a few random thoughts
If the internet was a person, it would be a reverse Charlie (from Flowers for Algernon). It would start out as an interesting, convivial thinker and degrade into a dirty old man in a yellow raincoat yelling about “throat yogurt” and “herbal viagel.”
I have a new campaign: to get men to leave the toilet seat up in public restrooms. That way, people who are too lazy to put it up /before/ peeing won’t have to, and when you /do/ need to sit, the seat won’t be disgusting. Put the seat up yourself, and convince your friends. Someday, maybe you won’t need to spend time picking the least disgusting stall.
When reading “The Unix Philosophy” this summer, I took pause at some turn of phrase Gancarz used. I don’t remember what it was, but it made me realize something that should have been entirely obvious long ago: the reason we call software that can be used on many platforms “portable” is that we can carry it with us, like a portable computer. I’d never realized that “to port [to another platform]” meant to carry. It really made me think, although I don’t remember what I actually thought /about/.