| Wednesday, January 29, 2003 |  |
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Joi Ito (well-connected Japanese techie blogger) gets an e-mail from somebody looking for a Japanese tutor, because his weblog appeared in a search."One amazing phenomenon of blogs is that because of all of the linking going on they end up with fairly high google rankings. At Supernova, Cory of Boing Boing talked about how people email him asking about things he blogs because his blog entries show up on the top of Google results. Also at Supernova, Sergey Brin co-founder of Google talked about how important the ranking and results algorythms were for Google. For instance, first result for "suicide" can have a life or death impact on someone depending on whether it is a page to help you decide not to commit suicide or a page about how to commit suicide. I am the second entry for "Japan + Dayton Ohio" and #3 for "Takenaka media" for instance. At Davos, I talked to Larry Page, co-founder of Google about the phenomenon. I explained that I was very excited that my entry about how the media failed to report the public support of Takenaka showed up before the media reports. I mentioned that maybe it was the way blogs created a lot of pages and linked to each other a lot and how this was giving them unfair juice. Larry said he thought that blogs were getting higher rankings because they were becoming a more important part of the Internet and implied that he felt the high rankings were fair. Cool. I was beginning to feel a bit guilty about the high rankings and worried that Google would "figure it out" and start lowering the rankings for blogs. If Larry says they're fair, I'm assuming they're fair and I don't have to worry about a 'correction' in my page ranking." I'm glad to hear that too. Even though I'm a relatively low profile weblogger, hardly registering in the top 500, Google really likes my weblog, and many things I say here will appear very high, often higher than the news source that I quote. Which sometimes makes me a bit nervous.
[ Diary | 2003-01-29 23:59 | | PermaLink ] More >
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| Friday, January 24, 2003 | |
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 For a while I called my weblog "Ming the Mechanic", because I somehow liked how it sounds. Some people said "Great name!", and others, like my family, said "Mechanic???". Well, I like mechanical stuff, but, really, hardware is something I have rather little talent with. I wouldn't know what to do if my car breaks down. And whenever I need to add memory or a harddisk to my computer, and I decide it is a good idea to do it myself, I tend to end up breaking something. No, I'm a different kind of mechanic. I have some success as a people mechanic, or a system mechanic. I like if people bring me something to fix, and I fix it. Particularly when it relates to individuals or groups of people trying to do something, and not quite succeeding. And I resonate with people with that kind of abilities.
Several corporations I worked for used consultants for various purposes. Like, if the board of directors needed an outside opinion on things, they would bring in Coopers and Lybrand, or Andersen, or some big consulting company like that. Three or four people in suits would show up with briefcases, and they would create a thick report, saying basically what they had in mind saying before they came, and it would cost the company $50K or so. Nobody paid any attention to what they actually said in their report, but everybody were content with the whole thing, because nothing ever changed.
But in this one company, when they actually had a problem, and they didn't know what to do about something, they brought in another kind of consultant. It was this little old lady. Maybe she wasn't that old, but she was an unusual sight for a consultant. I don't remember her name, but let's say it was Heidi. They didn't care about her company name, it was just "Let's call Heidi". And she was fabulous - and very expensive. An extremely sharp and experienced person who would walk around and talk with everybody, and rather quickly figure out what actually was going on. She cared very little about the corporate jockeying-for-position, trying-to-look-good kind of thing. She just went straight for the facts, figured out what the scenario was, reported it to the CEO, and left. And things got fixed. I really liked her. I wouldn't mind being a person like that.
Another example, some would say a horrible choice, but it illustrates my point: In the movie Pulp Fiction, John Travolta and Samuel L. Jackson's characters get in some trouble. There's a dead body in the car, blood all over, they're at this guy's house, and his wife is coming home in an hour, and they don't know what to do. Their boss, the big gangster Marsellus Wallace decides it is time to call in Mr.Wolf. Mr.Wolf happens to be across town in a tuxedo at a party, having cocktails. But when he gets the phonecall, he's professionalism itself. He gets paid extremely well, but he is only used when it really counts. He's there in 10 minutes in his Porsche. "I'm Winston Wolf, I solve problems" he says. And so he does. All he really does is to take a keen look at what is going on, and to tell the people who're standing around what the logical thing to do is. And, well, I certainly don't have in mind working for gangsters, but I like the idea of being the person who's brought in to solve a problem, but who otherwise is happily uninvolved.
As to the Mechanic metaphor - a mechanic fixes things, by being knowledgable about how things work, by looking at what is going on, and by adjusting things so that they work. The Mechanic loses no sleep over what you do in-between the times when you need him, whether we're talking about a car or a person or a company.
[ Diary | 2003-01-24 23:50 | | PermaLink ] More >
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| Tuesday, January 21, 2003 | |
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 Various management gurus, like Tom Peters, are talking about "The Brand called You". The idea is that the world and the job market are moving so quickly that you can no longer count on just getting a job and being safe from then on. Increasingly we are free agents who continuously need to market ourselves and forge new and changing commercial relationships, and to always create our own job. So, to that end, it is critical to be aware of what your brand is, what your selling points are, what your core competencies are, and to have your own rap, so you can quickly convey that to others.
I also get to think about a workshop/program I did, called IBI - Income Builders International - which is a weeklong, very expensive, but rather effective program that in part helps you find what your own personal WOW is, and trains you to present your "thing" in a compelling way in 30 seconds. And all of that is good. I'd really like all of us to be really clear on what our THING is, our WOW, the thing we're here to do, and which we're passionate about. And I think something will click if we are also able to present it clearly and simply, as we then can forge economic relationships more easily.
But now, my own problem is, unfortunately, that at this point I can't really tell you what my own core competency is. I am quite capable in several, rather diverse areas, but I can't tell you in 30 seconds what I do, without making you confused. The kind of stuff I usually would feel like putting on my business card would tend to make people look puzzled and ask "How on earth would you make money on that?". My current business card says "Linking the people who change the world". Sounds good, and I get a certain amount of admiration for that, but nobody's gonna hire me to actually do that.
I'm a computer programmer, a skilled and experienced one. But that is not really what I want to be to the world. I'm getting too old for that, and I don't want to spend all day thinking about logical problems.
I'm a personal counselor and the author of two manuals/books about counseling techniques, and I've seen a lot of success in that area. Yet I only see a couple of clients per week at this point, and it is not my main focus of attention.
I used to be somebody people would come to to have things explained, to make complicated things simple. A philosopher who had the answer to just about anything, including the big questions of life. Nobody comes and asks me anything any longer, so I don't think that's it.
I seem to have a certain knack for gathering people together, and inspiring people. But most of the time I don't know what to do with them once I've gathered or inspired them, and I'm not great at leading and delegating focused work.
I'm obviously a writer, as one of the things that flows most easily would be to write something like this weblog here. I can probably do that in my sleep, even if the world is falling down around me. But I'm no good at writing other people's stuff. I can't write ordered articles on a schedule.
There are more roles I have - networker, event organizer, actor, creative person, evolutionary agent, healer, solver of problems, diplomat, futurist, designer of new systems for people to organize in - but this could easily get long. And it doesn't really add up. I don't mind being multi-dimensional, but I'd still like to be able to be clear on what I am, and where my services are needed, and how I can present myself.
So, please, if any of you happen to know, tell me what my brand is.
[ Diary | 2003-01-21 18:33 | | PermaLink ] More >
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| Monday, January 20, 2003 | |
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 I wrote these two books on "Transformational Processing", which is the counseling system I use when working with clients. Being a personal counselor is one of the several hats I'm wearing. Now, I'm getting quite a few inquiries about this, in part because the books are freely downloadable on the net. Particularly I often get inquiries and success stories from former east bloc countries, like here today, from Bulgaria:"Hello, m-r Funch!
I founded your books "Dialogues" and "Paths" in the internet in Russian language and I am very enthusiastic about the transformational processing.
Since 15 years I have read and made technics from Kastaneda, Osho, east religion, meditations etc. But I went on my road slow and blind.
For a few months with the help of the processing I made a great jump in my self improvement. I found many prickles in my self and took them out. I feel that I am making a progress for 10 lifes forward.
Thank you very much!
And I want to ask you-how can I work with the processing in my country? I already work with a few friends and we see a real progress in everybody.
But here there is no traditions, no even a psychotherapy has a tradition. But I think that all bulgarian people have a need for processing. The people say that we have many extrasenses, witches etc because we are very sensitive nation. But I think that we have such kind of people, because we don't have psychoterapists. And facilitators.
Can you give me some advice?
Excuse me for my English, please!
Nataly" I think there's maybe a basis for me traveling around and doing workshops in those areas. I haven't really decided to go for it yet, but that could be a new adventure.
[ Diary | 2003-01-20 16:00 | 0 comments | PermaLink ]
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| Friday, January 17, 2003 | |
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 Julie got really mad that, in my consideration of the possibility of moving to France, I had completely overlooked the fact that she for years has talked about her passionate dream of moving to the south of France. So it seemed like I just casually waltzed by and stole the dream from out under her, even leaving her out of it. Well, seems that I needed to work through my own process, in my own way. And it kind of solidified unexpectedly quickly. But of course it would be delightful and magical if we all end up there, possibly this summer. And it turns out that she has done a great deal of research about the different departments around the Midi-Pyrenees area and the housing market and the history, and have built up a bunch of contacts there. And there are of course lots of mysterious, ancient and interesting things to find around there, such as Rennes-le-Château, possibly hiding treasures from King Solomon's temple. I've read Holy Blood, Holy Grail and The Messianic Legacy, weaving an intriguing and compelling story about the Templars, secret orders protecting the bloodline of Jesus, enormous treasures, etc, and a bunch of the clues point to that exact area.
[ Diary | 2003-01-17 23:59 | | PermaLink ] More >
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| Thursday, January 16, 2003 | |
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 The grapefruit tree in my backyard mysteriously started carrying oranges. Well, sort of. We had this huge grapefruit tree which had a confrontation with the electricity company. A big transformer on a pole was full of mineral oil, and at some point it shorted, and boiling mineral oil was spewed all over my backyard. And DWP, the electricity company, went through a big operation of cordoning it all off and meticulously cleaning it, buying new garden furniture and that kind of thing. But they ended up cutting down the huge grapefruit tree. Which we were really sad about, as it was bountyful with fruit all year. But after it was cut down, very energetic new shoots started coming out from where the trunk used to be. The main one is now a 12 foot tree already, 2 years later, and it has big fruits already. They're the size of grapefruit, but .... they aren't. They're orange, and smell like oranges. And they taste like a weird kind of sour oranges. Like they're a mix of orange and grapefruit. There's an orange tree standing not too far from it, but it has small oranges that look and taste nothing like this. Its a little mystery of nature. Maybe some errant orange seed got grafted into the root of the old grapefruit tree.
[ Diary | 2003-01-16 16:55 | | PermaLink ] More >
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| Tuesday, January 14, 2003 | |
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 I'm still planning on moving to France. My kids aren't exactly thrilled, except for the smallest one, who's easily excited about the prospect of going just about anywhere. And, based in part on good feedback, I think I'll change my mind and focus mainly on Southern France, as in the South West, Midi-Pyrenees Region. The Cote d'Azur (French Riviera) to the South East also sounds warm and glamorous at first, but crowded and touristy. I don't want to make the same mistake as when moving to California first, we moved to Hollywood, because it sounded like a glamorous thing to write home about. But for people in L.A. Hollywood is mostly just a bad neighborhood, albeit colorful. So, as to South West France, the most vibrant area on various counts would be around Toulouse. It is a big city with lots of high tech computer and aerospace companies. But the bigger area is not very crowded, so you're quickly out in the country. And the whole area has lots of culture and history. Now, it is of course hard to figure it all out in advance, but I think that'll be my starting point when we go and explore a bit.
[ Diary | 2003-01-14 18:09 | | PermaLink ] More >
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| Sunday, January 12, 2003 | |
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 It is sort of a weird thing when we have an indicator, a statistic, a number for something, it always creates some kind of feedback loop. Some of them are useful, some of them are not. I find it quite useful to have a little graph that shows how many different people have looked at my weblog every day. I guess I feel it is reassuring that the numbers are gradually inching higher. Must mean I write something that somebody finds worth reading. But it also might make you look for meaning where there isn't much. If one day the number goes down quite a bit compared with the day before, I might mistakenly think that what I wrote the day before wasn't to people's liking, or if it suddenly goes up, I might think that people suddenly love what I wrote. And I might try adjusting what I do, based on the numbers. And I'll go crazy. The best advice would probably be to continue doing what I like doing, and care very little whether 2 people or 2000 people read what I write. Likewise, it is probably not very useful to compare one's readership numbers with those of other weblogs. There are many other possible reasons for higher or lower numbers than quality of the content.
[ Diary | 2003-01-12 22:39 | | PermaLink ] More >
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| Thursday, January 9, 2003 | |
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 I have the itch to move right now. That's how my family and I ended up in California 18 years ago instead of our native Denmark. It is not a terribly rational thing, just an urge that says it is time to move on to somewhere very different. Trying to make the best determination as to where that should be, but once you decide, it is pretty much closing one's eyes and jumping, and working out the details later. It feels like southern Europe would be the thing. First I thought Switzerland, but on second thought I think maybe France is better. Something like Lyon, the Rhône-Alpes region. Not as crowded and hectic and expensive as Paris, but a place with lots of culture and connections. And central, easy to get to other places. But I haven't been there, and I don't know anybody there, and my French is not great. I have acquired a stack of all the right books, and I'll go and explore things in April, and if it still feels right, we'd probably move a couple of months later. Not that any of this is smooth or easy. It is a big thing to move to another country, and we're a family of five, each with our quite different priorities and ideas about what we like. Do any of you know anybody in that part of France? Having some personal connections there would really be helpful.
[ Diary | 2003-01-09 01:09 | | PermaLink ] More >
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| Monday, January 6, 2003 | |
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I hate it when my server's down. Was just down for about 17 hours. Without any good reason, so hopefully it will stay up now. It doesn't happen often, but when it does, it unfortunately usually is during the weekend when there's nobody in the office where it is located.
My wife figures that if my server's down, I might as well go outside and do some totally different things. But usually I get nothing else done than worrying about the server.
The point is not just that I can't get on the net. If it is just my own connection, yeah, then I can go outside and sit in the sun instead. But when it is the server, I feel a certain responsibility to keep it up, as there are many people using it every day. So much so that I almost have physical discomfort if something is wrong. A server administrator becomes a bit of a cyborg, merging with a machine.
[ Diary | 2003-01-06 11:15 | | PermaLink ] More >
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| Friday, January 3, 2003 | |
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 I used to think I spoke and wrote English really well, considering that it isn't my first language. And maybe I'm not too bad, but recently I catch myself looking at what I write, and it seems like I'm just babbling about things I don't really know anything about, using the wrong words, put together wrong. Just mimicking what real people are doing. Like an improv comic giving a convincing lecture on nuclear physics in Chinese, despite knowing neither. Buckminster Fuller once had a personal crisis where he wasn't sure what anything really meant, and he vowed to not speak again before he would be able to say things precisely. He didn't say anything to anybody for about two years, and when he finally did, what he was saying was indeed amazingly coherent and precise. But he was also inventing a bunch of words nobody else was using. Hm, I'm not planning on duplicating that. But maybe I'll spend a bit more time in silence each day, so I can be more sure that I'll actually be saying things that need to be said.
[ Diary | 2003-01-03 03:43 | | PermaLink ] More >
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| Friday, December 27, 2002 | |
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 My little daughter Nadia likes coming into my office to pretend she's me. So, she sits in my chair and gets this really deep voice: "I'm Mr.Flemming". And I ask "What are you doing Mr.Flemming?". I speak Danish to her, but she answers in English. "I'm working on my computer" she says. "Oh, but what are you actually doing on that computer?", I say. "Dot Com" she answers, with great conviction. I don't know where she picked that up from, but it's funny. And then she went and loaded an MP3 file. It is fascinating to see how the generations change, and later generations take things for granted that the earlier generation only learned about along the way. Nadia learned about e-mail first, so she also calls the stuff the mailman brings "e-mail". A cassette tape she calls a "CD". Film cameras don't make a lot of sense to her, and she's never seen a vinyl record or a rotary phone. She hasn't known a world without always-on Internet and digital cameras and cell phones for everybody.
[ Diary | 2002-12-27 00:35 | | PermaLink ] More >
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| Tuesday, December 24, 2002 | |
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 Merry Christmas!
Glædelig Jul!
The picture is from last winter, having a picturesque time in Denmark. Fresh snow was falling almost every day, which was rather lucky, and perfect for feeling in a christmas mood. We were visiting some in-law family out in the country, in Fuglebjerg (Bird Mountain), living in a farm house, with horses. We barely got the car back out of there again, as another 15cm of snow fell while we were inside for coffee.
[ Diary | 2002-12-24 04:01 | | PermaLink ] More >
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| Tuesday, December 17, 2002 | |
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 IM - Instant Messaging - is my most important business communication tool. I mention that because quite a few people seem to think it is about wasting time chatting with people all day about nothing. I have little interest in that. That is also why I don't list my IM account numbers in the sidebar here, because I don't want to invite just anybody to drop by and ask me how the weather is. IM is a high priority channel for me, for short business-like messages, but it is also something I can answer in my own time. I get too much e-mail to easily notice everything. I don't like phonecalls much, as I can pretty much do nothing else while talking. I'm multi-tasking, I usually do several things at the same time. I mainly use ICQ because it has the professional features I need, like archiving and being able to write to people who're off-line, and because everybody I do business with are on ICQ. I'd like to get into Jabber, as it is open source, and I can interface with it from my programs, but I haven't had time yet.
For those who don't know what IM is - it is a little program running on your computer which allows you to send a message to somebody you know, and the message can pop up right away for them at the other end. But they don't have to answer right away. So, you can have a conversation without having to be fully present. For you Europeans - it is SMS on your computer, and for that matter, there are various ways of sending messages between cellphones and IM programs.
[ Diary | 2002-12-17 17:24 | | PermaLink ] More >
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| Sunday, December 15, 2002 | |
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 I spent part of the day at Peace Sunday. It was a big all-day thing in the L.A. Convention Center. Might have been a thousand people or so. Spearheaded by Leland Stewart of the Unity-and-Diversity Council, with a lot of help. I didn't have time to stay very long, but Dennis Kucinich' speech was great, and I met a lot of people I know.
[ Diary | 2002-12-15 23:59 | | PermaLink ] More >
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| Saturday, December 14, 2002 | |
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I'm getting a little paranoid about how remarkably well Google finds the things I'm saying here. OK, I'm writing so that people might read what I write, but sometimes I just casually refer to something, and the next day Google seems to indicate that I'm one of the top authorities in the world on that matter. Meaning, I appear on the first page of matches, out of sometimes hundreds of thousands of webpages. I often appear higher than the articles I linked to, even if I didn't say anything very intelligent. So, if you want to know about underground living, virtue viruses, power-law distributions, limits to spectrum or mechanic brains, this is mysteriously one of the first places people might look. Which is largely undeserved. On online business networks, I'm number 1 our of 2.5 million, even though I didn't say a word about it before last week. I'm number 2 out of 2 million when it comes to friendly sex. That all makes me a bit nervous, like I need to think of some better things to say, or I shouldn't talk about things I don't know about. And, even more unnerving, the fact that I mention these things right now will probably mean that the search engines will be a little more certain tomorrow that I know something about them. Uarrrgh!
[ Diary | 2002-12-14 23:59 | | PermaLink ] More >
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| Sunday, December 8, 2002 | |
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I spent a last day at the Prophet's Conference today. Rather than recount all that people talked about, there's a slightly unexpected and useful lesson for me today. On how it is becoming increasingly hard to shut up the truth, and how one needs to be willing to have one's facts straight, be able to back up one's stories, and be in harmony with one's audience or collaborators. So, a couple of little useful disharmonious stories from today:
Barbara Marx Hubbard gave a stimulating speech about conscious evolution, and about the need for many groups and networks to work together on locating positive solutions. She also had a phone call with U.S. Congressman Dennis Kucinich during her speech, where he said some equally wise words. And I think he is an excellent person. But Barbara maybe hyped him up a little too much, and made some statements about how we all support him 100%. And after Barbara, her assistant Theresa delivered essentially a commercial about the online network on their website urging everybody to join, and again a statement was made about backing up Dennis Kucinich 100% in whatever he does. And a member of the audience then jumped up and started protesting angrily, but he was sort of shut up right away. And the whole segment was finished, but other audience members protested, and wanted to hear what that guy had to say. Which was mainly a point about not being able to trust the Democratic party, after all the garbage they've done. And it was quite easily digested and answered (by John Hagelin) and we moved on. But the point was, it wasn't possible to give a picture-perfect, positive presentation when even a single audience member had a burning disagreement.
Later on there was a speech by Drunvalo Melchizedek. Drunvalo always has wild stories about mystical experiences and sacred geometry and strange technologies. This time he wanted to talk about UFOs and extraterrestrials. Which is cool with me, as I would certainly also like to see the U.S. and other governments come clean with all the stuff they know, but aren't telling. But Drunvalo chose to talk about a book, "The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects", he had discovered under mysterious circumstances, which was a long lost and suppressed full account by Edward J. Ruppelt, the first head of Project Blue Book, which was investigating UFOs in the U.S., with lots of exact names and dates and everything. The book was published in 1956, but all copies mysteriously vanished, with no used book sources being able to locate even a single copy at this point. So, Drunvalo is publishing it, because it is so important and might blow the lid off the whole thing. So far so good. But this is 2002. An attentive and resourceful audience member, whom I'll leave anonymous, had used his laptop from his chair, over a wireless Internet connection, to research it a bit on the net while Drunvalo was talking. And in no time at all he found that the book was in no way lost, and it is, as a matter of fact, for sale on Amazon. And it has been reviewed and has 5 stars and so forth. So, what does that mean? Well, at best Drunvalo didn't check his facts, or he got misled somehow. But the point I want to make is, you can't get away with that.
So, there's some sort of lesson there, about not being able to keep the truth away from small groups of well-connected resourceful people, who are free to move around and self-organize. You can't just gloss things over and expect everybody to take you on your word. So, you better check your facts before you speak in mixed company, and you better be prepared to deal with any divergent opinions on the spot. At the same time, I notice that governments and media still are able to keep the truth away from large groups of people who are hypnotized by the fake world presented in the media, and they're still able to shut up dissenting voices. Hopefully that is about to change too.
[ Diary | 2002-12-08 23:59 | | PermaLink ] More >
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| Friday, December 6, 2002 | |
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 Another great day at the Prophets Conference in Palm Springs. Several remarkable physicists for one thing. All delivering, based on straight science, the message that the world of separate, inert, solid objects and separate minds, is all a superficial illusion. In reality, the deeper you go into smaller particles, the more everything is inter-connected and interacting with everything else, and it is all non-local, meaning across all space and time, essentially. The profound consequences of this has not yet been widely understood, particularly not in areas where it is most needed, like politics. John Hagelin is a quantum physicist and the founder of the Natural Law Party. He is a crystal clear voice for bringing what we've learned about the universe into politics and into how we guide society along. Michio Kaku is a physics professor and equally brilliant in explaining complex things really simply, and applying the wisdom across disciplines. He points out that it is not enough to know that everything is one (a unified field) at the deepest level. That's pretty much a given by now. What makes a difference is whether there is harmony between the pieces or not. Are we in harmony with the planet we're living on?
Russell Targ is also a physicist. He was one of the key players in the U.S. government's remote viewing program carried out for many years for the CIA. He did a simple, unscientific remote viewing test with the audience and we did relatively well. The key point, and the hardest part, is the ability to quiet one's mind. And the next point is to take the psychic impressions that appear when one focuses on the target, without succumbing to the temptation to guess, or analyze, or interpret. Typically the real stuff is the stuff one is surprised about, and that one hasn't seen before.
Stanislav Grof talked about his many years of research into non-ordinary states of mind. That is, more fluid, altered states of mind, where one has access to faculties one normally doesn't. Through hallucinogenics, meditation, breathing, ritual, sensory deprivation etc. It started back in the good old days when pharmaceutical companies would send out LSD as product samples to doctors, suggesting they might try it out and see what would happen. Mostly that led to a long exploration into what consciousness is.
The day ended with a small rave party of sorts. Drumming, dancing, stilt walkers, video from the Burning Man Opera and more.
[ Diary | 2002-12-06 23:59 | | PermaLink ] More >
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| Thursday, December 5, 2002 | |
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Just before I needed to leave for Palm Springs, as I was trying to pay my rent, and being surprised that my account seemed to be empty, I realized that somebody had cleared it out through fraudulent credit card charges. About $1500 yesterday, which happened to be what I needed for my rent. Apparently somebody had appropriated the information for my wife's bank card. And now that we're examining the statements closely, it turns out that they have been stealing little amounts over the past couple of months, to buy access to an assortment of porn sites. But then in the past two days they decided to order a $999 copy of Microsoft Visual Studio, some other software I haven't identified, and some domain names. Rather bizarre, as that Microsoft program was ordered in my wife's name to be delivered to our address. And somebody has gone to the trouble of setting up fake e-mail accounts in a number of different places, in order to confirm these purchases, using parts of our names, the latest being funch@usa.net. Oh, the bank cancelled all the charges right away, but this is still a big pain. And an invasion of your privacy is a rather unnerving thing.
[ Diary | 2002-12-05 23:59 | | PermaLink ] More >
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 I'm at the Prophet's Conference in Palm Springs for a couple of days. A great group of speakers, and old friends to meet. Sofar, a great talk by John Perry Barlow on "Tending the Garden of Mind". He is just fabulous at weaving things together. This is not really his typical crowd, so it also became a bit of an education for the audience. In short, there are strong forces out there who would like to own the content of your mind, so get educated enough to do something about it. Nobody can own ideas, and it is all the same mind stuff that flows through all of us anyway.
After that there was a panel, with John, and Barbara Marx Hubbard, Gregg Braden, Nicky Scully, and some young people representing the conscious dance culture. Very stimulating fusion of energy there. Talk of more merging of rhythm and art into these more cerebral ideas. Talk of how we're all Natives of the Now, the new indiginous people.
[ Diary | 2002-12-05 19:55 | | PermaLink ] More >
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