Thursday, November 4, 2010

A Thousand Points of Light


As spoken by President George H.W. Bush ("Bush Sr.," the 41st president who served one term after Bill Clinton), and written by speechwriter Peggy Noonan:

I have spoken of a thousand points of light, of all the community organizations that are spread like stars throughout the Nation, doing good. We will work hand in hand, encouraging, sometimes leading, sometimes being led, rewarding. We will work on this in the White House, in the Cabinet agencies. - President George G.W. Bush
The context for this, there is an award given out called the Thousand Points of Light award that is intended to draw attention to the contributions to society made by well-meaning volunteers. This is sponsored by The Points of Light Institute, a non-profit organization dedicated to improving society.

While sometimes mocked, the intent was to create an inspiring mental image.

This should be understood as the context for a recent story related to a video gaming device called the Kinect, which uses a proverbial thousand points of infrared light to track physical movements for interactivity with video games. The story is at the link below.

http://kotaku.com/5681314/see-kinects-thousands-of-points-of-invisible-light