Great cartoon on a "revolutionary new Bluetooth feature" (via Heli, who is otherwise in more serious mood, passing on a 'Sorrows of Empire' review at 'Heaven and Hell').
"A revolution would be required to bring the Pentagon back under democratic control," 'Blowback' writer Chalmers Johnson apparently warns in his latest book (Amazon US).
That's not what I want to think about now. The politics are more far subtle in the next book due for comment here, Karl Schroeder's 'Permanence' (Amazon UK; St Martin's Press, paperbook 2003). I thought 'Ventus' was excellent (and so did the Kid), but Karl was full of more surprises in this latest one. Too good for a hasty write-up tonight.
zzz
The Kid's off through the Chunnel again tomorrow, with her friend and co-blogger Sév (belcatja2). It's quite a big deal trip, since they'll be crossing London and heading up to to York to see Marianne's English grandparents for a few days mostly on their own, but everybody's looking forward to it.
And one of the first things the Kid wants to do, now she's got her own papers as well as passport, is get another hole pierced in her ear...
Piercing any other parts of her anatomy while she's over there is strictly banned, though she enjoyed making threats.
Tony's also going to England, the brave man. Heaven help him, I think he'll be on the same Eurostar as the Kid and friend.
zzz
I see Rainer's into Orkutlery (Solipsism Gradient) -- having taken good note of its off-putting terms of service. I've thanked the feller who invited me to Orkut, but cried off. Had it been the other side of the Equator...
Sometimes it's hard to make time enough for my flesh-and-blood friends, let alone the "virtual ones", though it's fun when the latter occasionally turn into the former as well.
There was yet more about Orkut and the like in a very long post at
Apophenia: 'Revenge of the User':
"...these networks don't look real. It's too socially awkward. They're not built to give us a way to express the subtleties of how we know people, the power differentials, the contexts, the strengths.
Furthermore, they expose more about us to different groups of people than we would ever do in real life (...)
It doesn't get us any closer to having a social network that means something."
Extracts like that don't do justice to a thoughtful article which sums up a lot about the "new social architecture" (via Many 2 Many) and is far from a purely negative survey.
"At this writing, I'm informed that I'm 'connected to 35862 people through 23 friends.' Nearly all of those I know personally or professionally. It's very interesting to follow the network links," Rainer says.
Maybe I've become too much of a lone wolf, but while I find that sort of statement intriguing, it's also ... well, not exactly disturbing, but it reminds me of wild geese.
Now that technology has far outpaced our ability to process information, to each their own networks, I guess. In line with developments on the site itself, I've changed my blogroll link to Cyberjournalist, where I drop in more and more often. There, I've finally expressed a readiness to join.
Another thing about the "social software" bugs me.
Generally, it links "us" to "people like us".
The 'Globe of Blogs' currently lists 10,765 weblogs, which include neither mine nor even a tenth of those out there. Of that relatively small handful, how many are in Africa?
Just 48 ('globe of blogs').
Knowing it's inevitably like that doesn't make me any more comfortable with the figures.
11:16:23 PM link 
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