Bonus Wisdom Thoughts 2B GREAT 2008

I truly wish you the best of health, happiness, and serenity (peace of mind)
and to keep it GREAT in 2008!

some wisdom thoughts:
1. To have a purpose is the greatest gift of life.
2. If you start something---finish it.
3. Before you act, think about what effect your actions will have on others.
4. More important than seeing the future is knowing the present.
5. It is often the small actions of our daily lives that, over time, have the greatest influence on the world.
6. Those who spend their time worrying about what people think of them wouldn't worry if they knew how rarely other people think of them.
7. The easiest person to decieve is yourself.
8. To your own self be true.
9. If you don't accept defeat you cannot be defeated.
10. If you fall seven times stand up eight.
11. It is a great gift to know when to remain silent.
12. Who are we if the thoughts we think are someone else's.
13. A closed mind is infinitely more difficult to open than a closed door.
14. A crowd is the loneliest place to be.
15. It would be impossible to alter our life without first altering our thinking.
16. It is wiser to concentrate on the effort, not the outcome.
17. Anyone is entitled to have their opinion of you, but do not take it to heart. It is your own opinion of yourself that matters.
18. Life is not a matter of chance, its a matter of choice.
19. If you have one aim in life, let it be to fulfill your potential.
20. It is far wiser to know than to be known.

oops, four more (two-twelves) from my favorites bin:
The mind makes a good servant but a poor master.
You cannot change someone else, but you can influence them.
If you fail to PLAN then you plan to FAIL.

Thank God for Waking up today with a Heartbeat!

Have a Great Day /    from J. Kenneth Cowtowne  ( Moo! )

Facebook, Farts & Bowing to Censors Here & There & Everywhere

Hello - AFAIR its kosher to post this here - the sly tech/cultural/business buffet -
from my favorite ( sorry /.  ) daily read, Silicon Valley's GMSV from McKlatchy - the only news
service brave enough to report so much honest news that they .... [go learn yourself]

	http://www.siliconvalley.com/gmsvnewsletter Good Morning Silicon Valley Article Launched: 01/03/2008  By JOHN MURRELL .../...   YouTube doesn't operate under a Chinese license, but the government has shown it has only to pull a lever or two to cut off access to selected outside connections (see "Remember, bowing is just another word for bending over"). And that remains the bigger point. However rich their visions and noble their intentions, companies making commitments in China simply cannot be sure that the rules won't change overnight, and change in a way that forces a new set of compromises. [story shifted to bottom]
	Q  U  O  T  E  D "It's a bit like breaking wind in the elevator. Everyone suffers." -- Peter Martin of the University of Utah's Traffic Lab, author of a new study showing how drivers distracted by cell phone conversations (hands-free or not) clog up the road.
	Face plant -- data portability and Scoble's slapstick scrape: There's an important issue at the core of today's brouhaha between high-profile blogger Robert Scoble and Facebook, but the advocates of data portability may want to wait for a better case to use in pressing their point. Scoble, who proudly amassed the social site's maximum 5,000 "friends," was interested in seeing how much overlap there was between that mob and the people on his Plaxo contact management list. Facebook, like other social sites, has a vested interest in keeping you in the fold and so does not make it easy for a user to extract contact information. So Plaxo invited Scoble to alpha-test an upcoming feature for its Pulse social sharing service -- a robot script that can grab specified data fields from your Facebook friends' profiles and export them. Next thing you know, Scoble gets a form letter telling he's been tossed off Facebook for violating the terms of service and all traces of his presence have been excised from the site. As the folks at DataPortability.com will be happy to explain, there is a crying need for some open and standardized format to allow social Web users to manage and move their data around. But before we get to that, it's necessary to sort out exactly what data is whose. The data you enter yourself? That sounds like yours. The data that your "friends" enter about themselves? Well, they've shared it with you, but is it yours to export? And since you've entered into an agreement with Facebook to voluntarily add information to Facebook's database, does the company have some kind of claim as well, (not to mention some obligation to prevent one of your "friends" from exporting your contact information without letting you know)? Unfortunately, the present case is too muddled to offer any clarity. Plaxo's approach went beyond using the Facebook-supplied application interfaces in order to grab e-mail addresses, presented as an image in Facebook profiles to prevent massive harvesting for spam purposes. Plaxo employed some graphical scraping and optical character recognition to get around that, and Facebook can't have that sort of third-party programming gumming up its system. As Michael Arrington reports, the Plaxo folks knew they were playing with fire and went ahead anyway. As for Scoble, he violated terms of service he may not agree with but which have some legitimate purpose. He got caught and he got booted, and now, after promising to be good, he's back in. Such is life on the edge.. Comment on this post And if you could snap a few updates for Google Earth on the way, that'd be great: Ever since word emerged that the Google guys had cut a $2.6 million deal with NASA to base their private air force at conveniently located and uncrowded Moffett Field (see "And wait till we pay the state to add the gLane to 101"), cynics have wondered just what the public gets out of the bargain. There was some vague talk about research cooperation and putting scientific instruments aboard the four aircraft -- a Boeing 767, a Boeing 757 and a pair of Gulfstreams -- but it still looked to some like Google had just bought its way into a sweet parking spot. This afternoon, however, one of those Gulfstreams will take a handful of NASA scientists and their instruments on a 10-hour trip to the Arctic and back to observe what is expected to be a particularly bright Quadrantid meteor shower. Sergey and Larry are said to be especially interested in the data on burnout rates. Comment on this post Off topic: The winners in the Benoit Mandelbrot Fractal Art Contest for 2007 and the Materials Research Society's Science as Art competition (exploding nanowires!). Comment on this post
	Good Morning Silicon Valley Article Launched: 01/03/2008 02:44:15 PM PST China squeezes the tubes a little tighter By JOHN MURRELL Some big tech companies have a lot at stake in trying to extend into China and help integrate that country into the rest of the digital world, and they can argue eloquently that the benefits of their involvement outweigh the accommodations they must make to operate in a totalitarian state. Trouble is, China keeps making those justifications harder and harder. In a development sure to be of interest to Google's YouTube, the Chinese government announced today that as of Jan. 31, it will restrict the broadcast of online videos to sites owned or controlled by the state. Such sites wishing to display or allow uploads of video content can apply for a permit and must monitor the content for material that reveals national secrets, hurts the reputation of China, disrupts social stability or promotes pornography. According to the rules, "Those who provide Internet video services should insist on serving the people, serve socialism ... and abide by the moral code of socialism." Those in the line of fire are trying to figure out the implications. According to the Wall Street Journal, most of China's popular video sites are privately run, and while some, like Tudou.com, are optimistically viewing the regulations as a needed clarification, Duncan Clark, chairman of advisory firm BDA (China) Ltd., said, "This directive, if implemented, would be bad news for the streaming sites. ... It's clearly a question of control of information, with political content being the No. 1 concern." The situation is even less clear for companies like YouTube, whose servers are outside of China (as opposed to those of Google's Chinese search engine, which complies with government censorship). YouTube doesn't operate under a Chinese license, but the government has shown it has only to pull a lever or two to cut off access to selected outside connections (see "Remember, bowing is just another word for bending over"). And that remains the bigger point. However rich their visions and noble their intentions, companies making commitments in China simply cannot be sure that the rules won't change overnight, and change in a way that forces a new set of compromises. Comment on this post http://www.siliconvalley.com/gmsvnewsletter  [no default date indexed there yet, ooops]
	Hey, this blends with yesterday's manifesto. Fair Use Unnoticed: nobody comes here anyway and I've provided full attribution, plus I love their output and have raved about it to many friends, colleagues and even "enemies"!  Ciao, Comrades,  from Kenneth Cowtowne

SocNet Paradigm v01

SocNet v01
Hey -- Social Networking (and bulloney like Secondlife.com, myspace.com) have overtaken many people's "real" lives.  An effective paradigm for each site is my objective shared here.

LinkedIn.com is not for fluffy remarks or aliases.  Corporate folk focus on what your background is and the potential application of talents and contacts towards a mission.  Initially I assimilated a network with ~zero effort via 'LION' Open-Networking.  An obligation of that membership cost me loads of time clicking-through the duty of  approval of that evangelizing, self-designated, and savvy In-Crowd.   Not being a recruiter, nor adding my employment history and the potential thousands  of fancy alumni/colleagues, I have yet to experience the true value of this tool.   Yes I currently cultivate only contacts that I've met in person or with backgrounds which surpass thresholds of quality which I can evaluate best within my own genres.

I'd recommend to everyone MeetUp.com, it is entirely social, and positive or goofy comments are pervasive.  During my 3.5 years there I barely added any groups, until SEP07.  Joining the best clubs in Orange County, as per my affinities, was vital for  insight to the social topography, because I am evaluating jobs in Los Angeles.  Sometimes I'll add "a friend" because of a pithy quote or their fascinating membership list.  So my list's constituents serve as a clue/shortcut to the realm of the best clubs in disparate locales.  In weaker moments I'll add a friend because they have a striking passion, a remarkable load of 'shouts' or their shown image is traditionally attractive, perhaps not even to my own preferences.
One's friend-list is public data at all these sites, but MeetUp uniquely identifies  those contacts as "Mutual" when it is bilateral.  There seems to be no particular stigma  for self-nominated friends, although some members do shun that practice.  Meetup also has a unique "Pledges" feature which I contend should be public data  about one's commitment to the joined clubs/groups.

Going.com has divergent clientèle and usefulness in its five megalopolis cities.   My limited expertise here was gleaned in AUG07, and bacchanalia seemed  to dominate the Chicago flavor due to shrewd party and nightclub PR agents.  Going -BOS seems weighted more healthily towards cultural opportunities,  although oenophiles (few vinters & even fewer fans-of Yoko) are still abundant.  I've promoted the goals of this site to friends, and felt well-acquainted with the NYC, Chicago and Boston membership.  The surface credentials of the BOS members are significantly more business appropriate  than in the other cities, yet YMMV.  Adding anyone interesting as a friend  seems kosher, but the utility of such is moot at all of the sites. It seems that I do get  broadcasts of items from my friends/contacts.  After some R&D a clarification will be  appended to this dubious documentation.

MySpace.com has bizarre overlapping constituencies and potential.  Quite Left-heavy with California folks, teens, ribald humor, musician- and venue-promotion.  Clicking-through on beautiful pictures can overwhelm the Firefox browser and quickly demolish my vestigial 1GB RAM at ~300 tabs - even with javascript always off for userplane, etc.   My sole agenda at myspace or at a lovable social blogging site like mindsay.com is for
political "education" of the comatose and heinously undiscerning.   Of course, talking to brickheads is almost pointless, like melting a glacier, their eyes glaze over  and it is exactly like you've met one of the pod people from "Invasion of the Body Snatchers."   I cultivate relationships with the wisest folks from all dimensions yet pursue (virtual?) friendship with those with the least damaging prejudices and/or open to  antidotes for our cultural toxicity - the second hand smoke that's killing the entire planet.

Ciao for now from your comrade, Cowtowne

PS: perhaps someday this ephemeral coverage will include
some fascinating specialty sites like Tribe.com, Facebook, Orkut, and the amazing
Del.icio.us and Care2.com ;
indeed, some potential commentary on eHarmony, AmericanSingles,
SinglesNet, Match, LoveHappens, YahooPersonals "and more!"