The Machine Lives

Warning - overly dramatic post with too much html approaching :

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The internet is, methinks, one gigantic machine-human group mind

There are many computers involved in it and it's internal communication and processing come in a wide range of types

From private interaction via email/IM to web apps - privately shared & published to Social Sharing Sites (incl Blogs, Twitter, Digg, del.icio.us)

The Machine now understands aesthetics as we collate and share content we find pleasing (eg Daily Dose of Imagery) and we benefit as parts of that machine by having access to this information for free*

And here's a practical example

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- imma

This one still makes me laugh :-)

(from http://b3ta.com/newsletter/issue309/ about a page and a half down, warning - some elements of b3ta may disturb)

   "One night I was being dropped off at home by
    a few mates after quite a heavy night
    drinking. After fumbling around for my keys, I
    realised that my phone wasn't in the pocket
    where I usually keep it. Hoping that I'd left
    it in the car, as opposed to losing it in the
    pub, I quickly rang my friends who were at
    that very minute speeding away.

    The conversation went something like:
      "Hi."
      "Hi, have I left my phone in the car, cos I
       don't have it?"
      "What are you speaking to me on?"
      "S**t," (Furness)

It hasn't happened to me yet (that i remember), though it's probably just a matter of time.

Random Gadget Post

My G1 is great (I sometimes don't notice I've not switched my laptop on all day), though it can get a little slow if many things are running at once (which is occurring due to the large number of awesome apps - imo). I would have liked a way to quickly kill several tasks, maybe like the browser close window view.
Having to open the keyboard is a little annoying, but the keyboard itself is good, as is screen space - optional on-screen keyboard would be nice (and is apparently going to appear in January) although i have now found a browser with on-screen keyboard, so it's there for the web anyhow (browser 'steel')

T-Mobile's network is good in town but gets flaky round the edges
Spent a while at my parent's house with no 3G signal (also no normal phone signal - 'tis in the middle of nowhere in a nearly literal sense for England), but they have a good wireless network and it worked smoothly enough with that :-)

In other news I have 'Friend Connect' working. Not really sure it's useful here, but it was fun to mess around with  :-)

The Boom-Bust Cycle

Thought for today : Is the cycle of Boom and Bust (then followed by Boom again) necessarily a bad thing?

Companies do collapse in the Bust part of the cycle & large numbers of inefficient companies are created in the Boom section, but does this lead to more diversification of technology - like the way evolution is accelerated by mass expansion and disaster periods causing diversification, the boom produces massive variety of new companies and technologies and the bust cuts away the dead wood produced to leave just the useful ones.

So potentially this cycle could drive Technology & companies forward faster than a stable economic state, which could be more stagnant.

Disclaimer : I'm just trying to think of a positive perspective on this - I have no actual economic qualifications (and possibly don't know enough about evolution either) ;-)

Weather

In other news, however, it's bright and sunny outside :-)