Social Impacts Of A Stone Soup

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Have you heard the Grimm tale “Stone Soup“? It’s a tale of travelers that, being famished, come up with an ingenious plot to get food. In doing so they create an air of mystery by starting their plot with a fire and placing a kettle, filled with nothing but water and a stone, upon it. As the townspeople come forth to question what they are creating they reply with the simple response, “Stone soup, but it would be more delicious if we had such and such ingredients.” As everyone in the town comes forth the soup has grown into a meat and vegetable soup, with a fairly hearty broth, that everyone shares. It is a tale of co-operation and compassion that provide all parties better off than they were as individuals.

It is a story that aligns very well with the depression and wartime era’s of the early 20th century. During these tough times, friends, family, and neighbors would gather what little they had and make hearty feasts to share with each other. This would provide them with more variety in the foods they were able to make and they were also connecting with each other.

Co-operation and compassion are key in tough times in keeping your communities strong.

There is no greater proof than David Armano’s assistance with his family friend, on Tuesday night. He used his personal capital on Twitter, friendfeed, and his blog to raise just under $15,000 for her in the past 24 hours. What this proves, is what we are all involved in on these social arenas is very much a community, nearly as real as that which we walk through each day. When we had raised $7,000 for Daniela, David created a video thanking everyone who contributed, with donations or spreading the word, but the thing that stuck out is he spoke of a feast with neighbors in which they would all cook everything when the power would go out and share with each other.

If one person can start an initiative to help another and raise that much in a day, what is stopping us from helping those that need it now more than ever. We have hit a period in which everyone is hurting, much like the depression and wartime eras. If we can share what we have with others to make our community better and also make connections what is the hindrance.

If we can share what we have with others to make our community better and also make connections what is the hindrance.

Technology Is Killing Our Time Of Marvel

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What’s the most interesting thing that you’ve marveled over in the last month? last week? last day? I’d bet most of you picked different things for each one. Just think about how fast information is flowing through your media streams; you have less and less time to marvel over something.

As technology makes more and more information available to you at an ever greater speed, your time to marvel over the latest design or innovative idea shrinks. Look at just about any area that your interested in. Now, think back to last year and what you were amazed by in that area and what your amazed by this year, last year’s seems pretty bland in comparison, right? How many times were you amazed by the changes that took place throughout the year in that area? Depending on your source for information it would probably change once a month, once a week, once a day.

Now let’s go back and look at what would have been a marvel to people throughout the 20th century,  a lot of what I’m basing this paragraph on is the image from Visualizing Economics.   The most marvelous things at the turn of the century had very little competition, due to less information for the masses. It took cars 15 years to reach 20% usage and during the same period electricity reached only 30% of the nation. These would have been marvelous utilities to have could you afford them.

As time goes on the different media streams come along that hasten the usage and acceptance I figure a ~20% usage rate as the reduction to marvel. The radio comes along and reaches 20% in just 5 years but allows other forms of media, such as television, computers, the internet, to develop more quickly than had been possible before.  B/W and Color televisions both took ~5 years to reach the threshold, computers took about 20 years and the internet roughly 10.

If you look at how fast we find new marvels today it takes between 1-5 years for nearly anything to reach the  20% threshold. Also, with each new advance in media we find that it loses it’s marvel much quicker than before because there are many more things to marvel at, which reduces the threshold to about 10% currently. As more and more new things come around we have less and less time to spend marveling over it.

This ever increasing pace that removes our abilities to attach to something for a long period of time is going to make it harder and harder for businesses to become a Goliath. This has already started to show in weak returns for advertising and purchasing of slower media types, such as newspapers and magazines. In the very near future you will have to come out with something that will blow everyone away as quick as possible  you don’t have the time to wait and become a Microsoft or Google.

Would love to hear your opinions in the comments about what you think of this idea.

Stop Crippling Your Potential

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Did you come up with a valid excuse for not doing something in 2008? If not, either your a truly honest person who knows how not to hinder their opportunities and doesn’t look for the easy way out, or your a liar. To be fair, I believe the majority is in the latter or you said yes, and  don’t worry I came up with an excuse and used it all year round, too. It’s something that’s unavoidable you make an excuse based on facts but doesn’t really have a standing on that area of your life.

With me, I failed out of college and used an excuse all year round that could have been an influence, but I know wasn’t. The night before 3 of my final exams the first semester I suffered severe muscle spasms in my upper back and ended up in the E.R., until 2 in the morning, and also had to pack to leave school so I didn’t sleep at all. It’s all true, except I omitted the fact that I had already slipped to the bottom of my classes, or close to it. I went back for the 2nd semester but gave up on everything in the 3rd week after I realized that I wasn’t going to be able to keep my scholarships. This damn thing has been my crutch and I limped around with it just because I could; well now it’s time to change.

If you share an excuse like that with me; I want you to toss the crutch out and be honest with yourself and with others. You can be great, your just going to have to learn to walk again without having a crutch there to keep you from falling down. You can be whatever you want to, but first you must see it, then you must do it. The world is at your fingertips are you going to take it by storm this year. Here’s a quote to keep you going throughout the year.

“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, therefore, is not an act, but a habit.” ~ Aristotle

The Most Innovative Video Games of 2008

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As the year ends, I feel like I pointing out some of the most innovative games to be released this year. They have all been pretty high profile throughout the year.  Alright now I guess it’s time to show everyone the games.

Braid (Xbox 360, PC 1stQ ’09)

This game is probably the most innovative game in this century so far. It takes the idea of controlling time and runs with it in all directions, to solve puzzles and complete levels, turning this platform game into one of the best games of the year.  If you haven’t played it pick it up on Xbox Live Arcade now or if you don’t have a 360 you can wait for the PC version to come in the 1st quarter of 2009.

Audiosurf (PC-only)

This is probably my favorite time waster of 2008 and the foreseeable future. The game takes your non-DRM audio tracks into race tracks, based on various elements of the audio file, and crosses it with a puzzle game. You end up having something that resembles what you would get if you crossed Guitar Hero and F-Zero. Since it is using your audio to create the game you can keep adding more and more levels as you add more and more audio to your hard drive. Pick it up from Steam for $9.99 right now.

Mirrors Edge (Xbox 360 ,PS3, PC 1stQ’09)

This isn’t a truly large innovation but this game has laid a whole new path for future games that harness first-person perspectives. It was seemingly so real that it had people vomiting from the virtual induction of themselves into the game by seeing the arms, torso, and legs of Faith. I have a feeling we’ll be seeing more games that use this induction to make their games more realistic.

Left 4 Dead (Xbox 360, PC)

This game is just another FPS until you get into it and have hundreds of enemies rush you out of nowhere. The AI Director has it’s issues but it provides this game with some suppensful moments that make every play-through completely different. It analyzes whether your doing well or barely hanging on and adapts how many and when it’s going to flood you with enemies.

Those where the most innovative games that I have seen and played in 2008, all are recommended purchases. I’ve also already spotted one that is going to be an innovative game when it comes out in 2009 or 2010. The game is called LOVE and is a MMO that is procedural rendered and completely editable by the players.

If you think I missed a game let me know and I’ll look into it or tell you why it didn’t get on the list.

Just A Christmas Post

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Christmas time is upon us, the one time a jolly fat man brings us gifts every year. The time we share our own gifts with each other and watch the joy that it brings to others faces.  The time to make memories and share stories with those around you. I doubt many of you will see this as of the holiday, but I want to thank you for reading this if you do.

Remember no man is a failure who has friends.” ~ It’s A Wonderful Life

Merry Christmas

Non-Linearity Of Education

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I was re-reading through, “The Black Swan,” and came across this passage.

Your child does not seem to have a learning impediment, but he does not seem to want to speak. The schoolmaster pressures you to start considering “other options,” namely therapy. You argue with her to no avail (she is supposed to be the “expert”). Then, suddenly, the child starts composing elaborate sentences, perhaps a  bit too elaborate for his age group. I will repeat that linear progression, a Platonic idea, is not the norm.”

Now, the reason I mention this is that I know for a fact that this exact example is very true. I went through it when I was in  2nd grade, of the K-12 system, at age 7. I didn’t know how to tie my shoes, dress myself, but the big one where school comes in was my reading comprehension and verbal language.  However, by my 3rd grade year, age 8, I could tie my shoes and dress myself, but also my reading comprehension had jumped to that of an average 10th graders, verbal language was also on par with older students. Over time, they have both lost that advantage.

Education will never be a linear system, yet, that’s how our systems treats it. Our system focuses on the ones with the most promise to fill the position, the rest are left alone or sent to remediation to see if they can recover, most can’t. I was the exception to this case and even now I’m behind in my composition and verbal usage, I’m sure it shows.

I would be pleased to hear any stories that you may have to share on the subject.

The Value Of Providing Assistance

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Over the weekend, I met a couple who had just gotten off of their plane, and had had someone drop their vehicle at the airport for them. Unfortunately, they were not informed of the location of their vehicle. Not having any other tasks at hand I decided to help find their vehicle and once found I offered to help them with their baggage, which they graciously allowed me to do. After, we had finished packing the luggage into the vehicle we talked for a few minutes and I waved them off as if they were my friends. I guess, technically, we were and we had created a relationship, in under 15 minutes, just by me offering to help. You read that correctly, “We had created a relationship in under 15 minutes.”

How often can you manage to meet nice people and forge a relationship with them in so short a time? It’s rarely happened to me that it has occurred in the same way as it did in that situation. Normally, if I attempt to help people they get offended or are just genuinely unappreciative of the effort that I put into their happiness and satisfaction. No matter what their response I’m going to feel good for assisting.

I guess the value that I get is a good feeling and occasionally some single-serving friends, even if you didn’t meet them on a plane it’s a great term.

So have your ever assisted somebody and formed a relationship or just felt good about what you had done for them? Leave me some comments on what you think the value of providing assistance would be to both parties. Hope you enjoyed the post.