Great email about what is interesting about Egypt from Doc's sister Jill

Amplify’d from blogs.law.harvard.edu

The voice heard in the square in Cairo and in the streets of Egypt did not rise up overnight or out of thin air.  That voice that has been unheard because it was a voice shouting in a vacuum.  But a vacuum cannot exist in cyberspace. Traditionally in revolutions the key is to take over the one-to-many vehicles of mass communication, radio and TV.  But this time they were not taken over, they were ignored.  They weren’t needed because it was the masses that were communicating. So now we are in a new age, an age of leadership and governments being held accountable to the voice of the governed.  And in this new age I am optimistic for Egypt as well as other oppressed people.  I hope every autocrat and dictator is hearing footsteps in the dark.  And I hope our government is paying close attention — people have voices and, no matter how disenfranchised, they have just learned a new way to make them heard. Read more at blogs.law.harvard.edu

Authoritarians everywhere, and I mean everywhere, ought to be thoughtful ...

Amplify’d from www.guardian.co.uk

"For 18 days we have withstood teargas, rubber bullets, live ammunition, Molotov cocktails, thugs on horseback, the scepticism and fear of our loved ones, and the worst sort of ambivalence from an international community that claims to care about democracy," said Karim Medhat Ennarah, a protester with tears in his eyes. "But we held our ground. We did it. Read more at www.guardian.co.uk

Amplify’d from gigaom.com

the point is not that social media tools like Twitter and Facebook cause revolutions in any real sense. What they are very good at doing, however, is connecting people in very simple ways, and making those connections in a very fast and widely-distributed manner. This is the power of a networked society and of cheap, real-time communication networks. Read more at gigaom.com

Amplify’d from www.marco.org

Searching Google is now like asking a question in a crowded flea market of hungry, desperate, sleazy salesmen who all claim to have the answer to every question you ask. Read more at www.marco.org

Shame the article doesn't refer to Jon Kabat-Zinn, the grand daddy of mindfulness, but interesting nonetheless.

Amplify’d from www.guardian.co.uk

"Mindfulness meditation" was pioneered in the United States during the 1970s as a tool for alleviating stress and is practised, among others, by Meg Ryan and Goldie Hawn, who acts as an advocate for the technique. Drawing on ancient Buddhist principles to combat mental suffering, the technique encourages practitioners to slow down, "inhabit the moment" and become more accepting of their feelings. According to Ryan, "by simply refocusing our awareness, we reshape our experience". Although initially regarded with scepticism by mainstream psychologists, the practice has gained respectability thanks to research indicating its clinical effectiveness. A new study in the American journal Archives of General Psychiatry found that the mindfulness technique was as effective as the use of anti-depressants among a controlled group in remission from major depression. Read more at www.guardian.co.uk

Amplify’d from www.telegraph.co.uk

The British founder of the world's most influential film websites, the Internet Movie Database (IMBb.com), still takes his wife to the cinema every week despite being a powerful force in Hollywood. Read more at www.telegraph.co.uk

Amplify’d from www.guardian.co.uk

#MooreandMe: the hashtag that roared Read more at www.guardian.co.uk

Amplify’d from www.nytimes.com

Balancing on a giant rubber ball in a broadcast studio and control room carved out of a cottage in Petaluma, Calif., Leo Laporte is an unlikely media mogul. Enlarge This Image Jim Wilson/The New York Times Leo Laporte plans to start a morning show this spring to compete with drive-time radio broadcasters. From that little town in California wine country, he runs his empire, a podcasting network, TWIT. For 30 hours each week, he and the other hosts on his network talk about technology — topics like the best e-book reader or how to get rid of a computer virus — for shows that he gives away online. Read more at www.nytimes.com

Amplify’d from www.mysociety.org

The most scary thing about the Internet for your government is not pedophiles, terrorists or viruses, whatever you may have read in the papers. It is the danger of your administration being silently obsoleted by the lightening pace at which the Internet changes expectations. Read more at www.mysociety.org

Amplify’d from www.guardian.co.uk

I have lost count of the politicians and opinion formers of an authoritarian bent warning of the dreadful damage done by the WikiLeaks dump of diplomatic cables, and in the very next breath dismissing the content as frivolous tittle-tattle. To seek simultaneous advantage from opposing arguments is not a new gambit, but to be wrong in both is quite an achievement. Read more at www.guardian.co.uk