Triangle and Robert

Triangle and Robert (home.comcast.net/~pshaughn) ... is very funny!

Weird Web

Weird and funny places on the net - lotsa links to lotsa odd things...

• False Advertising Gallery - http://parody.organique.com
  
• Adbusters - adbusters.org
  
• Lord Of The Rings, in Lego!
  

Adbusters

Adbusters Culture Jammers Headquarters has lots of cool campaigns against corporatisation of the world... get involved.

Cyberspace

An Atlas of Cyberspaces.

What Is: Cyber

Half-Baked

halfbakery: a user-created collection of half-baked ideas.

Unfamous Quotations

My favorite Unfamous Quotations from Gary Turner's Unfamous Quotations page:

• "I don't believe in anything but I wonder about everything." - David Mitchell
  
• "Would one or all of the Gods protect me from those who are certain?" - Derek Smith
  
• "I'm very tolerant when it doesn't affect me." - Derek Smith
  
• "Computer games don't affect kids. I mean, if Pacman affected us as kids, we'd all be running around in darkened rooms, munching magic pills and listening to repetitive electronic music..." - Wouter Jagers
  
• "It's amazing what you can do if you don't care who gets the credit." - Anon
  
• "The one thing experience has taught me is that I never learn from it." - Derek Smith
  

Lullabye Language

The Big Picture - Lullaby language. A nice article describing that simple idea that one should say what one means! when writing. Clarity of language. No ambiguity. In summary (some of these are my interpretations):

• Should = Probably Won't. ("We should sign a contract." VS "We probably won't sign a contract.")
  
• Just = go to a lot of trouble to ("You just have to write the report." VS "You need to go to a lot of trouble to write the report.")
  
• All = see "just"
  
• Soon = Never ("I will do it... soon." VS ''I will do it... never [so go away and stop hassling!]")
  
• Only = significance from own perspective ("It's only a minor change." VS "I made the minor change because it didn't seem to make any significant difference to anyone else.")
  
• Anything = significance from own perspective ("I didn't change anything." VS "I didn't change anything that I thought would matter to anyone else.")
  

Seditious Internet

I came across the cluetrain manifesto today. Very interesting reading and I have only read some of Chapter 1 so far.

"...companies don't like us humans. They leverage our longing for their own ends." Fits with the thinking and learning I have been doing a lot of this year. We always seem to think of companies as an independant living entity. But any organisation only exists because it is made up of people. Yet there is a contradiction there, because organisations do develop a life of their own. Inertia keeps the place going - either up and up or further into a rut. Read Agryris on double loop learning and organisational learning. Double loop learning lets the valuable learned knowledge of individuals transfer into "the organisation", modifying norm, strategies, culture. So my question is: is it "the company" that decides I need the latest gizmo, who actually decided? Was it really "the company" (the entity), was it a strange growth from a collective consciousness, or is there one maniac individual inventing crap that no one wants or needs (until its in-your-face helps you to realise that of course you need it and how could you have ever lived without it!) and this one maniac individual has enough power over others in the organisation to make them go along?

"The Internet is inherently seditious."

We can only hope.

Saving time

A collection of articles on lifestyle, from the Real Time Solutions Web site.

Swampstompy

Sick of this world and all of its inequities? Why not create a new world? I did! Have just founded The Borderlands of Swampstompy!

Cool.

Urban Dictionary

UrbanDictionary.com. Well, it's not Everything2, but it might have potential. Unfortunately, this site currently seems to be populated with definintions of so-called Urban Slang that is:

1. US-centric,
   
2. of poor quality (many entries contain blantant spelling errors and there appears to be a distinct lack of editing: many repetitious entries for the same word - despite the fact that the site states that "Definitions may be edited"), and
   
3. homophobic and sexist (probably racist too, but I didn't stick around to find examples of this).
   

Straight to Hell

I just took Dante's Inferno Test (from www.4degreez.com). Apparently I am destined to go to the the Sixth Level of Hell - The City of Dis!

"The wretched King Minos has decided your fate. His tail wraps around his body 6 times. The sweet light no longer strikes against your eyes. Your shade has been banished to... the Sixth Level of Hell - The City of Dis!

You approach Satan's wretched city where you behold a wide plain surrounded by iron walls. Before you are fields full of distress and torment terrible. Burning tombs are littered about the landscape. Inside these flaming sepulchers suffer the heretics, failing to believe in God and the afterlife, who make themselves audible by doleful sighs. You will join the wicked that lie here, and will be offered no respite. The three infernal Furies stained with blood, with limbs of women and hair of serpents, dwell in this circle of Hell."

Apparently level 6 is pretty bad!:

Level	Score
Purgatory (Repenting Believers)	Very Low
Level 1 - Limbo (Virtuous Non-Believers)	Very Low
Level 2 (Lustful)	High
Level 3 (Gluttonous)	Very High
Level 4 (Prodigal and Avaricious)	High
Level 5 (Wrathful and Gloomy)	High
Level 6 - The City of Dis (Heretics)	Very High
Level 7 (Violent)	Very High
Level 8- the Malebolge (Fraudulent, Malicious, Panderers)	Very High
Level 9 - Cocytus (Treacherous)	High

Take the Dante's Inferno Test (NB. this site times out quite often, so I hope that impatience is not one of your more sinful aspects.)

Globalisation

Decided that I should spend some time thinking about what globalisation actually is.

The Globalisation Guide is a very good site that explains globalisation in straightforward language. Aimed at students, the site has been written by the Australian APEC Study Centre, a unit of Monash University in Melbourne.

This site led me to the policy papers on The Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ACCI) Web site.

• The policy on "The Economy" outlines ACCI's position on how Australia needs to increase productivity to increase the wealth of the nation.


• The Education and Training policy regards the provision of education and training as being important for the development of individuals in order to create 'a cohesive, democratic and prosperous society' because this crucial to achieving Australia's economic goals.

I note a contradiction in the Education and Training policy. In the 'Policy Objectives' section, ACCI states that it supports "education and training as a demand driven system that is specifically aligned to industry needs" but then later states that it wants to "promote student centred funding that allows an individual to purchase a course of study through the school, vocational education and training provider or
university of their choice". Seems to me that implementing individual choice via student-centred funding would undermine industry driving demand in education and training.

Conan Doyle

A reminder to myself... am interested in reading literary criticisms of Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories.

Some sites to follow up on:

• Sherlock Holmes on the Web: the Sherlockian.Net Holmepage
  
• The Chronicles of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
  

What is a Swamp...

When I think of a swamp, I think of a muddy space in the middle of nowhere... dark and forbidding (sort of like this). The sort of place you have to walk through to visit the haunted house in a Kthulhu story or to venture through during a fanasty adventure. So, a swamp is a place that is not very inviting and (unfortunately) in modern times is likely to be a dumping ground for junk and rubbish.

But a swamp is ecologically significant... it's a place where organic matter breaks down and re-enters the cycle as nutrients for other organisms. A swamp is home to all sorts of creatures that lead separate but intertwined existences; mutually co-dependant. It is an important place where new things (ideas) can be generated, on the foundations created by the old things (ideas) breaking down.

So this is my swamp, on the Web... where I can explore subjects (topics) as they take my fancy. Now, just have to wait and see what emerges from my swamp!