Author: gulley

Bio-blogical analogies

Bio-blogical analogies are in the air: This article by Jon Udell on the O’Reilly Network, Blogspace Under the Microscope, pursues a biological metaphor for how networks of blogs can join together to form larger entities in the same way that single-celled organisms can join together to form multi-cellular organisms. It’s a little bit of a stretch, but it’s got the right idea. Soon after I read that article, I came across a piece by Steven Johnson on Salon, in which Johnson compares a blog with a neuron (actually, he’s drawing on the image originally published by James Wolcott at Business 2.0). I find this blog-as-neuron image apt and very appealing: there are interesting parallels between the cell and the blog. Neuronal dendrites correspond to the inbound links that a blogger regularly reads, whereas axons are the outbound links to other bloggers that read and respond to his posts. Sure enough, blogs form themselves into constantly evolving networks that pass messages from here to there. It’s a good meme… pass it on.

The submarine tugboat

Remember the story of the towboat that got sucked under the bridge? It’s making the rounds again. I got two more emails just today pointing me at it. It is a great set of pictures. Since the pictures have been going around and around, I decided that there must be a good explanation of the whole story out there somewhere. I went Googling for a few minutes and was not disappointed. Here’s a great page explaining the whole sordid tale of the Motor Vessel Cahaba and its unhappy encounter with the Old Demopolis Bridge on April 28th, 1979. As related by Capt. Michael L. Smith: “Notice the picture where the boat is not quite righted and you can see water pouring out of the wheelhouse door. The chair washes out, and Jimmie told me he was holding on to the controls with all his might to keep from going out the drain and into the river.”

I happen to know that

I happen to know that the Coffee Czar is a big fan of Get Your War On, a bizarro mixture of cultural satire, profanity, inanity, and endlessly recycled business clip art. The Czar got me started reading the site, and I have to admit this obscene minimalist comic has a very high laugh-out-loud quotient. A profile of the site’s creator, David Rees, showed up recently in the NY Times: Like ‘Dilbert,’ but Subversive and Online. It’s entertaining and informative to get a little perspective on the artist behind a site like this.
Rees also gets in a good dig at weblogs elsewhere on his site, My New Fighting Technique is Unstoppable. It all feels a little McSweeneys-esque. What’s really weird is that my boss used to forward little good-management-practices booklets that used this exact same clip art.

I’ve been a fan of

I’ve been a fan of Erik Davis ever since I picked up TechGnosis at a bookstore years ago. He talks about our technologically frenzied culture from a mythological point of view, something generally absent from other cultural commentary. At the same time, he is an enthusiastic participant in the technoculture. He doesn’t scoff; he embraces and discusses. Here is an interview with him posted on the SFGate site: Q&A: Erik Davis / Cyber-visionary comments on the nature of technology in the world today

I can’t say that I’m

I can’t say that I’m very surprised by this. Craig Venter, formerly of Celera Genomics, built that multimillion dollar company to decode… his own genome. I wonder how many people knew what he was up to? Did he sneak in and switch the test tubes? It’s easy to make fun of him, but if you were in his position, wouldn’t you do the same thing? As he says: “How could one not want to know about one’s own genome?” Will people be motivated by spite to determine the genetic diseases lurking in his now uniquely public genome and then not tell him? Or maybe tell his insurers? From the story: As to opening himself to the accusation of egocentricity, he said, “I’ve been accused of that so many times, I’ve gotten over it.” Read about it in the New York Times: Scientist Reveals Genome Secret: It’s Him.

Seed magazine is a science-n-fashion

Seed magazine is a science-n-fashion magazine. It’s every bit as odd as it sounds. The ads look like they came straight out of Vanity Fair, and an article about James Watson’s new memoir is nestled next to a fashion shoot (“Unleash the gypsy within this spring, as the casual ease of a bygone bohemian era returns.”). This magazine will be out of business in six months. There is a good article by Guns, Germs, and Steel author Jared Diamond in which he talks about the dissolution of nomadic societies (as in Somalia and Afghanistan) as a root cause of economic deterioration and social unrest. His conclusion: make nomads settle and you give them a bad deal. They know it, and they’ll end up making you pay. And so they are.

Time magazine is doing a

Time magazine is doing a cover story on autism: The Secrets of Autism. Some numbers from the article… “Not long ago, autism was assumed to be comparatively rare, affecting as few as 1 in 10,000 people. The latest studies, however, suggest that as many as 1 in 150 kids age 10 and younger may be affected by autism or a related disorder — a total of nearly 300,000 children in the U.S. alone.” My son is one of those children; I wrote about him on this site last year. Autism is so baffling, so difficult to treat, that I am at a loss sometimes even to talk about it. But I want you to know this fact about me — if the only thing we can do is talk about it, then I will talk. Someday we’ll do more.

Botox parties

Botox parties represent an amazing amount of cultural convergence. Botox, or botulism toxin, is generally bad news. It kills by paralyzing important muscles, like the diaphragm and the heart. But a teeny-tiny squirt injected just above your eyebrows can wipe out muscle-induced wrinkles by paralyzing the associated squinty muscles. A little creepy, but you can sure see the motivation. Here comes the convergence: socialites in LA are throwing tupperware-like botox parties. I read about it in the Minneapolis paper this week, which means it’s headed to a suburb near you sooner than you think. The edgy-artsy set has been doing piercing parties (navels, nipples, netherbits) for some time, and heroin chic has been waxing and waning. Now anyone with wrinkles, cash, and a few friends can have fabulous tastefully-catered doctor-chaperoned fun with needles. It’s safe, cosmetically enhancing, and slightly wicked with its dark-n-spicy overtones of drugs, piercing, and sex. What’s not to like? Look for body modification parties to go mainstream.

While I was at CHI,

While I was at CHI, I finished Word Freak, subtitled Heartbreak, Triumph, Genius, and Obsession in the World of Competitive Scrabble Players. It’s a good read, filled with an obligingly weird cast of characters. Having seen it recommened on peterme.com, I bought it for my wife, our reigning in-house champion (I knew I was really getting it for myself). There is something deeply appealing about a bruising, trash-talking pro tour for Scrabble heads. The author, Stefan Fatsis, goes native and eventually becomes an expert player himself as he tells his story. I like the part where he’s talking to the former world champ, Joel Sherman, who’s complaining that Scrabble should be more popular than chess, because it’s more accessible. Millions of people could watch, he whines. “Watch what?” replies Fatsis, “watch you play TREHALA, and then run for their dictionaries?”

Come to think of it, web coverage, with appropriate links to reference sources, might just make that dream come true. I’d watch. By the way, Joel Sherman has the very first review posted for the book on the Amazon page. As long as you’re at it, cruise over to the 2001 World Championship site and see what all the fuss is about (or not, depending on how you look at it). Here’s the winning grid. Ever heard of a VOZHD?