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Music Monday – “We only said goodbye with words/I died a hundred times/You go back to her/And I go back to black.”

Now she’s gone and joined that stupid club.

(via MetaFilter)

Posted 25 July 2011 § MusicMonday § PopCulture § Video ‡ Comments (0) ° Tagged:

Horror in Norway

We were camping all weekend so didn’t really have a lot of access to the news (I did of course have my iPhone but Rogers service sucks once you get outside major centres).  So it wasn’t until we got home tonight that I realised the full extent of the horror that had happened in Norway on Friday with a bombing in Oslo and then a subsequent shooting spree at a nearby island retreat for politically active Norwegian youths.

I really don’t have a lot to say about what happened in Norway.  But strangely, one of the first things I did when I heard about the tragedy was to go to MetaFilter where I knew there would be a thread about what was happening.  True to the site’s name, that thread would be a filter with links to various news organizations around the world, blogs, maps, photos and so on.  Even within the relatively homogenous filter-bubble that is MetaFilter, there would also be a fairly wide range of opinions as well as a running commentary as details came out.  There would be battles about the use of dark humour as a coping mechanism.  There would be wild speculation.  There would be insight, anger and grief.  There would be community.

A common trope on MetaFilter is that it doesn’t do “breaking news” well but I don’t know if that’s true – the site does breaking news in a way that reflects what it is – not fact-checking, not journalism but more like a bunch of people communing in a coffee shop having imperfect, overlapping conversations (which can be just as valuable as the “hard news” – both in the moment but also as a historic record.  Even when the site’s founder was asked in a recent interview for five memorable threads, the first two that he picked were about breaking news – the Seattle earthquake and 9/11.)

Okay, I have one thought about what happened in Norway.  Sometimes our world is seriously fucked up.

Posted 24 July 2011 § Politics § Randomness ‡ Comments (0) ° Tagged: ,

Saturday Snap – Camping at White Bear

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Posted 23 July 2011 § SaturdaySnap ‡ Comments (0) °

Friday Fun Link – All Space Shuttle Missions In Eight Minutes

Posted 22 July 2011 § FridayFunLink § MemoryLane § Technology § Video ‡ Comments (0) ° Tagged: , , , ,

The Art of Effortless Decision-Making

This article speaks to me.

I think we probably all have that experience where decisions don’t get made because we’re paralyzed by trying to make the “perfect” choice or not trusting our intuition?

The article reminds me of one of the best pieces of advice I’ve ever received.  I was trying to make one of the most difficult decisions of my life when I was in my late 20’s and my aunt (who sounds like she might do a very good Yoda impersonation!) said “Remember – there’s no such thing as a ‘good’ choice or a ‘bad’ choice – there’s only choices.”

Realising that the difficult decision I was about to make – which had lots of good and lots of bad (as did the alternate choice) – would never have a “right” answer and I’d simply have to choose and carry on down the path I picked.

Posted 21 July 2011 § MemoryLane § Wisdom § Work ‡ Comments (2) ° Tagged: ,

Coupland on McLuhan

Google isn’t making us stupider, it’s simply making us realise that omniscience is actually slightly boring.

 

Posted 20 July 2011 § Library § Technology ‡ Comments (0) ° Tagged: ,

1001 Rules For My Unborn Son

Or for my first-born son.

Posted 19 July 2011 § Family ‡ Comments (2) ° Tagged:

Music Monday – “Please could you stop the noise, I’m trying to get some rest/From all the unborn chicken voices in my head/What’s that, what’s that?”

Pretty cool story of how this video was made…

(via MetaFilter)

Posted 18 July 2011 § MusicMonday § PopCulture § Technology § Video ‡ Comments (1) ° Tagged: , , ,

But How Will People on G+ Know It’s My Birthday???

Tomorrow’s my birthday and since I’ve been spending so much time with G+ lately (I just added ~200 MetaFilter members to a designated circle tonight) and not so much with Facebook, I’ve been thinking about the biggest differences between the two services.

One obvious one is that Facebook is a “social” network which regards individuals as people who have distinct interests in books, movies and yes, birthdays (all of which is info which can be packaged for the highest bidder but let’s ignore that.)

In fact, I assume that tomorrow, my iPhone will be vibrating throughout the day with notifications as various people post a quick birthday wish on my wall (all those buzzes giving me an unintended birthday thrill, I’m sure!)

Some (like the person I linked to) are cynical about the FB birthday wishes but I do think they’re nice in that, one day a year, you get nice messages from a variety of people you might otherwise rarely interact with.  (Of course, the flip side is that I rarely leave birthday messages myself – partly because I don’t really watch that area of FB, partly because I feel like if I start leaving messages for one friend, I should try to leave them for everyone and partly because I too sometimes feel cynical myself about how sincere they are!)

Anyhow, the point being made by that poster (other than being a bit cynical about the sincerity of FB birthday wishes) is that G+ is a “sharing” network as opposed to a “social” network – a slight distinction but relevant if you’re trying to predict where each might end up in the future.

Right now, does Google+’s lack of focus on our birthdays, favourite books, quotes, etc. mean that the posts that we do see have better quality and of a higher signal-noise ratio?  Perhaps…and maybe Facebook and G+ aren’t as similar as people initially thought after all.

Posted 17 July 2011 § MemoryLane § Technology ‡ Comments (0) ° Tagged: , ,

Saturday Snap – Summer Toes

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Posted 16 July 2011 § SaturdaySnap ‡ Comments (0) ° Tagged: