Very important both in natural systems, human systems and technological systems:
Open pollination is pollination by insects, birds, wind, or other natural mechanisms. The seeds of open-pollinated plants will produce new generations of those plants; however, because breeding is uncontrolled and the pollen (male parent) source is unknown, open pollination results in plants that vary widely […]

Great article, brief, to the point, inspirational. Excellent candidate for print-out and distribution.
The modern concept of sovereignty and of nation-states began after the Thirty Years War, and with the Peace of Westphalia that ended that war in 1648. The Thirty Years War was primarily a war of churches and religions. The Peace of Westphalia ended […]

Interesting that a great many of the world’s currency systems are a letter with either one or two lines through it. Researching how that originated, but in the meantime, check out this list on XE.com and on Wikipedia of world currencies and their symbols.
{See also: monetary or currency union, generic currency symbol in typography, […]

I realized the other day: I have been talking so much about local currencies that I overlooked the obvious fact that the United States dollar *is* a local/community currency. Whatever it’s more sophisticated implications are, it is exactly what we have been describing all along in our conversations: a currency connected to a region, to […]

I like this term…
Post scarcity or post-scarcity describes a hypothetical form of economy or society, often explored in science fiction, in which things such as goods, services and information are free, or practically free. This would be due to an abundance of fundamental resources (matter, energy and intelligence), in conjunction with sophisticated automated systems capable […]

This is so important I’m posting it a second time:

That scene is a dramatic masterpiece, but is it just that? Is the essence of the message in it also true, or even partially? If the national governments are but a fiction to mask the identities of the real feudal rulers, then it doesn’t matter if […]

From AdSense help page:
Site-flavored search is an optional feature of AdSense for search that lets you customize your search results to be relevant for your site. When you use site-flavored search, our learning technology will flavor your search results to be more customized to your site’s themes and topics.
For example, if you have a site […]

HP/Windows Vista is all over the tv with ads. This one passes itself off as an advertisement for a new computer from HP, but it makes use of computer-assisted visualization techniques - the likes of which will be available to you in the near future. We’re talking free-floating graphics which you can control with gestural […]