Friday, January 16th, 2009
I realized recently that I use many of the software products, web apps, and other things that I do simply because other people think they’re cool. I’ve run into this problem numerous times recently: I noticed that I’ll force myself to come up with a way to use a product because I think I need to rather than because it serves a purpose to me.
An example? Evernote. Evernote is a GREAT product. It has a ton of great features, and I’ve blogged about it before. I simply have very little use for it. I already use DropBox to sync my files without having to create documents in a proprietary format. Of course Evernote does other things, but the point is that I don’t really need to do those other things. Despite having little purpose for Evernote, I try really hard to use it so that I feel like I’m part of some elite group that uses really cool stuff.
Have you had similar experiences, or am I just sick? Share some thoughts.
Tuesday, January 13th, 2009
I’ve been thinking lately about the benefits of recording interviews of some of my older relatives. I’ve always liked the idea, since those who have lived long generally have exciting stories. I’m planning on beginning some sort of project to accomplish this task in the early summer with my grandparents. Unfortunately, they don’t know about this yet, but that’s alright.
I was inspired to do this project by two main works: First, I recently heard an interview that some of my more distant relatives had done with their grandfather, and I was intrigued a bit. This reminded me of a collaboration I had heard about several years ago, the second work that inspired me. The American Slave: A Composite Autobiography began in the late 1930s when the Works Project Administration (WPA) organized interviews of more than 2,300 former slaves. In 1972, George Rawick began publishing a 19-volume (plus supplemental volume) set which compiled these numerous interviews. Although I haven’t been able to find it, I saw at some point a film in which contemporary African American celebrities read selections from these interviews. I would love to find that, if anyone knows where I can get a copy. I’d recommend checking out the written version, as well, much of which can be easily found on Google Books or Amazon.
Anyway, inspired by those two extremely-equally-important sets of interviews, I’ve decided to go ahead with this project on my own. I’m writing about this mostly to gather some thoughts on the project. I’m curious to see if any of you have participated in such an undertaking in the past and would have any sort of advice. Do you recommend video or will audio alone be sufficient? How much content should I try to get (in other words, an hour of content or one hundred hours)? Any other useful hints or tips for me in this? Let me know. And I hope to share some of this once I’ve completed it, so stay tuned.
Sources:
Tuesday, January 6th, 2009
(via Bloomberg.com) Looks like Obama is preparing a partnership between the military and NASA with the goal of getting more Americans to the moon quicker. According to this article, USA’s next manned spacecraft won’t be taking off until 2015, which apparently is too far in the future. China, on the other hand, will be doing launches in 2010 to prepare for its 2012 flight of a lunar rover which will further prepare for a manned moon mission in the following few years. This article promotes the idea that a space race with China has begun (although perhaps to a smaller extent than that of the Cold War era) as the Obama administration works toward speeding up the process of space exploration. Apparently the government worries that China’s progress in this area poses a threat to an unprepared United States.
I guess this article has me wondering whether or not this is all a bit premature. Do you think that hype is carrying this story or that there’s weight to what’s being said? Do you think that China poses a true threat in the area of space exploration, or does the US just want to be in control? Brings up some interesting questions. Let me know your thoughts in the comments.
ht Fanboy.com (currently down due to the Digg effect)
Friday, January 2nd, 2009
I’ve been thinking about this lately: what does it take to convert silent visitors to active participants? Based on the stats I’m looking at, people are definitely reading my blog. Well, they’re at least clicking on my blog. Maybe that old logo at the top is scaring them off once they get here, but we’re definitely seeing some action. If I got 2 pageviews a day, I’d understand why I get one human comment for every 500 spam bots, but that’s not the case. It’s so bad that I find myself approving some of the spam comments just to satisfy my ego.
What am I doing wrong? I feel like I leave the majority of my posts open-ended, I certainly invite comments, and I respond to comments when I receive them (that is, all three times…). I think the new plan is to just ask more questions. So what do you think I should do? Do you think I’m doing the best I can and should just pray for the best? Do you have any advice to give me? Has this happened to you? What would you do if you were me? What’s your favorite ice cream flavor? Does this dress make me look fat? Please, please, pleeeeeeeease respond in the comments section below.
