October 2008 Archives

Elise took a lot of pictures on our trip to Milwaukee.

I am taking the megabus to Milwaukee. It's a pretty cool way to travefl, wi-fi, on board movie, clean and comfortable. How cool is it to have wi-fi on a bus?

Anyway, if you go places like Milwaukee you should try it. I think it's fun to be able to sit next to my kids and let someone else drive.

I wasn't impressed with google reader initially. Unlike Gmail, reader came out with a lot of shortcomings, but it's hitting it's stride now. I wish it was a little more integrated into other google offerings like pages or docs, but it's definitely my favorite rss reader by far at this point.

Secretly, the real reason I like it is that my friends sometimes re-share things.

How did I miss the fact that the url for "First Monday" had moved? I guess having google around means not having to remember where stuff went.

Anyway if you are interested in thinking harder about what social networks mean, check out "Whose space is MySpace? A content analyis of MySpace profiles"

The power of the web and networks have always been in the power of it's links. It took years for google to come along and truly understand that power and harness it. Now we have a new set of links. It's not the link between web pages rather the links between individuals. We're connected on a massive scale through applications like facebook, myspace, friendster, and tools too numerous to count. I haven't yet seen much of an application that really uses the links for a really interesting purpose. LinkedIn I suppose has found a purpose in it's ability to allow people to network professionally. I suppose that is useful, but it is just a way to automate the traditional roledex.

I'm looking for something much more interesting than a big rolodex.

I am betting people are working on this really hard. I keep hearing rumblings that this election features operatives who have sliced and diced the electorate into small and elaborate tribes - wouldn't surprise me if facebook and myspace were part of the inputs.

I'm still not entirely sure what the real application is.

But I am thinking about it ...

It is probably painfully obvious that the links in the social world - they aren't the hyper variety. They are "friends" in the facebook/myspace sense of the word.

This brings me to another topic.

What does it mean to be friends on a social networking site?

People have already written on this topic. Check out this First Monday's articleFriends, Friendsters, and Top 8: Writing community into being on social network sites by Danah Boyd.

Normally I reserve this space for omphaloskepsis, but today I think it is time for some new words. Check out the 50 Favorite Words on the BBC's web site. I dare you to throw one into casual conversation.

I really thought that someone, likely McCain was set to make political hay from the "bailout" plan. Looks like no one made any points here. Some weird things crept into the bailout plan. Rum rebates? Are pirates a voting bloc in this election?

Counting the "bailout" it looks like old "W" really ran up a big deficit during the last eight years. Why bother voting for the "small government" candidate anymore?

Distraction by Bruce Sterling

My review

rating: 5 of 5 stars
Set in the "distant" future where the U.S. is broke and our institutions like the congress is more broken than it is today - this book blends sci-fi with hacking and social engineering. Lots of good fun except the parts that seem depressing plausible.

View all my reviews.