Balafon

Hi everyone,

I’m writing this to see how many of you want to stay on the mailing list. I only ever get feedback from one or two of you (hi Dad!), so in a fit of peevishness and blatant self-promotion I’m going to stop sending updates to people who don’t want them.

So if you want to keep getting emails, please let me know, otherwise I’ll take you off the list. And hey, visit the website and leave comments and discussion! If you think it’s not interesting then suggest things that are!

Paul Graham’s advice to high school students is perceptive and eminently sensible: treat high school like a day job, and find projects that are interesting.

A bit of a jab at teachers:

Your teachers are always telling you to behave like adults. I wonder if they’d like it if you did. You may be loud and disorganized, but you’re very docile compared to adults. If you actually started acting like adults, it would be just as if a bunch of adults had been transposed into your bodies. Imagine the reaction of an FBI agent or taxi driver or reporter to being told they had to ask permission to go the bathroom, and only one person could go at a time. To say nothing of the things you’re taught. If a bunch of actual adults suddenly found themselves trapped in high school, the first thing they’d do is form a union and renegotiate all the rules with the administration.

I’ve added lots of new links to the blogroll, including the usual top-tier Blogosphere demigods, a couple of Iraqi bloggers, and some Africa-focused sites. For just one example of the bloggy goodness, check out Jonathan the Head Heeb’s examination of the dilemma your average despot or dictator faces when the urge strikes to give it a go in the arts.

Why is it that when an American soldier shoots an enemy combatant who may or may not have been a prisoner (and not protected under the Geneva convention, in any case), it’s headline news, but when the French unilaterally invade an African country, completely destroy the air force of a sovereign nation, and massacre dozens of protesters nobody hears about it?

If an anti-American shoots a person of colour in the forest, do they bleed?

You’ll all be happy to know, no doubt, that I’ve got mailouts working again in WordPress. New this week (http://balafon.net): Chrenkoff’s latest Good News from Iraq, and the very first screenshot from my long-premeditated and still in-progress spaceflight game.