alexr_rwx | just a few things on a tuesday

My evening ride back from work takes me through Piedmont Park. Tonight, coming back, I came across a gentleman who was riding something that looked very much like cross-country skis, only with rollerskate wheels. "Hey, what are you doing?" I inquired. He explained that he's from Minnesota, and as a result, his whole setup was just like skiing -- boots, bindings, poles -- except for the wheels on the skis. "Alright, rock on." I said.

Also: I got an email from my Senator! The Hon. Senator Saxby Chambliss (R-GA) writes in to inform us that it's vitally important that we stand with the President and grant legal immunity to telecom companies that have been illegally wiretapping the citizenry at the NSA's behest. Because it's a different world after 9/11, and the President needs the tools to fight terr'ism effectively. Thank you, Senator. I feel safer already. (the bill's been postponed, at least, woo!)

Also also: flickr? I'm playing around with it. Either flickr or picasa, you'll see more pictures from the amazing world of

oniugnip in the near future. Hoorays.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

when people ski in piedmont park, the terrorists have already won.

Dude! I've written Sax a handful of e-mails, and he never writes me back. Never! I somehow doubt you're writing him e-mails along the lines of "Sax, you're great, keep up the good work fighting towel-heads and faggots!" So why's he writing you but not me?

Not that I want to be on Sax's mailing list or anything. Just ...you'd think that my demonstrated interest in our senators would warrant inclusion on an e-mail blast? Unless I've earned a specific spot on his "we will never convince this ridiculous liberal; do not e-mail" list.

Huh, interesting! No careful, reasoned rebuttals for you?

He might have gotten a bunch of emails from the boingboing/EFF crowd (like a Slashdotting, but with more unicorns and less of a libertarian slant!), writing about the telecom immunity thing, and felt the need for a canned answer.

What do you typically write him about?

No careful, reasoned rebuttals for me.

I usually write him about budget/spending bills. I suffer no delusions on ever changing his mind or his voting record on hot-button-specific social issues like the various civil rights that he opposes, so I don't bother with those, but I do write him "Vote for the children's healthcare bill! Vote against the limitless-Iraq budget bill! Overturn all vetoes, regardless of how you voted originally!" e-mails.

I've gotta spend some time figuring out how to make BoingBoing work for me, from an RSS/info-flow-management perspective. I like the articles that come through Digg, but the commentary is usually awful, and while I'll read /. articles and commentary when they're sent to me, I find the site as a whole terrifying, like being set in front of the Library of Congress and told "Just read whatever interests you."

In a very straightforward way, I'm subscribed to it on my googlereader?

Is your typical interaction with the blagonets very different from that... ?

Yeah... :-/ Essentially, my problem with adding BoingBoing or Digg or /. or anything else to my Google Reader is that I'm already inundated with more information in a day than I can handle, even without counting actual work for which I get paid. Surely you know exactly what I mean--you share stories from enough different sources that I know you read a lot of different blogs. I used to read Digg pretty consistently, until I put some time into having a Google Reader feed that overfloweth; now I just depend on JD to share any good Digg stories that come through.

(None of this would be a problem if I didn't feel compelled to actually read everything that appears in my Google Reader, because it's like, hey, you asked for it, and now you're going to waste it? Like you can waste internet content--it's not free as in beer or free as in speech, it's free as in SURPLUS.)

It sounds like a lot of self-babysitting, but I wish I could tell Google Reader something like,
---Any time [subset of feeds A] updates, I want you to tell me about it in real-time, like you do now. [personal blogs, infrequently updated blogs]
---Any time [subset of feeds B] updates, I want you to hang off on telling me until 7:00 PM. If I haven't retrieved it by 3:00 AM, take it back off my queue and offer it again tomorrow night at 7:00. [webcomics, lolcats]
---Any time [subset of feeds C] updates, I want you to feed it to me at most one RSS post an hour, or at most ten a day, or in some other way limit the number you make available. If I develop a backlog, that's okay. Please give me the option of either receiving them by most-to-least or least-to-most recent. Also, please give me the option of whether to count a story against my quota if it comes in through a shared GReader feed.[digg, boingboing]

This is the thing that I'm really struggling with most now--information management. I get too much and it bogs me down and I can't pull thoughts together, because the internet has infected me with ADHD. I'm trying to figure this problem out for both personal internet usage and for organizing my work. I cannot wait for a week on the beach without internet.

Whew!

I love flickr.

just in case you wanted an opinion from the peanut gallery.

just a few things on a tuesday

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject