Organizing an unconference made me think of setting up a role playing game. You make geographies and frameworks and organizations and relationship networks, and provide a variety of types of unstructured spaces, and then stories can happen without the players being railroaded. In this event, the maps and schedules and physical locations, and especially the writeable walls and blank paper, were our geographies.

And thanks to her, Tara, Chris and Tantek. BarCampBlock was great.

A Books Inc. employee rushes past with one of the first boxes of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows for customers who preordered the book.

The line for Book Seven @ Books Inc, Mountain View.

There was a line to get in, as well as this intimidating sign in front of the parking spaces.

Oh man, I heard Michael Arrington wrote that what our fair Valley needs is a downturn to wash away the bozos and hangers-on. That sounds like a Bond villain taking from the safety of his blimp or space station, while the clock on the doomsday weapon ticks down. We’re all imperfectable, except for that cadre of supermodels he’s spirited away to help repopulate the Earth in his image.

Back when I was taking courses in macroeconomics, our instructors lionized folks like former Fed Chair Paul Volker, whose strategies for fighting stagflation may have rescued the economy as a whole, but caused considerable pain for middle class people who weren’t independently wealthy. So, I wince when I hear people make that kind of talk.

I’ve been through a downturn. It’s not fun. Without the grace of circumstance, friends looking out for each other, and a working knowledge of Usertalk, the 2001 bust would had been a disaster. Sorry for not being a hard-headed Chicago School sort of guy, but that’s why I’m a recovering economist. [via Melinda Casino]

Christopher Walken’s blimp from A View to a Kill, via bondmovies.com.

Costume

1. Thrift store ladies’ watch, giant clock face, numbers all grouped down on the bottom of the face in some crazy-ass jumble
2. Thrift store silver glitter
3. Thrift store men’s white dress shirt, slightly see-through
4. Thrift store men’s belt, with giant belt buckle saying “SOCCER”, complete with a soccer ball
5. Thrift store women’s perfume
6. Thrift store tie, blue, with I HEART PERTH AMBOY on it

1. I was hoping he’d speak to Sterling’s critique of The Singularityâ„¢, and he proposed three singularity-free future histories.
   • We go off the rails, most everyone dies in an afternoon, and the survivors slouch towards extinction.
   • We ease into 50,000 years or so of pleasantness before we evolve into something different.
   • We loop through cycles of rapid catastrophe and gradual recovery and growth. In that scenario, the archeologists and librarians become real heroes.
2. He says having long-lived or immortal elders around would be a good thing.
3. Making space travel cheaper would be another good thing. The future, even if we start being nicer to each other, is uncertain. Offworld human colonies would be a good thing in case of one the bad scenarios.
4. He’s impressed with Wikipedia, and says that lots of people talking online might approach something that looks like tolerance. I don’t know if he heard about Donohoe’s drive-by on Pandagon, then.
5. Openness is a good thing. The one scenario he kept returning to as the one that scares him is an arms race, run in secret, to get an advantage with potentially lethal technology, where both sides cut corners on safety and prudence in order to stay ahead of their adversary.

Cynthia and I met Carol back in 2004 when, after my aging cat Elby died from complications of type I diabetes, I decided to adopt a pair of kittens.

On Saturdays, Carol and her volunteers from Furry Friends Rescue brought over the cats, kittens, dogs, and puppies they were looking after to the PetClub store in Mountain View. Carol asked me about my experience taking care of cats, got a reference to my veternarian, and let us pick out a pair of three month old kittens.

When I opened the paper this morning, I read about her death. I had to keep from crying in line at my coffee house. So I ran to my car, and called Cynthia to leave a message on her voice mail. Then I broke down crying.

Carol and other FFR volunteers have placed over 4,000 animals over the past 8 years. She was one of the righteous, and will be missed. Rest easy, Ms Chapman.

ETA: At a little past 7, we’re already colder than the expected low for Pittsburgh, PA.