Oxyfish

I am an inveterate science fiction fan, and I read as much as I can – although these days, with 3 young kids, that’s not much. I don’t think that science fiction is very useful as a good predictor of the actual future, but it helps keep me sharp by thinking about the way things could be. I especially like the short story format, because you can explore one or two interesting ideas without having to do a lot of the plot and character development required in longer forms.

Bruce Sterling is a great writer in the field right now, and I just ran across a recent short story that is linked below. I am also a Simon and Garfunkel fan from way back, so this quote really resonated with me:

The words of the prophet have vanished from the subway walls.

Finally, since I have the above-mentioned 3 small children, I am continually trying to imagine the world they will live in, so I can try my best to prepare them for it. I am always struggling with where to put the boundaries, so my kids can explore the world, but in a reasonably safe and sane way.

The story is a little depressing, but like all good stories, made me look at the way I think about something important to me – in this case, raising my kids – a little bit differently.

I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by Google

Keith Olbermann eloquently and passionately blasts President Bush and politicians in general. Highly recommended.

YouTube – Olbermann on five year 9/11 anniversary

Best part is the perfect blog posts for a bunch of blogs. Captures them perfectly – it’s been a while since I laughed out loud at a blog post.

The Ultimate Blog Post

One of the most amazing examples of the kind of spontaneous work group that we’re likely to see in the future is the Office 2.0 conference. The brain child of Ismael Ghalimi, who has been writing the popular IT|Redux blog, it seems it was originally conceived as a meetup of a few folks interested in the concept. However, as Ismael wrote about the idea, the event seemed to take on a life of its own. The Enterprise Irregulars, a group of bloggers that have been invited to several conferences together, got involved and really helped the idea take off.

As I understand it, the site was actually created by SiteKreator before they talked to Ismael – they bought the domain, created the site, and presented it to him. A number of luminaries expressed interest in speaking, and even more importantly, a bunch of companies wanted to sponsor the event. Ismael was able to delegate much of the work, and even better, automate nearly every aspect using services, as described in the blog. As he says, with typical understatement: “Blogs can be pretty effective marketing tools nowadays.”

I’ll be at the conference, and I think it will be very worthwhile. Hope to see you there.