{ 2003.05.20 } See, I keep coming back to what Danny said: "While I manage to fend off pop-up windows with Mozilla, and spam with Spamassassin, most people don't know about those programs". A bookmarklet to help you buy CDs by independent labels [via boingboing]? Or scanning barcodes with a cellphone to search for hidden product information?

So it's one experience for the people who know how to use the machinery, how to play the game, and a thoroughly unpleasant one for the people who don't know who to ask, or can't understand why they should even have to carry four bits of expensive electronics to avoid having their allergy triggered by badly designed packaging.

That's the worst kind of exclusionary tactics, isn't it? Using equality as an excuse to not teach those less able? And hypocritical?: living an online life unharrassed by blocked adverts, but paid for by those same ads on the eyeballs of those we don't let into our club? We use our knowledge for access to good, free software, but leave the rest to fend for themselves, having to put money into the hands of those we claim we're against. If we say we're pathfinding, exploring for the future, is that the same as dodging the responsibility to open these new abilities to everyone else? The people who have the knowledge have the best time; some people - inevitably - have less, and don't have such a good time. That's the way of the world, isn't it. That's the way it's always been.

Yeah, except: this time we said it would be different. Remember?

{ 05.19 } What's really going on in a teenager's brain: "These scientists have discovered that the brain goes through massive refinement in adolescence. Paths are smoothed, bridges built and rubbish cleared. As one of the American scientists interviewed by Barbara Strauch puts it, in the cheerful style shared by all of them: 'The brain's pruned back to the essentials, you know, like one of those poems, a haiku. It's as if the brain says, hey, it's time to specialise.' To enable this, there is a surge of grey matter aptly called an 'exuberance'. This overload of capacity and possibility is why teenagers can read a Russian novel a day, hack into military software, steal a car or want to save the world. It also causes a heightening of experience and emotion for which they are not fully equipped - like a rollercoaster setting off before every nut and bolt is in place".

(Exuberance. Hebb again! Young Komodo dragons climb trees. One day, they're too big to climb trees, and spend the rest of their lives on the ground. Do they know?)

{ 05.18 } "The beard can be a very important part of your disguise and is always a very good supplement for masks. Beard or no beard? This is not only a question of what's in vogue or of social differentiation, at least not exclusively. The beard is rather a sign of masculinity, partially religious commandment, a sign of ethnical affiliation or political avowal or simply a status symbol. In addition the beard has many faces, virtually as there are many ways to dress it. To be beardless is only one of many choices - all the others you can find here on beardworld.com".