"Klaatu, barada nikto." If you are familiar with the classic movie 'The Day the Earth Stood Still' then you'll recognise that as the command that Michael Rennie (Klaatu) gave to Gort, the fearsome and omnipotent intergalactic robot policeman.
This movie is one of the main reasons that I am a fan of sci-fi. Be it comics, stories, movies and more recently podcasts! There is a great podcast called Spaceship Radio that I subscribe to. It gives access to broadcasts fromm the 1950s onwards. Some of them are partciularly interesting/entertaining...
On my way to the Handheld Learning '06 Conference in London I was listening to an episode from the Spaceship Radio podcast called 'The Junkyard'. It was quite entertaining and in the end rather thought provoking.
The plot invloved a group of spacemen who were out in the furthest reaches of space, surveying planets. They had decided that the planet they were in the process of surveying had had enough of their time so the captain ordered the engineeers to prepare for take off....but they failed to obey this! Once the Captain had vented his spleen he discovered that the engineers refused because they had forgotten what to do when preparing for take off. As the plot unfolds it becomes clear that something is drawing out the knowledge of the spaceship crew to such an extent that the ships's Doctor can't even remember how to take a pulse.
The Captain discovers that this brain drain scenario is the result of an alien plot (via a strange mushroom shaped being with cables and a 1950s style cable interface) to gather the collective intelligence of the creatures who visit this planet!!!
In the end the crew manage to defeat the alien brain drain plot by tapping ionto the colective intelligence (via a drunk spaceship hand) that hasd been gathered by the mushroom brain sponge and as a result they manage to learn form the collective intelligence, they remember what to do and finally escape death on the lonely planet of mushroom sponges....
A little profound I know bit I couldn't help thinking of these mushroom sponges as a metaphor for blogging. Since I have started using RSS, my own blog and regularly reading other blogs I feel as though I have been reinvigorated as a learner and a someone who can activley participate within the what is an active learning community. Just think, when you are sharing your knowledge, expertise and thoughts you are kinda like a mushroom shaped knowledge sharer with a 1950s cable interface going on.
Time for bed. ;-)
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