I walked in to my local corner store today, just to buy some consumables. The cashier was on his mobile phone, talking in a jovial way. As I go to pay, he switches the mobile phone to ’speaker’ mode, and continues to serve me whilst still talking to the other person… Oddly enough, I can clearly hear the sounds of another Till on the phone. So his friend is clearly doing the same to a customer in his shop!

Perhaps I should have vaulted the counter, grabbed the phone and yelled to the other customer, “Let’s both complain!” But I couldn’t be arsed. Apathy and the convenience of remaining-unbarred-from-the-local-corner-shop rule again. It did make me laugh though, out loud, in the shop, to the cashier, whilst impersonating Brian Blessed… Probably not a good thing.

Matsuura, J.H. (2006) Thomas Jefferson and the Evolution of a Populist Vision of Intellectual Property Rights and Democratic Values, Symposium Technology and Democratic Values in the Early Republic [Online]. Available from: http://www.archipelago.org/vol10-34/matsuura.htm (Accessed 27 November 2008).

On monopoly patent rights:

. . . other nations have thought these monopolies produce more embarrassment than advantage to society; and it may be observed that the nations which refuse monopolies of invention, are as fruitful as England in new and useful devices.

On the diffusion of ideas:

That ideas should freely spread from one to another over the globe for the moral and mutual instruction of man, and improvement of his condition, seems to have been peculiarly and benevolently designed by nature, when she made them, like fire, expansible over all space without lessening their density in any point, and like the air in which we breathe, move, and have our physical being, incapable of confinement or exclusive appropriation.

And finally, on the communal nature of ideas… Reminded me of WikiWikiWebs:

If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others to exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it focuses itself into the possession of every one, and the receiver can not dispossess himself of it. Its peculiar character, too, is that no one possesses the less because every other possesses the whole of it. He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me.

So I’m left wondering if Wordpress is the correct platform for this web-site. Because ultimately, I’m occasionally posting scraps here, and occasionally actually writing stuff. Then I look at how I use Facebook as a feed aggregator for my friends that glass over at the mention of syndication. Perhaps Facebook is the wrong place for that, and perhaps just by using social sites that have XML/RSS feeds, I’m effortlessly creating content, where posts like this are just occasional seasoning.

This brings us to Lifestreaming, and Sweetcron. Lifestreaming is pretty much automated tumblelogging. By posting a public photograph to Flickr, an entry is created, or by digging an article, or bookmarking a web-site, new entries are also created. If you want to see what I’m waffling about, head over to http://yibble.org/, where I have set up a Lifestream page. I’ve disabled commenting on the items, and changed the item links, so that they take you to source sites, but by default commenting and viewing items is done through the Lifestream site, producing a more blog like environment.

At the moment, I’m only experimenting with Sweetcron and Lifestreaming, but would certainly consider it as a potential replacement for Wordpress, if I could import all the posts, and all of my readers comments. What do you think?

That said, new tales are always welcome and Two Frogs has oodles of charisma and charm, especially amongst the mums and dads who have an appreciation for security.

Two frogs are sitting on a lily pad and one of them has a stick. The stick, he says, is to beat off the dog. But there is no dog. Yet. So begin the trials and adventures of this hapless pair.

“There is one purpose to life and one only: to bear witness to and understand as much as possible of the complexity of the world — its beauty, its mysteries, its riddles. The more you understand, the more you look, the greater is your enjoyment of life and your sense of peace. That’s all there is to it. Everything else is fun and games. If an activity is not grounded in ‘to love’ or ‘to learn,’ it does not have value.” — Anne Rice (Servant of the Bones.)

Anyhow, the book has got me thinking on various matters, both personal and professional… I thought I’d add a bit of pre-amble to the following conjecture…

It is possible to view relationships in a non-linear manner. For example, friendships can be viewed to begin and end upon two distinct thresholds. However, this doesn’t have to be so. Even if a friendship is ended, that person can simply become a friend that is no longer in contact.

Some would view this as a form self-denial. But for me, it’s a form of disillusionment, a statement of immediate indifference, with underlying understanding and perhaps enshrinement of what the friendship held at its peak. This path, which treats all relationships as circles, means that any friendship can be re-visited, without any explanation or false apology.

In many senses, it’s claiming ownership of your portion of a friendship. Because, even though the friendship involved multiple actors, none could possibly have experienced it from your perspective, you own that perspective. Acknowledging and agreeing to your perspective, is ownership, and responsibility.

To celebrate the birth of our son, Austin William Kevin. Alison, and Austin have given me a lovely Waltham Traveler pocket watch. The Waltham Watch Company is quite important, as it was the first company to mass produce pocket watches in America, Massachusetts to be more specific, starting in ~1852. Its Movement is Seven Jewel and has the serial number of 17788223, which I’ve dated to 1908-1909. I’ve been unable to find a database or source to date the Dennison case, which has the serial number of 988510.

It’s a lovely piece, and I’m looking forward to tracking down an adequate chain to keep it on. I’m of the opinion that gold jewelry does not suit men, wedding rings and pocket watches are two exceptions.

Tags: waltham, dennison, pocketwatch, steampunk, antique

Now, should this be in the Classifieds, or the Obituaries?