in brightkite i was poking around and looking at the "Whats Happening" -> "Around Me" tab. Im out in a suburb 7 miles from downtown. We have no sidewalks and no interesting restaurants. There is little that is interesting, though the view is nice and the air is sweeter.

brightkite is in beta and takes some effert to get into, even amongst the digerati. so thats a very good filter for people who are like me in a certain respect. the around-me tab shows someone within a half mile who checked in an hour ago, talking about VPN'ing into work. I know his/her exact home address.

brightkite is not particularly good about communicating what information is private and when. i try to err on the side of exposure since i believe people are basically good and i have more to gain than i have to loose. so what if this person knows my home address (which is fine with me)? what if that person came to my house? what if i went to knock on his/her door to say 'hi! i saw you on brightkite. thats cool!'

what if my published address in brightkite changed my physical world? what if i wanted cool people i didnt know to come by? i guess thats why people hold parties.

the weekly calagator coding meetups continue to be popular and I try to instigate a 4pm-5:30pm beer meetup tue,wed,thu.. spontaneous social meetups is by far the best use of twitter. brightkite in theory would help with that but its not too useful yet.