I like this – a lot. Makes a whole hell of a lot more sense than PMRC warning labels, that’s for sure. I wonder if a Firefox plugin, enabling some social review mechanism to apply these labels would work. Probably too small of an audience. Besides, I think Tom Scott was joking. I think. Gotta send him an email.
Contents Not Verified 🙂
Rafe Colburn on rc3.org writes about the ever more ugly political environment: “Things never get better by getting worse”
Max Headroom is coming out on DVD. Way, way, way ahead of its time. I’m looking forward to getting this.
NPR.org: “’80s Nostalgia? M-M-Max Headroom Is Now On DVD”
Wired.com: “Scott Brown on How Max Headroom Predicted the Demise of TV Journalism”
I have been hard on Memeorandum in the past, believing that its story selection algorithm’s were too narrow, that it promoted a small subset of the Web, but just look at it. Look at it again.
Memeorandum is the only one stop shop on the Web to get exposed to both sides of the political conversation taking place. That admirable, helpful, and downright impressive. No one else does this and I am thankful I can go there each day to get a round up of what’s being discussed in the political sphere.
There are some who would label Sister Mary Scullion’s belief system as ‘liberal’ because it has a vision for helping people reach their fullest potential, or, because it comes from a faith-based foundation, ‘religious’ or ‘conservative’. There are some would call this the polar opposite of say, ‘libertarianism’.
Whatever. Label it what you will with your thin-slicing marketing terms. There is a mission statement, right here, for a better world. Listen to Sister Mary Scullion’s “This I Believe” essay at WHYY.org: :
I envision and work for a society in which each person is given the opportunity and resources to achieve their fullest potential and to contribute to the common good.
I also believe that our greatest power is unleashed when people come together across social boundaries to form a community united by a common vision. It is through “the power of we” as our friend and partner, Jon Bon Jovi reminds us, that we come to know the deepest truth of our humanity.
At the end of the day, this is what I truly believe: “None of us are truly home until all of us are home.”
I know, at the end of the day, my Mom and my family benefited from the efforts of those who believed in such things. I am forever thankful for their efforts and hope I can somehow contribute the same along the way.
Oscar Wilde may have said, “only the shallow know themselves”, but a little introspection can go a long way.
Kimberly Blessing recommends a book and online assessment called “StrengthsFinder” to put to language what your natural strengths and inclinations are so that you can better put them to use.
She mentions the Keirsey temperament sorter in relation to Strengths Finder and it’s an assessment I’ve taken a few times over the past ten or so years. I always end up in the Idealist camp, sometimes among the Champions, sometimes among the Teachers. Re-reading the description of the Idealist I’m actually taken aback at how close it maps to me, including what my values are and what stresses me out.
I’m looking forward to finishing reading StrengthsFinder (quarter of the way through) and taking the assessment, it will be fun and helpful.
Being an Activator, being driven to make things happen, works well to balance out the Strategic strength, which is to anticipate and project ahead. You can actually see how these two strenghts can be in conflict with one another too.
Individualization, looking for the unique qualities in each person and finding a way to help people work together, assists with Connectedness, which is all about bridge building and seeing the larger picture, the meaning of things.
As for Input, well Richelle calls me Number 5 (from Short Circuit) 🙂
I’d bet that Adaptibility, Context and Learner were among my top 10, if there was access, I’d bet they were there.
I highly recommend taking StrenghtsFinder. Even if you don’t believe in this kinda thing, and think that who we are as people is far more fluid than these kinda things would suggest, I do believe a little introspection can go a long way.
Jeffrey Rosen in the NYTimes reports on the effects social networking will have on our efforts to redefine ourselves:
It’s often said that we live in a permissive era, one with infinite second chances. But the truth is that for a great many people, the permanent memory bank of the Web increasingly means there are no second chances — no opportunities to escape a scarlet letter in your digital past. Now the worst thing you’ve done is often the first thing everyone knows about you.
Tom Meltzer in the Guardian reports on the strange paradox of loneliness among the most connected generation seemingly ever:
This is not just a teenage problem. In May, the Mental Health Foundation released a report called The Lonely Society? Its survey found that 53% of 18-34-year-olds had felt depressed because of loneliness, compared with just 32% of people over 55. The question of why was, in part, answered by another of the report’s findings: nearly a third of young people said they spent too much time communicating online and not enough in person.
In a YouGov poll published by Samaritans last December, 21% of young people aged 18-24 identified loneliness as one of their major concerns. Young people worried more than any other age group about feeling alone, being single, about the quality of their relationships with friends and family. Such figures have led newspapers to dub us the “Eleanor Rigby generation”; better connected than any in history, yet strangely alone.
Check out the Guardian’s Datablog, and while you are at it, read/watch the Guardian’s Simon Rogers interview with Jonathan Stray of Nieman Journalism Labs on the rise of data journalism and the tools they use.
Last week I took part in a project that led me to help interview a large group of great co-workers and friends at CIM. To get some practice, I stopped by Suburban Station to interview one of the musicians who play there and was in luck when I found Huey & the Banjo. Here is the interview, plus some performances:
YouTube: “Huey & the Banjo 7.27.2010”
For more information on Huey & the Banjo, you can contact him at hustonwest at live dot com