A smooth sea never made a skillful mariner, neither do uninterrupted prosperity and success qualify for usefulness and happiness. The storms of adversity, like those of the ocean, rouse the faculties, and excite the invention, prudence, skill and fortitude or the voyager. The martyrs of ancient times, in bracing their minds to outward calamities, acquired a loftiness of purpose and a moral heroism worth a lifetime of softness and security. - Author Unknown

UPDATE: Thanks to Jared of The Thinklings for pointing out I got conned on this. According to Snopes, this is not a picture of Isabel…..sorry about that peoples. :^(

Virtual International Small Town

I’ve used some parts of the internet for about a decade now (in particular internet e-mail, I started using the web in late 94 or early 95 when Prodigy first supported it), and for the last five or six years I’ve been on various mailing lists that provide somewhat of a “community feel.” However, there is something different about blogging. Something I really like.

asisaid muses about blogging and the people he meets up with. Good piece.

The interesting thing about this community within the blogospheres is that it may actually be more of a “virtual community.” In that there are no real boundaries, each blogger exists in a community that is slightly different than his neighbors. My “community” covers a slightly different region of the blogosphere than another blogger’s community. I can’t simply say “my blog is located in Blogosville.” To someone outside of the blogosphere, there is no community, only an incomprehensible number of blogs. However, once inside the blogosphere this “virtual community” forms between one’s blog and the blogs of those who read and link back and forth to that blog. Certainly not a community in the sense we are use to in the physical world, but still strangely similar in many senses.

Perhaps one of the keys in this post is that the community is international.
We meet up and interact with others we never could in person.

Friday smile
Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at an Elingsh uinervtisy, it deosn’t mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht frist and lsat ltteer is at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae we do not raed ervey teter by it slef but the wrod as a wlohe. Initsereg!! Cmabirgde Uinvreisty