Here’s a little known fact about me that you’re all dying to hear.

When seated in public places (coffeeshops, restaurants, offices, etc.) I have to sit with my back immediately to a wall. If I’m working (on a computer) I also have to be positioned so people can’t see my screen.

Clearly I’m not a spy, but if I can’t sit as described I become very self-conscious and a piece of my brain remains focused on my surrounds and keeping my radar up. Consequently I can’t focus, I get all twitchy and irritable, and I’ll want to leave as soon as possible. So I guess if you want my undivided attention, sit me at a wall.

I’ve been thinking about tools. Odd, right?

In my mind a tool is anything a human creates that augments, compliments or magnifies our innate capabilities. So a hammer and a computer are both tools, though clearly for different tasks and ends.

I would say, as would most, that the computer more powerful tool than a hammer. The hammer is a tool of force and leverage, it can kill or build a house. The computer put a semi-autonomous robot on Mars capable of exploring and reporting back from an alien planet that is (currently) about 34 million miles away.

The Duality of The Tool is that it is a neutral multiplier of the one who holds it. The hammer neither knows nor cares whether it is swung to kill or create; the computer neither knows nor cares whether it models the hydrogen nucleus or builds a hydrogen bomb.

The Tool is always neutral. There is no tool that can be used only for “good,” or only for “evil.” Every tool brings out both the best and the worst of humanity to the degree it multiplies the human capacity for either.

So the hammer can kill and create, the computer can build weapons and medicines, the internet is home to hate speech and free speech.

If you want a powerful tool for beneficent uses, it will necessarily be a powerful tool for maleficent uses as well. There is no legislation, trigger lock or porn-blocking software that can change that.

This is an indie band from Nashville. I saw their poster in a local coffeeshop and thought it was interesting, then found them on NoiseTrade, a site that has a bunch of artists following a hybrid Derek Webb / Radiohead (billionaires don’t get links) model where you can download music free for telling 3 friends or paying what you want.

Anyway, I downloaded their stuff to check it out after listening to a sample and I’m hooked. Their MySpace page describes their music as “Bohemian Bookworm Prog-pop.” I would describe them as a sub-pop love child of The Decemberists, The Tragically Hip, and either the melancholic side of Sonic Youth or Starflyer 59.

Which is a pretentious name-dropping way to say they totally kick ass. You can sample and download the songs with this widget too. And you should do it because, as I said, they totally kick ass.

(This widget is a different collection of songs than I downloaded but they still kick ass. Just download their music!)

My brain never shuts up. No matter what I am doing, I am always doing something else too. Here is the latest fruit of that defect. I present the Comprehensive List of Humanity’s Good and Bad Ideas, 1st Edition. I may post revised editions in the future, but I don’t see many of these switching lists anytime soon, so changes would require Humanity come up with new, good ideas.

Humanity’s Good Ideas

• Crop Rotation & Small Scale Organic Farming
• Bread & Cheese, any combinations thereof
• Storytelling
• Shoes
• Music and Musical Instruments
• Hammocks
• Wine
• Clothing (admitted only begrudgingly)

Humanity’s Bad Ideas

• Everything not on the Good Idea list.

What a piece of work is a man! How noble in reason, how infinite in faculties, in form and moving how express and admirable, in action how like an angel, in apprehension how like a god! The beauty of the world, the paragon of animals! And yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust?

Hamlet

I am continuing to prune unneeded information intake in my life, as I increasingly realize this info-packrat tendency motivates me to inaction rather than action.

Today I accidentally launched NetNewsWire (feedreader) for the first time in a while.