every108minutes

I'm not dumb. I just have a command of thoroughly useless information. Calvin - It's a Magical World, Bill Waterson Wired's June 2008 edition included an article entitled ' Quiet Please : how Man-made noises may be altering Earth's ecology'. The article focused on the theory put forward by Bernie Krause , a field recording scientist, that nature's soundtrack (biophony) is being adversely affected by a louder human-made cacophony (anthrophony). Krause postulates that the animal kingdom divides the acoustic spectrum so it's inhabitants do not interfere with each other. However, human-made noise is increasingly disrupting this harmony and intrudes on a piece of the spectrum already in use - drowning out natures voice. As an example, Krause summizes that the rapidly declining population of the Yosemite spadefoot toad is due to the noise generated from low-flying military aircraft, performing training exercises in the area. Coyotes and owls are able to home ...

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. Arthur C. Clarke Its been talked about before , but while reading the ' The God Delusion ' by Richard Dawkins (and no he doesn't Twitter !), the meme of the Cargo Cult once again caught my attention. Cargo Cult: Waiting for Frum Anthropologists have observed the phenomenon of island inhabitants (most famously of Pacific Melanesia and New Guinea) mimicking and performing rituals of visiting advanced cultures in the belief that these acts will provide them with material goods and wealth. This phenomenon is known as a Cargo Cult . The islanders observed that the visiting people enjoyed great luxuries, with seemingly little or no useful work required in return - they sat behind desks while new or repaired items appeared on the island as if by magic. In one instance, on the island of Tanna in the New Hebrides (now known as Vanuata), the islanders awaited the return the messianic Mr John Frum who would bear ...

Interesting 2008 Bunting and all ... Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover. Mark Twain Over the weekend, my wife and I attended Interesting 2008. The concept of the event - to gather a number of speakers to talk about something they are interested in - was intriguing and all reports suggested it would be a Saturday well spent. Comparisons with the TED talks certainly helped to pique my interest and we were most definitely not disappointed. Russell Davies , the coordinator of the day, has this to say about being 'interesting': The way to be interesting is to be interested. You’ve got to find what’s interesting in everything, you’ve got to be good at noticing things, you’ve got to be good at listening. If you find people (and things) interesting, they’ll find you inter...

The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place. George Bernard Shaw The recent Atlassian Codegeist competition afforded me an opportune moment to further explore new areas of Confluence plugin development. My current contracting assignment involves heavily customising both the theme and functionality of the Confluence platform - but Codegeist offered a chance to really experiment! With the explosion of social networking applications and the rise of the flow , I decided to integrate the functionality of one of the most profilic flow tools in the netsphere, Twitter , with Confluence. Twitter + wiki = Twikkir Posing the simple question 'What are you doing now?", millions have taken to tweeting their response on Twitter to anybody who will listen. From a simple status update to a possible support circle to a tribe building ecosystem , Twitter has become another pillar of the fast-evolving web. In his blog, Rands notes: I want to ...