CIO Magazine has a column written by David Rosenbaum, and titled Cranky Old Guy in which a week ago he wrote an entry Please Stop Playing with Yourself.
I view the column as being partially humor because I personally am such an odd mix of experience and a desire to use new techniques and technologies in novel ways.
David Rosenbaum really does sound like a cranky old guy in this particular entry, because what he’s bemoaning is that people (today) sit in meetings with their Blackberry, or cell ph, or computer in front of them (or in their lap below table level in order to hide it) reading and answering email rather than attending to the topic of the meeting.
Well, it’s easy to understand that he feels neglected and disrespected because people are doing other things while he’s making a PowerPoint presentation. And who hasn’t done this at least a couple of times in some boring meeting? But there are other aspects to be considered. On both sides of the table.
In fact, I feel that bringing a laptop computer to a meeting should in most cases be encouraged and put to good use, and here’s the how-and-why of that… [Read more…]
KIVA dot ORG is a totally-cool way you can loan money using a microfinance model, to entrepreneurs all over the world to help build their small enterprises. 
In March, when I visited Bhagsu, up above Dharamsala, a fellow named Yahel Ben-David (photo) had just “switched on” the first nodes in the “backbone for a wireless Internet mesh” that he hoped would bring wireless connectivity to the Tibetan exile community, and would spread to much of the rest of the local Dharamsala community.