaces'
and "Transformation of Corporations: Towards Appreciative Service Systems"
Friday, September 08, 2006
Guardian Unlimited Technology | Technology | Gamesblog: Mother of God! Icons are making virtual visits: "Mother of God! Icons are making virtual visits
File under I TOLD YOU SO. In an article in Foresight a few years ago, about Fortean trends, I discussed the idea of the haunted (should have been enchanted) Internet as a site for anomalous apparitions. And here goes, from today's Guardian:
Aleks Krotoski
Thursday September 7, 2006
The Guardian
Aleks Krotoski writes:
"When I was seven, a group of kids in Medjugorje, Bosnia-Herzegovina, claimed that they were being visited by the Virgin Mary. I loved a good paranormal tale. I read everything I could on the subject and wondered why the Mother of God wasn't appearing to me. After all, I ate all my vegetables. I kept the backtalk to a minimum. I didn't covet my neighbour's wife. I didn't even know what that meant.
Despite falling from my Catholic pulpit, I've remained fascinated by the world of Marian apparitions. But things have changed. Medjugorje, once a quiet mountain town, is now chokka with hostelries and relic-sellers. Czestochowa in Poland, the site of a tearful painting of the Black Madonna, is in the Rough Guide as a destination for gap year students. And if you need vials of holy water, may I recommend a trip to Lourdes?
All this commercial fallout appears to have deterred the holy family from including the physical plane in their recent holiday plans. Apart from a few sightings of Jesus on loaves of bread, the apparition scene has been quiet. But it seems the celestial deities were just trying to figure out how best to position themselves in this new, modern world.
In the 21st century, the place to make a personal appearance is cyberspace. And, proving she's as hip as Gorillaz, Duran Duran and the governor of Virginia, the Virgin Mary has joined in the party. Last week, she turned up on a piece of virtual wood 'rezzed' (created, if you're not up with the lingo) by Resident Kalie Saluko in online community Second Life.
'... my religious beliefs (or lack thereof) changed drastically today while building a pre-fab in S[econd] L[ife],' explains Saluko in the description of the digital icon on the classifieds site SLExchange. 'Upon rezzing a standard cube, suddenly and to my astonishment, what appeared to be the image of the Virgin Mary appeared on side 0! Clear as day on a .5x.5x.5 cube you can see the mother of Jesus!'
And she's right. If you stare at the computer-generated grains, you can see the holy mother clear as day. Better still, Saluko is willing to give you this piece of religious idolatry for only $100 of real money. It truly is a small price to pay.
As far as I can tell, from over two minutes of searching, no major religious figure has ever made a binary appearance before. News of this miraculous event has ripped through the internet, and based upon this success, I anticipate many more religious icons will follow. I'm keeping my eyes peeled: 31 years of brussels sprouts consumption will not have been in vain."
File under I TOLD YOU SO. In an article in Foresight a few years ago, about Fortean trends, I discussed the idea of the haunted (should have been enchanted) Internet as a site for anomalous apparitions. And here goes, from today's Guardian:
Aleks Krotoski
Thursday September 7, 2006
The Guardian
Aleks Krotoski writes:
"When I was seven, a group of kids in Medjugorje, Bosnia-Herzegovina, claimed that they were being visited by the Virgin Mary. I loved a good paranormal tale. I read everything I could on the subject and wondered why the Mother of God wasn't appearing to me. After all, I ate all my vegetables. I kept the backtalk to a minimum. I didn't covet my neighbour's wife. I didn't even know what that meant.
Despite falling from my Catholic pulpit, I've remained fascinated by the world of Marian apparitions. But things have changed. Medjugorje, once a quiet mountain town, is now chokka with hostelries and relic-sellers. Czestochowa in Poland, the site of a tearful painting of the Black Madonna, is in the Rough Guide as a destination for gap year students. And if you need vials of holy water, may I recommend a trip to Lourdes?
All this commercial fallout appears to have deterred the holy family from including the physical plane in their recent holiday plans. Apart from a few sightings of Jesus on loaves of bread, the apparition scene has been quiet. But it seems the celestial deities were just trying to figure out how best to position themselves in this new, modern world.
In the 21st century, the place to make a personal appearance is cyberspace. And, proving she's as hip as Gorillaz, Duran Duran and the governor of Virginia, the Virgin Mary has joined in the party. Last week, she turned up on a piece of virtual wood 'rezzed' (created, if you're not up with the lingo) by Resident Kalie Saluko in online community Second Life.
'... my religious beliefs (or lack thereof) changed drastically today while building a pre-fab in S[econd] L[ife],' explains Saluko in the description of the digital icon on the classifieds site SLExchange. 'Upon rezzing a standard cube, suddenly and to my astonishment, what appeared to be the image of the Virgin Mary appeared on side 0! Clear as day on a .5x.5x.5 cube you can see the mother of Jesus!'
And she's right. If you stare at the computer-generated grains, you can see the holy mother clear as day. Better still, Saluko is willing to give you this piece of religious idolatry for only $100 of real money. It truly is a small price to pay.
As far as I can tell, from over two minutes of searching, no major religious figure has ever made a binary appearance before. News of this miraculous event has ripped through the internet, and based upon this success, I anticipate many more religious icons will follow. I'm keeping my eyes peeled: 31 years of brussels sprouts consumption will not have been in vain."
