I'm at Gnomedex this week. 300 geeks in a big room, 50 geeks in a smaller room, and untold numbers of geeks listening to the audio feed. I'm in heaven. Dave Winer is leading off with a keynote address in an "unconference" style. The idea is that the conference participants actually participate in the address. Not sure it's entirely successful at all moments (does it have to be?) but I do really like the interactive nature of the talk.
My wife and I went to see Hitchhikers' Guide to the Galaxy last night. Some impressions: We went to the 7:00 showing at Cinerama. The house was packed with a hardcore geek crowd. I remember thinking that half of these guys -- overweight and pony-tailed -- could be models for the comic book store owner in The Simpsons. Personally, I love this. It was nice to watch a movie like H2G2 with a truly appreciative crowd.
Friday Catblogging... George, dreaming of furry women.[/caption] George, dreaming of furry women. George, a sweet Ragdoll with a purr that'll keep you up at night, will be 17 in March. He's been with me all the way from North Carolina to Florida, and across the country to Seattle. Despite surgery to remove a diseased colon in September, he's still going strong. His sister, Gracie, died at 12. I expect George, like his namesake, to live a long, full life.
I drafted a post a while ago on this topic, but I've never quite finished it. I think the impulse behind it is good, so I submit the idea for your consideration: Bush has been fond of talking about the "soft bigotry of low expectations." (You know, in a bad way; he's against it.) But of course, he takes every opportunity to shed criticism or be held to any standard of accountability.
Andrew Cline at Rhetorica writes: Last week I began to notice the assertion "everything changed on 9/11"--especially as preceded by the ad populum fallacy "everyone knows." I say "began to notice" because up until last week I have not encountered many situations in which someone actually spoke this assertion to me. I was certainly aware of it otherwise. I noticed it because in each case my interlocutor wished to frame his/her remarks in a new reality that supposedly proved his/her conclusions, e.
I was inspired by this discussion over at 2blowhards.com to leave a very long comment, which I'll repost here: Michael B., I think that it will be a while before the mainstream press truly understands what's going on in a way that they can write coherently about it. It's one thing to notice that technology is creating a revolution. It's another thing entirely to really embrace it, understand it, and use it to the fullest.
I was living in North Bend, Washington, a tiny town nestled in the foothills of the Cascades about 45 minutes east of Seattle. My friend Danielle was visiting. She lived in Queens. She was out here to reconnect with me and to see a part of the country she hadn't seen before. We were driving in to Bellevue, where she was going to drop me at work and take my car.
Wow. This line from gapingvoid hit me like a ton of bricks: bq. The old ways are dead. And you need people around you who concur. Yeah. You know, I don't think this is something that is just true today. Rather, I think this is always true, has always been true, and the successful people are those who understand and accept this fact. Maybe in part this is because the people who think the world is changing and surround themselves with people who think the world is changing.
Damn. I just caught Barack Obama's speech from yesterday (you can watch it here Windows Real Media seems to be a more reliable feed). I teared up. Seriously. Let's hope this guy is the future of the Democratic party, 'cause he's damn good. First black President? Mmmmm.... maybe...
Okay, so commenter Robotech_Master made a fair point about Salon.com's ad policy and prompted me to go back and read the Alan Moore interview I mentioned yesterday. I was a little annoyed by the distracting ads flashing and jumping while I was reading the article, but it was worth the effort, and I'm looking forward to picking up some of Moore's work. Here are just a couple of random things that jumped out at me: