testing

12:47:36 AM    comment []  trackback []

Today is Makar Sankranti in India ... in some parts of the country it is also Kite Flying Day. In an urban jungle like Mumbai, where there is little open space, it is really sad to see the few trees left, covered with kites stuck in them. A couple of pictures taken on my cell phone from a moving car, as we drove on the Western Express highway ... where there is much construction work going on, and trees rapidly vanishing.

7:48:18 PM    comment []  trackback []

I loved these images, advertising Mindtree's analog integrated circuit for handheld mobile devices - they communicate one dimension of India so well.

"An Indian model displays a chip placed on a 'bindi' (a dot) on her forehead during a news conference by the International IT and R & D services company 'Mindtree Consulting' in the southern Indian city of Bangalore December 14, 2005. [Reuters]"

(link via Sambhar Mafia)

11:24:55 AM    comment []  trackback []

I'm planning to attend the Digital Summit 2006 in Bombay on Jan 17th and 18th ... there is a great line-up of speakers and some interesting sessions.  Wonder if they will be covering blogs and social media there!  Are any other bloggers from Bombay planning to attend ? ..... I hope so :)

8:52:49 AM    comment []  trackback []

This is just crazy, especially in an age where we are talking about attention trust and citizen journalism . It will be interesting to see how this plays out ... Robert Scoble to his great credit has added his voice to the conversation. Rebecca's post states clearly that Microsoft is the one that shut down the blog - I'm keen to hear their reasons for this, the 'politics' involved, if they had directives from the Chinese government and how they handle the issue. Hopefully this is another step towards transparency and our right to freedom of speech.

Attentiontrust
Citizen journalism

1:10:44 PM    comment []  trackback []

The first stage of The Indibloggies is complete. The blogs that have qualified through the nominations and juror votes are listed here. Please do go and vote for your favourites.

Kudos to Debashish and his team for doing a fab job of this - I was particularly thrilled to be able to use del.icio.us for the nominations phase and Scuttle for ratings, and to discover many many amazing blogs as a result of the process.

Debashish has some trivia :

With more than 300 nominations made over 10 days and close to 25 Jurors browsing through the myriad flavors of writing and rating them, Stage one of the Indibloggies 2005 edition has come to an end. I haven’t got enough words of appreciation for the members of the Jury, many of them went out of the way to help me during the process. For the first time in the Indibloggies, and perhaps in the history of the internet, a social bookmarking tool was used in an award event.

• Indibloggies used the bookmarking tool del.icio.us for the nomination and Scuttle for the juror-rating phase.
• Jurors rated blogs in several award-categories on a scale of -1 to 5. A weighted score was calculated based on all Juror ratings for a blog in a particular category and a merit list prepared. The final list, in almost all categories, that makes it to second and the final stage comprises of blogs that were 40 percentile or above in the merit list.
• 63% of the nominated blogs were Blogger.com blogs. If few other blog-hosting services like live-journal may be ignored, Wordpress blogs must have been a close second.
• In all 193 blogs were rated by the jurors with about 15 blogs ending up with a negative or zero final score.
• Like last year, a private mailing list had all the Jurors deliberating and discussing over issues before and during the rating process.
• The whole rating process was also audited throughout, by three of the jurors to ensure a smooth completion.
• Juror Saket nominated the highest number of blogs, a whopping 115 blogs.

12:46:26 PM    comment []  trackback []

Two examples of blogs attempting to build community in India in completely new areas :

• ING Vysya is using a blog portal to provide services and encourage dialogues with persons interested in information and advice on Insurance. They explain why a blog in their context :

Qt. What does blogging mean?

• The second one, a Police Department in Mangalore, Karnataka in India has started a blog in November 2005. From their about me section:

However, after the launch, even the public has responded well. "The routine process followed in issuing press releases is cumbersome. Drafting, taking printouts and assigning one motorcycle rider to drop these at newspaper offices becomes a hell of a job. Now with the advent of new technology, we can reach everyone simultaneously. Even relevant photos are published on the blog," Dayananda adds.

Police staff, working at the computer centre in the station premises, are trained to publish, modify and maintain the blog. Currently though, all matter on the site is being updated by Dayananda himself. Dayananda adds that since the SP is authorised to give information to the press, he didn't require prior permission from higher-ups to start the blog.

10:32:55 AM    comment []  trackback []

In continuation to our efforts around the disasters, the WorldWideHelp group has set up a Remembrance Week. Here's how you can participate :

Remembrance Week - 26th December, 2005 - 1st January, 2006

These disasters took their immediate toll, and, each time, the world tried to help. But as calamity piled upon calamity, there has been a certain amount of fatigue. Perhaps people's stock of goodwill has run low. Perhaps seeing too much suffering hardens us. But, the fact is, the suffering from those disasters has not ceased. Parts of South Asia have still not recovered from December 26th, 2004. In the USA, normalcy hasn't returned to New Orleans. In Pakistan, thousands are still homeless, and may not survive the harsh Himalayan winter.

They need your help.

Last December and this January, the online community came together as never before to help in the aid efforts in South-East Asia. The lessons learned there were put to use, and improved upon, when the other tragic events of the year unfolded.

Can we harness that goodwill, that togetherness, that willingness to help once more?

The WorldWideHelp group would like you to join us in Remembrance Week. Here's what we suggest you do. Use your blogs, your home pages, your wikis, your newsletters. Link to your favourite charities and NGOs, write a paragraph about them and the work they are doing, and ask your readers to make a donation. (If you'd like to find some more charities and NGOs, please take a look at this page on our TsunamiHelp wiki, this one on our KatrinaHelp wiki, or this one on our QuakeHelp wiki.)

Please link back to this page to help pass the word. You can use the image above.

Please use this Technorati Tag: Disaster Remembrance Week.

10:13:42 AM    comment []  trackback []

Wow. I'd recommend this post to anyone who lives in countries where there is ethnic strife and conflict. I'd say that pretty much covers the whole world. Two bloggers I only recently met at the Global Voices Summit, one an Israeli and the other a Palestinian, both influential bloggers in their worlds, who went on a walk together to sort out some of the more bitter issues that had turned their blogs into targets for vitriolic comments.

The post really touched me because we have similar issues in India between Hindus and Muslims -- I've seen many many posts that bring forth huge loads of hate comments. And really only serve to widen the chasm and not bridge it. I'd urge all those who feel they are affected in any way by such conflicts, to read Haitham's post. It is sheer grace in his bold and brave admission that he has made some mistakes and constructive in his vision that he can learn from them. It isn't some cutesy 'Hindustani-Pakistani bhai bhai' placebo.

Thank you Haitham ... and Lisa, for your role in this.

2:16:27 AM    comment []  trackback []

Hemant just told me a little anecdote that made me smile and despair at the same time. Smile because I've experienced much the same and despair because it begs the question of who is literate in our country, and how many.

There was a discussion today among senior market research industry heads around definitions of literacy, socio-economic status, affluence etc. The Government of India in its Census reports defines literacy very loosely (see page 11 of this PDF document), in some cases translating into the ability to sign your name, while the marketing research industry defines it as the ability to read, with understanding (which is possibly ambiguous in its stringent definition!!!). The government uses one definition for projecting it's success in social development, while market research reports are used by advertisers who pour in huge amounts of money to fund publications.

They were trying to explain this difference to a client, who didn't quite know how to resolve this difference - and wanted to essentially figure what is the bang for his bucks. But he just wasn't able to grasp it (I don't blame him!). After trying all the technically 'correct' angles to this issue, Hemant says he threw his hands up in the air, and a senior industry leader took it upon himself to explain it - and was tremendously successful at it.

This is the gist of what he said (he needed 15 minutes to get his point through). He has a maid who has been with him for over 10 years now - everytime she takes an advance of even as little as Rs. 10 (less than 25 cents - USD), and this happens every other day, he makes her sign a receipt which is like an IOU. She signs it in perfect English although she can't read or write anything else in English or in any other language. And everytime she irritates him, he gives her a piece of his mind in the Queen's English, she is completely impervious to it, stares back blankly and goes back to doing just the thing that he was berating her about.

Is she literate .... or not .. or just very smart? What do you think?

11:31:34 PM    comment []  trackback []

Follow-up from the summit :



Full audio of the Global Voices 2005 Summit is now posted in podcast form.

A brainstorms wiki page has been set up to further conversations and ideas for projects. Some interesting projects are taking shape there around Podcasts, Outreach and training, Translations, and more

I added a page in there called Virtual Bank for World Events, Issues, Disasters. As I was reflecting on how Global Voices can get more involved in activities that affect the world - my point of reference for this is the disaster blogging that occured - I felt that it would be just so wonderful to be able to tap into our network here, as and when required. For instance, when we set up the Tsunami Blog in December 2004 - communication and getting real voices and first-hand experiences was one of the biggest challenges - but GV was so young then, and I wish we could have worked with GV contributors in all the affected areas.

So my request is - those who would like to be a part of a network that will come to the fore when there is, what I call a 'world issue' - please do add in your names here, your city and country, how you can contribute (eg. send sms messages, share live pictures, podcasts with victims etc), and your contact details. IM and Skype IDs would be terrific to have, if you are ok with putting them up here, as online presence indicators are so important for speedy and effective communication. This is definitely NOT restricted to the current GV contributors or only to those already involved in disaster blogs, but anyone who feels they could contribute.

9:18:20 PM    comment []  trackback []

A reminder to the world, which might have forgotten that people are still suffering from the effects of the earthquake in Northern India and Pakistan.

1:56:22 PM    comment []  trackback []

I enjoyed several things about this summit. The best really was meeting so many bloggers from all over the world - places I could never have imagined knowing people from - places I can now visit, even if virtually, through blogs, which I can now associate with faces. The summit was facilitated superbly by Ethan who was really busy running all over the room to ensure everyone got the chance to speak, and Rebecca, both of whom ensured there was warmth and transparency and energy and grace in the room. No powerpoint presentations, there was no stage or podium, no 'sales' pitches ---- we just had conversations, shared stories and experiences and were able to voice our visions.

I've not really taken any active role on Global Voices, still I feel part of the family and I came away with this strong feeling that I'd like to do more! I also ended up feeling a little guilty that I haven't been doing enough within the Indian blogworld, in bringing new and interesting voices to the international stage. I have some thoughts on how we could do that - one of them is to profile a new bridge blog periodically, the other is to update the bridge blog index.

Suggestions?

globalvoices

3:39:27 PM    comment []  trackback []

Ethan is asking questions about what it would mean for GV to get much more multi-lingual and how do we get there? What are the big ideas for GV going on?

Some ideas :

• Pat Hall from Blogamundo starts off by saying distances stop becoming an issue in this online world, but language remains one. You keep hitting language barriers. One model is for translation facilities for certain posts in language. The other case is for a model that brings voices in different languages per se into the GV conversation - eg a Chinese GV or a Spanish GV. How can GV enable posts to be translated from Spanish to Chinese? Machine translations will not work says Pat Hall.
• Farid Pouya tells us about an idea he had - bloglogue. Blogs + Dialogue. He proposes that we could select subjects and invite people to debate them - bloggers and non-bloggers too. Can we therefore create a reservoir of information around a wide range of topics and issues.
  
• Creative Commons as issuing 'remix' licenses (am not sure if i got this right)
  
• Evolving Chinese-English lexicon on women in law - an example. Chinglish (reminds me of Hinglish). One learning on process - it wasn't as important to have that lexicon product - but the debates and conversation over the whole year and the process by which it happened were incredibly interesting. . Suggestion - use the process to build lexicon. Rebecca then suggests should the translation happen on a wiki? We need a blog-wiki hybrid she says -- I agree !!!
• Do we start pages by language at the wiki? We have pages by country now, but not by language.
• Meeting in the middle - can bloggers who have bridge blogs be more sensitive to the fact that they may be translated - when writing posts?
• Learnings from BBC World Service -- initially employed translators - wasn't great, instead got journalists in local languages. It may be a good idea to have people who are bilingual - students, interns etc - who could scan which posts would need translation - so that they are funnelled down to a handleable and more relevant size.

• lets not talk about 'tools' - its a social activity
  
• consider how to produce many different views on content without weighing readers down with bothering about tools.
  
• democracy project - creating a blog on democracy - GV is a network that can be tapped into for other issues as well. A network of possible future activists?
  
• Haitham who is the Middle East editor - what about countries where there is no blogosphere. Also, in regions like Middle East and North America there is a big gap between NGOs, human rights activists and bloggers. How can we bridge this. And finally, nobody knows what a blog is in the media, unlike in other parts of the world. How do we reach out to media?
  
• Hoder - GV gives voice to people - we have always focussed on the 'what' - what is going on in these countries. What we haven't done is contextualising - why are these things going on? Recommend - move the link posts by regional editors to another place - and focus more on the analysis. Worry about right wing organisation funding GV - we need transparency around this. And finally, commission the writers. Dan Gillmor says - take money from right-wingers so long as you maintain transparency !
• A request for Mobile blogging from the IRC channel from Angelo.
• Publish a book

11:38:40 PM    comment []  trackback []

Ethan leads this session with the questions - what makes some local blogospheres so vibrant and others not so? What can we do to engage more people with blogging?

Ory Okolloh - shares how the Kenyan Blogosphere has evolved - she says it's first important to support new bloggers by commenting at their blogs and linking to them, create competitions, and build community. They recently got a blogger home which has turned into a community. It's much more than a virtual world, but transcended into a community especially for young Kenyans where they can express what they want, without the fear of judgement.

The Jordanian blogosphere is also vibrant. Roba Al Assi tells us that Jordanplanet.net is a community that aggregates about 50 blogs daily. And they meet once a month - they discuss how they can spread blogging in Jordan, even in schools with outreach programmes. Aman went through a terrible tragedy recently with the bombings. The media is very government controlled - and people were upset by how they were covering it. The bloggers took it upon themselves to go and take pictures, real pictures of what was actually going on in the zone. The blogging was heartfelt and honest.

Bun ThaRum from Cambodia tells us that local media writing about bloggers helped publicise and resulted in people starting blogs. Most blogs are in English because software isn't so ready for Khmer.

Neha on the Indian blogscene - says it took off for two reasons - livejournals were popular, and they transferred to blogs on Blogger. And the tsunamis blogging did take blogging further. The Indian blogworld seems a little insular. Desipundit.com is an aggregation of 'best of' posts from Indian blogs. Everytime there is a controversy like IIPM, there is a wave of fresh bloggers coming in. Also, collaborative blogs are set up because there is passion around specific issues. Competition with the Pakistani blogosphere is alive too - but it didn't take on serious proportions luckily. The personal is political and the political personal. Worries - the Indian blogworld is insular, they don't play in the international arena. One of the things that motivates Indian bloggers seem to be rankings and ratings.

Scoble says, why doesn't technorati rank us on number of outbound links :)

Enda Nasution - in Indonesia - 10 million people using the internet - but it's still a very small percentage of the population. He feels that people need coaching on blogs as a tool, bloggers should be more aware of their surroundings and not just focus on personal lives. Different types of Indonesian blogs - some are personal, some are around technology, some are around media, and bloggers are becoming like media watchdogs.

Iria Puyosa on the Venezuelan blogosphere - the first generation shared a lot on tools and tech. Second generation - becoming more political and focusses on the quality of the conversation, they may not be very tech oriented like the first gen. Worry - they want to change the world, but feel they aren't being listened to. And they have very high expectations that they would get quoted all over the world.

Hoder talks about things that worked in Iran - in the beginning there was low credibility for blogging, and he looked for big names to blog, so they have influence. The other thing was that he wanted to ensure that some of these big blogs list names of all bloggers. Well-known bloggers linked to and supported new bloggers. Like gardening, you plant a seed and take care of it. There are also cultural requirements that place greater value on self-expression and the individual, and blogging works in these conditions.

Sokari Ekine talks of the problems in the Nigerian blogosphere - they haven't been able to create a community like Kenya has. But there is a lot of ethnic diversity and political differences that get in the way. Zimbabwean and Tanzanian blogospheres are small as well.

Some solutions discussed --- special focussed target groups and encourage them to blog, get public figures to blog, get corporates to blog, be passionate and authoritative about what you blog about, be smart with search engines,

Rebecca has been updating the wiki with all the challenges - read them here.

Discussion on IRC channel --- should there be more political and social blogs encouraged, or personal blogs? Initially, they felt that the first and not personal blogs. Also - is there some sense of how the blogosphere can be controlled.

One of the best points made in this session is by a friend of Hoder's - who says sometimes stories about people's personal experiences can be very enlightening to outsiders to learn how people are living. There is a need to to translate these human experiences. Let's focus on real life experiences and not just political blogging. And in the process you will uncover not just the politics, but also the socio-cultural, economic and human themes and preoccupations that emerge. I LIKE THIS THOUGHT!

Another interesting point of discussion - should GV start a series on customised tools and documentation around them.

Also, how do you evangelise blogging off the ground?

Ethan sums up the session --- get beyond the current blogworld through outreach programmes, we have a wide range of strategies that work in different blogworlds like central lists, high profile personalities etc. One of the questions is can GV become the centre and distributor for evangelising blogging.

9:17:09 PM    comment []  trackback []

Tools to continue our conversation globally :

GV05 Brainstorm Wiki

IRC Channel

globalvoices

8:07:08 PM    comment []  trackback []

Tons of pictures of the Summit available at Flickr and a live conference blog where Angelo is doing a marvelous job of transcribing all proceedings via the webcast !

globalvoices

6:55:17 PM    comment []  trackback []

Dean Wright from Reuters sets the tone for the session with the basic thought that mainstream journalists must embrace blogs and engage in conversations like the one we are having here. I then was asked by Rebecca to talk a bit about the Tsunamis and Katrina experience and share learnings around them. Following my experiences, Georgia Popplewell who tracks the Carribean blogosphere talks about media being lazy ... she sees a synergy between bloggers and journalists, and believes that once they realise that blogs can help them do their jobs better, blogs would become more popular and effective. She's one of the few podcasters in the Carribean.

Lisa Goldman who blogs from Tel Aviv starts of by saying it's really difficult to have a sane conversation about the middle-east. She gets flamed by hate comments from Palestinian commenters. We shared a room last night and I know Lisa was disturbed by responses to a recent post she had made. Most Israeli bloggers whose native language is Hebrew don't blog about politics. The English language bloggers in Israel take stands and blog about political issues as well. It is a diverse blogosphere - and it can result in cacophony. Her attempt is to 'humanise the other'

Jeff Ooi of the Malaysian blogworld is asked by Rebecca, to what extent he feels he is a journalist, and to what extent a blogger. He says bloggers try and give context to mainstream journalism. When bloggers first made it to the scene, they were despised. There was an onslaught from mainstream media on bloggers who were sharing alternative views on political issues. But it's encouraging to note that perceptions of bloggers have now moved from 'Unrestrained do-gooders' to 'Byword for freedom of expression' (terms traditional media coined!). There is democracy and freedom of speech enshrined in the constitution, yet there is one major challenge, which is there is not absolute freedom of speech - which means we need to have a good sense of judgement and responsibility, in what we blog. Jeff's blog is all about how to migrate Malaysia from a production-based economy to a knowledge-based economy. But things are changing - and one sign - for the first time, the Malaysian government has issued press passes to bloggers for an international conference which will take place soon.

Dean picks up and reiterates the point that Jeff makes on blogs providing a context for diverse voices on issues.

Neha does a quick round-up on journalist-blogger issues in South Asia - she says it's contextual - where mainstream media doesn't do its job - bloggers do it. In the Bangladesh bomb blasts, bloggers took the lead. In Nepal, on the other hand, blogs were supporting mainstream media. In India there is now the emergence of blatant plaigarism by traditional media off blogs. Also, she raises the issue of - do bloggers want to be journalists? (I tend to say I am a blogger, not a journalist).

Rebecca - how do we vouch for the credibility of bloggers? How do we make sure people trust what we are doing? What are the responsibilities of bloggers, with all the added attention? Does this change the way we blog today?

Mary Joyce talks about the strengths of subjectivity - journalism is about someone telling someone's story, whereas blogs tell their own story. The personal voice will always differentiate bloggers from journalists.

Ory Okolloh talks of the Kenyan blogworld, where there was the case of a journalist who had plaigarised a blogger, and the bloggers relentlessly went after him until they got an apology. Blogging isn't being given the importance it should. But bloggers are filling a role that traditional media isn't - as bloggers are more 'real' , they are less lazy and not corrupt like journalists.

David Sasaki who is the America's editor and has recently attended a course on blogging sees the blogosphere as a conversational space - a cafe. He did go through a phase when he was debating journalist or blogger for himself.

Onnik Krikorian who is a journalist blogger based in Armenia talks about media feeling threatened by blogs and tells a story from Azerbaijan - where he posted a picture on his blog from there, and they sent him a warning because they didn't like the fact that a blog was using their material.

6:48:49 PM    comment []  trackback []

The summit has started ... after some announcements, Ethan and Rebecca are making a request to get more involved in the GV program, especially in filling out the wiki.

Ethan then takes us through the history of Global Voices Online, which was started just a year ago, and what our goals are for this summit. Where we are today, and where we want to be. Some stats - the blog averages 11,000 visitors a day, a Google rank of 8 which is so impressive. According to Technorati - 1800 weblogs link to GV, at least once. BlogPulse ranks it as the 97th blog in the world. 45000 posts, and around 3000 comments, which indicates that it's a space that is definitely engaging people in conversations.



One interesting trend is that increasingly, GV is becoming a resource for journalists when they need information around a specific region - and this has a huge amount of influence. This visibility and dependence on GV brings with it challenges - we must be there to help them out. Expectations are high. We become a part of media. We must be transparent and diverse, and not worry about being "fair and balanced". The big challenge is to figure out how we want to take GV forward.

Regional editors are now telling us what they feel about their roles and what they have gained and learnt. Themes that emerge ... attempts to correct perceptions about what's going on in the world - egs. Middle east and Africa. Also, bring in voices from parts of the world that aren't represented well enough. Getting together face-to-face has also been a great tool to bonding.



Some thoughts this brings in - who are we existing for? The community of bloggers? Readers? Who do we want to spend time nurturing through our architecture?

Some more announcements - I like this one - we are planning to take over the London Geek Dinner!

globalvoices

5:14:42 PM    comment []  trackback []

I think I did a stupid thing today. My curiousity got the better of me and I finally got Plaxo. And then, my mailbox got completely flooded with updates from Plaxo. And I got many messages from trusted friends telling me why they didn't use it :

• not wanting their personal details out there on the web
• Plaxo will autoemail all contacts of mine as it is sending plaxo ads under my name every quarter, under the ruse of updating contact info
• just don't trust them, they have access to all our contacts
• is this for real, is this 'phishing'
  
• they are *EVIL*
  

8:03:59 PM    comment []  trackback []

Global Voices Online is looking for a full-time Managing Editor, preferably from outside the USA and Western Europe. I think this is a great opportunity for some of our Indian journalists-bloggers or blogger-journalists. The job description is :

JOB OPPORTUNITY: MANAGING EDITOR, GLOBAL VOICES ONLINE

Global Voices Online (GlobalVoicesOnline.org), a fast-growing international citizens' media site, is looking to hire a full-time Managing Editor.

"THE JOB: This person will be responsible for coordinating day-to-day content flow on the Global Voices blog, run regular online editorial meetings, manage the work of our rapidly expanding international team of Regional Editors and volunteer contributors, and coordinate daily with editors from our news media collaborators and partners. He or she will also help steer the future of Global Voices into non-text media, other languages, and help to innovate and implement new technologies and tools. As Global Voices is a
virtual organization, the Managing Editor would not be expected to relocate. However, he or she needs regular access to high-speed internet connectivity and will be expected to travel. Salary and other compensation will depend on the candidate's experience. Start date: as soon as possible in 2006.

"THE REQUIREMENTS: Our ideal candidate has solid experience in blogging and online citizens' media and at least some experience with professional news media. He or she has the ability to work independently and responsibly with only remote supervision. Solid English-language writing and editing skills are a must. Programming/HTML knowledge not required but strong familiarity with the use of online social media tools (blogging platforms, aggregators, use of RSS feeds, and tagging) is important. He or she must be a diplomatic
team player, capable of communicating effectively with bloggers as well as news reporters and editors, who enjoys pioneering uncharted territory.

Ideally he/she will have the ability to read and write well in at least one language other than English and working knowledge of other languages. Preference given to candidates from outside the United States and Western Europe.

"Interested candidates please send CV and Letter of Interest explaining why you'd be a good candidate for the job to: GVJobs@gmail.com"

And here's a neat badge for those attending the summit !

3:33:25 PM    comment []  trackback []

I finally got down to reading one of the many books I have recently got. Am absorbed in Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino presently and I find it a fascinating read. It's funny, it's the sort of book you may or maynot read from cover to cover, and for many days, I just dipped in and out, and always find there is food for thought whichever page you unveil. There is poetry in the images he conjures of magical invisible cities; cities nobody has ever seen, and yet those that every one of us might have sensed and experienced. Semiotically really rich, it is a book which is difficult to 'analyse', but where I find myself reflecting on the almost meditative tensions between what we see, what is, and what might be; between past, present and future; between death and beauty; all of which urge you to drift along dimensions of perception and memory.

Only this afternoon did I read it in some order, but I drifted, and I am nowhere near done. I know it will lie on a shelf that's easily accessible and I will keep dipping into it. Here's one of the conversations between the older Kublai Khan and young Marco Polo; typing it in brought it more alive to me somehow.

....the Great Khan tried to concentrate on the game: but now it was the game's reason that eluded him. The end of every game is a gain or a loss: but of what? What were the real stakes? At checkmate, beneath the foot of the king, knocked aside by the winner's hand, nothingnes remains: a black square or a white one. By disembodying his conquests to reduce them to the essential, Kublai had arrived at the extreme operation: the definitive conquest, of which the empire's multiform treasures were only illusory enveloped; it was reduced to a square of planed wood.

Then Marco Polo spoke: "Your chessboard, sire, is inlaid with two woods: ebony and maple. The square on which your enlightened gaze is fixed was cut from the ring of a trunk that grew in a year of drought: you see how its fibers are arranged? Here a barely hinted knot can be made out: a bud tried to burgeon on a premature spring day, but the night's frost forced it to desist."

Until then the Great Khan had not realised that the foreigner knew how to express himself fluently in his language, but it was not this fluency that amazed him.

"Here is a thicker pore: perhaps it was a larvum's nest; not a woodworm, because, once born, it would have begun to dig, but a caterpillar that gnawed the leaves and was the cause of the tree's being chosen for chopping down ... This edge was scored by the wood carver with his gouge so that it would adhere to the next square, more protrudings ..."

The quantity of things that could be read in a little piece of smooth and empty wood overwhelmed Kublai; Polo already talking about ebony forests, about rafts laden with logs that come down the rivers, of docks, of women at the windows ...

And in the final conversation, Polo states :

6:28:45 PM    comment []  trackback []

It has been over 10 hours since I asked for a password reset for Skype, following the password scare - no response yet. Had to boot my laptop this morning so I am now locked out of Skype completely. Can someone from Skype please help with this? I hate moaning and know this is a rant but it is very frustrating. While some Skypers haven't had this problem, there are lots of others facing it.

".....We are making an announcement tomorrow about the introduction of Skype 2.0, which is even more user friendly and offers video for the first time. The news will cross the wire tomorrow morning at 6 a.m., but Walt Mossberg’s story just broke a bit early, so I wanted to be sure you got all the news early as well. Please let me know if you have any questions now or in the future about Skype. I will be happy to help you getaccess as best I can."

And I notice they've gotten rid of the tagline - "It just works" from their website! Interesting what you notice when a brand you're close to and have an emotional bond with lets you down.

10:27:01 AM    comment [