(no subject)

[trochee]

Notes today, ordered from most personal to most geeky:

• I am visiting a therapist [DH] this afternoon tomorrow afternoon (he cancelled for an emergency) for the first time. This is an initial (mutual) interview to see if we work with each other.
• imtboo leaves for NYC tomorrow. Her elbow looks much better today (I helped her change the bandages this morning).
• Thanks to imtboo, I have started using Google Calendar. It is what I wanted a calendar to be. Google rather disturbingly keeps doing the Thing I Want perhaps a few months after I've decided I Really Need It (decent mail program, RSS reader, now calendar).
• I am reading more Iain M. Banks: Consider Phlebas. Actually, I think that Banks' "Culture" was probably founded from Google. Both:
  • keep giving their citizens and contacts Things They Want
  • are apparently semi-democratic
  • are heavily technophilic
  • are firmly rooted in the belief that their organization itself is a Good Thing
  • seem to want nothing but loyalty in return
  • may have an unsettling blackops "Special Circumstances" division.
• I just discovered gtkpod and I am very very impressed. I went from no knowledge to a downloaded, installed, working iPod setup on Ubuntu in about an hour, including the research. Next tasks -- podcast catching (gpodder? anybody have other Ubuntu suggestions for podcast catching?), and get the gtkpod to synchronize with my Google Calendar. Mwahaha.

Comments

[solri.livejournal.com]

how that could emerge out of where we are now

Banks argues that the social and economic patterns of the Culture are the result of interstellar travel and strong AI. This is not very encouraging, considering how far off both of these seem to be. Here and now, the best we can is to encourage the growth of co-opertaives, foundations and, of course, the ethic of free sharing exemplified by OSS.