Geocaching and social conscience

This morning I found my first geocache using the Colorado 400t GPS unit J. gave me for my birthday. Wow! It is so much nicer than using Google Earth to find caches!

I’ve been thinking about how I can use my new gadget for civic good. Games are great, but I want to give back to the community I’ve taken so, so very much from. My first, and so far only thought, is to transfer my hate-group monitoring practices from Google Earth to my hand held. It makes so much sense and the data will be much easier to manipulate. It will also be easier to combine the data collected by others in this effort.

Previously, when I found a recruiting sticker, graffiti, or other sign of hate-group activity (hate-groups being a catch all for National Alliance, KKK, et alii), I would record the date and location on a jpeg map image I took from Google. Great start, but impossible to correlate, manipulate, share, or do anything with other than look at. Now, I can put this onto my hand held, share it with others, trace activity over time and through space, and probably some other things I don’t know about yet.

Expect to hear more about this.

Sorry I'm not at Davos

Well friends, it’s happened once again. The fine folks at Davos have allowed my invitation to get lost in transit. While I feel bad for all of you – whom I’m sure were waiting with breathless anticipation for my eye witness reports regarding this Swiss-based elitist event – I mostly feel sorry for myself. My dreams of meeting Voldemort in person have been dashed.

“Don’t loose hope,” I hear you say. “There’s always next year.” No. There is no next year for Voldemort. Once the final installment of the Harry Potter series comes out, Voldemort will be no more. And as Klaus Schwab, the gatekeeper of Davos boasted regarding Richard S. Fuld Jr., there is no room for has-beens at Davos.

Oops. Should I have included a spoiler alert? Well now you know the pain I feel.