Monday, 30th o July 2001
Well, now what was an adventure! A volcano in Montseratt errupted and spewed ash all over the caribbean this weekend. Laura and I puzzled over the grey dust covering everything this morning. What could it be? I wondered if it was an industrial accident or concrete from a construction site upwind from us or something. It wasn't until we noticed that it had affected the entire metro area that I started wondering what had happened. There was this strange sense or something big, global, disasterous, or something. It wasn't until Laura's sister called from Rhode Island and told us about the volcano that it all made sense. Weird. I never thought I'd live through a mini Pompei. *chuckle*
Our microwave antenna was out most of the weekend too due to the dust in the air, so no Internet in the office. *raises clenched fist*, "As God is mah witness, I will never go without broadband again!"
Saturday, 21st o July 2001
Altamente.com Working Hard 24/7
Hehe, here's a picture of the refrigerator in the office. SEE how much we work? Such dedication!!!
Chuckle
By the way, those are frozen entrees.
Monday, 2nd o July 2001
Who Will Serve My Latte?
From an email conversation with my friend, Laura Golden, about The Latte Manifesto a forthcoming book about culture or lack thereof in Silicon Valley
Or, what do I do about the problem of de-latte-ization in the affluent urban centers?
Hey, here's an idea!! Let's use gene therapy to make apes smarter and use them as domestic servants. Hmm, never mind, need opposable thumbs to serve coffee, probably would spill. They would revolt, wipe out humans, and take over the earth? What are you smoking, it would never happen.
We could get Mexican's, they'd be cheaper. But then every damn politician that came along would threaten to deport them all for stealing good jobs away from Americans. Course by then, they'd be TECH jobs, because you'd need to be a PERL/JAVA/PHP/C++ programmer to operated the web-enabled 5 GHz Pentium 5(tm) espresso machine and to keep out the 31337 L337 hackers using Zombie IRC chat servers to Denial of Service attack Starbucks Inc.
We could use robots? Wouldn't be cheaper or more efficient... probaby would spill more coffee and cost a lot more, but hell you could put it on the web and track it... little coffee cam, clip together the funniest spills and sell the tv rights. Or maybe you could order your drink remotely and then pick it up... cold. Hmm, too stupid? This is America, I don't think so *G*.
What about 16 year old high school students? That used to work pretty well. People complained that they were rude and hadn't a clue about how to serve coffee, but they at least did the job, and worked cheap? How about them? What, you say? Too busy anyway rolling in IPO money and they have coffee makers in their ferraris? Nevermind.
So where are we left? Well, I'm glad you asked that. You see the problem of de-latte-ization in the affluent urban centers is one that I have sworn to combat. I've been a strong proponate of education and school vouchers. It is only through education that we can make a difference.
Friday, 22nd o June 2001
The error of youth is to believe that intelligence is a substitute
for experience, while the error of age is to believe experience is
a substitute for intelligence.
-- Lyman Bryson
Tuesday, 12th o June 2001
... "fire" does not matter, "earth" and "air" and "water" do not matter.
"I" do not matter. No word matters. But man forgets reality and remembers
words. The more words he remembers, the cleverer do his fellows esteem him.
He looks upon the great transformations of the world, but he does not see
them as they were seen when man looked upon reality for the first time.
Their names come to his lips and he smiles as he tastes them, thinking he
knows them in the naming.
-- Roger Zelazny, "Lord of Light"
Two kinds of people in this world: Those that use facts and figures as a refuge, and those that use them to take flight.
I've been dealing with some annoying distractions with regard to small minded people who would rather bog down in rules/specifications/legaleez than actually pretend to know the spirit, the higher method to the legal/bureaucratic nonsense that surrounds us.
It's funny to note that some people are particually good at mimicking the "letter of the law", but there are few who actually chew it or understand on a level that doesn't just make it a talisman of protection from the unwashed masses.
I'm talking about empathy, passion, earnestness, idealism. There are so many levels to this idea of facts as protectors and ideas as enablers that it boogles the mind. East egg West egg, new wealth, old wealth, the seperation of classes from those that "get" it and those that only imitate it. I am fully convinced that the assumption of power or old money (however ugly it can otherwise be) represents a natural relationship with the things we "know" as versus the scandelous whip that learned facts and deludes and concludes that it is all there is.
Knowledge is NOT power, never was and never will be. Knowledge is the great liberator that lets one off that little ledge upon which we've holed up. Would you hurl stones from your nook and laugh at the ignorant or perhaps put yourself to flight and risk falling?
Before we put someone down for ignorance we should ask ourselves whom do I serve: Do I serve my place, my space, my territory, or am I an agent of the Truth, the essense of a thing and the spirit.
And it all comes full circle does't it? Pick any idea from the New Testament, Leave your belongs and come with me, Believe in me and you shall have eternal life, let he who is without sin cast the first stone. We could quote all day, but if we only see them as stones, we end up with nothing, tucked into our nook, huddled clinging to our knees in the cold and out of the light.