I think this is fascinating: GalaxyZoo.org is asking volunteers to look at pictures of the sky and scientifically classify entire galaxies. Spiral? Elliptical? Clockwise? Anticlockwise? It turns out the human eye and the human brain are much better at this sort of thing than any currently available technology.

But isn't science about precision? But what if they're wrong? My bet is that the underlying system relies on the establishment of a consensus.

I have long believed that the mind is not to be found between the ears, but rather in the sum of our interactions with our environment. In a sense, we are what we do and who we know (so be careful what you do and who you know).

Technology extends and expands our reach, and therefore our minds. Tools shape the user. Marshall McLuhan famously said the media are an extension of our central nervous systems.

While I was traveling Backfence.com suspended operations, and now a lot of people are drawing conclusions, some publicly and some not. At the risk of further muddying the water, here are some of my own fairly random, jetlagged thoughts:

Jeff Jarvis observes that hyperlocal is about people, not the tools used to connect those people. This is exactly right. I've been using the example of Robin Dunbar's number to explain this to newspaperfolk for some time.

I'm back from nearly two weeks on the far side of the world: southeast Asia.

Being a lazy blogger, I sat back and didn't bother blogging from the Ifra citizen media workshop last week in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Kevin Anderson and Robb Montgomery were singing, dancing, spinning plates, shooting videos and live-blogging like mad. I took it easy.

Writing for followthemedia.com, Philip Stone has a good roundup of the blooming power struggle between sports sanctioning organizations and the media.

At the other end of the spectrum, Steve Klein notes that the National Hockey League is setting up a "blog box" -- a special area for live bloggers -- at some of its venues.

What's going on? Is the NHL enlightened and the rest of the sports world stuck in the dark ages?

A thoughtful contrarian voice is always useful, and I'm enjoying keeping an eye on the Inksniffer, the weblog of British newspaper consultant John Duncan. Two recent posts stand out.