I've been reading David Brin's _Existence_, and I appreciate his take on the puzzle of First Contact. (or as I call it, Lucid Contact ( Read more... )

Some years ago I noticed I was an "old fart" to the folks I would have liked to have been peers with at burning man.... and at the same time I was a "know-nothing young brat" to other would-be peers in a different group. It put me in a mind to really try to get at the nub of what's going on when we say 'generation gap ( Read more... )

I got really spoiled, learning to use social media back when it was called bulliten board systems. Back in that time (when we low-crawled through the snow, uphill both ways) the sphere of subscribers was limited to a local phone call, commercial announcements were mostly irrelevant (and infrequent), and there was some incentive to meet each other ( Read more... )

I suppose one is never too old for a mid-life crisis. Today was the first time in my life it ever occurred to me that I might want to be able to pass for "normal" in certain circumstances. I feel certain that this is an achievable goal. My only question is how hard the disguise is going to be to remove when I want to.

One thing I really like about watching the show Mad Men, is how the iconic events we're taught about that happened in the 60's are presented in order, in some kind of context, with a pacing consistent with the events of the show. It makes it easier to imagine what it must have felt like to see that stuff on TV as it was really happening. The ones ( Read more... )

So the next chapter in my story of stuff isn't nearly as dramatic as last time. (Which is a good thing) But I want to follow this arc all the way ( Read more... )

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Today I took a bus I don't usually take, into a part of town I don't usually go. It wasn't the most efficient way to get where I was going, but I wanted to see what it was like, so I went ( Read more... )

Dear 1984 Joe ( Read more... )

A week ago I knew it was time to finally take the plunge and empty my Seattle storage unit, to transport all the things down here to Portland. But I was sick ( Read more... )