Government will be disrupted by the internet

The internet is a disruptive utility in large part because it cares not about physical locations... The media industries having been learning about it for the last decade or so

I think we're at the start of the next disruption that the internet will enable, the disruption of historical governments where it is restricted to physical location. I don't mean the collapse or disappearance, more that their power based upon controlling a defined physical area will come to be worth less and less...

Why do I need permission to trade with a company in another country? Why can't I just go direct?

I have a theory

Because of the whole sleep deprivation that’s been going on in my life recently (a 4 month old baby and a nearly 2 year old with chicken pox), I have developed a theory…

A theory you say?

Yes, the theory is that the need for sleep is not really required (or maybe it is), sleep on an evolutionary side has allowed:

1. The development of community and hence civilization
2. something else that’s good
3. oh yeah…  our survival

Ok, stay with me here (it may be lack of sleep driving this theory and the wandering nature of my writing).  If we did not need sleep way back in our past (when trying to survive against animals that were bigger and scarier than us) on the surface sleep is not a good thing (can you imagine a big scary creature with lots of teeth coming at you while you’re sleeping? I can)..  So how did we survive that?

We banded together, that’s how…  We worked together “You stand watch while I sleep”, “Ok”.  Allowing us to survive the dangers of the night (well, some of us)…  While our compatriots who didn’t need sleep continued to wander around by themselves (why did they need others if they never slept, plus they were always grumpy), we started living with larger and larger groups, able to not only survive the night, but also to take the night back (capturing and taming some of those animals)..

So when next you hear someone say “Ha! Sleep is for the dead” you can respond “No! Sleep is for the living, if I didn’t sleep I would be dead!”

-- Feel free to repost with your own and better words, I merely ask that you keep the ‘I have a theory’ reference

Fish pirates

Rory Blyth is a no good fish pirate.

That's it, that's all I have to say at this stage.

Thanks Google!

About a month or so back I got an email from Google asking for feedback on their AdSense network. Now I've tried it in a couple of places (here and on another blog which I was trialling some ideas out on), so I thought, yeah there's a couple of things that I'd like to say about my experiences and what I thought about their product (which I like by the way).

So I gave my feedback on the survey and promptly forgot about it, till this morning when a package arived for me from Google... Getting very curious while opening this box imagine my surprise when I open it to find a new 80GB iPod!!! :-) I'd been selected to receive 1 of 4 iPods as thanks for giving feedback! How cool is that!

Now I do already have an iPod, though it's a 2nd gen with only 15GB, which doesn't keep it's battery charge so thankyou Google!

B

Back in the UK

Just a real quick post to say hi to everyone and let you all know that we've arrived safe and sound back in the UK, now comes the joy and fun of starting our 'real lives' again.. ;-)

Was an absolute blast spending the last 7 months with everyone, got to see most of you on more than one occasion and I wish all of you lots of fun on your life journeys!

B

Inspirational quote

"It is a paradoxical but profoundly true and important principle of life that the most likely way to reach a goal is to be aiming not at that goal itself but at some more ambitious goal beyond it."
- Arnold Toynbee

Saw this on my google homepage this morning (I like quotes of the day), myself though I think the phrasing of:

"Aim for the moon, so you may reach the sky"

sums it up more succinctly.

B

The future of news

A fascinating piece on the future of news publishing produced as though it is from 2014... Very cool, watch it.

EPIC 2014