buh-bye security, buh-bye identity

1. Quit my job.
2. Leapt around in a state of euphoria.
3. Felt anxiousness and loss at what will be gone: my salary, health insurance, Internet, computer, phone, identity as a working person.
4. Waffle between step two and three, again and again.
5. I’m not there yet. I hope it’s good.

other names for umbrellas

• Bumbershoot: The umbre from umbrella, the chute from parachute, baddaboom: Bumbershoot! The Oxford English Dictionary suggests that bumbershoot appeared in writing in the year 1896, and Bumbersol and Bumberbell were also common at one point. 

• Brolly: The probably came from shortening Umbrella to Brella, which became Brelly and then  Brolly. In the U.K., Australia and New Zealand, ‘brollies’ is a common slang term.

• Gamp: This word is taken from the character Mrs. Sarah Gamp from the Dickens novel Martin Chuzzlewit, as she is alway carrying her umbrella. Gamp is British slang for an umbrella, especially large baggy ones.

Elizabeth is to Emily, as Madison is to Claire…

Is that true?

We’re trying to figure out how to read name preferences from behind the scenes. We’re hoping to set up a scenario: ‘do you like this name, or this name?’ and the tool will read your tastes. The trouble is, there’s so much more to names than meets the mind. How can we break it down and make it magic?

Say you’re offered: Annabelle or Anna. If you like Annabelle, you are in the ‘classic name’ genre. Next, if you chose, Annabelle, we could offer: Samantha, or Emily. Your name pool would expand if you chose Emily (you like short and long names) or narrow the possible results if you chose Samantha (long names are your gig). … And we’d continue to toss out names, while some giant invisible brain created a profile for the person, and grouped their name tastes together. How would it work, though? If you can visualize this tool, please pipe up with ideas…

Lordy, it’s Friday

John Napier, familiar spirits

Someone added the name Napier to the wiki yesterday, which led me to Wikipedia for new knowledge regarding John Napier. Invented the logarithm, popularized the decimal point, etc — but who knew he was considered a magician? He had a black rooster that people believe was his “familiar spirit.” When he suspected that one of his servants had stolen from him, he would tell each of them to stroke it, while alone in a room. He said the bird would tell him who was innocent. The rooster was actually painted in soot, and the guilty guy would come out with clean hands.

Clever, indeed. But what really intrigued me was this concept of “familiar spirit,” which Wikipedia (of course) has an article about. These are animal shaped spirits, sometimes known as “imps.” Or, like in the Philip Pullman series, “daemons.” These spirits are said to protect and serve their companions, and even inspire artists.

When I think about my friends’ familiars, I immediately consider their pets. Marilyn has an elegant, affectionate Collie. My mother: a loving poodle. My sister: a prowly kitty cat. Me: a monkey. All over the jungle, all over the map. No, I don’t have a pet monkey. Yet.  But I do have a spiritual monkey. What’s by your side?

How many people in a pod?

I’ve noticed that my younger Facebook connections have more friends than my older ones. My 12-yr-old cousin: 836 friends, my 40-yr-old uncle: 84 friends. So, when my cousin is 40, assuming she continues with the Facebook frenzy, will she have over 3,000 friends? And if so, will she actually remember them all?

In The New York Times Magazine last Sunday, there was an article titled, “I’m so Totally, Digitally Close to You.” According to the article, psychological studies have confirmed that human groupings naturally stop at around 150 people: the “Dunbar number” (named after Robert Dunbar, the anthropologist who predicted the social-circle limit). The question is asked: “Are people who use Facebook and Twitter increasing their Dunbar number, because they can so easily keep track of so many more people?”

The article says, “no.” Or rather, not really. No matter how many twitterers we follow, we still only have a handful of folks in our inner circle; however, we have increased our number of “weak ties.” This is excellent for networking. On the other hand, psychologists wonder if it drains our energy, since we only have the capacity for a certain number of “parasocial” ties. These weak ties to our barely-known Facebook friends are similar to the kind of connections we have to TV characters or movie stars. Supposedly, if our lives are full of weak ties, we have less emotional energy remaining to develop close personal ties.

I don’t know if that’s true. But I am sure that face-to-face relationships are 100 times more rewarding than Facebook-to-Facebook relationships, and occasionally I feel the need for Internet detox. However, if I’d grown up with these relationships, like my cousin, surely I’d have a different view on it all together. Hmm. In light of all this over-connecting under-nourishing phenomena, I’m going to end with a word from Mitch Hedberg: “I don’t own a cell phone or a pager. I just hang around everyone I know, all the time. If someone wants to get a hold of me, they just say ‘Mitch,’ and I say ‘what?’ and turn my head slightly.”

Wilderness as a way of life

From the founders of Wilderness Vision:

For us the word ‘wilderness’ is not necessarily a place. It is more of a mindset. A way of life. A code. We believe that the ethics of sustainability and balance found in nature can transcend into our day-to-day realities.

That makes my toes tickle. While researching this non-profit (to create a next week’s feature for Good.Name.com), I found myself re-thinking what I’ve always unsuccessfully tried to explain about nature, about spirituality, about the power of trees to bring forth the truer-self.

Their vision begins with Rilke:

If you stay close to nature, to its simplicity, to the small things hardly noticeable, those things can become great and immeasurable.

Oh, there go my toes again, right up through my middle. What can we do but grow like wildflowers in the beauty and the breeze? Living in harmony, live like we ought to live, embracing our shadows and our sunshine. Hehh… my co-worker said I was living in “Outer Bohemia” today — I think he is right. And I think I like it.

Meaning for Mechanical Turks

Last week, WikiName tried out Amazon’s Mechanical Turk, the so-called “virtual sweatshop.”  We created HITs (Human Intelligence Tasks) with  basic instructions: eg, input the meaning of the name “Raizo.” I felt a little guilty that our average hourly wage was about $1.98 ($.05/HIT). I am hoping that our workers–or as they say, “providers”–were simply middle class people who were bored, perhaps very old or very young. But the truth is, I have no idea who they were or where they were. I would love to know…

We assumed most of the work would be completed by non-English speakers, but about 90% of the responses were valid. The remaining 10%, however, was a bit humorous. Some examples:

• Jeri: female given name
• Huck: fruit-berring plant
• Dagobert: Merovingian king of the Franks 628\u2013639
• McCartney: rock star and bass guitarist
• Disa:  heroine of a Swedish legendary saga
• Elle: Elle is a worldwide magazine that focuses on women’s fashion, beauty, health, and entertainment.
• Kathryn: far away*

*Kathryn means pure. But Kathryn must be far away from somebody. Aren’t you curious? What a bizarre little window into another world….

Who stole yesterday’s quote of the day?

Socrates, Thomas Jefferson, Kevin Rose. Kevin Rose? Do most people know the name of that geeky Internet genius? I wonder how that feels, only 31, claiming the quote of the day on a Google homepage. His quirky words of wisdom: “I don’t care what it is, when it has an LCD screen, it makes it better.” I wonder, also, if his girlfriend developed a complex of sorts, demanding: “Really, you don’t want to look at my real face? What’s so great about women-on-screen?” Then again, I like electro-optical amplitude modulators as much as the next girl. Did that sound naughty? I just meant, you know, Liquid Crystal Displays are lovely…especially the floral kind.

Good-bye, green wasabi.

Today, Dave said, “I love soy sauce, give me a spoon and let me drinky.” He then proceeded to feed himself pea-size chunks of wasabi and make pained faces. After musing about the wormy texture of my seaweed salad, he agreed to try a nibble. He spit the nibble out all over the table, while Smitty, Owen and I had a laugh.

I will, indeed, miss these programmers, miss eating sushi in the office, miss the witty yet boyish humor. Sigh. But it’s time to go. There is always a time to go, and the time is Monday, August 25th.