the net has no geographic boundaries

[cellio]

Several years ago I wrote an article (for an SCA newsletter) on how to build a yurt (aka ger), the portable Mongolian structure. This article found its way onto the web, so every now and then I receive email with feedback or questions.

The latest such message comes from a school teacher who has been having his seventh-grade class build model yurts every year, and after reading my article he thought "why not a real one?". He was writing to me for advice on using local materials (bamboo) in the construction.

This piqued my curiosity. His domain name ended in ".mm", which is unfamiliar to me. To the Google-mobile, batman!

Ok, a group of seventh-graders in Myanmar might build a bamboo yurt based on my instructions.

I don't know why, but I think this is cool.

Comments

[tashabear.livejournal.com]

And why not? It'd be flexible and strong! :-) That's VERY cool.

[zare-k.livejournal.com]

That's /very/ cool. The web really can work to enable communication between the traditionally disconnected. I'd love it if someone on the other side of the world found something I wrote interesting or useful.

[dr4b]

I've never even heard of Myanmar. I feel pretty dumb.

[nickjong.livejournal.com]

I hereby join the chorus of those thinking this is very cool. :o)

[ealdthryth.livejournal.com]

That's very cool!

[browngirl.livejournal.com]

Well, it *is* very cool. :)

[ladydragonfly.livejournal.com]

I shall add my name to the also very cool ;)

[meadhbh-9.livejournal.com]

Wow, that IS really cool... yay you!

[xthlcm.livejournal.com]

I was going to make a tasteless joke about local bamboo and political prisoners in Myanmar. But I won't.

Very, very cool. :)

I had a "gosh, the Internet is pretty frigging cool" moment the other day too. I was sick and bored and surfing Wikipedia. It made me think about when I was a kid. I used to spend rainy days just randomly reading the 23-volume World Book Encyclopedia, jumping across cross-references and soaking up useless facts like an 8-year-old-shaped sponge. I loved that encyclopedia.

I realized that I was doing the exact same thing with Wikipedia, only the information was constantly updated, it was extensively hyperlinked, it was collected and published via a totally organic volunteer process, and my parents didn't pay $500 for it. That pretty much floored me.

[peacheater77.livejournal.com]

That's very interesting and cool.

Alex

[lefkowitzga.livejournal.com]

Oh wow. That is so very cool.

I also needed to be told where Myanmar is.

Making a ger

[kiane36.livejournal.com]

How surprising this is! My daughter, 12 year old, is making a model ger as we speak! She is doing a school project (4 month long) on Mongols and one of the pieces of the project is making a ger. I have no idea if we looked at your page or not (we looked at a lot) but it is a small bit synchonicity. You don't happen to have any recipes that are easy to make, with easy to find ingredients, keeps well so that she can share some food from that region? We have searched everywhere for something that will be fun and interesting to share. We both have had fun with this.

We were also briefly in the SCA in Idaho (An Tir) but now that we are in Kansas, the groups are further away so we don't get to participate as much. My kids loved it and I thought it allowed them to practice some very good core values that they learned at home.

Kiane