Ieronimus Cathedral in Salamanca has a carving that includes the perfect likeness of a contemporary astronaut — pretty funny. (According to comments, the anomalous astroguy was added as a joke by a restoration team.) [Link]
Mark McGuinness, a poet and business coach (interesting combo) from the UK, created and posted a free, Creative Commons-licensed book called "Time Management for Creative People." His focus is on creating more time for your own creative work via a set of time management practices he's picked up or figured out. Good advice, well-written. Add it to your to-do list!
Mark posts the above photo he got from somebody who'd owned a cardboard rocket ship. Back in the 50s I drove my parents nuts begging for one of those; they never gave it, but I finally got a loaner. It was almost as great as mom's vacuum cleaner (which had a down side – you couldn't get inside – and an upside – it made the right kind of noise). I remember sitting inside the borrowed rocket, wearing my Superman suit, absolutely invincible.
- TEMPERANCE. Eat not to dullness; drink not to elevation.
- SILENCE. Speak not but what may benefit others or yourself; avoid trifling conversation.
- ORDER. Let all your things have their places; let each part of your business have its time.
- RESOLUTION. Resolve to perform what you ought; perform without fail what you resolve.
- FRUGALITY. Make no expense but to do good to others or yourself; i.e., waste nothing.
- INDUSTRY. Lose no time; be always employ'd in something useful; cut off all unnecessary actions.
- SINCERITY. Use no hurtful deceit; think innocently and justly, and, if you speak, speak accordingly.
- JUSTICE. Wrong none by doing injuries, or omitting the benefits that are your duty.
- MODERATION. Avoid extreams; forbear resenting injuries so much as you think they deserve.
- CLEANLINESS. Tolerate no uncleanliness in body, cloaths, or habitation.
- TRANQUILLITY. Be not disturbed at trifles, or at accidents common or unavoidable.
- CHASTITY. Rarely use venery but for health or offspring, never to dulness, weakness, or the injury of your own or another's peace or reputation.
- HUMILITY. Imitate Jesus and Socrates.
It was a busy week, and I didn't have time to stop and blog what I was doing, but I can summarize here, since it was mostly pretty interesting.
- I met with Tom Brown, Kevin Koym, David Bluestein et al on Monday to talk about a web testbed environment that DCI is setting up. This is where we can start realizing the potential synergy between DCI and the Bootstrap organization. The idea is to build a web technology sandbox for local bootstrap web entrepreneurs.
- Spent some time with Apogee Search, experts in the field of online marketing, especially search engine marketing. We've discussed how my consulting focus can extend their capabilities, and I'm learning quite a bit more about the marketing world from them.
- Innovation blogger Renee Hopkins Callahan, a friend of mine who's moved to Austin recently, dropped by the Polycot offices to visit with Jeff and I. It's great to talk to Renee; she's always so focused on creativity and business innovation.
- Doryan Rice, Silona Bonewald and I have been working on the plan for this year's big EFF/EFF-Austin party at SXSW Interactive. We met with Ryan Pitylak and Danielle Thomas of UnlockAustin.com. Danielle's also associated with White Ghost Shivers, the band that's playing at the steampunk-themed EFF party: "We revel in string band music from the 20's and 30's, mixing early jazz, hokum, vaudeville, ragtime, western swing, and hillbilly, while at the same time unleashing the gutterous underbelly of a pseudo-rock world gone wrong..."
- I met with Bijoy Goswami and the guys at Small World Labs to talk about the Bootstrap Network - the online social network platform for Bootstrap. Small World Labs provides the technology, and I've just become their Bootstrap liaison. We talked about a road map for both social and technological development. (After the meeting, as often happens when Bijoy and I connect, we had more far-reaching conversations about the Bootstrap organization and the future of business in Austin and in the world.
- After Bijoy, I met with Michael Strong, CEO of Flow, for great conversation about his work as well as the work I've been doing, especially for Worldchanging. We talked quite a bit about online and offline community, and he told me about Peter Barnes' new book, Capitalism 3.0, coincidentally just reviewed by Graham Webster for Worldchanging Washington DC. Barnes wants to "protect the commons by giving it property rights and strong institutional managers." Michael introduced me to Charlie Jackson, CEO of Acceleros and founder of Texans for Peace. Charlie's helping Iraqi entrepreneurs sustain (and, hopefully, rebuild) their businesses.
- Finally, I met yesterday afternoon with Xikui Ding, a lawyer with the Mo Shaoping Law Firm from the Peoples Republic of China, in Austin via the international visitor leadership program. The visit was set up by the International Hospitality Council of Austin. He was "focused on criminal and constitutional law, including exposure to NGOs working on free expression, leading law schools and other sources so that he may see the importance of innovation and free expression in our information society." I was meeting him as President of EFF-Austin. "Mr. Ding handles many high profile cases for political prisoners. Most significantly, he has handled the defense of New York Times researcher Zhao Yan in a complicated case involving disclosure of state secrets, which has pushed at the limits of Chinese criminal procedure law. He also was the lead associate for the defense on the case of the Internet writer Shi Tao, which revealed that security officials obtained information from Mr. Shis private Yahoo account for his conviction."
Our pals at Make Magazine have published an online Open Source gift guide. Examples: Ubuntu with support, the Make Daisy MP3 player kit, and the Game of Life (cellular automata) Board.
American Science and SurplusFound via Kevin Kelly's Cool Tools: "incredible stuff, believable prices!" I'm digging into the office supplies, but there's over twenty other categories to check out... like toys, perfect for Christmas shopping. [Link]
You cruise, you lose!Marsha and I have thought occasionally about taking a cruise, and when some guy called with a Good Deal, we were kind of interested. However when I heard we'd have to go somewhere and listen to a spiel, I said no dice. Marsha called and left word that we wouldn't make it, after which "Jack Cooper" from the company, supposedly called "Great Escapes," started calling and insisting on rescheduling. I finally told him we weren't going to do it, and hung up. He called back and said we'd got disconnected, and I said no, I hung up. That was yesterday. Today he called again trying to reschedule, and again I said no and hung up. He called back and told me that I had an obligation to reschedule, and when I refused again, he said he was going to sue me. I hung up again, of course, and when he called back, I didn't answer... so he left a message. Mp3 of the message. Sounds pretty aggressive, eh? And do you think his name's really Jack Cooper? Glad we skipped that cruise... guess I'll sit back and wait for the subpoena.
GenPets
Can this be real? GenPets offers bio-engineered pets with a one or two year life span.
We use a process called "Zygote Micro Injection" which is quickly becoming a favourable method to combine DNA, or to insert certain proteins from different species. Most notably it was used in 1997 to splice mice with bioluminescent jellyfish (link) and has since been used to create glowing rabbits, pigs, fish, and monkeys (link). Since then, human DNA has been injected into rabbits, chimpanzees, spider DNA into sheep, and now, Genpets have arrived!(Okay, it's clearly not real, but – somebody put some real work into making a statement.) Crowdsourcing
Read National Geographic's site for more information on human animal hybrids (link).
Bruce Sterling posts Jeff Howe's comments on the brief history of the "crowdsourcing" meme, with comments. [Link]
Like Jeff Howe, I also believe that "crowdsourcing" is indeed a useful neologism. That's because "crowdsourcing" names part of the same elephant as "Long Tail," "Invisible Tail," "collective intelligence," "folksonomy," "search and publish/publish and search," "attention economy," "collaborative web filters," "architecture of participation" and "commons-based peer-production," among other such. New terminology is boiling out of this realm of activity practically every day now. It is being created because there is a pressing and demonstrable need for it.)
I could spend all day trying to explain how Jeff Howe's "crowdsourcing" has a different structure than "commons-based peer production." This would be no mere academic hairsplitting, either. You see, it's like mapping the mountains and finding two seams of gold. In one, a bunch of hairy-bearded *NIX prospectors are standing hip-deep in the water panning for lumps of gold, while in the other, Three Initial Corporation is data-mining vast spoilage heaps of almost-useless rubble.... I could go on. Others most certainly will.