It was my intention to be quiet today.  You know the kind of day when all your feelings seem muffled and irrelevant to the global scheme of things and you just concentrate on the task at hand, like putting one foot in front of the other?  That was this morning for me, feeling muted for lack of a better way of putting it.  But there was a couple of articles first thing in the morning that caught my interest and I still operate informally by the rule of threes

Curosity's story just continues to enthrall.

The first was a rather thoughtful, introspective look at harassment and trolling online.   Salome pretty much hit the nail on the head with this reflection on the interactions in gaming.  To a lesser degree, some of these behaviors are also found in SL.

Second I ran across this news article about increases in healthcare for larger companies.  The fact is that healthcare is going up for all of us, and the article does manage to cover that rather well.   The fact is that it is not only the availability of care, but the quality that is available that is increasingly dependent on the size of your pocketbook.  Companies opting to pay the fine rather than carry healthcare for their employees.  Mis-diagnosis, especially in over-worked over-crowded clinics as more and more medical offices go boutique.  Substitution of generic drugs for brands regardless of how well they work.   Treatment that concentrates only on symptoms and not on a holistic overview of what is best for the patient.  I'm sure it comes as no suprise that the haves live longer than the have nots.   "There are essentially two America's," said Olshansky. "One subgroup of the population is highly educated, doing well, and they are experiencing a dramatic increase in life expectancy,"  he said. "Another subgroup of the population is less educated, doing very poorly, and experiencing a drop or only modest increases in life expectancy".  Class warfare in ...  10.... 9.... 8....

And last, how do you measure economic growth?  I happen to agree that well-being is more sensible than GNP in a more service oriented society -- but I have grave reservations about how we go about measuring an intangible; that has been the problem with implementing knowledge management, how do you measure and define success?  How do yoiu know when things are going well and when things aren't?  Talk about fodder for manipulation and newspeak !  Can't you just feel the propaganda mills firing up even as we speak?

And having broken the logjam of silence, now for this and that:

Now why is AMAZON hopping aboard the FaceBook app train?    They have opened a game studio of their own and their own explanation for this:  "Why is Amazon making social games, you ask? Good question! We know that many Amazon customers enjoy playing games – including free-to-play social games – and thanks to Amazon's know-how, we believe we can deliver a great, accessible gaming experience that gamers and our customers can play any time.".   Not a bad promo, but it reads to me as just hopping on the bandwagon to keep eyes and attention in/on Amazon.com

Okay -- I am not a pack rat!  I have a hoarding disorder and that's my story and I'm sticking to it!:  " Hoarding disorder (HD) is defined as the excessive collection of objects and an inability to discard them. It is characterized by marked avoidance of decisions about possessions."    The article makes it sound a bit like being OCD.  Meanwhile, I now have an excuse for the Disaster Area...   er, make that an explanation not an excuse.  I'm sure that knowing I suffered with HD will be a great comfort to my kids when they have to wade through all this stuff someday....