Brussels Les Bains
Written: 1217001711|%e %B %Y, %H:%M (beach people photos tourism)
Bruxelles-les-Bain is a kind of month-long party - bar - playground that the city erects along the old canal zone.
It's kind of a "thank you" to the residents of the city for putting up with the chaos and traffic all year long.
This week it's started to be great weather and the beach is filled with people of all ages, sizes, colors. Uniquely for a city with large immigrant populations, Brussels seems to mix really well. Not everyone likes the crowds, the smell of roasting fish, merguez, and goat and beef barbecues. Not everyone likes the endless line of little bars, serving every possible kind of drink. Not everyone likes the playgrounds, the beach volleyball, the boules, the long stretches of sand and little trees.
But for those with a little time on a warm evening or relaxed weekend, Bruxelles-les-Bains shows what a relaxed, uncomplicated city Brussels has become, as people of all origins and colors mix happily and without taboos.
All that's missing, for me, is wifi so I could write this blog on the beach.
Comments: 0, Rating: 3
Economics Of Evil
Written: 1216887704|%e %B %Y, %H:%M (trolls)
For some time I've been studying the creation of on-line communities. One of our principles in the activist world is that a community needs a bad guy.
Now, one of my examples for non-activist people is Wikipedia, which is one of the most explosively successful on-line communities. The question is, who is the bad guy in Wikipedia?
At first sight, Wikipedia is a purely positive thing. People contribute knowledge, discuss, edit articles. True, there are some idiots, trolls, and vandals, but overall the results seem to be great. So great that Wikipedia does better than any traditional expert-based encyclopedia. So, does this mean a positive community can work?
The other day some friends and I were discussing a new project to create a kind of wikipedia-style encyclopedia of art and antique objects. The question came up… what about edit rights? Who can edit? And in the answer, I finally understood why Wikipedia works, and why the bad guy principle is so right.
"Anyone can edit," I proposed. "But what about vandals, idiots, and trolls?" came the question. "Let them edit, it's part of the process. The original authors get annoyed, fix the articles, and get emotionally attached to the whole thing. The more edit wars you have, the more people care, and the stronger the community".
So, lacking a clear external bad guy, those people who make your life miserable when you try to do something useful may, in fact, be exactly what you depend on to get out of bed in the morning. Here's a toast to the trolls!
Comments: 1, Rating: 1
Aliopacto
Written: 1216658015|%e %B %Y, %H:%M ()
I've been writing short stories over the years. They tend to disturb, that is the point.
I've now put them onto a new site, http://www.aliopacto.com. Alio pacto is Latin for "a different way", it was the title of a book I started some years ago. One of the stories on that site is from the book, the others are random things, the products of early mornings and days on trains.
