It was William James who first introduced the concept of the stream of consciousness – a written equivalent of the thought process. It is not always possible to describe the reasons for a certain point of view, but one might be able to deduce it based specific opinions alone, but by getting all of the the myriad of different thoughts together.

In much the same way it will make more sense for me to write a sort of stream of consciousness, than it would be to write any other individual entry on what’s been happening these last few weeks.

The atrocities committed in London just recently rocked my world again. Much the same way those in Madrid did, and like those in New York, and those I hear about every day, every where across the world. The world is not as safe as it was ten years ago.

This project at work needs to finish soon. It’s been keeping people crunching 12 hour days for a month now. I’m not sure how long people can go on like that. As Sun Tzu said, there is no instance of a country having benefited from prolonged warfare.

On the topic of warfare, Bush visited Denmark on his birthday. I went to the anti-Bush concert and later that evening followed the circus on television. Seeing the size of the whole anti-terror machine that was put in to motion reminded me of when Clinton visited some 7 or 8 years ago. Indeed the world was very different back then.

Following Bush’s few speeches, I did get some insight into why people would vote for him. He wasn’t well-spoken, quite the opposite, but with a sort of southern charm. Apparently if you charm people enough, you can get away with lying to them and even send their children to war based on those lies.

I shouldn’t even be writing this. Bad things happened to Michael when he barely whispered a politically laden comment.

Reminds me of something I read in a paper a while back. The Internet has a democratic problem. Years ago, the Internet was predicted to be the new great catalyst of democracy, but according to the author, too few places allowed “open discussion”, which led the author to the conclusion of a lack of democracy. On one hand it’s not quite that simple, on the other hand—what can we do? How do political discussions work on the talk shows, and I’m not talking Fox News or Bill O’ShutUp’Reilly? Commonly, there’s a moderator, and people use their words. How does that scale to the Internet? Well, everybody needs to be moderators. It works for Wikipedia.

In the case of my little part of the Internet, I’ve been continually impressed by the high standard of comments seeping in. It proves to me that democracy can work on the Internet and that people aren’t all stupid. Seeing as how this side project of mine has grown very quickly over this last year, I wish I was able to stop the growth, press stop: this size and no more.

It’s also fun how pingbacks work. My colleague and friend Peter used one to respond to my rant about contracts, and why we should always have them. While I wrote that entry with sarcasm in my blood and irony in it’s simplicity, he’s right—as always. In the end, client/consultant relationships are like real life relationships such as marriage. It needs mutual respect and lots of communication. Oh, and the partners involved need to be compatible. I wish speed-dating was available for client relationships.

On blogging itself, I’m satisfied that I’m able to press pause and blog less. There are important things in life, and less important things. Joshuaink decided this as well. My best wishes to him and his.

Tristan has been hard at work on Zen Photo. So have Markku been on iPAP, and so have the talented people working on Plogger. It’s ironic really; not 3 months ago, there was not a single viable solution available for people who wanted a photo gallery on their website. Now there are 3 fantastic ones. To all three projects, I hope they understand just how much people will appreciate their work.

I noticed in my daily reads a while back, that bicycling in Copenhagen is seriously dangerous to your health. I’ve always known that the exhaust fumes weren’t healthy, but that cycling should be worse to your health than driving to work in a car came as a shock to me. Turns out it’s small particles from the exhaust of huge diesel powered trucks lacking certain filters. Honestly, such trucks should be taxed to hell and beyond. When something as simple as bicycling to work becomes dangerous to your health, the source of the problem should take a punch. Tax them so highly that driving a huge circle around the city is the only viable alternative. Bleed them dry until they filter their vents. Prune them into submission.

The weather is great outside. For most of the time I can remember, Denmark has been divided into winter and July, but it’s still nice. Yesterday the temperature was almost unbearable considering I was stuck at work. It really is about time I get started on my vacation. Just thinking about that White Russian I’ve got waiting for me in that house in Sweden makes me itchy. It’s there, just beyond my reach. Hopefully things’ll be better this Friday—hopefully I will start my vacation there.

According to Jakob Nielsen, it is unlikely that you’ve read this far. Fortunately it doesn’t matter. This one wasn’t really meant for you.