In addition to all the photography books, and the Ruby books, I've also been reading "Blueprint for Action : A Future Worth Creating", the sequel to Thomas Barnett's "The Pentagon's New Map: War and Peace in the Twenty-first Century", which I read earlier this year.

Barnett picks up where he left off and fleshes out his vision for a "future worth creating". There's not as much of a security (military) emphasis, by design, since this volume is intended to show the role of non-military actions, organizations and individuals in shrinking the Gap. I had momentary flashbacks to Friedman's "The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century", especially since economic globalization is a more powerful theme in this volume.

Barnett spent a lot of time on China, approaching it from various angles throughout the book. I really got a sense of the personal connection to his own adopted Chinese daughter Vonne Mei, and the impact of her presence on his thinking. And of course, whenever he mentioned his adopted daughter, my thoughts would immediately run to my own half-Chinese daughters, and to the world that they will inherit. Pondering that puts much of the "important" news on tech.memeorandum.com into perspective. Being immersed in the technology "continent" of the blogosphere has a way of whacking you out of perspective, especially in these heady days of Web 2.0.