MIT Weblog Survey

I love statistics and data. Being a statophile, I realize that the best way for any data set to be indicative of the population as a whole is for any person that is eligible to take a survey, no matter what they consider themselves to be socially or semantically (e.g. I am not reeeeeeallllly a blogger).

I am not listed as a E-Level blogebrity, nor do many people read my blog (in fact, I am stunned when I receive comments). Even though I am not a popular blogger, I do blog on occasion and should, therefore, assist in the MIT Weblog Survey, as should anyone that has a blog. Even a person that has posted twice will help to make a dataset more robust and represent those that do not often 'blog.

I am happy to say that I have stood up and been counted (I wonder if all other people obsessed with research are as eager to take a survey or participate in a study).

Categories: weblog, survey, MIT, statistics, research

Middle-clicking does not constitute a "Life Hack"

All too frequently I come across a posting on a blog or a tech website (such as this: Easy Firefox 'open in a new tab' : Lifehacker) heralding middle-clicking on links to open new tabs as the hot new time-saving technique.

I just have to wonder, how the hell were they opening new tabs before? Did they use the tab button? Did they use the incrementally more robust "Ctr-T?" Did they not even know about tabbed browsing until they slipped while scrolling on a link?

The whole fucking reason to switch to Firefox, Opera, etc. IS THE FUCKING ABILITY TO OPEN NEW TABS IN A NEW WINDOW WITH A CLICK!!!

You can also do other fun things with the middle mouse button, such as close a tab by middle-clicking on it as well as re-open the last three closed tabs by middle-clicking on the tab-close button.

I am sure that any person that just discovered this tip would have their mind blown by the Tabbrowser Preferences extension or the awesome (if buggy) Tabbrowser Extensions extension (may sound redundant, but it is Japanese in origin). I prefer the latter, since my tabgroups (opened by middle-clicking bookmark groups) are color-coded.

A more useful tabbed-browsing hack is to map another mouse button specifically for opening/killing new tabs. I have a Intellimouse Explorer 4.0, and I use its 5th button mapped to open and kill tabs. The mouse has an awesome scroll wheel, but it is imprecise to push-down to open links (especially rapid-fire tab manipulation).

Categories: firefox, tabs, extensions, hacks, hacks?

Del.icio.us-AJAX Style

I have known that someone would eventually streamline Del.icio.us for the masses.

This is fucking awesome: del.icio.us direc.tor: Delivering A High-Performance AJAX Web Service Broker :: Johnvey. It only took me three seconds to realize that this is how del.icio.us should be ingested. If only it were as quick to post all of the time.

The edit window is still unskinned (it would be damned cool if you were able to edit in the same window Web 2.0-style, but the tech is still in its infancy), but otherwise it is an intuitive, speedy, interface.

I saw this on Waxy... It looks as if Mr. Baio found this ironically through Del.icio.us/popular.

My attribution could have been through anyone due to the inbred information cycle of the blogosphere in which any link will show up on any blog eventually. The people that are reading a person's blog are interested in the same things and they filter throughout the interweb... poking into miniature communities that are slightly related.

But I digress (but some day I will expound upon this)...

Categories: del.icio.us, AJAX, Web2.0, sweet,

Folksonomy Specificity (or lack thereof)

Goddamn I love a tag.

Searching by category is an excellent way to filter the abundance of the internet, but I enjoy tagging things in a somewhat non-sensical manner in order to free myself from the thought-limiting aspects of focusing what you have read, will read, etc. into easily digestible themes.

Tagging is a double-edged sword. It allows you to easily search for a theme, but it is a selective and subjective practice that can lose important details. I often find myself mischaracterizing articles that I wish to read in the future due to my frenzied pursuit of ingesting more content.

I find that an abstract tag can help to separate content into more distinctive and descriptive mental containers. 50 things tagged "toread" and "webdev" can be more specifically tagged with other elements, but can also be tagged for theme or a distinctive passage that defines it.

Underlying theme or deep context allow different articles across domains to be able to be categorized together in ways that will connect them and, potentially, create new ideas and innovation.

Synthesis in folksonomy... perhaps I will practice what I preach and try this in a few different manners.

Categories: folksonomy, deepstructure, innovation, tagging, reflective, trainofthought

Video Mashup: Star Wars, Oprah and a Scientologist on the Edge...

Sometimes the simplest videos are the most fun (for example [via])--I would attribute waxy.org in a similarly Baio-esque manner, but the video download is on his page and would seem redundant...

Waxy.org: Video: Tom Cruise Kills Oprah

Categories: video, funny, mygodIampostingavideoIamsuchaloser

From PTO to GTD

I subscribe to RSS feeds for numerous sites that have time-saving and efficiency-enhancing tips and "hacks" (such as these). Popular amongst time-saving sites is the efficiency manifesto Getting Things Done by David Allen. Efficiency super-sites denote this process as "GTD" and tout their "hipster PDAs" (note cards and binder clips arranged in a hierarchical manner) and moleskine notebooks (which I have always pined over--yet have never purchased) as the pathway to the promised land of productivity.

GTD seems like a good idea. It seems like a pseudo-psychological memory-freeing operation in which tasks are taken from the working memory, thus freeing information processing capacity for the task at hand. Simultaneously, a person is easily able to refer to materials to remind themselves of their course of action without slowing down the action. I could very easily be mangling the intent, process or underlying mechanism of this program, but I have not conducted thorough research.

In business, I use formula similar to GTD, but, in my personal life, I prescribe to a different acronym: PTO - Putting Things Off. I have thought for a while about this acronym and finally realized that the antithesis of GTD is embodied in PTO. I am such the procrastinator, I have never put this idea into a readable form until today. My problem is that I do not have a hard time getting things done, bet to begin them in the first place.

I came across this post describing what to purchase to start in GTD and was again tempted by the prospect of doing something. Perhaps I will buy myself a moleskine (and/or the damned book) and then either become insufferably efficient or have ammunition with which to illuminate the problems with GTD's blanket solution for efficiency. I would honestly prefer the former.

Maybe I will even make a Hipster PDA... I could cannibalize the ideas from the original, the DIY Planner and the Meta-Line organizer.

Then again, I could just take a nap...

Categories: GTD, productivity, procrastination

Tsunami = Severe Weather

I use the "ForecastFox" extension for Mozilla FireFox, and was surprised to see a "severe weather alert." I was rather surprised to see a Tsunami Warning as the "severe weather" event.

I looked at CNN.com, MSNBC.com and news.google.com and found nothing... even searching for "earthquake." I was wondering if it was a snafu... but I found the geological event on the USGS website.

Never mind... just released by the AP...

Still... I got the Tsunami alert at 8:20 PM PST, and the AP picked-up on it 25 minutes after that, without the tsunami warning? How are people supposed to panic if they do not have ample time to do so?

I see that the 24-hour news cycle needs some further refinement in its speedy presentation of warnings.

Update: No Tsunamis for the U.S. this evening... I was looking forward to some good, live news too.

Categories: earthquake, newscycle, tsunami

The Death of Traditional Media

I saw this article predicting the death of the print version of the Christian Science Monitor.

I was reminded of my bold prediction, earlier in the day, that print media is going to be dead in 5 years. I will add caveats. Small press (y'know... where to see music, drink, and 50% ads will still be around) is another thing entirely... they are not there for readership, they are there to have people see their ads for free.

Larger press... will be consolidated into the major news sources for a geographic area, with regional papers (i.e. one bay area paper for all of the smaller areas).

Paper is out.... You are not able to focus your news or see only what is NEW. The model is currently marginal, but it will be further marginalized as they begin to panic in the next year. Only papers that are able to create a web model will survive.

The paper is forevermore going to be secondary. I love a good paper, but I no longer subscribe to any print publications and read 120 different sources (more than likely hundreds more) every day. You have to be more than just local... you have to be relevant and accessible with an unobtrusive and useful ad-pool.

New media doesn't mean complete desertion of the old, but it will require adaptation and focus on what people desire as readers and news-junkies.

Categories: journalism, media, newmedia, change

Rites of Passage? More Like Pass on, Right?

'Tis the season for bad postry and trite, clichéd thoughts. People love a rite of passage and everyone is obligated to attend, even those that hate them and do not desire them at all. Across this great nation, and perhaps the world, people are performing poetry that rhymes "love" with "above," equates people with gifts from God and talks about how they went "above expectations."

I hate social recognition of accomplishment... Accomplishment is its own reward.

A year ago I was forced to attend a graduation ceremony. I had never attended one before (as a recipient... I had suffered through many other people's ceremonies), but I was doing so for my family.

We all suffered that day... People quoted the same people that are always quoted, gave advice (because advice in any other context is much worse than vague, blanket statements to thousands of graduates) that was boring AND worthless, and recognized people for being better than average.

Perhaps people are passage rite junkies; they are incapable of believing that people change without recognizing it in a social context.

I believe in continuous change; I hold an implicit theory that change is incremental. I do not need a ceremony or title bestowed upon myself to know that I have grown. Why do others?

No-one enjoys a rite of passage; they are all things done out of obligation and due to social expectation. Perhaps if they made new material or served alcohol they would be more enjoyable.

Categories: rites, passage, commencement

Social Bookmarking + Backups

I, like many, have embraced social bookmarking as the future of links. They are far more flexible than old school bookmarks as they can be given contextual information, a description as well as made accessible to the public via the WWWeb.

I do have a little hesitancy to go completely resident bookmark-less, so I have decided to duplicate my social bookmarks in numerous locations.

One idea is multiple posting to more than one social bookmark client.

Another is to import your del.icio.us bookmarks into Furl (or numerous other programs... just google it motherfuckers).

I am currently posting to Spurl.net, and I am using the option to post these bookmarks to del.icio.us. I find this works just as well (or faster) than the normal post to del.icio.us bookmarklet, but I am creating them in simultenaity on two separate domains.



Perhaps the future is in the multi-hit-posting combo of twenty clients at once... but I doubt it... perhaps I should check myself first.

Categories: bookmarks, del.icio.us, spurl, social

Tagging "Toread" does not always work...

Goddamned RSS feeds.

They allow me to quickly peruse a wide array of new information and see the flow of ideas, but they are cutting into my actual reading time. Case in point, I post articles that are interesting in my del.icio.us page as "toread," but I rarely get back to them, as I am reading more damned articles and posting them as interesting and "toread." Damned endless cycle of putting-shit-off.

Part of the problem may have been that I have not been in the mood to go back to d.elic.ous to check out my tagged articles due to its recent sluggishness. Fortunately, this weekend there was a server replacement/upgrade for the folks with too many damned periods in their name. I must say I can see a considerable speed increase... or perhaps it is just the effect of expectations upon my perception.

I will hope it is the former.

Categories: del.icio.us, toread, un-productivity