Category: Personal Reflections

I haven't followed the developments in Iran today as I've been laid out by a virus. However, this has given me some time to think about all this (with the benefit of a lack of lucidity). It's been clear to me for some time that the activist's role has changed. The speed at which they can communicate, and the variety of media that can be broadcast with comparatively little expense or effort is stunning…and heartening.

Another piece that must be considered: the commitment of many techies to liberty. One key thing I've seen this week is the rapid development of proxies for the Iranian's to circumvent government censorship. Other examples include Pirates Bay and the efforts to circumvent China's filtering.

A few thoughts from a sick-day. My thoughts today, though, reside with the Iranian protesters. The powers that be (the Butcher Of Tehran?) have made it clear that no moderation will be shown. Dissent will be rigorously expunged. My sincerest hope is that the glare of global will shall shame this psychopathic "President". A dream, I'm sure. Pray, though, pray.

Via BlackBerry

I’ve spent part of the morning following the Twitter dialog (Twitterlog?) about the Iranian elections and the ensuing protests (I’m following two threads: #Iranelection and #Tehran. Even with the media black-out, these postings are coming with amazing speed. It, literally, is impossible to keep up. Hundreds of posts per minute, perhaps thousands. With this, certainly, will be a huge amount of bad information, as well as deliberate mis-information. However, within this will be solid pieces of truth. Powerful, indeed. And here lies how this medium has changed the world. A totalitarian regime can’t suppress this much information. Thousands of voices, reaching out instantly. Pretty much a game of whack-a-mole on the government’s end. Sadly, those “moles” who get whacked with get it hard, I’m certain.

Besides Twitter, Flickr has an amazing stream of images, YouTube has videos, Digg is going crazy…so much, so very fast. Opposition now has a powerful, global tool. That, and a willingness to use it. The world has changed, indeed.

Ah, the great minds at the Onion strike again.

Expert On Anteaters Wasted Entire Life Studying Anteaters

Reading stories like this one, always sadden me. (quick summary: a toddler dies suddenly due to a respiratory infection) Nothing is more painful to me than lives cut short. Especially children. Another element, though, comes as a reminder. The great phrase, “there but for the grace of God go I” resonates now. I look at my son and know that, despite all my efforts to protect him from enemies foreign and domestic, those efforts are quite paltry compared to the destructive forces we face. It would be easy to become overwhelmed by all this. Thus, it’s easier to focus on what I CAN do.

I know that, God forbid, my son’s death would destroy me. Shattered to dust. And though I would survive (I always have), I know that I would be profoundly and utterly different. When I think of the stories I’ve heard, of marriage broken asunder by the death of a child, I know what has happened.

Are such things God’s will? As God doesn’t chit-chat with me, I can’t answer this with a definitive “yea” or “nay”. However, I don’t believe so. Of course, I walk the edge of blasphemy with my hybrid agnotisim. Perhaps God exists with us, grieves with us. Perhaps we’re just products of a cold, uncaring universe. Neither, though, is remarkably comforting at times of deep grief. Each can, with the right mind, summon peace. I know, for I’ve seen it. Painful journeys, to be sure, but survivable ones.

These are the moments I wish I could shut my brain off, to quit asking the probing questions. For good or for ill, I can’t. However, I do have things to do.

I’m exploring Microsoft’s latest effort in the search category, Bing. As there has been a number of articles, and some ads touting its features, I felt it was time to give it a test-drive. M$ has learned from Google. The interface is nice and clean, very much like Google’s. Currently, they have a lovely background of Normandy. This is filled with hyperlinks to D-Day topics, but done in a rather unobtrusive way.

Anyway, the main thing to check is search. For my first effort, I decided to try and find a BusinessWeek article that I’d just read and wanted to seed to Newsvine. My search terms were the title of the article (“Microsoft’s Search Savior”) with “BusinessWeek”. In Bing, sadly, the article didn’t appear in the first page of results. Google had the article as it’s first link. Trying a vanity search, I find my LinkedIn profile first, followed by my main website, Setzers.org second. Not too bad. I do like the list on the left side with related searches.

In the end, I’m not really wowed. I will continue to use this for a little while and see how it “sticks”. Anyway, the best thing about this is the media attention, which should drive Google to accelerate their innovation.

A Day At The Beach, originally uploaded by carl.setzer.

My family spent the early part of the day at the beach along the Edmonds waterfront. Quite a bit of marine life readily viewable. The three of us delight in tide-pools. Quite the variety, from three different crab species (red-rock, dungeness & kelp), a couple gunnels, shrimp (possibily dock shrimp, but I’m not too sure), a regular convention of nudibrachs, sunflower stars, ochre and blood-stars. These were the stand outs. There also were all the standard players: sea cucumbers, anenomes, barnacles and the like.

Via BlackBerry

Edmonds Beach, originally uploaded by carl.setzer.

The extreme low tide today. -3.6, I do believe. Lots of marine life to see.

Via BlackBerry

There are a good many things I like about Twitter. Most exciting is the range and speed of communications. With that is a serious problem: filters. The receptive element of communications gets overwhelmed by the volume of data. Breaking down the stream into manageable chunks is cumbersome. There are some good tools, though. I have become somewhat fond of Tweetdeck. It helps separate out some of the streams (replies and direct messages, in particular). It does a good job letting you set up groups and favorites. Thus the stream is far easier to manage. This, for me at least, makes this the best Twitter client I’ve worked with so far.

There are a good many things I like about Twitter. Most exciting is the range and speed of communications. With that is a serious problem: filters. The receptive element of communications gets overwhelmed by the volume of data. Breaking down the stream into manageable chunks is cumbersome. There are some good tools, though. I have become somewhat fond of Tweetdeck. It helps separate out some of the streams (replies and direct messages, in particular). It does a good job letting you set up groups and favorites. Thus the stream is far easier to manage. This, for me at least, makes this the best Twitter client I’ve worked with so far.