Christopher Lydon interviewed Scott Heiferman recently.#

Robert Putnam's book Bowling Alone, about the shredding ties of affiliation in America through the television age, was "a major inspiration and challenge" to Heiferman & Co., partly because they couldn't quite believe the bad news as Putnam presented it. "I think it is natural Human 101 stuff--that people want to connect with a bunch of neighbors who share a common interest... I don't think the desire to connect ever went away," Heiferman says. "Face-to-face is kind of woven into our species." And then he read the slogan that Douglas Rushkoff lifted from the late Timothy Leary: "Find the Others," whatever that meant. To himself Heiferman remembers saying: "Allright, Mr. Rushkoff, I'm going to build Meetup.com to help people Find the Others locally and let them organize a gathering."

Scott thinks that the Internet and it's power in politics and society is actually incredibly UNDER hyped. Awesome.

After Scott Heiferman had his company acquired by agency.com, he decided to work at McDonalds for 6 months and he wrote about the experience.

3. i was never told to treat customers well. correction: i was never told by management to treat customers well. before i started the job, i had read on the mcdonald's website that "our crewmembers make each customer feel like a welcomed guest." i had even noticed a few months before that mcdonald's even went so far as to change their logo & tagline to feature the message "we love to see you smile." i expected to be specifically, officially instructed to smile and make customers feel like a welcomed guest. well, as any patron of a manhattan mcdonald's knows, there ain't much feel-good from the counter staff. my co-workers were downright rude to customers. i got funny looks from my co-workers when i was friendly with customers. they must not have seen the logo or tagline or website.

4. nobody thanked me. i worked hard. i got paid peanuts. i even ate mcdonald's food during my break (deducted from my pay). it was intense: the cash register was complex, people want their food NOW, the lines get deep, the mcflurry must be made just right. i was trying hard and i was doing an ok job. now, i've been the leader/manager for most of my life. i've had plenty of crap jobs, but i've been the boss for the past few years. i faithfully read my fast company magazine and my harvard business review. i've been taught countless times the value of a leader/manager showing appreciation for people's effort. however, my instinct has often been that showing appreciation really isn't too necessary for good people. they just take pride in a job well done --- and, anyway, they can read my mind and see the appreciation. well, from day 1 at mcdonald's, i was yearning for someone there to say "thanks". even a "you're doing ok" would suffice. but, no. neither management experience -- nor reading about management --- teaches this lesson as well as being an under-appreciated employee.

Razib at Gene Expression links to a Lisa Kudrow interview. It's very interesting, she's a smart woman.#

Jim Moore links to "an illuminating piece" about Leo Strauss' influence on the current administration.#

Leo Strauss was a great believer in the efficacy and usefulness of lies in politics. Public support for the Iraq war rested on lies about Iraq posing an imminent threat to the United States — the business about weapons of mass destruction and a fictitious alliance between al-Qaida and the Iraqi regime. Now that the lies have been exposed, Paul Wolfowitz and others in the war party are denying that these were the real reasons for the war.

[...]

In Plato's dialogues, everyone assumes that Socrates is Plato's mouthpiece. But Strauss argues in his book The City and Man (pp. 74-5, 77, 83-4, 97, 100, 111) that Thrasymachus is Plato's real mouthpiece (on this point, see also M.F. Burnyeat, "Sphinx without a Secret", New York Review of Books, 30 May 1985 [paid-for only]). So, we must surmise that Strauss shares the insights of the wise Plato (alias Thrasymachus) that justice is merely the interest of the stronger; that those in power make the rules in their own interests and call it justice.

[...]

In Reflections of a Neoconservative (p. xiii), Kristol wrote that:

"patriotism springs from love of the nation's past; nationalism arises out of hope for the nation's future, distinctive greatness…. Neoconservatives believe… that the goals of American foreign policy must go well beyond a narrow, too literal definition of 'national security'. It is the national interest of a world power, as this is defined by a sense of national destiny … not a myopic national security".

If you're sad then just listen to some pop music and let it cheer you up.#

I try (I try) to get you out of my mind
I know (I know) it's getting hard to let you go
It's over and it'll never be the same
It's over, no we can't play these games
Well I am such a baby when I see you
I looked at you and I said
Oh yeah! You look so pretty today
I must say I know (I know)
Eight months till' May
You're eyes (this night) are making me stay

It's over and it will never be the same
It's over no we can't play these games
Well I am such a baby when I see you
I looked at you and I said
Well, I woke up

Eight and I looked at you
My god you look so pretty today
But you stared back at me with much dismay
And told me that you're going away.
Won't you stay just a little bit longer
Won't you stay just a little bit more.

Elizabeth Spiers links to The Dirty Little Secret About Rock's Teen Idols: What Are The Backstreet Boys, N'Sync and Britney Spears Really Saying?.#

Many a parent has breathed a sigh of relief, hearing the sound of The Backstreet Boys, N'Sync or Britney Spears "blaring" from their children's stereo. "Thank God, they're not listening to Marilyn Manson, or some other 'hellion' but sweet 'love songs'". We'll, mom, I've got some sad news—it's not all sweet 'love songs'—in fact, some are—nasty "lust songs". Carnal lust that would probably make Marilyn Manson proud. Words "etched" into your impressionable young son or daughters minds—that would make any sane mom or dad "go ballistic".

The Yeti links to an article about the connection between Saddam and 9/11.#

If one has the time or professional duty to connect these dots, a portrait emerges of Saddam Hussein as sugar daddy to global terrorists, including al Qaeda and perhaps the 9/11 conspirators. Why won't Team Bush paint this picture? One administration communications specialist told me the government is bashful on this front because these links are difficult to prove. Yes, but prosecuting the informational battle in the war on terror is not like prosecuting a Mafia don, with wiretaps, hidden cameras and deep-cover "stool pigeons." Evidence of terrorist ties can be even more shadowy than a Costa Nostra whack job. While this makes metaphysical proof elusive, the White House and relevant agencies owe it to America's national security to highlight what they know about Saddam Hussein and terrorism, even if some of the evidence against him is only circumstantial.

Stewart Johnson on Kill Bill Volume 1.#

This film was an series of photographically beautiful scenes, each one an exquisitely composed tribute to anime, manga, samurai films, 70s martial arts films and slashfests. There's a touch of trademark Tarantino irony and absurdity, making it clear which films helped develop his macabre humour. The gore and violence is wonderfully over the top and almost comical, the true horror in the film is the depraved concepts introduced through the plot.

Richard handles being interesting the best.#

Michael Feldman links to the fight for Father's Rights.#

Two men dressed as Batman and Robin have climbed on to the roof of the Royal Courts of Justice to protest over the treatment of fathers in the family courts.

Eddie Goldtooth and Jolly Stanesby, [I swear I am not making up these names] members of the pressure group Fathers for Justice, scaled the side of the court building in The Strand, London just after 4 am.

Joey deVilla begins the epic of the Best Date Ever.#

I could simply dive right and and just tell the story of the date, but it would simply be nothing more than a cute little tale of little more consequence than a sitcom episode. Big Life Moments like the Worst Date Ever don't happen in isolation, but in the context of the life surrounding them. Just as every particle in existence exerts a pull on every other particle to give the universe its shape; every experience we have exerts its own gravity on every other experience, giving shape to our lives.

Joi Ito writes about the interesting new neighborhood he's moved into.#

Yesterday Mizuka and I went to visit our new neighbors bearing simple gifts. Our house is in the center of the village and was owned by the head family of the village until they had financial trouble and had to sell to our previous owners. Almost all of my neighbors are spin-off families of the same household. It's quite a small, tight community. It appears that we have have to join the community. This means semi-annual drinking feasts with the neighbors, help with funerals and weddings and a lot of socializing. Since all of the neighbors have the same last name, they are all called by their role in the community or their job. Everyone seems to know what everyone else is doing and there really isn't any privacy. On the other hand, everyone seems to look out for each other and are always available to help. No one locks their doors and there are eyes everywhere.

John Sequeira writes about an interesting language instructor.#

We were taking lessons from a Harvard Square linguist named Lee Reithmeuller, at the Intercontinental Foreign Language Program. Lee has a very unique approach to foreign language instruction in several respects. He believes that you learn languages faster and with better recall if you study multiple languages concurrently. He never really said why, but my oversimplified explanation is that this is similar to the better recall/comprehension claims of speed reading. There are other reasons why this makes sense from a mnemonics perspective, and it has the added benefit of being very appealing from a student perspective (learn more in less time).

In addition to teaching multiple languages (Lee teaches about 20), he also eschews the standard grammar-based approach. Instead, he writes interactive question and answer type scripts that resemble beat poetry -- quite absurb. You don't do 'going to the movies' or 'in the kitchen' vocabulary fests. Instead, you converse with mushrooms, cheese-boys, italian bees and strawberry girls, and each verb tense you memorize is associated with a flavor of ice cream. Occasionally the scripts will overlap with some 60s pop song, and Lee will break into song.

John Gruber reads between the lines of a recent Microsoft press release related to iTunes.#

Reading Between the Lines as Dave Fester, General Manager of the Windows Digital Media Division, Lays Out Microsoft's Shamelessly Orwellian Party Line Regarding Digital Music

First, it's an exciting time for digital music fans where, finally, a broad choice of innovative and appealing legitimate music services has arrived.

Where by "legitimate", we mean "under Microsoft's control", which is also why we think it's so "exciting".

Aaron Swartz has a new political party.#

We're the Common Sense Party. We're against political squabbling and the corrupt major parties, and for what's just plain common sense to average Americans. We want to stop the infighting in Washington so that the government can do more for you, the people. It's just common sense. Anyone who disagrees with us is probably part of the old political system and just wants your vote so they can sell it to special interests. (This has the added bonus of probably being true.)

[...]

We're for common-sense security. Does it make sense to attack Iraq and then spend $87 billion of your money rebuilding it? Does it make sense to slow you down at the airport when the terrorists had valid IDs and box cutters? Does it make sense to go on a war against terror when you're far more likely to be killed in a car accident than in a terrorist attack?

Kaye Trammel wonders how you blog an event.#

The talk among the bloggers at both BloggerCon & AoIR was the same. How on earth do you blog a conference?

This is a hard one. The drive, especially at technical conferences, is to blog the event -- immediately. But, how useful are those notes? Do the notes even make sense to anyone else?

Joe of Online Journalism wonders why we "[waste] our money on politically biased news."#

Last week, Fox News commentator and best-selling author Bill O'Reilly went on National Public Radio to speak to talk show host Terry Gross. The purpose of the interview was to promote O'Reilly's latest book, Who's Looking Out For You, which hit stores only a few weeks ago and has sold hundreds of thousands of copies already.

But instead of talking about O'Reilly book, Gross continually asked questions about Al Franken's latest book, which said O'Reilly is a liar. Everybody knows Franken is a redical left-wing mud-slinger who has made it his life's work to discredit O'Reilly and other conservatives. He had an interview with Gross two weeks ago in which he talked extensively about his book. O'Reilly should have been given the same privilege.

Peter Lindberg, like Richard, is interesting regardless of what Technorati says. But congrats!#

Jorrit Wiersma picks up on Zane Thomas and the question of whether people care about operating systems.#

I think he has a good (and interesting) point when it comes to componentization (that's not a word, is it?). With the increasing importance of networks in computing this may be the future.

So, who cares about operating systems? I agree that most end users (home users) don't care about operating systems. But there are those who do: the power users. People in the creative industries want the operating system to prioritize video and audio, system administrators want solid networking and security features, scientists want to do processor heavy computations in the background while they do other work. These are the kinds of areas where an operating system can make a difference.

If operating systems become componentized as Zane suggests, then users would be able to customize their operating system to their needs. Need a firewall integrated into the OS? Download the component. Need a certain networking protocol? Download the component. As Zane says, if this is done right you will never have to do a whole new reinstall of the operating system to get a new version. You just download whichever components have been updated. I can imagine that this would happen in the future.

The Onion reports the horror.#

BERWICK, OH—In spite of his efforts, Video Village clerk Brad Hersley was unable to prevent yet another rental of Charlie's Angels Tuesday.

"It happened again," said Hersley, shaking his head as he watched a customer leave the store with a copy of the 2000 blockbuster. "I can recommend better movies until I'm blue in the face, but inevitably, everyone gravitates toward Charlie's Angels."

Christopher Lydon has a new interview up, but I haven't had time to listen yet. :(#