We gave a presentation at Web2Open, part of Web 2.0 Expo Berlin. An abstract from the presentation is available here:

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All available presentations are published on http://www.slideshare.net/tag/web2expoberlin

http://www.mypacis.eu is localised for English, German, Danish, Italian and Russian speakers. French, Spanish and all the other European languages should be available by April 2008. MyPacis.eu team is working on integrating into the personal messages tool an automatic translation tool, which will allow users with no common language to communicate with each other. “While we are aware of the current limitations of automatic translations” says Frank, community leader for this European social network, “they can be a starting point towards connecting Europeans. We aim to offer a range of solutions to promote multilingualism and communication, from localization of the site, to automatic translations to the use of auxiliary languages as Esperanto”.

After years of social networks used only for entertainment, it was time for mainstream social networking to come of age with a social agenda. Several benefits make this European Social Network unique: it is the only multilingual social networking site which aims to bring together both agents of change and recreational users of social networks, to foster dialogue and peace; it has a social agenda, it has been built to contribute to a better society and not to sell eyeballs to advertisers; it makes a honest effort to make easier and more effective communications among Europeans; it mixes the recreational side of Web 2.0, with funny videos etc, with the opportunity to be informed citizens. Users can register as female, male, NGO or social enterpreneur.

“Previous generations moved from the Guthemberg Galaxy to the Global Village, and now from there we are going to make the P2P Continent prosper,” says Frank. “We guess this expression would have been liked by Marshall McLuhan, famous Canadian communications theorist; he was using toponyms, such as Guthemberg Galaxy to Global Village, to identify particular periods in the history of communication. Also, for playing with words in his ‘the media is the massage’ (instead of message, also readable as mass age). The “P2P Continent” sounds like a reasonable label for our age, with P2P generated content.”

Younger generations are the ones who will affected the most by changes in Europe, and a social network is a media effective to reach them, and still accessible to more mature users. “We can now talk about a Generation-E(urope), made by young Europeans for whom a peaceful Europe is not a goal to achieve or a recent accomplishment, but the only reality they saw since they were born,” says Frank. “Luckily, they have no first-hand experience of Cold War, Communism or conflict in their home countries. Their age span varies based on their country’s accession to European Union. Our services are designed to serve all Europeans, but also flexible to meet the expectations of Generation-E.”

“To take full advantage of Web 2.0 opportunities and limit weaknesses, we need to be aware both of the potential and limitations, benefits and risks they carry,” continues Frank. “One risk is that information recorded in older media may have limited reach on wide audiences. For this reason, it is important for agents of change to translate and localize older media they consider important into Web 2.0, to take the good from the past and avoid making old mistakes again. In same case, the best way to preserve memory is to keep it in the form which was originally meant to be, just using technological means to transfer old content into new media, in some case to maintain the original message it will be necessary to redesign its whole form.”

Users on MyPacis.eu can discuss European enlargement, European Neighbourhood and other policies; relax chatting and exchanging private messages with each other; publish pictures, write in their blogs, create events; get free Italian lessons offered on http://www.mypacis.eu/profile.php?ID=22 Users are invited to volunteer to localize the social network in their own language, and to donate scripts to make the site even more useful. Volunteers play an important role in the growth of this European social network. Also, MyPacis team publishes a blog about best Web 2.0 tools blog on http://blog.mypacis.com/

About MyPacis.eu
http://www.mypacis.eu is a European Social Network with a social agenda: promoting peace by linking Europeans together. It is an open source, integrated and multilingual social network, developed using Web 2.0 tools with a European prospective. It is available in as Social Network in English, German Social Network, Italian Social Network, Russian Social Network, with new languages to be released soon.

Tags: Social Media, European Social Network, MyPacis.eu,  Web 2.0 in Europe, European Neighbourhood Policy, European enlargement, peace, sustainable development, co-operation, enlargement, European Social Networks, Neogen.ro, Grono.net, IWIW.HU, Orkut, Web 2.0 Europe, European web 2.0, peace Europe, European union, European Neighbourhood Policy, Ukraine, Polska, Poland, Hungary, Estonia, European Social Network. Algeria, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Egypt, Georgia, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Moldova, Morocco, the Palestinian Authority, Syria, Tunisia, Ukraine

HybridLife.net is a social network to connect Second Life residents. It is also a platform for social experiments

HybridLife.net social network is free and not affiliated with Linden Lab; it is localized in English, Danish, German, Italian and Russian, with new languages coming soon and automatic translations in other 30 languages. In addition to its Web 2.0 tools, HybridLife.net is also a platform for social experiments open to Second Life residents. The developers of the site are currently refining its variables and point system, and you are welcome to contact them to provide your feedback on the project. To summarize these social experiments: Second Life avatars can join a “tribe” (each tribe is made by ten citizens) by paying an entry fee or for free as a sponsored entrant. The entry/sponsorship fees are pooled together and awarded to winners, after an administrative fee has been deducted. Also, a share of general sponsorships revenues are offered to winners, to make the prize more attractive.

As a social experiments, and loyal to the philosopy on which Second Life has been built, this is not a one dimension game with one unique final goal. Similar to our first life, there are different categories of “winners”: top individuals, top gild, top tribe, etc. Point are awarded based on decision taken by players (as tribes and individuals) and experiment-specific objects owned by partecipants. Decision are expressed by votes.

For example, if a tribe is an open society, all its members gets a percentage increase in their points. So, that does not change how they rank against eachother, but it changes how they rank compared to other tribes. At the same time, being an open society means a higher percentage of consensus need to be achieved before taking decisions. Another example: once a gild achieve a certain number of members (its “critical mass”), all members get a percentage increase in their points. SL residents are motivated to take part in these social experiments, not only with financial rewards, but also for the desire to make a difference by taking part in a social event which can be studied and reported in the press etc.

This Second Life avatars social network is powered by European Social Network MyPacis.eu. MyPacis.eu is a Social Network with a social agenda: promoting peace by linking Europeans together and making easier to learn new common languages. It is an open source, integrated and multilingual social network, developed using Web 2.0 tools.

Radar Networks Founder and CEO Nova Spivack calls Yahoo the leader of Web 1.0 and Google the leader of Web 2.0. He says it is unclear who will be the leader of Web 3.0 but Twine is a “first step.”

Solution providers warn that they are skeptical of such claims and careful to make sure their clients are not burned by bloated Web 3.0 claims.

Tyler Dikman, the CEO of Cooltronics, a Tampa, Fla. solution provider and the vice president of business strategy for FlickIM, a Berkeley Calif. communications platform vendor, said he is skeptical about Web 3.0 claims from Radar.

“This sounds like a Web 3.0 Alpha launch,” said Dikman of the Radar claims. “I think it’s pretty gutsy for a company to call themselves a Web 3.0 company when they haven’t proven themselves in the marketplace yet. Their concept is absolutely headed in the right direction, but I am skeptical about the technology until they can prove me wrong.”

“It’s all well and good for the industry to talk about and understand Web 3.0 technologies, but if the general public is unable to comprehend or utilize the technology it is worthless,” he said. “The public as a whole are just starting to embrace Web 2.0. Companies like Radar have to make sure their targeted demographic can keep up with the technology they are putting out.”

Although Radar and others are just starting to bring Web 3.0 technologies to market, the semantic Web has long been proclaimed as the next great frontier by World Wide Web inventor Tim Berners Lee.

Full article on http://www.crn.com/software/202404824

First, Adam Selipsky of Amazon spent 30 minutes touting Amazon Web Services, the back-end services that the bookseller first developed for its own operations and now pitches to small and medium-sized business. I could have been back in the days of client-server as Selipsky droned on about retail and payment systems, reliability, support–all the things near and dear to an IT manager. Then he had a spokesman for Zillow.com, the real estate site, come on and talk about how Amazon Web Services had made it easier for Zillow to operate. This was what we used to call the “reference client testimonial” in the old days. Maybe the only departure from a 1990s presentation was the slightly irreverent slogan, “We Make Muck So You Don’t Have To.”

The back-to-the-enterprise theme continued when we moved into the Launchpad segment of the conference, where six finalists vied for “Best in Show.” Spiceworks’ first slide trumpeted “160,000 IT professionals can’t be wrong” as the company touted its network monitor capability, IT asset management, and IT help desk services. Two of the other finalists also touched on those essential-but-less-than-exciting services that distinguished the old IT world. ClickForensics pitched a product to detect click fraud and CleverSet pitched its personalization product, which promises to use all available data and the latest algorithms to make sure that the ads and suggestions served up to the web surfer are the most suitable. Not surprisingly, CleverSet’s immediate practicality won it “Best in Show” and “Most Likely to Exit First,” from the audience, who voted in typical high-tech fashion by clapping.

Full article on http://www.redherring.com/blog/jdreyfuss_redherring?bid=23008

Google (NSDQ: GOOG) and Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) are intensely focused on building 3-D maps of the world and adding social elements on top of their mapping services, executives said Friday at the Web 2.0 Summit.During a panel discussion at the San Francisco conference, Erik Jorgensen, general manager of Live Search at Microsoft, said the software maker is spending “hundreds of millions of dollars” to build a 3-D replication of the world that would become the platform for data overlays to provide people with useful information on geographical locations.

Microsoft this week launched an upgrade of its Live Search service, which offers through the Virtual Earth platform 3-D imagery of nearly 200 U.S. cities and other areas covering 80% of the nation’s population. As part of the upgrade, people using Live Search Maps can create and share their own 3-D models of buildings through an alliance with Dassault Systemes.

Full story on http://www.informationweek.com/news/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=202404930

MySpace CEO Chris DeWolfe and News Corp. chairman Rupert Murdoch took the stage at Web 2.0 and confirmed that the company is working on a platform that will launch “within a couple of months.” But when no date’s given, expect delays: considering how long we ultimately waited for Windows Vista (and now, Apple’s OS X Leopard) this could mean the MySpace platform is even further off than we think. And the company did say that it won’t be open to all users immediately, with a “sandbox” of one or two million beta testers preceding its full launch.

In the meantime, the company will be creating a central directory of embeddable HTML widgets, and the site’s privacy controls will be growing more extensive.

The whole announcement is interesting, considering that over the past few months MySpace has been announcing original programming, hosting concert tours and partnering with record labels, making some observers (like this one) wonder whether the social network was veering away from the Facebook model and would be diving into the role of a pop-culture hub–which former leader MTV, with its newfound penchant for reality shows about rich kids, has largely vacated.

But with a somewhat premature announcement about a developer platform, MySpace has made it clear that while the site enjoys a traffic and membership advantage over Facebook, it’s still following in its fast-growing rival’s footsteps when it comes to technology.

Full news on http://www.news.com/the-social/8301-13577_3-9799657-36.html

The web-hip “community-driven” presidential debates touted by the television networks have been a disappointment so far. The events may use voter-submitted videos, instant messages and e-mails, but all that packet juice is poured into the same old, tired broadcast formula that appoints journalists as the arbiters of which questions candidates are asked — and relies on the usual small circle of pundits to analyze the answers.

A new effort aims to change all that. Launched Wednesday, 10 Questions is soliciting video questions on four of the most popular video-sharing sites and placing them in a Digg-like tool that lets the public vote them up or down. Ultimately the 10 highest-ranking videos will be submitted unedited to each of the presidential candidates, who can then produce a video response.

“We’re hacking into politics, and using interactivity and the power of online video to involve a lot more people in the process,” says Micah Sifry, co-founder of TechPresident, an internet-electioneering website and annual conference.

Backed by TechPresident with some help from The New York Times’ editorial board, 10 Questions has partnered with top political blogs on the left and right. Sifry hopes that some variation of the community-driven model might be incorporated in the final round of debates between the two major-party candidates in next year’s general election.

“The lessons learned could be used in a lot of ways — the process may be the most important part of this,” says Sifry. “We’re in the middle of a transition: In the same way we watched what YouTube did, and we watched what MySpace and MTV did, they’re going to watch us.”

In the CNN-YouTube debate in July, it was CNN producers who chose the online-video questions to present to candidates. Similarly, in the ongoing MySpace and MTV forums, journalists serve as filters between voters and candidates. TechPresident’s goal is to provide U.S. voters the leading role in controlling the much-touted national dialogue with the presidential candidates.

The project’s organizers are hoping to do that with social software designed to enable “the crowd” to speak responsibly with a collaborative voice. They plan to keep their online voting system simple, and audit the tallied votes.

The point, says Sifry, is to create a large-scale online forum with the same rhetorical attributes that characterize physical town-hall meetings, instead of tweaking a commercial broadcast medium that provides candidates with 30 seconds to advertise their personalities and positions.

The project grew out of a collaboration between TechPresident and David Colarusso, a 28-year-old Somerville, Massachusetts, physics teacher. Colarusso participated in YouTube’s Spotlight feature earlier this year.

Spotlight allowed voters to post video questions for the presidential candidates on YouTube. The candidates then picked which questions they wanted to answer, and posted their video responses online. The feature spanned several weeks.

Both Democrat John Edwards and Republican candidate Mitt Romney posted video responses to Colarusso’s questions. But Colarusso found the candidates’ responses lacking. Both he and other Spotlight participants thought that YouTube should have had a feature that enabled them to express dissatisfaction with a candidate’s answer.

He ended up building the feature himself at a site he established, called Community Counts. He urged CNN producers to turn over control of the video selection in the YouTube-CNN debate to his online community, but was ignored. Community Counts logged 6,000 unique visitors and 30,000 votes by the time the Democratic round of the debate was over. The site’s voting features have now been incorporated into 10 Questions.

In explaining the importance of eliciting the electorate’s input versus that of a few “experts” earlier this year, Colarusso alluded to The New Yorker writer James Surowiecki’s popular book The Wisdom of Crowds. The book posits that if four basic conditions are met, a crowd’s “collective intelligence” will produce better outcomes than a small group of experts. The conditions are: diverse opinion among the crowd’s members, members’ independence from each other, a good method for aggregating opinions and decentralization.

Read the full story on http://www.abcnews.go.com/Technology/Story?id=3751616&page=3

The Fourth Annual Web 2.0 Summit

Only the Web 2.0 Summit (formerly named Web 2.0 Conference) brings the intelligence, innovation, and leadership of the Internet industry together in one place at one time. The Summit is known for its interactive format, stressing audience interaction and participation. Through incisive plenary sessions, cut-through-the-hype onstage conversations, rapid-fire “high order bits” and “show me” presentations and in-depth workshops, visionaries and executives from Internet businesses will present their unique perspective on the Web’s future-in-flux. You’ll learn what business models are working, what’s next on the horizon, and how all of this will affect your own business. We’ve built in plenty of time for catching up with old friends and making new acquaintances, and for connecting with the leaders and technologists redefining the Web’s business opportunities. Web 2.0 Summit is brought to you in partnership with O’Reilly Media, Inc. and CMP Technology and moderated by John Battelle, Program Chair, and O’Reilly CEO and founder, Tim O’Reilly.

Attendance at Web 2.0 Summit is limited to maintain an intimate setting and foster dialogue among all participants. Registration is by invitation only.

Discovering the Web’s Edge

Web 2.0 Summit focuses on emerging business and technology developments that utilize the Web as a platform and defines how the Web will drive business in the future. What began as a focused gathering on the implications of the Web becoming a platform has transformed into an industry event focused on the latest Internet innovations—the services, applications, businesses, and models—that are redefining the way companies do business and how people live.

In 2004, Web 2.0 focused on one big idea: The Web has become a platform, a foundation upon which thousands of new forms of business would emerge. In 2005, at the second annual Web 2.0 Conference, we focused on the idea of “Revving the Web” - with the platform in place, we highlighted emerging innovations, with a particular emphasis on the entertainment, communications and IT industries. Last year, in 2006, we highlighted the widespread disruptions the web has created in traditional business models and also discussed the opportunities those disruptions created and how that has affected both the giants and the industry as a whole.

Surprising as it may seem, the Web has not infiltrated every industry–yet. So this year, we’ll delve into nascent innovation and attempt to parse the only-just-beginning-to-be-discovered territory at the edges of the Web. In 2007, we’ll slip past the mainstream and follow instead the road less traveled, the path taken by visionaries and those inspired by forces other than the tried and true. Who are the major players willing to take on new challenges, and the Davids that hold the promise of becoming Goliaths? What Web shortcomings still need to be overcome if we are to truly take the plunge into the next generation–and convince the next generation that we are listening? How can we respond positively to the cultural sea change the Web poses rather than being engulfed by it?

Join us at the fourth annual Web 2.0 Summit, as we journey to the Web’s edge and learn to navigate at the boundaries together.

The “Who’s Who” of the Internet

Now in its fourth year, Web 2.0 Summit has become the gathering place for business leaders of the new Web - it reflects and embodies the community - bringing together the most influential to discuss and debate the most important issues and strategies driving the Internet economy and what we might expect in the coming year.

• 70+ thought leaders and entrepreneurs slated to present in an interactive format stressing audience participation
• More than a dozen extraordinary thinkers and business leaders will present “High Order Bits” - ten minute stand-and-deliver presentations designed to provoke, delight, and amaze the audience
• Top executives from platform businesses will address the future of the Web in plenary sessions
• We’ll focus on innovative new web technologies in our expert led-workshops
• Third annual Launch Pad event featuring presentations by a select group of start-ups
• A variety of unique networking events including receptions, dinners and evening parties

The Web 2.0 Summit connects the leaders and technologists opening the Web’s business opportunities. Conference attendance is limited to maintain an intimate setting and foster dialogue among all participants.

These are same of the presentation give:

A Conversation with Mark Zuckerberg
Speaker(s): Mark Zuckerberg
Presentation Date: 10/17/2007
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High Order Bit
Speaker(s): Mary Meeker
Presentation Date: 10/18/2007
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High Order Bit
Speaker(s): Dan Scheinman
Presentation Date: 10/18/2007
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High Order Bit
Speaker(s): Niall Kennedy
Presentation Date: 10/18/2007
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High Order Bit
Speaker(s): Bill Tancer
Presentation Date: 10/18/2007
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High Order Bit
Speaker(s): Evan Williams
Presentation Date: 10/17/2007
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High Order Bit
Speaker(s): Adam Selipsky
Presentation Date: 10/18/2007
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High Order Bit
Speaker(s): Jeff Huber
Presentation Date: 10/18/2007
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Show Me
Speaker(s): Anssi Vanjoki
Presentation Date: 10/17/2007
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Show Me
Speaker(s): Ted Leonsis Jason Hogg
Presentation Date: 10/17/2007
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The Advertising Platform
Speaker(s): Michael Walrath Sergio Monsalve
Presentation Date: 10/17/2007
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To meet the increasing demand for Web 2.0 comprehension and skills, and to build a broader European Web 2.0 community, O’Reilly Media and CMP Technology have launched Web 2.0 Expo Berlin to take place 5-8 November, 2007 in Berlin, Germany. A companion event to the Web 2.0 Summit, it is the conference and tradeshow for the rapidly growing ranks of designers and developers, product managers, entrepreneurs, VCs, marketers, and business strategists who are embracing the opportunities created by Web 2.0 technologies.

This event should be relevant for:

Developers
UI/UX Designers
Entrepreneurs and VCs
Product managers
Business strategists
Marketing professionals
CIOs/CTOs
Web operations professionals
Freelance developers, hackers and designers
Companies and organizations tracking emerging technologies
Bloggers

Full event information on http://berlin.web2expo.com/

MySpace.com is an example of  Social Network in Europe. Orkut is another example, with a difference: developed as side-projects by a Google employee, it became so popular in Brazil that some Orkut groups in English put disclaimers, inviting members to post only in English and not Brazilian.

Truly European Social Networks  can be divided in two categories: local social networks and pan-European social networks. Local social networks can be found everywhere in Europe: Neogen.ro, Grono.net, IWIW.HU, Rate.ee, etc. They are extremely successful in their home Countries, and expanding into new ones.

Pan-European social networks are European Social Networks which are successful in several European countries, and were born with this mission. A leading example is NetLog, previously called Facebox, which was the first real champion with many users living in the European Union.

Of course, our own social network belongs to this category. http://www.mypacis.eu/ is a European Social Network with a social agenda: promoting peace by linking Europeans together. It is an open source, integrated and multilingual social network, developed using Web 2.0 tools with a European prospective. At the best of my knowledge, there are many North American sites connecting agents of change and many targeting European users, but no pan-European Social Network hosting volunteering and activism projects all across Europe.

Questions about social networks and other Web 2.0 services “made in Europe”? Let us know!

Frank

As Wikipedia says, it  is a web development technique used for creating interactive web applications. The intent is to make web pages feel more responsive by exchanging small amounts of data with the server behind the scenes, so that the entire web page does not have to be reloaded each time the user requests a change. This is intended to increase the web page’s interactivity, speed, functionality, and usability.

Ajax is asynchronous in that XML data loading does not interfere with normal HTML and JavaScript page loading. JavaScript is the programming language in which Ajax function calls are made. Data retrieved using the technique is commonly formatted using XML, as reflected in the naming of the XMLHttpRequest object from which Ajax is derived.

Ajax is a cross-platform technique usable on many different operating systems, computer architectures, and Web browsers as it is based on open standards such as JavaScript and XML, together with open source implementations of other required technologies.

AJAX: WHY?
Tired of having to wait for the next HTML page to show up before seeing the effect of your actions? Ajax style programming overcomes the page loading requirements of HTML/HTTP-mediated web pages. Ajax creates the necessary initial conditions for the evolution of complex, intuitive, dynamic, data-centric user interfaces in web pages—the realization of that goal is still a work in progress.

Web pages, unlike native applications, are loosely coupled, meaning that the data they display are not tightly bound to data sources and must be first marshaled (set out in proper order) into an HTML page format before they can be presented to a user agent on the client machine. For this reason, web pages have to be re-loaded each time a user needs to view different datasets. By using the XMLHttpRequest object to request and return data without a re-load, a programmer by-passes this requirement and makes the loosely coupled web page behave much like a tightly coupled application, but with a more variable lag time for the data to pass through a longer “wire” to the remote web browser.

For example, in a classic desktop application, a programmer has the choice of populating a tree view control with all the data needed when the form initially loads, or with just the top-most level of data—which would load more quickly, especially when the dataset is very large. In the second case, the application would fetch additional data into the tree control depending on which item the user selects. This functionality is difficult to achieve in a web page without Ajax. To update the tree based on a user’s selection would require the entire page to re-load, leading to a very jerky, non-intuitive feel for the web user who is browsing the data in the tree.

AJAX: LINKS
Dmoz editors accepted these Ajax-related links in their directory:

• Adaptive Path - AJAX: A New Approach to Web Applications - Seminal article which popularized “AJAX” as a term.
• Ajax and XUL - Ajax and XML-related tutorials. XUL authoring. The Xul Dev project.
• AJAX by Mozilla Developer Center - A comprehensive guide on getting started with AJAX including articles, tutorials and links to other useful websites.
• Ajax Cookbook - A web site devoted to publishing small, reusable snippets of JavaScript, HTML, and CSS that are generally useful to developers of Ajax web sites.
• AJAX Courseware - Full color AJAX courseware suitable for 3-day training focusing on real-world topics such as using SOAP envelopes, processing JSON data and building an online word processor.
• AJAX Cross-browser Implementation - A guide to implementing cross-browser AJAX websites using the Sarissa library.
• Ajax Daddy - Offers a collection of scripts using Ajax.
• AJAX Goals - AJAX community website featuring articles, books, blogs, news and libraries.
• Ajax Impact - A portal on Ajax containing news, articles, tutorials, toolkits, sites using Ajax, Ajax Demos etc.
• AJAX in Java - Jaxcent provides a Java API for DOM. Allows trusted sites to do AJAX style programming without JavaScript.
• Ajax Lessons - Resource for ajax tutorials as well as information surrounding Ajax and web 2.0.
• AJAX Magazine - Reference for AJAX, Asynchronous Javascript and XML, with news, articles, tutorials, and implementations.
• AJAX Matters - An informational site providing Asynchronous JavaScript and XML development information including code libraries, sites using ajax, and books on ajax.
• Ajax Patterns - A wiki with principles, gotchas, frameworks, and common techniques. Also the homepage for the “Ajax Design Patterns” book.
• Ajax Projects - Ajax portal for all ajax projects frameworks toolkits and tutorials.
• Ajax Training - In this Ajax training course, students learn to make calls to the server with JavaScript and to manipulate XML content returned from the server.
• Ajax Training Course by Marakana - Ajax Training Course explains how to distribute the application between the client and the server by using the nested MVC design pattern. You will learn how to make your application to be flexible and maintainable.
• AJAX Training in San Francisco - A hands-on instructor led training class offered in San Francisco Bay Area. Course emphasizes practical experience and covers topics like JSON and SOAP.
• Ajax Tutorial - Ajax programming tutorials for newbies
• AJAX: Usable Interactivity with Remote Scripting - Tutorial article about AJAX, including a discussion about usability.
• AjaxApp.com - A forum-site for the discussion of interactive web-based application development based on Open Source Technology such as PHP, J2EE, DHTML & AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript And XML)technology
• Ajaxdo - Provides an easy, open source database persistency framework for JavaScript objects. Enables runtime loading, saving, deleting, and listing of JavaScript objects stored on the server database.
• Ajaxium - Makes ASP.NET pages and all controls AJAX-enabled but leaves them accessible to all search engines and old browsers.
• Ajaxlines - Ajaxlines is a project focused on providing its audience with a database of most of Ajax related articles, resources, tutorials and services from around the world.
• Ajax.NET - Documentation and downloads for an AJAX library that uses .NET for the backend.
• Ajax.NET Professional Library - Ajax.NET Professional is the first available .NET AJAX framework. As it is working with .NET 1.1 and 2.0 and with all common web browsers including mobile devices it is one of the greatest libraries available.
• Ajaxtalk - Asynchronous Javascript and XML discussion board.
• Anaa Framework - An AJAX API
• AsH: Top 126 Ajax Tutorials - Collection of Ajax Tutorials.
• Aspects of AJAX - Aspects of AJAX is a platform and engine for developing responsive and interactive web applications by using and extending the browser platforms to a Rich Client System.
• Atlas - Provides the implementation of AJAX technology introduced by Microsoft.
• BestAjaxScripts.com - Ajax scripts & tutorials. All scripts are absolutely free and have demos, so you can try before installing it. Also ,it has a great search tool to find the scripts and tutorials you need.
• Dajax - an ajax framework, provides a set of simple interfaces for creating web UI components and rich internet application.
• Developing Rich Internet Applications with AJAX Training Course - Hands-on AJAX training course for developers who are looking to develop Rich Internet Applications using Asynchronous JavaScript and XML technologies. Public courses available in London, UK and custom courses delivered globally.
• Direct Web Remoting - DWR - A Java open source library which helps developers wanting to write web sites that include AJAX technology.
• Dojo - the Javascript Toolkit by the Dojo Foundation
• Dynamic HTML and XML: The XMLHttpRequest Object - Introduction and documentation from Apple Developer Connection.
• Encosia - ASP.NET AJAX tutorials and code examples.
• Feather Ajax - An easy-to-use light AJAX library
• Fork JavaScript - A general purpose, namespaced JavaScript library with Ajax, Events, DOM manipulation. Good documentation, subversion source repository and download.
• Free ajax scripts & tutorials - A collection of free ajaxscripts & tutorials.
• Gaia Ajax Widgets - An ASP.NET 2.0 Ajax Widget library
• Google AJAXSLT - Google’s AJAXSLT is an implementation of XSL-T in JavaScript for AJAX applications. Includes links for downloading.
• Google Web Toolkit - Java software development framework that makes writing AJAX applications like Google Maps and Gmail easy for developers taking care of browser and platform incompatibilities and modularity issues.
• Introducing the Dojo Tree Widget - An introduction to the dojo tree widget. Includes building in HTML and programmatically in javascript. Also covers RPC data binding (ala ajax)
• Jigsaw - A simple JavaScript framework for AJAX. Includes download, brief overview, and examples.
• jQuery - A fast, concise, JavaScript library that simplifies how you traverse HTML documents, handle events, perform animations, and add Ajax.
• JSLog - Lightweight ajax logger. takes the place of alert() boxes for AJAX and DHTML applications.
• KFM - Kae’s File Manager - An Ajax file manager for PHP, which may be used stand-alone, or as a plugin for a rich text editor.
• Linb Framework - Provides a framework designed to allow developers to code in a more targeted, clear and efficient manner.
• miniAJAX - A showroom of nice looking simple downloadable DHTML and AJAX scripts
• MyAJAX - An object-oriented implementation for AJAX JavaScript made for ease of use.
• NanoAjax - An open source AJAX (XMLHTTPRequest) Framework with an object oriented PHP Backend. Package multiple (virtual) requests in one real AJAX request. Uses JSON for smallest data transfer.
• ONLamp.com: Ajax on Rails - Curt Hibbs demonstrates the use of Ajax within Ruby on Rails applications.
• OpenAjax Alliance - An organization of vendors, open source projects, and companies that are dedicated to the successful adoption of open and interoperable Ajax-based web technologies. Includes list of members, news, and details of events.
• Prototype JavaScript Framework - Provides class-style OO and Ajax, freely distributable under the terms of an MIT-style license.
• Purefect Desktop - Open Source Web Desktop (a.k.a Webtop and Web “OS”) that provides Web-based AJAX IDE, Instant Messenger, and its APIs.
• Rialto - Rich Internet Application Toolkit - Rialto is a cross browser javascript widgets library. Because it is technology agnostic it can be encapsulated in JSP, JSF, .Net or PHP graphic components.
• SAJA - Secure AJAX for PHP - A lightweight AJAX framework for PHP allowing encrypted data to be trasmitted over non-encrypted channels.
• SAJAX - Simple Ajax Toolkit by ModernMethod - An open source XMLHTTPRequest toolkit with PHP, Perl, and Python backends.
• Sardalaya - Cross-browser interface that aims to make dynamic HTML programming easy and fun.
• Script.aculo.us - A collection of Web 2.0 style JavaScript libraries that help web developers add AJAX functionally to projects.
• Sote Design using prototype - The Web 2.0 style website designing using Prototype Javascript framework
• Two Birds - Provides contact info, download area for framework and link to technology prototype.
• The very popular Mastering Ajax series from IBM - The author, an Ajax expert, demonstrates how Ajax technologies work together — from an overview to a detailed look — to make extremely efficient Web development an easy reality and make you the Master of Ajax.
• wddxAJAX - ColdFusion library for AJAX - an AJAX framework for ColdFusion using WDDX protocol for exchanging data between ColdFusion and HTML page
• WebPasties : XmlHttpRequest - Detailed tutorial that explains how to creating an AJAX ZIP code database including a PHP/MySQL backend.
• xajax PHP Class Library - xajax is an open source PHP class library that allows you to easily create Ajax applications using HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and PHP.
• XMLHttpRequest and AJAX Applications - Fiftyfoureleven.com - A blog with code snippets and proofs of concept.
• The XMLHttpRequest object - Specification by W3C, of the base of AJAX.
• xWire Framework (AJAX Toolkit) - xWire is a mature, object-oriented, enterprise-class open source AJAX toolkit that contains numerous useful features and widgets.

The first “breaking news”: from now on, this blog will not be devoted only to the development of our social network to promote peace, but also to Web 2.0 news. Which are the new Web 2.0 services? How can Web 2.0 be used for online activism and volunteering? Etc.

We have been googling and thinking about Web 2.0 at large for long time now, thanks for suggesting us to blog about this. And please, keep going with the great feedback! Stay tuned for highlights from Web 2.0!

Frank

Please visit http://www.mypacis.eu/ to see it. It already uses the next release of the social network platform we use, so it has many more features than you previously saw on our site.

We will keep you posted with new updates about MyPacis.eu as soon as possible, so bookmark this blog for exciting Web 2.0 news! 

Please, join us and thousands of people taking actions and position for world peace!

To follow realtime updates about events organised all around the world to celebrate the International Day of Peace, you can check http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&ned=us&q=International+Day+of+Peace&ie=UTF-8

Please check this blog later on during the day for a very important news regarding MyPacis.com. We hope you are going to love it!

Our answer is: we need to work for a peaceful and democratic world, where human rights are respected. This online marathon is one way to contribute to a better world. Thanks to everyone who already contributed with inputs, time and Web 2.0 activism to kick start this event! People can have different opinion on world peace and how to achieve it. Our role is to facilitate a constructive sharing of opinions and commitments. Peace is a choice, it cannot be imposed by force. Also, peace is not weakness, it is the strength of listening to other human beings needs, wants and opinions and search for common choices and a peaceful way to live together, all with our own positions but still able to respect each other and co-operate together.

To make easier to follow the debate, on http://tinyurl.mypacis.com/911september21st/ and http://feeds.feedburner.com/Peaceblogs911-September21stInternationalDayofPeace a feed blender offers all the blogs taking part in the marathon, plus posts related to 911 and world peace coming from the blogosphere. Once the 2007 edition of this synchronized peace blogging is over, the feed aggregator will stay in place to provide an overview on the bloghospere peace-related discussions. The feed is enhanced with updates about relevant podcasts, news, video and Web 2.0 activism.

Hope to hear from you. Your opinion and action can make a difference, so please join us and stand for what we believe in!

Frank

We are going to blog about world peace, to remember the millions of innocent people, of any nationality and credo, slaughtered in the name of war and reflect on what we can do to bring peace. There are no pre-termined titles, no answers given: the aim of this blog campaign is to stimulate discussion and find together answers.

The target is to involve at least 10.000 bloggers. If you care about peace, please stand up and make your voice count! There are many ways in which you can make the difference!

- You can start blogging right now about this initiative, to get more people on board to express their views.

- You can forward this post ( http://www.blog.mypacis.com/peace-blogs-10000-blogs-for-peace-september-11th-21st/2007/09/01/ ) to your friends interested in supporting peace.

- You can comment this post right now, mentioning your site or blog address so other readers will be able to visit it. From Sept. 11th on, once our blog carnival started, your comment will be approved and everyone will be able to see it, visit your blog and read your opinion. You can also send trackbacks to this post.

- You can add the peace dove ( http://www.mypacis.com/mypacis.png ) to your posts, blogs and social netoworks profiles on MySpace, Orkut, Facebook, etc. On http://www.blog.mypacis.com/peace-blogs-10000-blogs-for-peace-september-11th-21st/2007/09/01/ you find a social bookmarking tools, which makes instant and easy to add this initiative to your public bookmarks. You can also use this code to add the dove and a link to this post:

<br><a href=”http://www.mypacis.com”><img src=”http://www.mypacis.com/mypacis.png”></a> <br><a href=”http://www.blog.mypacis.com/peace-blogs-10000-blogs-for-peace-september-11th-21st/2007/09/01/”>Peace blogs: blogs for peace. September, 11th-21st</a> <br><a href=”http://www.mypacis.com”>Social Network for Peace</a> <br>

This being the result displayed with the code:

Peace blogs: blogs for peace. September, 11th-21st
Social Network for Peace

As usual, thanks for your co-operation and please let us know if you have any question or ideas for improvements!

Frank

If you want to take part in the competition yourself, check: http://vvc.mckinsey.com/

Deadline to form a team (at least you and one more partner, up to six members) and submit the initial business idea (one page text) is August, 31st. There are some participants from Europe and USA, but the majority of them (or at least the most active in the forum) is from China. Second Life is an ideal platform to try social experiments, and find out what motivates people to enhance their “first life” with an additional one. From campers hanging out on benches to get paid a few linden every ten minutes to socially-motivated volunteers, in SL you find all types of people with different motivations to be there.

Good luck if you take part in the competition! If you see there is room for synergies among our teams, drop us an email.

We are almost ready to launch a blog carnival, open both to users of our blogs and bloggers hosted elsewhere. We will all be blogging about peace, and share posts here on MyPacis.com and blog carnival aggregators.

As usual, the main point of our initiatives and campaigns are not to give ready-made answers, but to increase awareness and ignite discussion about peace. If you have a blog, or are going to get one, stay tuned for updates! We should be ready by Sept. 1st.

For now, keep enjoying the social network services and please drop a mail or comment here if you have ideas, questions, etc. Thanks for your support, that is what makes a difference!

The family changed its name in 1936 from Schwartz to Soros, in response to the Fascist threat to Jews. Tivadar liked the new name because it is a palindrome and because it has a meaning. Though the specific meaning is left unstated in Kaufmann’s biography, in Hungarian “soros” means “next in line, or designated successor”, and in Esperanto it means “will soar”. Tivadar wrote of his ordeal to survive in Fascist Hungary, and help many people escape it, in his book Maskerado.

Born August 12, 1930, in Budapest, Hungary, as György Schwartz, George Soros is an American stock investor, philanthropist, and political activist. He peacefully promotes democracy in USA and abroad.

Currently, he is the chairman of Soros Fund Management and the Open Society Institute and is also a former member of the Board of Directors of the Council on Foreign Relations. His support for the Solidarity labor movement in Poland, as well as the Czechoslovakian human rights organization Charter 77, contributed to ending Soviet Union political dominance in those countries. His funding and organization of Georgia’s Rose Revolution was considered by Russian and Western observers to have been crucial to its success, although Soros said his role has been “greatly exaggerated.” In the United States, he is known for having donated large sums of money in a failed effort to defeat President George W. Bush’s bid for re-election in 2004.

Soros has a keen interest in philosophy, and his philosophical outlook is largely influenced by Karl Popper, under whom he studied at the London School of Economics. His Open Society Institute is named after Popper’s two volume work, The Open Society and Its Enemies, and Soros’s ongoing philosophical commitment to the principle of ‘fallibilism’ (that anything he believes may in fact be wrong, and is therefore to be questioned and improved) stems from Popper’s philosophy. Some critics argue that Soros’ static political beliefs appear to conflict with the critical rationalism espoused by Popper, though Soros argues that these beliefs were arrived at through such rationalism.

Soros’ writings focus heavily on the concept of reflexivity, where the biases of individuals are seen as entering into market transactions, potentially changing the fundamentals of the economy. Soros argued that such transitions in the fundamentals of the economy are typically marked by disequilibrium rather than equilibrium in the economy, and that the conventional economic theory of the market (the ‘efficient market hypothesis’) does not apply in these situations.

Whether Soros is theoretically right or wrong on this issue, he certainly has the market credentials and proven track record to effectively maintain that his theory of reflexivity is practically relevant in the marketplace — at least for him. Soros has popularized the concepts of dynamic disequilibrium, static disequilibrium, and near-equilibrium conditions.

Reflexivity is based in three main ideas:

(1) Reflexivity is best observed under special conditions where investor bias grows and spreads throughout the investment arena. Examples of factors that may give rise to this bias include (a) equity leveraging or (b) the trend-following habits of speculators.

(2) Reflexivity appears intermittently since it is most likely to be revealed under certain conditions; i.e., the equilibrium process’s character is best considered in terms of probabilities.

(3) Investors’ observation of and participation in the capital markets may at times influence valuations AND fundamental conditions or outcomes.

Soros argues that the current system of financial speculation undermines healthy economic development in many underdeveloped countries. Soros blames many of the world’s problems on the failures inherent in what he characterizes as market fundamentalism. His opposition to many aspects of globalization has made him a controversial figure. Victor Niederhoffer said of Soros: “Most of all, George believed even then in a mixed economy, one with a strong central international government to correct for the excesses of self-interest.” Soros draws a distinction between being a participant in the market and working to change the rules that market participants must follow.

Credits: Wikipedia (edited as necessary)
Links:
George Soros Official Website
Open Society Institute and George Soros Foundation Network
George Soros: recent interviews
George Soros: video interview at Google
George Soros: MP3 interview on “The Age of Fallibility: Consequences of the War on Terror”

In The Open Society and Its Enemies and The Poverty of Historicism, Karl Popper developed a critique of historicism and a defence of the ‘Open Society’ and liberal democracy. Historicism is the theory that history develops inexorably and necessarily according to knowable general laws towards a determinate end. Popper argued that this view is the principal theoretical presupposition underpinning most forms of authoritarianism and totalitarianism. He argued that historicism is founded upon mistaken assumptions regarding the nature of scientific law and prediction. Since the growth of human knowledge is a causal factor in the evolution of human history, and since “no society can predict, scientifically, its own future states of knowledge”, it follows, he argued, that there can be no predictive science of human history. For Popper, metaphysical and historical indeterminism go hand in hand.

In the same book, he defines an “open society” as one which ensures that political leaders can be overthrown without the need for bloodshed, as opposed to a “closed society”, in which a bloody revolution or coup d’état is needed to change the leaders. He further describes an open society as one “in which individuals are confronted with personal decisions” as opposed to a “magical or tribal or collectivist society”. In this context, tribalistic and collectivist societies do not distinguish between natural laws and social customs. Individuals are unlikely to challenge traditions they believe to have a sacred or magical basis. The beginnings of an open society are thus marked by a distinction between natural and man-made law, and an increase in personal responsibility and accountability for moral choices. (Note that Popper did not see this as incompatible with religious belief). Popper argues that the ideas of individuality, criticism, and humanitarianism cannot be suppressed once people become aware of them, and therefore that it is impossible to return to the closed society. Attempts to do so would necessarily involve brutal and anti-humanitarian measures.

Popper’s concept of the open society is epistemological rather than political. Based on his theory that knowledge is provisional and fallible, it implies that society must be open to alternative points of view. Claims to certain knowledge and ultimate truth leads to the imposition of one version of reality. Such a society is closed to freedom of thought. In contrast, in an open society every citizen needs to form his or her own view of reality and that requires freedom of thought and expression and the cultural and legal institutions that can facilitate this. An open society also has to be pluralistic and multicultural, in order to benefit from the maximum number of viewpoints possible to the given problems.

Humanitarianism, equality and political freedom are fundamental characteristics of an open society. Another important characteristic of an open society is competition for social status. Indeed, social mobility is sometimes used as a measure of the ‘openness’ of society. The importance of social mobility for an open society was recognised by Pericles’, a statesman of the Athenian democracy, in his funeral oration: “…advancement in public life falls to reputation for capacity, class considerations not being allowed to interfere with merit; nor again does poverty bar the way, if a man is able to serve the state, he is not hindered by the obscurity of his condition. The freedom which we enjoy in our government extends also to our ordinary life.”

Democracies are examples of the “open society”, whereas totalitarian dictatorships and autocratic monarchies are examples of the “closed society”.

Popper’s influence, both through his work in philosophy of science and through his political philosophy, has also extended beyond the academy. Among Popper’s students and advocates at the London School of Economics is the multibillionaire investor George Soros, who says his investment strategies are modelled on Popper’s understanding of the advancement of knowledge through falsification. Among Soros’s philanthropic foundations is the Open Society Institute, a think-tank named in honour of Popper’s The Open Society and Its Enemies, which Soros founded to advance the Popperian defense of the open society against authoritarianism and totalitarianism. We also provide more detailed informationa about George Soros.

Credits: Wikipedia (edited as necessary)

Henri Bergson

Henri Bergson developed the concept of Open Society, as a society based on political freedoms and human rights, with a responsive and tolerant governmen, plus transparent and flexible political mechanisms. In an Open Society, the state keeps no secrets; as a non-authoritarian society, all are trusted with the knowledge of all.

This a profile of Henri Bergson, according to the Encyclopaedia Britannica; for clarity, the text may been edited. Henri-Louis Bergson French philosopher, the first to elaborate what came to be called a process philosophy, which rejected static values in favour of values of motion, change, and evolution. He was also a master literary stylist, of both academic and popular appeal, and was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1927.

Through his father, a talented musician, Bergson was descended from a rich Polish Jewish family—the sons of Berek, or Berek-son, from which the name Bergson is derived. His mother came from an English Jewish family. Bergson’s upbringing, training, and interests were typically French, and his professional career, as indeed all of his life, was spent in France, most of it in Paris.

He received his early education at the Lycée Condorcet in Paris, where he showed equally great gifts in the sciences and the humanities. From 1878 to 1881 he studied at the École Normale Supérieure in Paris, the institution responsible for training university teachers. The general culture that he received there made him equally at home in reading the Greek and Latin classics, in obtaining what he wanted and needed from the science of his day, and in acquiring a beginning in the career of philosophy, to which he turned upon graduation.

His teaching career began in various lycées outside of Paris, first at Angers (1881–83) and then for the next five years at Clermont-Ferrand. While at the latter place, he had the intuition that provided both the basis and inspiration for his first philosophical books.

He wrote the Essai sur les données immédiates de la conscience (1889; Time and Free Will: An Essay on the Immediate Data of Consciousness), for which he received the doctorate the same year. This work was primarily an attempt to establish the notion of duration, or lived time, as opposed to what Bergson viewed as the spatialized conception of time, measured by a clock, that is employed by science. He proceeded by analyzing the awareness that man has of his inner self to show that psychological facts are qualitatively different from any other, charging psychologists in particular with falsifying the facts by trying to quantify and number them. Fechner’s Law, claiming to establish a calculable relation between the intensity of the stimulus and that of the corresponding sensation, was especially criticized. Once the confusions were cleared away that confounded duration with extension, succession with simultaneity, and quality with quantity, he maintained that the objections to human liberty made in the name of scientific determinism could be seen to be baseless.

The publication of the Essai found Bergson returned to Paris, teaching at the Lycée Henri IV. In 1891 he married Louise Neuburger, a cousin of the French novelist Marcel Proust. Meanwhile, he had undertaken the study of the relation between mind and body. The prevailing doctrine was that of the so-called psychophysiological parallelism, which held that for every psychological fact there is a corresponding physiological fact that strictly determines it. Though he was convinced that he had refuted the argument for determinism, his own work, in the doctoral dissertation, had not attempted to explain how mind and body are related. The findings of his research into this problem were published in 1896 under the title Matière et mémoire: essai sur la relation du corps à l’esprit (Matter and Memory).

This is the most difficult and perhaps also the most perfect of his books. The approach that he took in it is typical of his method of doing philosophy. He did not proceed by general speculation and was not concerned with elaborating a great speculative system. He began in this, as in each of his books, with a particular problem, which he analyzed by first determining the empirical (observed) facts that are known about it according to the best and most up-to-date scientific opinion. Thus, for Matière et mémoire he devoted five years to studying all of the literature available on memory and especially the psychological phenomenon of aphasia, or loss of the ability to use language. According to the theory of psychophysiological parallelism, a lesion in the brain should also affect the very basis of a psychological power. The occurrence of aphasia, Bergson argued, showed that this is not the case. The person so affected understands what others have to say, knows what he himself wants to say, suffers no paralysis of the speech organs, and yet is unable to speak. This fact shows, he argued, that it is not memory that is lost but, rather, the bodily mechanism that is needed to express it. From this observation Bergson concluded that memory, and so mind, or soul, is independent of body and makes use of it to carry out its own purposes.

The Essai had been widely reviewed in the professional journals, but Matière et mémoire attracted the attention of a wider audience and marked the first step along the way that led to Bergson’s becoming one of the most popular and influential lecturers and writers of the day. In 1897 he returned as professor of philosophy to the École Normale Supérieure, which he had first entered as a student at the age of 19. Then, in 1900, he was called to the Collège de France, the academic institution of highest prestige in all of France, where he enjoyed immense success as a lecturer. From then until the outbreak of World War I, there was a veritable vogue of Bergsonism. William James was an enthusiastic reader of his works, and the two men became warm friends. Expositions and commentaries on the Bergsonian philosophy were to be found everywhere. It was held by many that a new day in philosophy had dawned that brought with it light to many other activities such as literature, music, painting, politics, and religion.

L’Évolution créatrice (1907; Creative Evolution), the greatest work of these years and Bergson’s most famous book, reveals him most clearly as a philosopher of process at the same time that it shows the influence of biology upon his thought. In examining the idea of life, Bergson accepted evolution as a scientifically established fact. He criticized, however, the philosophical interpretations that had been given of it for failing to see the importance of duration and hence missing the very uniqueness of life. He proposed that the whole evolutionary process should be seen as the endurance of an élan vital (“vital impulse”) that is continually developing and generating new forms. Evolution, in short, is creative, not mechanistic. (See creative evolution.)

In this developing process, he traced two main lines: one through instinct, leading to the life of insects; the other through the evolution of intelligence, resulting in man; both of which, however, are seen as the work of one vital impulse that is at work everywhere in the world. The final chapter of the book, entitled “The Cinematographical Mechanism of Thought and the Mechanistic Illusion,” presents a review of the whole history of philosophical thought with the aim of showing that it everywhere failed to appreciate the nature and importance of becoming, falsifying thereby the nature of reality by the imposition of static and discrete concepts.

Among Bergson’s minor works are Le Rire: essai sur la significance du comique (1900; Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic) and, Introduction à la metaphysique (1903; An Introduction to Metaphysics). The latter provides perhaps the best introduction to his philosophy by offering the clearest account of his method. There are two profoundly different ways of knowing, he claimed. The one, which reaches its furthest development in science, is analytic, spatializing, and conceptualizing, tending to see things as solid and discontinuous. The other is an intuition that is global, immediate, reaching into the heart of a thing by sympathy. The first is useful for getting things done, for acting on the world, but it fails to reach the essential reality of things precisely because it leaves out duration and its perpetual flux, which is inexpressible and to be grasped only by intuition. Bergson’s entire work may be considered as an extended exploration of the meaning and implications of his intuition of duration as constituting the innermost reality of everything.

In 1914 Bergson retired from all active duties at the Collège de France, although he did not formally retire from the chair until 1921. Having received the highest honours that France could offer him, including membership, since 1915, among the “40 immortals” of the Académie Française, he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1927.

After L’Évolution créatrice, 25 years elapsed before he published another major work. In 1932 he published Les Deux Sources de la morale et de la religion (The Two Sources of Morality and Religion). As in the earlier works, he claimed that the polar opposition of the static and the dynamic provides the basic insight. Thus, in the moral, social, and religious life of men he saw, on the one side, the work of the closed society, expressed in conformity to codified laws and customs, and, on the other side, the open society, best represented by the dynamic aspirations of heroes and mystical saints reaching out beyond and even breaking the strictures of the groups in which they live. There are, thus, two moralities, or, rather, two sources: the one having its roots in intelligence, which leads also to science and its static, mechanistic ideal; the other based on intuition, and finding its expression not only in the free creativity of art and philosophy but also in the mystical experience of the saints.

Bergson in Les Deux Sources had come much closer to the orthodox religious notion of God than he had in the vital impulse of L’Évolution créatrice. He acknowledged in his will of 1937, “My reflections have led me closer and closer to Catholicism, in which I see the complete fulfillment of Judaism.” Yet, although declaring his “moral adherence to Catholicism,” he never went beyond that. In explanation, he wrote: “I would have become a convert, had I not foreseen for years a formidable wave of anti-Semitism about to break upon the world. I wanted to remain among those who tomorrow were to be persecuted.” To confirm this conviction, only a few weeks before his death, he arose from his sickbed and stood in line in order to register as a Jew, in accord with the law just imposed by the Vichy government and from which he refused the exemption that had been offered him.

Although it did not give rise to a Bergsonian school of philosophy, Bergson’s influence has been considerable. His influence among philosophers has been greatest in France, but it has also been felt in the United States and Great Britain, especially in the work of William James; George Santayana; and Alfred North Whitehead, the other great process metaphysician of the 20th century.

This reminds me that society should reward individuals for doing good. For too long, being good has been seen as something you do in compliance to your own ethics and giving up opportunities that others, will different ethic standards, are taking anyway. Society should have a set of “hard” regulations and soft “peer-pressure” t