Connective Visions

The first geocache hunt in Kristiansand, Norway, lands the seeker in church.

It’s a little like messages in bottles, or cards on balloons, granting a peek into a fellow human in a world that still has room for exploration.

It’s not just vacation – it’s getting out of the country.

Summer vacations can also be ventures away from habit – especially when it comes to the U.S. media and the discussions they generate.

If you want some evidence of the problems with U.S. broadband service and access, consider this blog. I started my blogging Sunday evening. Unfortunately, a rainstorm moved into the region. For four years, summer rain in Philadelphia has signaled the disruption of my Verizon DSL service (for which I now cough up $23.99/month) – and [...]

A downside to freelancing (“self-employment” in the happy words of government agencies) is that the celebrated U.S. tax refund is slightly rarer than a UFO sighting: the independent contractor almost always owes money. So I emerged yesterday after a week of mathematical gymnastics, tedious typing, and resigned check writing to put my imposed self-absorption behind [...]

The Easter weekend in Norway is a national holiday, running from Thursday through Monday, over which time even supermarkets close. It came to an end yesterday evening, so the traffic warnings had hit the news headlines Sunday night. Adult citizens who don’t work the holiday weekend (for 100% of their usual wage in additional overtime) [...]

A few weeks ago, my friend’s Norwegian husband was in Philadelphia and visited the University of Pennsylvania photography-and-text exhibit “Righteous Dopefiend.” When we got together for dinner a week later, he made the point, “I know what a dopefiend is, and I know what ‘righteous’ is, but what do the two mean together?” As a [...]

Although the source was a U.S. one and ultimately deserves the credit, my kudos to Norway for bringing me my own national news before the standard channels here did. Last night, my first awareness that the House had passed the health-care reform bill came from the Norwegian newspaper Dagbladet – which I was not visiting [...]

When I taught communications, I regularly emphasized the model of “sender-channel-receiver” for passage of information. At any point along that line, the message (the information) can go astray. The sender has an intention that may not be conveyed clearly. The channel may abbreviate, damage, or delete the message. The receiver may misinterpret the message. If [...]