Chinatown, New York, N.Y. March 11, 2010. Bowery. About 4:15 p.m., I think. f: 5.6 (5.7); shutter: 1/100; focal: 55mm; speed ISO 200.

The size of this photo makes it difficult to enjoy the look on the woman’s face, below and to the left a bit. She’s wearing a white jacket. I’m sure she has the same question I have: What is he working on?

“Release of even a fraction of the methane stored in the shelf could trigger abrupt climate warming.”

Challenges to this story undertaken by Bill Dedman of msnbc.com:

> “It’s a pain to write in 50-word chunks.” / But this equals a tighter story.

> “You lose attribution.”

> “You lose complexity.”

> “You also lose paragraph marks.”

Is there any compromise in the quality of the feeling of giving when it done with such little effort? Does giving’s significance lose the depth of its mark because of the characteristics of the ritual through which it is expressed?

“… redacted versions of all recordings of the trial proceedings will be generated, which can then be made available to researchers, legal professionals, broadcasters and news agencies, the people of Rwanda, and the international community at large.” About Rwanda.

The Web is a feed; peope will shape it as they see fit. Fighting this is like trying to stop a charging elephant with a desk fan. Embracing it? I suppose people might pay for optmiization of your data to make their gizmo function better (or to save them the time of taking your data part).

“‘You have to socialize the space before you can monetize it,’ the anthropologist concluded.” Right. I can’t wait for someone to be my friend not because he or she likes me, but because he or she wants my money. But conversation opportunities are promising. Good advertising is not propaganda. It is news about how your product or service solves problems. Conversations allow the connection between problem and solution that gets lost in the broadcast approach of most (and mostly useless) ads.

Everything fracturing, Paramount Pictures included. “Dubbed Insurge Pictures, the unit has one million dollars fueling its films. 10 movies are on tap in the first year at a budget of just $100,000 each.”

From the last setnence: “…reshaping our identities as part of a larger, interconnected whole.”

Here’s how I think the Internet is reshaping identity:

1) More acceptance and embrace of variation in personality because diverse skills are advantageous in problem-solving, and we have more problems to solve as our awareness of them increases due to the Web.

2) “Growing up” will be less about adapting to our cirumstances and more about finding circumstances which suit us, since searching and finding are immensely easier with the Internet.

3) Relationships will be overtly goal-oriented and of a more contractual, discrete nature.

4) Daily life more and more takes on the features and functions normally reserved for artistic performance as basic social and physical needs are instantly met, and more complex psychological and spiritual goals are then pursued to generate a sense of meaning.

“One man tried to drown himself, screaming that his belly was being eaten by snakes.” Bummer.