I'm a biomedical and electrical engineer with interests in information theory, complexity, evolution, genetics, signal processing, IndieWeb, theoretical mathematics, and big history.
I'm also a talent manager-producer-publisher in the entertainment industry with expertise in representation, distribution, finance, production, content delivery, and new media.
In this episode, we talk about Audrey's decision to block annotations from her websites.
A great little episode that talks about annotations, but impinges on a lot of issues relating to ownership and running of a (personal) website. It discusses a lot of things that folks on the web often take for granted, but which should really be done with a lot more civility and care for others.
While I have been seeing some really great and thoughtful conversations, particularly in the last 6 months or more, as a result of people posting on their own websites and using open standards like webmentions to carry on conversations, the rest of the internet still needs to take great strides to improve itself. A lot of these issues are ones of bias, and particularly of the white male sort, but I think that the ideas encapsulated in this short podcast will help to open people’s eyes. While it’s sad that Audrey had these experiences on Twitter, I’m glad that she and Kin took the time to discuss them here in hopes of improving the space in the future for others.
Don't open that emailed Google Doc.
Guests: Danny Sullivan
Don't fall for the latest Google Docs phishing scam! How Google measures quality and authority. Alphabet quarterly earnings. Pixel head says goodbye after 6 months. Twitter wants to be TV. Hulu wants to be Cable. Elon Musk wants to dig huge tunnels under LA. Senate ID cards have a picture of a security chip. 9 senators want to kill net neutrality forever. People are mean to robots.
Danny's Pick: Cook with Google Home;
Stacey's Pick: The Night Ocean by Paul La Farge;
Leo's Pick: Mr. T navigation voice for Waze
The net neutrality fight is starting to gear up.
How has the Google Pixel head only managed to last 6 months? This has got to be a tremendously interesting section to lead for them.
In relation to civility, the section on children being mean to robots was interesting. I’d like to delve into this research a bit more.
I kinda want Mr. T as my Waze navigation voice…
Testing out status updates for Post Kinds and how they set the Post Formats.
Political interference in the Avengers' activities causes a rift between former allies Captain America and Iron Man.
Directors: Anthony Russo, Joe Russo;
Writers: Christopher Markus, Stephen McFeely;
Stars: Chris Evans, Robert Downey Jr., Scarlett Johansson
Action, action, and more action. Fun entertainment for two and a half hours.
Instagram users no longer need the app to upload photos. The company is now rolling out the ability to upload photos through its mobile website. You can’t upload videos, add filters, upload to...
The Life-changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing
Marie Kondo
House & Home
Ten Speed Press
October 14, 2014
Kindle e-book
226
Presents a guide to cleaning and organizing a living space, discussing best methods for decluttering and the impact that an organized home can have on mood and physical and mental health.
I originally picked this up on April 18th when my brother Steve had asked me if I could track down a copy for him. Last week another friend mentioned it at brunch with her recommendation, so I thought I’d give it a shot.
Kondo does an excellent job of highlighting the most important parts of the book as she goes along, so it’s rather easy to skim back through the book for important parts.
The basic gist is to get rid of everything in one’s home that doesn’t “spark joy” when physically holding it. It’s not too dissimilar to the philosophy set forward by designer/artist William Morris who once said, “Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful.”
Most of the book is devoted to some of the basic philosophy as well as recommendations about how to go about paring things down and storing them. In particular I found some of her ideas about folding things interesting and I was a bit surprised at how one can differently fold things to not only save space in drawers, but to also make them easier to see and choose.
I went so far as to watch some videos about how she folds:
This series of short videos and a few longer talks do a relatively good job of encapsulating the contents of the book.
An interesting thing I find in what I’m supposing is a translation from Japanese is that though the translation is strong, the flavor of the writer’s Japanese culture still burns through the philosophy and story of the work. To me these were some of the most interesting parts of her story.
If you tidy up in one shot, rather than little by little, you can dramatically change your mind-set.
Highlight (yellow) – Why can’t I keep my house in order? > Location 247
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Tidying is just a tool, not the final destination. The true goal should be to establish the lifestyle you want most once your house has been put in order.
Highlight (yellow) – Why can’t I keep my house in order? > Location 300
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Putting things away creates the illusion that the clutter problem has been solved. […] This is why tidying must start with discarding.
Highlight (yellow) – Why can’t I keep my house in order? > Location 320
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…the space I live in is graced only with those things that speak to my heart.
Highlight (yellow) – Why can’t I keep my house in order? > Location 402
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Finish discarding first
Start by discarding, all at once, intensely and completely
Highlight (yellow) – Finish discarding first > Location 407
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The urge to point out someone else’s failure to tidy is usually a sign that you are neglecting to take care of your own space.
Highlight (yellow) – Finish discarding first > Location 620
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In fact, that particular article of clothing has already completed its role in your life, and you are free to say, “Thank you for giving me joy when I bought you,” or “Thank you for teaching me what doesn’t suit me,” and let it go.
Highlight (yellow) – Finish discarding first > Location 698
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To truly cherish the things that are important to you, you must first discard those that have outlived their purpose.
Highlight (yellow) – Finish discarding first > Location 706
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Tidying by category works like magic
You may have wanted to read it when you bought it, but if you haven’t read it by now, the book’s purpose was to teach you that you didn’t need it.
Highlight (yellow) – Tidying by category works like magic > Location 1013
This is essentially sacrilege to me, but then again most all books give me a spark of joy.
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Storing your things to make your life shine
…storage “solutions” are really just prisons within which to bury possessions that spark no joy.
Highlight (yellow) – Storing your things to make your life shine > Location 1426
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Never pile things: vertical storage is the key
Highlight (yellow) – Tidying by category works like magic > Location 1551
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Never hang on to them in the belief that you might use them someday.
Highlight (yellow) – Tidying by category works like magic > Location 1602
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This is why I urge you to refrain from stocking up on things.
Highlight (yellow) – Tidying by category works like magic > Location ####
TOKUMNOTE
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This is why I urge you to refrain from stocking up on things.
Highlight (yellow) – Tidying by category works like magic > Location 1759
She’s talking about socks/stockings here. Pun intended? 🙂
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When you treat your belongings well, they will always respond in kind. For this reason, I take time to ask myself occasionally whether the storage space I’ve set aside for them will make them happy. Storage, after all, is the sacred act of choosing a home for my belongings.
Highlight (yellow) – Tidying by category works like magic > Location 1831
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The magic of tidying dramatically transforms your life
I truly believe that our possessions are even happier and more vibrant when we let them go than when we first get them.
Highlight (yellow) – The magic of tidying dramatically transforms your life > Location 2044
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Guide to highlight colors
Yellow–general highlights and highlights which don’t fit under another category below Orange–Vocabulary word; interesting and/or rare word Green–Reference to read Blue–Interesting Quote Gray–Typography Problem Red–Example to work through
Shopping for a new cooler. Also got myself a folding sports wagon (code for “a wagon for adults”) for carrying stuff back and forth to Gerrish this summer.
Want to feel old? Steven Spielberg’s Minority Report was released fifteen years ago.
It casts a long shadow. For a decade after the film’s release, it was referenced at least once at every conference relating to human-computer interaction. Unsurprisingly, most of the focus has been on the technology in the film. The hardware and interfaces in Minority Report came out of a think tank assembled in pre-production. It provided plenty of fodder for technologists to mock and praise in subsequent years: gestural interfaces, autonomous cars, miniature drones, airpods, ubiquitous advertising and surveillance.
Google Plus doesn’t have RSS feeds, or email subscription options. Both are important to me; I want to speak to my readers however they want to be spoken to. Some day, we’ll be able to write to and read from any platform in any other platform, just like we can call one phone network from inside another phone network now.
I hope he’s being clever here, because we had that. (And I think we still have it.)
It’s interesting that so much online publishing is moving into a small handful of massive, closed, proprietary networks after being so distributed and diverse during the big boom of blogs and RSS almost a decade ago.
I’ve written a few things on Medium (not paid) because I liked the experience of their writing tools, their statistics, and their reach. I think two of the three items I wrote became featured and had several thousand reads. It’s a wonderful way to write and a wonderful place to post.
But it’s not mine. It’s theirs.
Bingo.
You can use someone else’s software, but still have your own “platform”, if you’re hosting it from a domain name you control and are able to easily take your content and traffic with you to another tool or host at any time. You don’t need to go full-Stallman and build your own blogging engine from scratch on a Linux box in your closet — a Tumblr, Squarespace, or WordPress blog is perfectly fine if you use your own domain name and can export your data easily.
