Fwd: Project PM

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Barrett Brown <barriticus@gmail.com>
Date: Tue, Dec 21, 2010 at 10:21 PM
Subject: Re: Project PM
To: sascha vongehr <vongehr@usc.edu>

Hi, Sascha-

I don't believe I mentioned that we're having our weekly meeting tomorrow at 7:00 EST (NYC) time on IRC. If you don't think you can log in from China (although I think you can) or otherwise won't make it, let me know and I'll send you a transcript if it turns out to be something that would be useful to you at this point. I am also having my associate Clark Robinson get in touch with you and share with you some Google Documents for your review. If you have any trouble accessing them, let him know and he'll make sure you get text copies via e-mail.

Also, I've decided that I'm going to participate myself in the project here and there in order to set an example and also to raise some money for our Africa fund, which will be used for applying improved information dynamics in the context of Third World health development - we're working with Dr. Kenneth Lipp of Cambridge who has recently begun work on First Praxis, his own program which I'll tell you more about if that sort of thing interests you (I imagine your background is such that you'll be more interested in other aspects of what we'll be doing, but obviously I don't know the extent of your interests and expertise). We also have our own Africa Development Program on which we'll be concentrating more very soon and which for now will probably hinge on our partnership with Lipp. At any rate, I wanted to see if you would be interested in working with me on some articles; I can also share with you our spreadsheet detailing the interests and background of our various scientists and journalists if you'd like to take a look before deciding.

Again, thanks for your interest and your willingness to participate. I very much hope to have you involved with myself and the dozen or so other people who are currently running all of this, so to the extent that you can and will assist us in making decisions and launching new programs, we would all be honored to have you do so.

On Fri, Dec 17, 2010 at 9:23 PM, sascha vongehr <vongehr@usc.edu> wrote:

Dear Barrett,

thank you for your response.

> in this case you fell through the cracks due to all the traveling

understand - that can happen

> As for the crack about my views on valid skepticism

just a crack from somebody who is well aware of what you write and largely is on the same side on most issues - your stuff is visible out there and I like to read up on people before I contact them.

I will look over the other email I just received and see how I can participate. Sadly there are many issues with not being able to use many resources effectively when in China (censure, proxy server hassle), so this may hamper the communication desirable in something like Project PM. Instead of getting better, currently it is getting worse again with the nobel peace price etc.

Anyways - we are on one side when it comes to wanting to actually do something about the bad state of science journalism and peer review/publish and perish culture that undermines science, rather then just lamenting it. So I am looking forward to hopefully fruitful cooperation.

Thanks again

Sascha

--
Regards,

Barrett Brown
512-560-2302