brushes with greatness

I used to work with the brother-in-law of the author of this book:


but never knew about the work being done there, the school-building and generosity (or recompense?) being done in the wild regions of the Karakoram and Himalayas.

The fellow I worked with is the only person I have met who has summited Mt Everest and afterwards launched an improvement project of his own, cleaning up the refuse and debris left by climbers.

just in time

Shameless commerce, but I love browsing and buying from these guys . . .

An Old Chestnut…
(Please sing aloud to the tune of “The Christmas Song – Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire”)

Eyeballs nestled in a pasta dish…
Rubber snakes nipping at your toes,
Yuletide rats, several orange growing fish,
And keychains with an extra-gooshy nose.

Everybody knows, a spider and some body parts
Help to make the season bright.
Tiny tots with their frogs and snake hearts
Will find it hard to sleep tonight.

They know the UPS truck’s down the street,
With lots of slime and rubber chickens as a treat,
And every mother’s child can’t wait to see
The screaming monkey flying right into the tree.
And so we’re offering these simple gifts
For kids from one to ninety-two.
Although it’s been said many times, many ways
You need surplus…. You need surplus, you do.

dumbing it all down

[P]ublishers say they print garbage so that real literature, which seldom makes any money, can find its way into print. True, to a point. But some of them print garbage so they can buy more garbage.

There was a time when I wanted to be like Sting, the singer, belting out, “Roxanne …” I guess that’s why we have karaoke, for fantasy night. If only there was such a thing for failed plumbers, politicians or celebrities who think they can write.

[From Guest Columnist – Typing Without a Clue – Op-Ed – NYTimes.com]

Mr Smith doesn’t go to Washington

A thought experiment that occurred to me this morning.

What if some member of the chamber of people’s deputies decided not to take his seat in Washington, instead taking his oath in his state capitol or home district, and managed his constituents business from there? Yes, it’s kind of a whizzy sci-fi idea where someone replaces human interaction or proximity with tech.

Flaws:

  • legislating is about deals and favors: hard to consummate those without personal contact
  • proximity still matters: why else are cities growing and why are the most powerful/influential cities so large (London, New York, Tokyo, 10 million people or more with millions more in the surrounding region)
  • can you really serve your constituents while remaining at home

Part of the idea for this came from conversations earlier in the week, where it was mentioned that no one gets rich in public service. The best you can hope for is, as a congress member, to take home your campaign war chest when you retire (I think they should be required to donate it to the treasury). Where they make money is in graft and other corruption that only comes from them all being in one place where the money flows so easily.

Hmm. It sounded a lot more interesting this morning.

gah

On November 10, 2008 we said goodbye to Phillip Dean Hardwick.

He was born a month before I graduated from high school?!

I asked one of the guys at the World’s Greatest Hardware Tool Store after I saw the notice on the door. His reply, slow in coming and in a thickened voice: “Don’t mess with drugs.” Always seemed like a fun-loving, easy-going kid, perhaps too fun-loving in the end. Too young for this, at any rate.

Want Sandy? Tough. She’s quitting.

Users of the popular (10,000 users or so) reminder/organization service will have to go back to pen, paper, and forgetting pretty soon.

Today marks a fork in the road for this particular startup. Values of n, the company behind Stikkit and I Want Sandy, will be closing its doors. Both services will going offline at close of business (5pm PST) on Monday December 8th, 2008.

[From Values of n Blog: A fork in the road]

My comments to that post:

I feel like all the input and suggestions made by Sandy users, as well as the day-to-day reliance on it (how else to make it better) is being dropped on the floor. I guess ownership is a vague concept in web services. Does the person who owns the rackspace own the service? Or is it the people who actually make renting the rackspace necessary? Or is the programmers who built it, not knowing how it would work in real life?

Yes, the service is free, but no one asked the users who added value by engaging with it to pay for it or otherwise keep it going.

I will be thinking twice about any other services like this: I hadn’t really gotten one before this and it seems unlikely I will again.