links for 2010-02-08
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"After a decade of browsing, blogging, linking, clicking and Tweeting, I find it nearly impossible to focus on a book even when I try to recreate a reading environment that mirrors a more technologically simple time." I find it much harder than I used to, but I can still get there. I get there with good writing, whether that be fiction or non-fiction. I don't get there with mediocre writing anymore. I find that this reduces the amount of crap I read.
Twitter: The Connective Tissue in the Narrative
In a larger entry about information, Rands writes:
Those frustrated with Twitter are frustrated because they have a belief that a story needs a beginning, middle, and end. And that it should have all of those parts before it’s presented to them. What the hell am I supposed to learn from a tweet? The point of Twitter isn’t knowledge or understanding, it’s merely connective information tissue. It’s small bits of information carefully selected by those you’ve chosen to follow and its value isn’t in what they send, it’s how it fits into the story in your head. There are great stories to be found on Twitter, but you have to do the work.
I tell a narrative with my tweets—the narrative of my life, mainly. I announced my probable bi-polar II diagnosis on Twitter long before I posted it here. [And before I got some great feedback from friends who wanted to tell me that I'm not alone. That made it worth it.] My friends have an idea what’s going on in my life, because I share a goodly chunk of it on Twitter. Jonathan figured out that I had an obsession to eating sushi last week. My tweeps know I’m sick today. [Oddly enough, I didn't tweet where I went in to work for a couple of hours because I felt I had to do it. It was the right idea, but I'm paying for it now in feeling puny. I'll live.]
I’ve often said that I don’t know why someone who didn’t know me would read my Twitter. I’m largely the same way with Twitter—I care about the people that I follow, for the most part. I know about my friend Justin’s music school debt, how it creates angst for him and has him in a job he hates because it pays him well enough to get out of that debt. I know that some friends saw a lot of snow today, and some saw none. [And folks know that I saw very little at my house but a lot out by where Stephen and Misty live.]
Now, few of these little blips of information make a whole lot of sense if you don’t have some sense of the larger picture, which is why I write here. Why I share my life online, I’m never 100% sure, but the fact of the matter is that I do it. Part of me thinks that it’s self-expression. Part of me thinks that it’s narcissism. But I find value in it, which is why I’ve done it for almost a decade [!]. But these moments make more sense in the context of friendship, which is why I enjoy it when I go visit Rick and Jessica and don’t have to fill in gaps about what’s been going on with me since they last saw me, or how I’m excited when Mike Terry or Josh Stockment come to visit and roll on up to Nashville ['cause that's how we do], or when we meet Hubbs in Nashville.
Fundamentally, I find that Twitter is a channel of that narrative, a way of taking your friend’s temperature. What has their eye? [when it comes to links]. What has their ear? [when it comes to music.] What has their ire up? Are they at GEOFCON TWO? Are they happy about something? Have they been in a car wreck? [Happened to two different friends this week. Found out via Twitter both times.] I care about Twitter because I care about people, both those I’ve met and those I’d like to meet.
Reviews of Geof’s New Music for 2010-02-07
- Just for the record … this Bleu is not the /Redhead/, /Watched Pot/, or whatever Bleu. This is some modern jazz trio. Not bad, but … #
- I gave the Jazz thing 2 stars. Heh. For those seeking the Bleu I thought this was, try https://www.noisetrade.com/bleu . Love the dude. #
- Now leave me alone, @michaelterry and @joshstockment #
- The Wilco DC bootleg from the other day: four stars, yo. #
- The old Wilco boot gets three stars, and thanks to iTunes for refunding my money on the "Bleu". #
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links for 2010-02-06
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I really don't care, either. I also won't read your Twitter if it's not relevant to me in some way, which usually means that it's funny. Oh, and I have a newsreader, thanks, so I don't need your every post blasted at me four times. I already read it and didn't comment because I felt nothing needed to be added.
links for 2010-02-05
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"The previous two Bush administrations (father and son) both approved space policies that would return astronauts to the Moon as a stepping stone to Mars. President Reagan did as well, but the Congress in all three cases under funded all of the initiatives, leaving NASA with no major new manned flight programs as the ISS is completed, the shuttle phased out and Earth orbit transportation to the ISS to be handed to commercial operators — if all goes well. "
links for 2010-02-03
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Need to get explicit okays from my people on this, but I want to get them listed.
Top Bootlegs in My Collection, As of January 2010
So Michael and Josh have asked for a list of my top 5-10 bootlegs in my collection via Twitter. Phew.
Click cover art where extant for the download links. If I don’t have a download link, well, I’ll go and see if I can find the CD and dig that up.
2003-09-04: McDonald Theatre, Eugene, OR, USA.
2006-10-09: Von Braun Center Concert Hall, Huntsville, AL, USA. This one, etree says it has, but it doesn’t, really. And it’s so good, so I need to find the CD and load it to Owl & Bear or something.
2007-06-26: Warsaw, New York, NY, USA.
2008-07-04: Roskilde Festival, Roskilde, Denmark. I’ve raved about this one before, but it’s great. And no, I don’t have a torrent source for it now, but I’ll try to find one…- Andy Osenga: 2009-03-23: The Rutledge, Nashville, TN, USA. I believe you boys have this.
I don’t have any record of it here on GFMorris.com. My bad. - 31 Aug 2007 Over the Rhine show. 2007-08-31: Moonlite Gardens, Coney Island, Cincinnati, OH, USA
1998-06-02: Studion, Stockholm, Sweden- 28 Sep 2000 Elliott Smith. 2000-09-28: L'Olympic, Nantes, France.
. 1994-04-29: The Blue Note, Columbia, MO, USA. One of the last UT shows ever, and it fucking blows the doors off. This bootleg is almost old enough to drive, man.- M. Ward on KEXP in Seattle. 2005-03-14: KEXP, Seattle, WA, USA. Short but sweet.
. 2004-09-18: Butternut Ridge, North Olmsted, OH, USA.
links for 2010-02-01
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Apple’s decision to omit Flash from the iPad isn’t about revenge, it’s about delivering a stable platform.
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AHEM.
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"How heavy do we let this backwards-compatibility albatross get? Do we really have to continue to baffle and frustrate millions of people because a handful of people just can’t live without their 4-way virtual desktop window manager?"
links for 2010-01-31
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"But hey, you asked for my dream setup. That's it: one computer for 20 years." Gotta hand it to Pilgrim.
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Never dupe your readers.
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"Final note: to customers, Amazon would like to be a monopoly (i.e. the only store in town). To suppliers, Amazon would like to be a monopsony (i.e. the only customer in town). Their goal is to profit via arbitrage, and if they can achieve those twin goals they will own everyubody's nuts — the authors, the customers, everyone. They are, in fact, exactly the kind of middle-man operation that the internet tends to squish, gooily. And if you think things would be different if I, Charlie Stross, went into self-publishing and sold my wares directly without any icky publisher to 'help' me … do you really think I'd get better terms out of Amazon than a huge publishing conglomerate?" I work in a monopsonic industry. It's not the greatest thing ever.
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"In the New World, computers are task-centric. We are reading email, browsing the web, playing a game, but not all at once. Applications are sandboxed, then moats dug around the sandboxes, and then barbed wire placed around the moats. As a direct result, New World computers do not need virus scanners, their batteries last longer, and they rarely crash, but their users have lost a degree of freedom. New World computers have unprecedented ease of use, and benefit from decades of research into human-computer interaction. They are immediately understandable, fast, stable, and laser-focused on the 80% of the famous 80/20 rule.
"Is the New World better than the Old World? Nothing’s ever simply black or white."
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Chairman Gruber is kicking ASS right now.
