Small Streams

Become Part of a Plague

The viral plague of joy, that is.

This past Friday I heard an interview with Peter Mulvey on NPR. He talked about those wonderful epiphanic moments when you know your alive. That they happen every day. For instance, that day he had one when he saw a flower stuck in the barrel of a town square cannon.

The Super Secret Dance Society reminds us that those moments of joy and awareness can be made by any and all of us. They call themselves a "viral plague of joy." I might say I wish we had such a plague in Pittsburgh, but we probably do, and if not, we should probably just make one. I ran across their web site after checking out an anthology of Amanda Congdon's Rocketboom work.

It makes me want to build dribble sandcastles on the sidewalk. Or at least join the Cacophony Society.

Make Piles of Money

If you are an undergraduate, or know an undergraduate, Sarah Rich points out an interesting EPA competition in World Changing. Details can be found at People, Prosperity, and the Planet.

Using the Internet is Wrong

At least when it's the company's internet you're using, according to some subjects in an NPR story. NPR does a great job of explaining the governor of Kentucky's new policy on internet use for employees, and illuminates some of the thinking behind those who believe all business hour use of the internet should be authorized. For someone who gets most of their rhetoric about freeing the internet from sites like Boing Boing, I found it fascinating, and sometimes scary. For instance, one service provider touted their skills at blocking news sites all over the world. For some this might mean keeping workers from checking on Pirates scores or conversations about the Steelers, but the techniques are easily translated to doing the bidding of totalitarians (as I stated, I tend to get my opinions from a fast crowd).

In any case, I'm pretty sure some people in the world don't believe in The Cluetrain Manifesto's 93rd thesis:

We're both inside companies and outside them. The boundaries that separate our conversations look like the Berlin Wall today, but they're really just an annoyance. We know they're coming down. We're going to work from both sides to take them down.

Do You Have the Goods?

The only goods for him are "good states of mind" . . .
-- Van Wyck Brooks on Lewis Mumford, from The Writer in America

Essex Notebook

We visited the town of Essex yesterday, stopping at an antique store,
a book store, and by the Essex marsh. These are some notes I took at
the antique store. I'm fascinated by stereoscopes, and the one that I saw at Andrew Spindler's shop had this wonderful well engineered quality. The lenses were particularly powerful. Spindler said the stereoscope almost burned the shop down one day, its powerful lens concentrating the sunlight. Fortunately, he was there as he began to smell smoke. The only damage was a couple of quarter-size holes on two photographic prints.

Links to Like

Just some things I've seen in the NY Times in the last week:

An op-ed on BP. The writer is elated that a corporation is willing to talk the talk, but is disappointed that they are not willing to walk the walk. Surprise!

Good piece of cultural criticism on That Girl. I particularly like the description of Greek dancing. It reminds me of Doug Englebart, who sought out Greek dancing establishments.

The flashlight of Jimmy Wales.

David Pogue makes me want to buy a hi-definition video camera.