I'm back...

So unplugging my router from the telephone line for an hour was basically all I needed to fix the problem - and they couldn't have told me that *last* weekend. *grits teeth*

Oh well, at least I have another option added to my "things to try before you spend half an hour in a help desk queue" list.

Book meme

I missed this last week - but it looked like fun, so I thought I'd do it now.

1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the next 3 sentences on your LJ along with these instructions.
5. Don’t you dare dig for that "cool" or "intellectual" book in your closet! I know you were thinking about it! Just pick up whatever is closest.

But Sesame Street just somehow never took that idea and ran with it. They knew that kids did this some of the time, but they never tried to build a show around that idea. Nickelodeon did some pilot shows before Blue's Clues where kids would be explicitly asked to participate, and lo and behold, there was a lot of evidence that they would.

It's from a book called The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell, which I bought to read on the train yesterday. It's very readable and pretty interesting, about "that magic moment when ideas, trends and social behaviours cross a threshold, tip and spread like wildfire".