For some reason, this video made me cry. I think it was because you get to see people having fun from all over the world (except the DMZ in Korea, where it’s just Matt having fun). It’s a small world, and it’s good to rememberevery now and then that we’re all not so very different.

(Interesting trivia: can you find the goat on the motorcycle in the first frame?)

This is a pretty neat use of CCTV cameras. The new group Get Out Clause has decided that, rather than higher a camera crew to film their music video, they would play in 80 public places across Manchester and then request the videos recorded by CCTV cameras in the area. Places included a bus, an amphitheatre, and even an escalator. Doing so has given them publicity on Slashdot and the Telegraph. This is ingenuity that at the same time highlights the monitored culture that at least Britons find themselves living in.

I’m mostly ambivalent about CCTV. When I had one of my Oxford bike accidents on the corner of George and New Inn Hall St years ago, the not-very-friendly cab driver that broad-sided me (his fault, license plate MER M70) said he wouldn’t pay for my repairs. The whole thing was filmed on the CCTV of the local pub O’Neil’s, but because of so many other things going on in my life at the time, I didn’t get the chance to request the footage. My suspicion is that they would have complied though. . .

[Edit: it’s a shame that they decided to use the brightcove player to post the video, as there’s no easy way I know of to embed it in my blog. Click the picture to see the video.]

The BBC is running a story today about a Brazilian tribe (or actually about 100 of them) that are threatened because of destruction of the rain forests.

Part of me is curiously satisfied to know that there are still tribes we have not made contact with in the world.  Not that I want to contact them.  Quite the opposite, really.  There is something comforting in the idea that we are not all one collective, that there are whole groups of people that exist without the internet, without foreign aid, without the imposed ideas that they should strive to ‘better their condition’.

I may add more on these thoughts later, but I am interested to hear what others have to say too.

As always, there have been mixed reactions from my friends and family.  It looks like you either love beards or hate them.  Personally, I’m happy for mine to come and go.  Bets on when it will come back?

I will miss Oxford, but I am looking forward to getting out for a while. As I have mentioned before, Oxford is the longest I have lived anywhere, and I gladly call this city of dreaming spires ‘home’. Intellectually and culturally, this environment fits like a well-made leather driving glove for a TR4. I’ve never had a place that I would like to come back to like Oxford. Minnesota certainly endeared itself to me during my years there, and of course the 2- and 3-year stints in Hawai’i were quite enjoyable as well (though the first one is a little hazy, as we left when I was 5). I have always wanted to get back to Washington State, the place of my birth, as from all accounts I would love it there too. But Oxford holds a very special place.

So. America. Bring it on.

That was a good break. Now back to the thesis.