Quotation of the Day for September 9, 2007
“I believe I have an unfair edge over most of my colleagues right now — my mind works faster than my mouth does.”
- Tim Johnson, U.S. Senator from South Dakota, at his first public appearance since recovering from a brain hemorrhage.
Lately some of the more pretentious online folks have started calling those pretty pictures of how your Facebook profile (del.icio.us profile, LinkedIn profile, etc.) relates to other profiles a “social graph” instead of the previously-used “social network”.
No, no, no. Graphs have variables. Networks have connections. What we have here are connections, not variables. There’s no y axis on those pretty pictures, just lines depicting individual connections between data points. Therefore, there is no graph, even if you do make your data into a pretty picture. It could perhaps be a map or a diagram or a web, but it is not a graph.
Sensible commentary and a bunch of comments at (among other places) Rough Type.
edit: the original post on this was Dave Winer’s How to avoid sounding like an monkey . That post also has a bunch of background.
We were pleased to be not the only ones returning a large number of wine bottles to the Beer Store. Everyone seemed to have large boxes or garbage cans full of the things… maybe everyone else saved them up for the whole summer too. Probably I shouldn’t respond to this by ordering more wine, but hey! now we have room!
So much of parenting little kids is about teeth.
First you wonder when they’re going to get them. Then they do get them and for a while you have Tylenol (for the baby) and earplugs (for you) on tap. Then they start biting each other and probably you. Then they turn two and start being picky eaters who won’t bite anything if it’s not either beige or covered in orange cheese powder.
Then they suddenly are old enough to start losing their baby teeth and you get to do the teething thing all over again, but with horrible daily demonstrations of tooth-wiggling as a sort of prelude.
Yes, the tooth fairy paid us her first visit last night. She was generous, too, delivering a small book and a nice crisp $5 bill while some of us slept, because some of us wanted our daycare teacher to yank the tooth and were sorely disappointed that it came out of its own accord and the event needed to be turned into a happy one regardless.
I’m just happy I had nothing to do with the yanking. Brrrr.
Quotation of the Day for September 3, 2007
“We are slightly normal. We have a normal side to us.”
- Prince Harry, Henry Charles Albert David Wales, in his recent U.S. TV interview. Quoted in TIME, Aug 27, 2007.
I’m not much of a gamer. I’ve played various versions of Civ since about 1994, but not much else… the gunfire sounds in first-person shooters make me tense, and when I’m playing it’s not my desire to end up more tense.
Still, seems to me it’s as good a way of spending time as any other. I’ve noticed there are more and more positive stories about gaming and about online pursuits generally, and (with the exception of pedophilia-related scare stories) fewer “D&D killed my dog!” stories. I liked this piece by Clive Thompson today:
Yet, just like a crossword addict, when the game is over, we’re left with — what? A sense of completion? Sure, except what we’ve completed could be regarded as a supremely arbitrary, nonproductive task. The elation I feel when I finish is always slightly tinged with a worrisome sense of hollowness. Wouldn’t I have been better off doing something that was difficult and challenging and productive?
Except, wait a minute. That’s just stupid, Puritan thinking. Videogames, like crosswords, are a form of play — and play is a key element of a healthy adult existence. As game theorist Raph Koster has always pointed out, our playful brains love to seek out patterns, to solve problems — and there’s something existentially joyful about doing this in an environment that doesn’t have any stakes if you screw it up.
Or here’s a more radical way of putting it: Wasting time is one of the central reasons we play. If play were productive, it wouldn’t be … play. Monday Night Football doesn’t achieve anything either.
The BBC talks positively about gaming as a way of assessing the character of potential offline relationships:
You can easily gauge some of the slipperiest aspects of human nature by observing someone’s tactics. Are they a risk-taker? Do they panic under pressure? Do they respond to failure with frustration or creativity? Are they a gracious winner or a griping loser? A loner or a team-player? Perfectionist or bodger? Is winning all that matters, or will they risk death to pull a prank or tell a joke?
And Doonesbury made me snort (click for the full-size version — originally here):
Originally uploaded by morecoffeeplease.
Excitement and nervousness. We’re all hoping this year will be a more positive experience.
