… something to write home about.

As I drove back from lunch, I was listening to Science Friday on NPR. It was the second hour and they were talking about virtual versus physical communities. On of the guests, I think it was Sherry Turkle from MIT, made the comment about how people are using and developing wonderful skills of organization, networking (the people kind) and politicking and that she hoped that these people would bring those skills back to the ‘physical’ world. Which begs the question… why?

Now, she appeared to be speaking directly to virtual worlds, such as Second Life, and bringing those skills to bear on physical world problems such as the political system in the US and solving societal, social and resource problems. But if you broaden that definition slightly to include forums, IRC, email mailing lists and IM chat, what makes the virtual world more or less important or real than the physical one? So much of what we do every day is inside of our heads anyway I don’t think it matters in the long run.

I think it is more important that you do interact with others, share your concerns and empathy with people you know. It doesn’t matter if you have been friends since childhood or met online via an email community. Friendship and caring doesn’t begin and end at the end of your fingertips.

15 years ago, it would have been the telephone. 50 years ago it would have been letters. Now, we connect instantaneously and globally; it is wonderful, not something to be dismissed lightly.

When I started at USU in the fall of 1984, there were a few people I kept in contact with via letters but not many and they were infrequent at best. Even the young lady I dated in my neighborhood kept me in touch and interested by the occasional letter to which I would promptly write back. A conversation might take a week to complete and while I might have been a bit more insightful, most likely I would have to re-read the previous letter or two to remember what we were talking about.

Today, I have conversations with friends from my neighborhood, high school, university and other communities on a daily basis. Some are work related, many are not. Some are by phone, some are by email, some by web forum, many are by instant messaging. Some are even through comments on articles on web sites we frequent since that is what we have in common. Denise and I have never met, but she is a great friend. Mary is a good friend that I only met after we be came friends online through a mutual friend. Beau wrote some software that I tried out and we’ve chatted intermittently in the couple of years or so since. I met Chuck at a NaNo party and have become acquaintances while Beth and I have maintained a friendship ever since she mocked me at a different NaNo party. Bill, Doug and Stacey are three of my best friends and I’ve known them for years; Bill and Doug are neighbors and Stacey is a high school friend. (if I didn’t mention you it isn’t a slight, these are just examples).

My point is that it doesn’t matter how you make connections and communities, only that you do make them. Community is important; friendship and empathy is important.

Without these different communication methods, I wouldn’t be in contact with most of my friends. I wouldn’t even know some of them… and my life would be the poorer for it.

Update:  After writing this, I realized that I have three emails in my personal account awaiting reply.  Bad Chris, Bad!

So, as a belated birthday present, I went to a Endodontic specialist and had a root canal today as a follow up to having a crown prep almost a month ago. Surprisingly, it wasn’t as uncomfortable as the crown preparation was and I was out in about an hour.

It was interesting that the Novocain block was in a different location and I ended up feeling like I’d had a stroke for a few hours.  I couldn’t make a suction seal with my mouth at all and from the bottom and outside corner of my eye to the bottom of my chin was completely dead, no muscle control or sensation, except for the skin which was unaffected. There is still some residual numbness and minor swelling but I didn’t have to have any pain medication or even over the counter medication.

Hopefully I can get the permanent crown on before I leave the country for two weeks.

If you are a fan of the Alien movie franchise or the Predator movie franchise, you’ll probably get rather excited over this trailer:

(edit:  This trailer is very graphic and contains strong language.  If you are watching at work, you might want to use headphones and make sure someone easily offended or grossed out isn’t watching over your shoulder)

Aliens vs. Predator - Requiem

I did enjoy the previous Alien vs. Predator movie, but I didn’t go into the movie expecting anything other than a bit of gore and fighting. I have the same expectations here; if it is a great movie, fine, but I’ll be happy if it is just a bit of fun.

Looks great though.

As a separate comment, I love it that movie companies or distribution companies are putting trailers on the web in increasing numbers. I hated that the only way to see certain trailers were to watch a specific movie, sometimes one that I didn’t want to watch. In some cases, I snuck into a different movie just to watch the trailer and then went back to my movie that I wanted to watch.

Eight years ago there was a wonderful television show that had its genesis in my favorite comic strip, Dilbert.  A few years later, I bought the DVD set when it came out and watched it quite a few times as I hadn’t seen any of the shows when they were originally broadcast, only as reruns on Comedy Central.  The boy and I would curl up and watch the shows when he was in preschool.

Jump forward to last Sunday morning and the boy gets up before everyone else and makes his way downstairs to watch some TV.  Out of all of the shows he could pick, he decides to watch Dilbert. 

That’s my boy. 

By the time I get up and join him, he is four or five episodes into the first season.  We’ve now watched almost all of them in our free moments over the last few days.

I’m already working on British comedies with him - My Family first and then Red Dwarf.  Python will have to wait until I’m willing to deal with the awkward questions…

I’ve got CNN on when I work from home - it makes for nice background to cover the sound of the window A/C unit.

Erica Hill was interviewing a celebrity reporter and the discussion was about Britney Spears - stuff supposed to be shocking but really isn’t.  They then switch to talking about Lindsey Lohan and a new lawsuit from some moneygrabbing person.  Again, nothing surprising…

…except that the celebrity reporter referred to Lindsey Lohan as “Lindsey Spears”.  What was just as funny is that Erica Hill, the CNN anchor, either didn’t notice to correct or noticed and chose not to draw attention to the slip.

I’m watching CNN and the ongoing coverage of the bridge collapse in Minneapolis. CNN has gone to great lengths to report the tragedy in detail, getting eyewitness reports, investigating the causes, and incorporating citizen photographs and testimony.

As part of the coverage, the White House announced that the president would have a statement about the tragedy. CNN cut to President Bush, live, who expressed his condolences and that he has provided some resources to aid in the rescue, recovery and rebuilding effort. He struggled to get the words out as if it was truly extemporaneous and not a rehearsed speech.

What floored me is that after all of that, President Bush dives into attacking the Democrats about not passing spending bills and takes five minutes or so to do it. He doesn’t even attempt to link the two, just goes off on his personal agenda. It isn’t even a new attack, just the same old White House statement, smoothly (well, as smooth as the bumbler can be) delivered to a ready audience.

I don’t begrudge the President his agenda and the fact that he wants to try to shame the Democrats into delivering bills to his desk. It won’t work; these are politicians and as such have shown that most of their moral and ethical compasses are defective or completely missing. No, what bothers me is that he took a tragic event and our country’s expression of grief and support and turned it into another political opportunity. Not one other person, from the person on the street to the mayor to the governor has hijacked the media coverage for a personal or political agenda.

I’ve always felt that President Bush was an awful President but he appeared to be a good man, just out of his league. Now I’m just filled with disgust. The sooner he is out of office the better.