Scrapbook

We live in an age of leverage. Tools like @sinatra & @gem… they’re like LEGO bricks of logic & media. Deepest gratitude to their makers.

why do we say “real” to mean not-facebook? isn’t facebook real?

move freely across disciplines rather than within them, reveling in the complexity of a more holistic understanding of the system.

– Dan Hill

Wrong: The Internet is all about connections and communication. Right: The Internet is all about sucking out information.

Evgeny Morozov

Curtis dismisses the suggestion that the internet is now a source of scrutiny and agent for transparency.

I am hugely sceptical about this idea that interactivity will create a new kind of democracy and spread of power. If you look at the years since the rise of the internet, power has become more consolidated, more elitist, less open to examination, so the interactive utopians have failed to deliver the power to the people they promised.

The only thing people regret is that they didn’t live boldly enough, that they didn’t invest enough heart, didn’t love enough. Nothing else really counts at all.

“Let’s believe in the future, because we have nowhere else to go” - me to @quinnnorton

“the future is full of terrible things on its own, no need to give it more” - @quinnnorton to me

link

We’re taught to fear “the stranger”, but most sexual assaults are done by someone the victim knows. Most children will be assaulted by a relative or family friend, most women by an acquaintance. Teach your children to know a dangerous situation, rather than relying on “stranger danger”. Women should know that they are not necessarily safe when they are with people they know.

Conversely, enjoy the company of people around you. Do not approach everyone like they are a potential scam artist/thief/rapist/liar. Life is too short to view everyone as a suspect.

If someone has a weapon and says “Come with me or I’ll hurt you”, DO NOT GO! Where you are is much safer than whatever abandoned place you are about to be brought to, that’s why they want you to leave it. Throw a loud fit and run towards people as if your life depended on it (it might). Even if you are injured, you are in a populated place and will receive medical attention. Many people have been murdered and/or sexually assaulted by simply following instructions.

Love is a risk, but worth it. After exiting a marriage with someone who was such a compulsive liar that he was effectively a stranger, I thought I’d never take that risk again. However, after time (and therapy), I am lucky enough to find myself less than a month away from marrying the best partner I could possibly imagine.

If you live in a country that celebrates Halloween, let your children celebrate it as you did when you were young: scared and in the dark. “Safe” events aren’t the point of Halloween, and it isn’t fun for kids.

With much luck, health, and happiness,

Meghan Callahan mabnon@gmail.com Duluth, Minnesota, USA