Insufficient Postage

Kinnernet USA

Apropos the title of this blog, Insufficient Postage spent the weekend at the Bolger Conference Center in Potomac, Maryland, an 83-acre govenrment training facility named after a former Postmaster General. 

 

The venue was home to the first-ever Kinnernet USA, a camp for Internet and technology types hosted by Yossi Vardi and Jeff Pulver. 

First started in Israel, Kinnernet is an "un-conference" in the mode of Tim O'Reilly's foo camp ("the wiki of conferences"). There are no pre-programmed activities, leaving the agenda entirely up to the participants. Everyone is encouraged to lead a discussion, share a talent or hobby and cook their favorite dishes.

The Polite Way to Ruin Someone's Weekend

I wrote in an earlier post about one innovative technology they have here in London, and here is another we don't have in the States.Rather than drag, scratch, and rip your car to shreds, London's parking enforcement will very politely pluck it up, as demonstrated here:

As an aside, I have no idea whether any of these technologies are "properly" British, or if they originated elsewhere. But clearly, contrary to popular belief, not all of Britain's technologies are like their plumbing systems, which require different faucets for hot and cold.

For the record, our flat has a single faucet, never mind that hot comes out from one half of it, cold from the other. Oh, and we have an electric shower head.

Loo Hire

This outdoor public urinal magically appears every weekend on Oxford Street, near where we live. Although you can't see it from the photograph, they are in fact four stalls facing one another "in the round".

And, yes, Londoners actually do use it, although typically not the women.

Apparently, the idea is to provide an alternative to using those cute red telephone booths for such crude purposes.

Pornography, however, is another matter.