I can nearly see the light at the end of the tunnel for the most challenging of the projects I am working on. I'm pretty tired. I've been helping a bunch of kids make big puppets for a Floriade carnivale parade. It's been fun hanging out with kids again, listening to them chatting and hearing what they think about. That used to be the thing I liked best when I was a teacher. 

I've had Spirit on the Water form Bob Dylan's new CD Modern Times playing in my head the last couple of days. It's lovely music, and at first I thought it was a love song. It is, but its also subtly bleak. I think. 

I've been working weekends and some nights the last few weeks, and consequently listening to some radio that I don't usually catch. I've been very impressed with Background Briefing. I caught their programs on the nuclear renaissance, the rise of the carbon traders, and the fascinating mutating mobiles, and this morning was reading about real money in virtual worlds. I've subscribed to their feed so at least I get a constant reminder that the program is there. Do you do that as well - use feeds as reminders, even if you don't always follow up and read or listen? They are available as podcasts as well. 

Julian Dibbell (from the program on virtual worlds): Money itself is the original virtual reality, right? I mean it's the original, like this piece of paper, you want how many gold pieces for this piece of paper? You're out of your mind. That's insane. You know, people handing over valuable goods for pieces of paper, and yet you know, we've come to accept that a long time ago. 

Thoughts on virtual conferencing 

I've been following several conversations that have spilled out over the Office 2.0 Conference. I was interested in an idea that Elisa Camahort (in comments to Anne Zelenka's post) related hearing: that extending a conference’s reach to virtual participants takes away from the event itself because ' people want to attend and feel they’re getting something unique for their efforts and participation, otherwise why attend?'. I think the answer is the live experience itself. I think there may be value in making an analogy to the music industry here:
For a long time the music industry held out against getting with new technologies, trying to protect the system they knew, and stopping people downloading and sharing music. It has now accepted the inevitable, and is adjusting to selling music in new ways, but the thing that remains untouchable, and that cannot be reproduced, is the live experience of going to a concert. Things happen live that can't be reproduced by technology - the buzz, the twinkling of eyes, things that go down in intervals or over meals, and so on.
Perhaps in future, like in the music business, a conference will require a small download fee for those that want to be virtual attendees? I hope not, as I like things being open source, but I could understand that happening in the same way as I can understand Doc Searls' contention that online newspapers will likely end up charging for the most timely news, while recycling the old. So, just thinking as I go here, maybe conferences will likely end up charging virtual attendees for the most timely virtual content, and then release it free shortly after?