There has been some interesting discussion lately about the economy in Second Life.  For those of you who haven’t visited SL, Linden Labs has it’s own currency called Linden dollars, and each resident gets a stipend every week.  (Free accounts get $L50 and paid accounts get $L500.)  You can buy currency in world, or you can earn it by generating traffic to a site, selling goods that you’ve made, or by providing services. 

As cool as it is that LL has developed an economy out nothing, some problems are starting to appear.  Inflation is rampant in SL, as the LL are creating currency as people sign up as well as making payments for generating traffic.  As in the real word, creating money out of nothing leads to devaluation.  if you flood a market with currency and don't take any out of circulation, it is inevitable that inflation will be a problem.

There are quite a few people who are operating businesses in SL and the problem is that it is hard to cash out and make any money.  People are also experiencing raised rates and prices because of the devaluation of currency.

I simply don’t have the time to hangout in SL very much, but I am intrigued by the metaverse as it is developing here.  LL are dealing with social, economic and technological issues as the world grows and develops.

 I’m still waiting for a SL application for Palm OS so I can go in world over lunch.  I suspect it is a few years out though.

I've decided to embrace Keitai culture and do more blogging from my phone.

I still find it totally amazing that I can so easily update my blog from anywhere. I will definetly have to look into a global spell check for the palm though, as my spelling sucks.

I'll try to set up a signature for my palm entries so you'll know when I'm posting from parts unkown.
Nathan Baron,
Blogging from the Treo

Well things have been super busy and once again, blogging is the first thing to be pushed aside.

This past weekend I was in Toronto sailing the Trillium Regatta with Paul Davis and Hal Ebert aboard Shagreen (Peter Van Rossem's most excellect shark).  This was the first time that Paul and I had sailed with Hal, and I think it went pretty well.

The trip down was uneventful and we managed to get registered and have a few beers, before getting a 9:30 launch back to the main land.  I really love hanging out at RCYC.  The facilities are amazing and the sense of history around the place is so strong.

On Saturday we got in three races in very light and variable breeze.  As you would expect the three of us were working out the kinks in our boat handling, but the talk on board was really good.  Paul and Hal are both great big picture thinkers and we had solid strategy.  We were finding that boat speed was a bit of a problem in places, but it wasn't that big a deal.

Unfortuneatly, we had a couple of very unlucky shifts or wind appearing and disappearing at just the wrong times.  In the last leg of the last race we worked our way into a great position on the left side of the course which gave us a commanding position on the rest of the fleet.  But we ran out of breeze and when we tack for the finish line, we found we were headed and almost mid-fleet.  Whatever, you win some and you lose some. After the first day we were sitting 6th in the fleet of 35 boats, with a 6, 8, 15.

On Sunday we were greeted with thick, thick fog that prevented the race committee from sending us out.  We sat around on the veranda and chatted.  It was nice to hang out and talk with people.  I got a chance to meet Martha Henderson, former ISAF president Paul Henderson's daughter, who is in the middle of an olympic campaign and is working with Paul.  Really nice women, really keen and into her program.  Also got hang out with a few of the Defiant crew (Farr 40 that won the Canada's cup), which is always educational. 

As the mist burned off, the wind completely died.  The Race Committee finally called it a day around 1230.  We packed up the boat and won the most important race of the day:  the crane race.  We yanked the boat, took down the rig and hit the road around 1400 and had another uneventful trip.

Sailing with Paul and Hal this summer is going to be a really great learning experience.  Paul's experience with boat to boat tactics, and Hal's insane knowlege of weather systems and strategic talents, are certain to rub off a little.  I feel a bit under qualified to be sailing with these two, but I suppose I have my talents too.

I also wanted to give a shout out to Andrew Morgan and Daina Vagners who not only hosted a great regatta, but also provided a really comfortable bed over the weekend. 

Another big thanks go to Peter Van Rossem for so selflessly lending us his boat and getting everything ready to go.

Well it is finally happening.  Canadians get to see what a Conservative government is really like.

This week Stephen Harper made a statement that his government would pick and choose which reporters questions they will respond to.  Harper went on to say that some reporters/ news outlets had a “vendetta” against his government.

How the story has changed.  From the beginning of the federal election campaign, Harper has talked about accountability.  He has beaten the message to death; government must be accountable to the people.  But when it comes time to be accountable in the media, Harper and Co. are singing a totally different tune. 

Mainstream media has a political slant.  This is axiomatic truth.  Every government that comes to power must deal with both sides of the media.  If the government is given the choice of which media outlets they are going to answer, they are effectively removing the press as a safe guard.  They are taking away the presses right and obligation to ask the hard questions and put the leaders on the hot seat. 

What makes a good politician?  A good politician can take questions from both sides, using friends to reinforce messages and using foes to discredit alternate theories and/or courses of action. Funny that Mr. Harper is so uncomfortable answering questions, as he touts his fine debating and speaking skills. 

I am incensed that our government would choose to avoid the hard questions.  Politicians deal with media.  This is how they communicate with citizens and the world.  If journalists cannot ask challenging questions, then we have just lost a key component of our democracy.

The Conservative party are like the school yard bully:  they are all tough when they are beating up on the kindergarten kid, but start crying as soon as they are called into the principals office. 

 Cowards.

If you have spent more than an hour with me, you'll know that I am no fan of George W. Bush.  I frequently mumble about self-interested foreign policy, racist domestic policy, and economic dunderheads.

I get a newsletter from Rob Coddington on speech writing, and in the current edition there is a link to an article on Bush's speech writer, Michael Gerson.  He is a very interesting man, and a very good speech writer.

As much as I dislike Bush, I am always very impressed with the quality of his speechs.  This article is an interesting look at how the Bush administration frame it's policy and agenda around the moral and ethical questions that must totally consume senior staff at the White House. 

From a communications perspective, watching the administration try to manouver around the moral and ethical debates that are raging in the US, is a very interesting case study in implementing a plan that they think is morally correct but which half the country disagree.

You may not agree with the politics, but the words are exquisitly framed to communicate what "the Bubba" believes is the right thing. 

At the risk of pissing off a lot of readers, I just have to make a comment on the recent protests surrounding the movie release of the Da Vinci Code.  

BBC is reporting loud protests in India, South Korea, and of course, the Vatican.  They claim that people who see the film are twice as likely to believe the fictional premise that Jesus married Mary Magdalene and had a child.

Isn't any kind of engagement with religious doctrine good for discussion?  Even if Hollywood completely distorts factual events (like this is the first time), isn't it a good thing that people are exposed to the subject matter and hopefully come to their own conclusions?  Any publicity is good publicity, so the saying goes.

What makes me really angry is the censorship that the Christian right would like to impose on people.  Banning art and/ or a different perspective of events cannot simply be banned because it is blasphemous.  This is 2006, blaspehmy is totally not a valid reason today.  Open discourse is a tool to find the truth.  Who doesn't want to hear the truth?

Even if Jesus did marry and had a child, would that make a big difference?  Would it really change the structure of the Christian belief system that much?  I always thought that there was a huge disconnect between the teachings of Jesus, the man, and the churches doctrine.  This just proves me right.

So let's say the South Koreans manage to ban the movie.  What's next, a good old fashion book burning?  If the Christian right manage to snuff out an artistic work because if posed a threat to their religious construct, what will be next?  I can think of a dozen books that fall into this category. 

We must have faith.  Faith that people will look into things for themselves.  We must have faith that our religions will not topple when someone expresses a contrary view.  We must have faith that people will allow others to speak their minds, because it could be your speech that snuffed out next.

I know it has been very quiet around here for quite a while now and I just wanted to let my faithful readers (all six of them) know that I not "blog fading". 

I've been working on something new and I want to get all the bugs out before I go live with it.

I should be making an announcement by the end of the month, so check back.

(Disclaimer:  I have previously stated that I work for the Ontario Government, and I would like to point out, once again, that the opinions that I express here are my own and do not by any means reflect the position or views of my employer.)

I found CivicAssess.ca via boingboingthis morning.  It looks like a very cool initiative.  They are encouraging municipal, provincial and federal governments to make information about operations open, public, and easy to get. 

Here's how they describe themselves:

"Citizens for Open Access to Civic Information and Data (CivicAccess)is a group of citizens which believes all levels of government should make civic information and data accessible at no cost in open formats to their citizens. We believe this is necessary to allow citizens to fully participate in the democratic process of an "information society." "

I really like the idea of making government information available to citizens, and I totally agree that the availability of this information is vital to maintaining a healthy democracy.  However, I'm not sure how well they have thought this through. 

The amount of information that governments collect is so vast that we have a challenging time organizing that information internally, let alone organizing that information for public consumption.  Our intranets are a mess of inter-related documents that are unlinked and are very difficult to search.  The OPS are making huge strides in sharing information across ministries and external organizations, but we have a long way to go.  Knowledge management is definitely something we need to manage better internally. 

In the Ontario government is making a very strong effort to provide as much information and as many services as they can through it's amalgamated portal.  This type of IT initiative is in line with Civic Access goals.  (Although it may be a little simplistic comparing it to the objectives of the organizations.)  I also see various municipalities with varrying degress of engagement with there publics via their websites.  There is no doubt about it, we are way better served by our governments today than we were 10 years ago.

Command and Control

In public service we are dealing constantly with "stakeholders".  Ministries have an operational knowledge of how to do things and people on staff who are professionals researching and implementing government initiatives and projects.  We obviously consult with stakeholders as projects are being designed and implemented, and I honestly believe that those consultations are sincere and adequately thorough.

That said, there are times when a particular stakeholder's concerns hold up a project that would have great benefit for the rest of the stakeholders involved.  This is where the command and control culture of government is used for utilitarian good.  On the surface this may seem anti-democratic, but it is really a way of dealing with disparate groups with disparate interests that are not moving toward a resolution.

On Citizen Driven Projects

If you watch municipal governments in action (i.e. you actually watch city hall meetings on channel 13 or whatever) you will know that debate is often long, divergent and impassioned.  But I would hardly describe it as productive.

I personally love the idea of having citizens  work with each other on projects that have a direct impact on their community.  Using the energy and ideas of the citizens to get things done should be encouraged by all levels of government and government should do it's best to provide tools to help self organizing groups.

That said, I am really sceptical of the amount of work that would be accomplished by these initiatives.  When people are working on local projects the personalities involved eventually become the barrier to plans being finalized and descisions being made.  Politiks at the local level burn really hot, and this is bound to be a hurddle to overcome. 

Conclusions:

While I think that CivicAccess has a great message, I wonder what will come of it.  Will they work with the various levels of government to help identify information that should be made public?  I'll be watching the wiki to see how the tone of things develops, as I hope that it encourages an attitude of cooperation and open communication with governments instead of mistrust and scare mongering that people on the left tend to use when discribing our governments.

I've been playing around with a piece of software called Tinderbox.  Tinderbox is simply amazing.  It allows you to mind map, outline, rearrange ideas and present information visually.  It is software that I have been waiting for my entire life.  It thinks like I do.

So once my interest was peaked by playing around with it for a while, I googled around the Eastgate site and found Mark Berstein's blog.  I was struck by his diversity of interest, his socially minded projects, and emphasis on making peoples lives better.  (And not just with software.)

Over my life I have met a few people that have really inspired me.  Looking back at these people they tend to have a few things in common:

• Varied interests.  From science to art to building stuff.
• Project Oriented.  They get an idea and follow it through.
• Community minded. 
• Passionate about their area of expertise.
• At peace with what they do.

Mark seems to be one of those people.  I was so impressed with his article on writing for the Living Web, an excellent primer for young bloggers like myself.  I like his focus on continuing development, which is kind of a theme in my life.  You should also take a look at his lecture notes which looks mostly at software aesthetics. 

Very cool guy.  I'm sure that I will have more to write about Mark and Tinderbox as I get into it.

This past December Alison and I adopted a golden retriever by the name of Kelly.  Kelly has fit in really well and over the past few months I've become really attached to her.  Our morning and evening walks are a reprieve from our hectic life, and I really enjoy playing with Kelly in the park, so that both of us can let off some steam.

Over these past few months, Kelly has been getting better and better on our walks and recently I've been letting her off the lead so she can stop, sniff, and generally take her time.  We've never really had a problem, but we do put back on the lead if we see another dog.  Better safe than sorry.

A couple of nights ago we left the house around 7 or 8 and I didn't even bother to put the lead on her at all.  As we turned the corner and walked toward the park I saw a figure walking a dog at the end of the path.  Kelly, being the good natured beast she is, started trotting up to the dog and owner to say hello.

When she was about half way there, I realized that the dog was a doberman pincher.  I tried to call Kelly back, but when the other dog started to move toward her she was too interested to listen to me.

Once I got closer I saw the little man at the end of the leash.  A little guy in an original 1970s Adidas track suit and Bill Gates glasses of the same era.  This little man with legs spread wide apart to try and stabilize himself while his dog strained against the lead, looked so absolutely ridiculous that I almost started laughing.

Kelly went right up to the dog and the doberman started nipping at her neck and ears.  I ran up and pulled Kelly away and got her back on the lead and started to walk away.  Whew, no problem I thought.  I apologized and started walking away to avoid anymore trouble.

Then the little 70's man started up.  "It's totally your fault.  It's your dog.", implying that his dog would kill Kelly if given the chance. As he walked up the hill and away from us, he continued this "it's your fault, my dog would kill yours" line of crap.

I put on my best Buddhist face, bowed slightly, apologized once again and kept walking with Kelly healing obediently.  But as we walked away I wondered about this guy.  He obviously liked that his dog was intimidating, and liked the fact that he was strong and scary.  I wonder if they cuddle.  I wonder if they have as good a friendship as I have developed with Kelly.  Was this a working dog, a security measure that needs to be walked?